We should form a club: the Evolution Teacher’s Club. We seem to share a lot of experiences. James Krupa has written an article on teaching evolution at the University of Kentuck, and it is so familiar (except for the bit about teaching classes of 300 students — my largest class at UMM is about 50 students).
I realized early on that many instructors teach introductory biology classes incorrectly. Too often evolution is the last section to be taught, an autonomous unit at the end of the semester. I quickly came to the conclusion that, since evolution is the foundation upon which all biology rests, it should be taught at the beginning of a course, and as a recurring theme throughout the semester. My basic biology for nonmajors became evolution for nonmajors. It didn’t take long before I started to hear from a vocal minority of students who strongly objected: “I am very offended by your lectures on evolution! Those who believe in creation are not ignorant of science! You had no right to try and force evolution on us. Your job was to teach it as a theory and not as a fact that all smart people believe in!!” And: “Evolution is not a proven fact. It should not be taught as if it is. It cannot be observed in any quantitative form and, therefore, isn’t really science.”
The first course our students take in biology is titled “Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development”. We give them a historical overview and a big-picture perspective on the major themes in biology first, and then everything else is progressively more detailed. I’m fortunate to be in a department where all of my fellow professors consider evolution to be the essential framework for biology. My colleague Chris Cole drew up this summary of our curriculum, and I have to tell you, it’s “laced with Darwinism” (actually modern evolutionary theory) from the day students enter until the day they graduate.
I’ve had my share of student complaints, too. Early on, a group of students collaborated on the faculty evaluation forms, and I got 6 evals that all said the same thing: “This course taught me to love Jesus even more!” I guess they thought that would sting more than a bad review. Of course, I’d never even mentioned Jesus the entire semester, I don’t promote atheism in the classroom, and the only mentions of “God” at all were in the context of pre-19th century explanations of the natural world.
I’ve had the question about monkeys asked before, but this explanation for why Catholics weren’t the first Christian faith is a new one to me.
Some students take offense very easily. During one lecture, a student asked a question I’ve heard many times: “If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” My response was and is always the same: We didn’t evolve from monkeys. Humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor. One ancestral population evolved in one direction toward modern-day monkeys, while another evolved toward humans. The explanation clicked for most students, but not all, so I tried another. I asked the students to consider this: Catholics are the oldest Christian denomination, so if Protestants evolved from Catholics, why are there still Catholics? Some students laughed, some found it a clarifying example, and others were clearly offended. Two days later, a student walked down to the lectern after class and informed me that I was wrong about Catholics. He said Baptists were the first Christians and that this is clearly explained in the Bible. His mother told him so. I asked where this was explained in the Bible. He glared at me and said, “John the Baptist, duh!” and then walked away.
I don’t agree entirely with the article, though. Krupa gives a lecture on the history of creationism — so do I! — but I think the lesson of such an understanding is the opposite of what he says.
This lecture should put students at ease knowing that religion and science need not be at odds. Of all the lectures I give, this one provokes the most discussion after class. Yet it often results in students expressing concern that I might not be saved. I never say anything about my personal religious beliefs, yet it is assumed I am an atheist. One student told me she hoped I could find God soon. Several simply let me know they will be praying for me and praying hard. One student explained that as a devout Catholic he had no choice but to reject evolution. He accused me of fabricating the pope’s statements. When I explained that he could go to the Vatican website for verification or call the Vatican to talk to a scientist, he insisted that there was no such information available from the Vatican. He then pointed his finger at me and said the only way he would believe me is if then–Pope John Paul II came to my class to confirm these quotes face-to-face. The student then stomped out, again slamming the auditorium door behind him.
Without preaching atheism, I explain how religions have changed and adapted over time, and how modern creationists would be considered strangely deluded heretics by devout 19th century Christians. Without coming right out and stating it explicitly, it’s clear that religion and science are at odds, and that what has happened over time is that religion has either abandoned claims that were countered by the scientific evidence, or built up hardened walls of resistance. While they’d like to believe that their dogmas and doctrines are unchanged precepts of Jesus himself (or perhaps John the Baptist), they clearly aren’t. The religious version of truth changes with every generation.
I don’t think I have as many good stories as Krupa, though. UMM is something of an elite school in our region, which tends to filter out the Bible college aspirants, and we’re very clear and explicit about how our curriculum at every level uses an evolutionary framework. Some of our local ministers are a bit concerned about that, too — they know that sending students to the UMM biology program means they’re actually going to run a long and rigorous gauntlet of evolutionary biology. Scares ’em.
But they shouldn’t be afraid. If my cohort of students who learned to love Jesus in my first-year course stuck to the program, I think every course thereafter would have confirmed their devotion to Jesus even more, so at the end of four years they would been so pious and saintly that they probably didn’t graduate — they just ascended directly into heaven.
I get the assumption that I’m an atheist, too, since many of my students include “doesn’t believe in evolution” as their definition of a Christian. Of course, their assumption is correct.
I also teach evolution at the beginning of the semester. The word evolution or evolved comes up so frequently in the semester, it helps if they have a basic understanding of what I’m talking about. And I don’t bother to insist that it is compatible with religion. To me, that is a bigger problem, because for students who feel very strongly it is in conflict with Christianity, that is telling them they are worshiping the wrong god, or worshiping the right god the wrong way. It is placing a certain view of religion in primacy as being more right. The only time I had a long argument in class about evolution was the time I did that (the first semester at my new job; I was trying to make nice). Mostly, the students now just listen, take notes, and argue with me afterwards, or on my evaluation, rather than disrupting class with loud noises about Jesus and faith.
I grew up in New England, and we attended first a high episcopal church and then United Church of Christ (which is the descendant of the New England Puritan church but has evolved (so to speak) to become one of the most liberal protestant denominations). Attended public school through the 8th grade. I never encountered a creationist the whole time, and from what I knew, Christian denial of evolution was long-ago history represented by Inherit the Wind. Same experience continued through Darrow and Swarthmore. (Yes, I have led a privileged existence.) It wasn’t until Jerry Falwell and the “Moral Majority” erupted on the scene, and the election of Ronald Reagan, that I even realized these people still existed in large numbers. The cultural divide in this country continues to surprise me even as I am receiving junk mail from the AARP. I’m now at Brown, BTW, where if there are any creationists they lay very low. The South and Midwest are like another planet.
My tenth grade biology teacher made sure to save evolution for the final weeks of the year and make it clear he was being forced to teach it and that he thought it was pure bullshit.
If I’d been more aware at the time I would have complained.
“He then pointed his finger at me and said the only way he would believe me is if then–Pope John Paul II came to my class to confirm these quotes face-to-face.”
I thought that the ‘skeptical’ RC student was particularly funny, largely because I have a good friend who happily teaches Biology at a formerly Catholic College and who is both an RC monk and a priest as well as a scientist!!
If I came from my grandparents, why do I still have cousins?
More papal than the Pope. (Päpstlicher als der Papst. A German saying indicating that you’re over correct.)
What I never can understand is why a jebus fanatic who believes in creationism would choose to become a biologist and thus enter a course of study where evolution is a central tenet. It’d be like an electrical engineering student rejecting how current flows through a wire in favor of angels providing the transport mechanism.
Larry, the fanatics in Kentucky were taking a biology class for non-majors. They were probably branching out, fulfilling a science graduation requirement (perhaps on the assumption that it would be easier than physics for non-majors). As for the fanatics taking PZ’s class? I wonder if they were mostly in pre-professional career paths?
The very first thing my biology teachers lectured on in my 100 & 200 level courses was essentially non-overlapping magisteria, in order to (I assume) head off students getting their knickers in a twist over the evolution stuff.
I look forward to the day when jebusites decide that all the bits of mathematics that assume the Axiom of Choice are against God because it’s clearly part of the abortionist agenda.
Larry@6: Well, strictly speaking, current flow *is* taught all wrong in EE, as we usually use “conventional current flow” (positive to negative) and only worry about electron flow when we have to get down to the real physics (like in semiconductor theory). But it’s still better than “angels dunnit”.
What? This again?:
Somebody needs to tell him that we did evolve from monkeys, we’re still monkeys, and that our common ancestor with other monkeys was a monkey. Monkeys are paraphyletic unless humans and other apes are included. Paraphyly is evil. Rant ends.
Marcus Hill @9: Is this close enough to what you were looking for?
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/07/what-do-christian-fundamentali.html
You should just teach that freedom is real and relevant in the universe, that things are created, and not teach that evolution shit.
My history book tells me that the US broke away from Great Britain over 200 years ago. But that can’t possibly be true, because there are still British people. Take that, “historians”!
Larry:
Quite a few years ago, a bunch of creationists figured “know thy enemy” would be a great strategy for them, and thus, Jonathan Wells and a number of other devout creationists set out to earn Ph.Ds in evolution for the express purpose of learning as much about it as possible in order to defame it as effectively as possible. That’s how Icons of Evolution came to be.
My nephew is stuck teaching science at a church-run school, and had to “teach both sides.” He talked briefly about Biblical theories, then put this question on the test: “True or False: God gave dominion of the earth to hamsters.” Now that should be a question that everyone can get right!
Mohammad Nur Syamsu #13
pathetic
.05/10
I went to high school in Oklahoma in the 1970s. Evolution was a word that never crossed anyone’s lips. (Nor did they talk about human reproduction – this would, of course, make all the kids horny!?!). When time came for evolution (and human reproduction), there was still time left in the semester. They had skipped so much that putting evolution at the end was not a way to avoid it. So we went out and flew kites. A short excursion into Earth Science was necessary to avoid the basics of biological science in a Biology class.
When I got to college, I was thrilled that I would finally learn about Evolution. Imagine my horror when my Botany teacher began by apologizing for teaching evolution. It was required, he said, but some people don’t believe in it. (Imagine my surprise later when same teacher had George W. Bush campaign signs on his office door…if you imagined no surprise at all, you win a cookie).
Fortunately, most of the college professors were not like that. I finally got a very good introduction to Evolution, and have moved on to teach it openly to my own students.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @ 13
What does that have to do with biology? PZ’s a biologist, not a political scientist or ethicist.
Which things? Chairs? Clouds? Ducks? Viruses? Electrons? Integers? Thoughts? Other things?
Why? Because it’s false? Because it’s dangerous? Because it makes you feel uncomfortable?
@Eamon Knight #12 – The article you linked to is a wonderful insight into the minds of fundies. Thanks!
And respect to PZ and all biology teachers who have to deal with this over and again.
You should just teach that freedom is real and relevant in the universe, that things are created, and not teach that evolution shit.Then who/what created your imaginary creator? etc. Get real and logical, and you might of have point. Presupposition of phantasms is a sign of delusional thinking.
When I taught at a few unversities half way back to the Dark Ages, never once did creationism come up. Then again it was in heavily nonfundie areas. And they were all upper level courses.
The silence was enough that I thought creationists were extinct. Maybe they were just hiding in their crypts, waiting for darkness so they could lurch around as Zombies looking for brains to destroy.
Creationism is very much an intellectual Zombie. They lost in the important arena, educated adults, a century ago. It survives as a primitive religious belief from the Dark Ages.
I certainly do not have as many stories as Dr. Krupa. But I also teach an intro biology class for science majors, and I get creationists pretty regularly. I choose to frequently bring up evolution through the semester, but at the end I have two whopping lectures about it. The tension is sometimes palpable, and I so sometimes get pointed questions.
One semester I came in, loaded with the final exams to give out. But someone had ambushed me. They wrote silly creationist nonsense all over the board (‘Newton was a devout Christian’ ‘Soft tissue has been found in supposedly 80 million year old dinosaur bones’), and lots of other drivel. They also had set out leaflets at every desk which supposedly rebutted everything I said. Oh, and they stole the erasers so I could not easily erase the board.
Nice.
I asked the students to consider this: Catholics are the oldest Christian denomination, so if Protestants evolved from Catholics, why are there still Catholics?
Well, in all fairness, you could probably argue that Orthodox denominations have a better claim to be the oldest existing ones. But go figure how to explain that to people who’d (using the ‘John the Baptist’ reasoning) think that pork comes from rodents, because there is ‘ham’ in ‘hamster’.
You’re being reeeeaaally generous, Chi.
This is the first troll whose word salad would motivate me to give it a negative score for its sheer inanity.
Most mainstream xian affiliated universities in the USA do teach evolution.
Notre Dame Catholic
BYU Mormon
Texas Christian
Southern Methodist
Baylor Baptist
Most Lutheran Most Mainstream Protestant affiliated
Even some fundie ones do or did. Some Seventh Day Adventist and Nazarene ones did.
I once looked at their courses. It might have changed. One of the hobbies of fundies is purging heretics and some of them have had witchhunts and fired their biology faculties. That would include Seventh Days i.e. LaSierra and Olivet, Nazarene among others.
The fundie bible colleges don’t. Then again, AFAICT, they don’t teach much of anything. They are glorified baby sitting services, diploma mills, and dating arenas to preserve endogamy. Would you want your daughter or son to marry a Presbyterian USA or gasp, horrors, an Episcopalian or Catholic? They are almost as bad as atheists!!!
Eamon Knight @12: Thanks, that gave me a laugh. Coincidentally, I’m going to be demonstrating a consequence of Cantor’s proof of multiple infinities (that the transcendental numbers are more numerous than the algebraic) in a lecture tomorrow – I may just throw in the amusing objection if I get time. Mind you, it doesn’t have the puntastic symmetry of being damned because of being “pro-choice”. (Originally, it was thought Cantor’s argument needed AC, but this was later found to be untrue)
PZ
I find this rather sinister. A ground penetrating radar survey of Perfessor Myers back yard may be in order.
Dr Marcus Hill Ph.D. @ 9
Unrelated, but… whenever someone mentions the AoC I think of the song Finite Simple Group (Of Order Two):
The path of love is never smooth
But mine’s continuous for you
You’re the upper bound in the chains of my heart
You’re my Axiom of Choice, you know it’s true
But lately our relation’s not so well-defined
And I just can’t function without you
I’ll prove my proposition and I’m sure you’ll find
We’re a finite simple group of order two
I’m losing my identity
I’m getting tensor every day
And without loss of generality
I will assume that you feel the same way
Since every time I see you, you just quotient out
The faithful image that I map into
But when we’re one-to-one you’ll see what I’m about
‘Cause we’re a finite simple group of order two
Our equivalence was stable,
A principal love bundle sitting deep inside
But then you drove a wedge between our two-forms
Now everything is so complexified
When we first met, we simply connected
My heart was open but too dense
Our system was already directed
To have a finite limit, in some sense
I’m living in the kernel of a rank-one map
From my domain, its image looks so blue,
‘Cause all I see are zeroes, it’s a cruel trap
But we’re a finite simple group of order two
I’m not the smoothest operator in my class,
But we’re a mirror pair, me and you,
So let’s apply forgetful functors to the past
And be a finite simple group, be a finite simple group,
Let’s be a finite simple group of order two
I’ve proved my proposition now, as you can see,
So let’s both be associative and free
And by corollary, this shows you and I to be
Purely inseparable. Q. E. D.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @ 13
No doubt we are about to be inundated with a flood of credible peer reviewed evidence, thoroughly washing away the collapsing bulwarks of the foundation of biology. Mr Syamsu will be back, momentarily, to release the tides!
Wait for it!
Aaaaany second now…
aaaaaany second…
Tell you what, Ill go put the kettle on.
I’m guessing that fundamentalist Christians take Biology courses as a pre-req for medicine, particularly nursing, preparing for mission work.
otranreg @ #25 — Yes, it’s incorrect to say that Catholics are the oldest Christian denomination, but Eastern Orthodox isn’t any older. No church based on the Nicene Creed is the oldest. We really don’t know the oldest Christian cult…and there may have been several of different flavors…because the early history of Christian origins is obscured by centuries of rewritten history and myth. However, they are both older than any Baptist or other protestant cult.
robro@32, otranreg@25, etc,
I’ve heard this “Baptists were the first because John the Baptist” argument before, and it’s maddening. A great example of the desperate need to authenticate their beliefs, though. The baptists are on an evolutionary branch really far from the root of Christianity, so they really do squirm to make any connection they can to legitimize themselves as the “one true faith”. History or science that disagrees is clearly just wrong, a lie from the devil. Really clarifies why they’re so dead-set on rewriting their history and science textbooks.
Mary was the First Christian.
She made Jesus do that thing with the wine.
I’m a bit surprised that nobody has posted this yet: SMBC for the Win!
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2703
The Mormons also claim to be the earliest xians and One True Xian Cult.
According to their mythology, xianity started in 33 CE with a human sacrifice. And promptly died out. It was rediscovered by Joseph Smith in the 19th century.
The only way xians can settle any point is to fight wars. The last soldiers standing are…the Real xians.
The evolution scientists deny freedom is real and relevant in the universe, and they regard what is good and evil as scientific facts. If you basically know how choosing works, then you are intellectually superior to any evolution scientist, they are morons.
And I discussed evolutionists for 10+ years or so…I’ve heared all your evolution crap arguments 20 times before, and the conclusion is still the same, evolutionists reject freedom is real, and they regard good and evil as fact.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @ 37,
Ah, you came back! Excellent. Hello!
Freedom is a complex word, it can mean many things. Can you explain what you mean by it? Do you mean free will? I’m going to guess that. The discussion of whether free will exists or not is a complicated thing, and it’s philosophy, not evolution. There’s no consensus that I know of in the scientific community, though I may be wrong! What does that have to do with whether evolution is true or not?
As for good and evil being scientific facts… I don’t know what you mean by that statement at all. Good and evil are things, yes. Concepts, even. What does that have to do with whether evolution is true or false?
Looking forward to an engaging reply!
That truncation was FTB’s fault. Once again.
And never learned one single thing.
Evolution is a biological theory. That life changed through time and how it did so.
It has absolutely nothing to do with good and evil!!!
You don’t even know what science is.
1. There isn’t any consensus, despite some dogmatists claiming so.
2. I’m not sure it is even a good question. Given how long the free will debate as raged without any conclusion, it might well be neither provable or falsifiable.
3. I tend to think some limited version of free will exists but don’t worry about it. I don’t have centuries to deal with a question like that.
4. Who deny free will the most are.. religiionists of various types. The Calvinist xians are among the worst. Predestination is the ultimate denial of free will. As the fundies say, god is in charge and everything happens for a reason. Or he would be if he actually existed and cared enought o show up now and then.
Clearly haven’t been hearing them here then. Every time we get one of these threads I learn something new! Not to mention the links to the really abstruse stuff that makes me want to go back to college for a solid grounding in the life sciences.
(Notepad and coffee ready. EVILUTIONISTS: GO!)
raven @ 41,
Agreed on all counts! I personally think that the free will question is of the “not even wrong” variety. Once we understand more about how the brain works, I think the question will dissolve away entirely.
As for the christian view of free will… it is tremendously confused. Or at least, I’m tremendously confused about it! They say that free will is vital, and it’s what caused humanity to “fall from grace”, i.e. we chose to eat the magic apple… but God knew about it all along and set it up so that it would happen that way, so that we would be “tried”. How is this not humanity being jerked around by a cosmic puppetmaster?
It’s one of those things that you can’t pin down, one of many. We have free will when it suits the christian narrative; we have god preordaining fate when it suits the christian narrative, but of course that’s not contradictory at all. They also have one god but three gods, but they’re only one, see? We have a triune-free-will.
My unfounded guess is that Mr Syamsu isn’t christian though, so the polytheistic leanings don’t really apply as much. Still, same point stands!
Meaningless word salad. Dismissed as fuckwittery.
Science has nothing to do with good and evil. Those are religious concepts.
Science requires you to understand YOU are the easiest person to fool, and you need to doubt yourself and your ideas, and fact check them against reality. Evolution has a million or so scientific papers backing evolution, both directly and indirectly. You don’t even cite ONE peer reviewed scientific paper to back up your presuppositional claims. Typical of liars and bullshitters.
You have nothing cogent to offer. Just more word salad. Repeating fuckwittery v erbatim doesn’t make it right, it just is prima facie evidence you don’t know what you say is nonsense.
@11 John Harshman
Eviiiil!!!!!
Mohammad Nur Syamsu
I have no fucking clue what this is even supposed to mean.
++++
I remember the first time I ran into creationists on an internet forum. Being European, I had not idea such people existed. Completely flabberghasted I aske dthe person if they hadn’t gone to school???
Turns out they didn’t.
Googling
Mohammad Nur Syamsu
or
Muhammad Nur Syamsu
….interesting
From the chart:
Freshwater Bio? Isn’t that awfully specific for a BA degree? Why not Marine Biology like everywhere else?
Fundamentalists are right. They know they are right, and it is generally pointless trying to engage with them.
I have met some very nice people who have expressed what I have taken to be sincere sadness on their part that I won’t be saved along with them. I have met others who are openly hostile about having anything to do with an atheist. They seem to run the spectrum from friendly and courteous to downright repugnant, but the one thing they all seem to have in common is a total unwillingness to question their beliefs. I still find it staggering that a student can go into a Biology class and try to take issue with the very basis of Biology, but I suppose all Biology teachers have come up against this at some time.
I would be interested to know if any of them ever come out of the end of the course with a different view. I’ve never even managed to persuade one of these types to even reexamine their convictions, let alone change them.
Is there any hope?
Eamon Knight @10
You’re one of those “flowing holes” people.
It all comes down to Benjamin Franklin making a 50-50 choice and being wrong.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @13:
I’m sure you’ll be along any minute with evidence that shows evolution is shit.
I’ll be over here holding my breath. Not.
Looks at comment #37.
Does anyone have a universal translator handy?
@cervantes #2
And if the polls are correct, then the author’s statement about America is chilling: “Roughly half of Americans reject some aspect of evolution, believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years old, and that humans coexisted with dinosaurs.” Though this would at least partially explain the election of born-agains like Bush II, or how someone like Ted Cruz could announce a presidential campaign at a fundamentalist private college with the balls to unironically name itself Liberty University.
Of course this may also be why much of the developed world views the U.S. as an unsettling and paranoid threat to world peace. We have a gargantuan defense budget (bigger than the next ten countries combined), including thousands of nuclear weapons, hundreds of military bases in nearly every part of the planet, while also housing the world’s single biggest prison population. Yet many of us who bother to vote are still comfortable with electing creationist crackpots and ostensible adults with apparently as much interest in the afterlife as the current one.
I would like to think that when it comes to the problems of American higher education, issues like paying for constantly rising tuition and maintaining good faculty would be two of the actual concerns, and that creationism would largely be relegated to YouTube and Kirk Cameron. But I also sadly know that in a country as religious as ours a biology professor who can’t finish a introductory lecture on human evolution without having a student or two slam a door in disgust is still par for the course.
#6 Larry: “What I never can understand is why a jebus fanatic who believes in creationism would choose to become a biologist and thus enter a course of study where evolution is a central tenet.”
I think that I can answer that one.
Firstly, there are a significant number of people who get a degree only because they think that they have to. I have know a number of people who got degrees in a field that they had little or no interest in, and in fact some are actually quite incompetent in their chosen fields. This includes both mechanical and electrical engineering. The former having absolutely no mechanical aptitude and the latter not actually understanding where all of those the electrical “rules” came from at all. One EE that I knew actually became an onion farmer immediately after graduating.
Secondly, some obscurantists will actually get a degree in a field that they actually disagree with so that they can peddle their specific superstition as an authority in that field. Numerous creationists have done this. I had a high school physics “teacher” who claimed to have a PhD in physics, yet he was clearly anti-education and very pro-religion. He was not only worthless as a “teacher”, he was actually trying to get his students to be uninterested in getting an education – the exact opposite of an educator. When I asked him to cover more advanced topics than the grade school level crap that he insisted on repeating over and over, his snide reply was that it would be a complete waste of his time because “you kids are going to be nothing but dirt farmers anyway”. What a pious pro-ignorance jackass!
Of course there are still teachers like this some 50 years after my personal public school experiences. And when you get to private religious schools it gets even worse. You can actually take a course in microbiology at Liberty Baptist University, for example, where anti-evolution is actively taught to the students.
Bad Translator gives:
It appears that “bad translator” is misnamed since the output is not really distinguishable from the input.
> “True or False: God gave dominion of the earth to hamsters.”
Would those be … Ken Hamsters?
Has anyone seen Mohammad Nur Syamsu and EnlightenmentLiberal in the same place? They’re both plainly talking nonsense.
Unfortunately there is hardly any reasoned discourse possible with people who deny free will is real, like with nazi’s and communists.
Original sin, there you have the whole of the problem. Eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, making good and evil into a (scientific fact), like the social darwinists did which resulted in the holocaust.
Original sin is what stops people accepting free will is real. With original sin the concept of choosing is replaced with the concept of sorting out the optimal result, with the facts about what is good and evil acting as sorting criteria. There is no freedom in sorting, so then the concept of choosing does not function anymore, free will is rejected and a problem.
fundamentals:
A fact is obtained by evidence forcing to a conclusion, resulting in a copy / model of what is evidenced. For example, a book containing a description of the moon, a 1 to 1 model of it.
An opinion is arrived at by choosing about what it is that chooses. Expression of emotion, occuring by free will, thus choosing the conclusion. For example; the painting is beautiful = the opinion that there exists love in my heart for the way the painting looks. The love chooses the word beautiful, and because love chooses, therefore the existence of it is a matter of opinion.
……….a fact is obtained by evidence FORCING……to a conclusion………FORCING………..
You can see, force cannot apply to what is free, even not the force of evidence. What chooses is free, therefore facts cannot apply to it, and it is categorically a matter of opinion what it is that makes a decision turn out the way it does.
^
Dude, how are you getting from “evolution” to “no such thing as free will” to “Nazi communists”? What’s with that “original sin” nonsense? Why the bizarre tangent on paintings and love?
What is your point, anyway? From here it looks like “whatever, man, everything’s just your opinion”.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @59:
Are you here to talk with people, or talk at them?
I understand that you want to discuss the subject of free will. That is not, however, the subject of this post. Please focus and stay on topic.
There is no such thing as original sin. It’s a mythological concept that has no foundation in reality. There is no evidence to support the existence of Adam, Eve, Yahweh, or talking snakes. Please engage with reality.
None of this makes sense.
Again with the free will stuff.
Stay.
On.
Topic.
Or you can go away. Either is fine. If you’re going to stay and comment though, you might want to work on communicating your thoughts in a different manner. One that enables others to comprehend what you’re trying to get across.
Aw, fuck it. The rest of your post reads like gibberish to me. If you can’t be arsed to communicate your thoughts with sufficient clarity so that others can understand them, I’m not going to waste my time engaging with you any longer.
and
I *think* what’s being said here is that having an opinion is a choice, and choices are free, and facts (not to mention force) cannot apply to free things. Therefore, you cannot counter opinion with facts. Furthermore, attempting to counter opinion with facts is what Hitler did when he tried to make people admire paintings, or something…
… fuck it, all I know is I want some of what Mohammad is smoking. Seems to give quite a trip.
Wow, the word salad is strong with this one. I do understand that English is definitely not this person’s first language, so it would be unreasonable to expect perfect clarity, but I suspect that even if Mohammad Nur Syamsu’s grasp of English were perfect they would still be spouting incoherent rubbish.
Just one question to start with: what on earth does the silly nonsense notion of “original sin” have to do with evolution?????
Mohammad Nur Syamsu, there is no such thing as “original sin”. It is a foolish and morally bankrupt religious myth (and it is a myth that nobody here cares about).
There is no such thing as the “tree of knowledge of good and evil”; this is another silly myth (or at best, it is a metaphor. As you struggle somewhat with English, I suggest you should probably avoid metaphors – what you say is confusing enough already without adding metaphor to the mix).
Nazism, communism etc. have nothing to do with the scientific basis for evolution. So-called “social Darwinism” has nothing to do with the scientific basis for evolution (though I know a lot of religious people love to pretend that it does).
Please try again, and please try to stick to just one point at a time. It might help make your writing clearer (though I’m afraid that there is probably nothing capable of helping to make your thinking clearer)
Which has nothing to do with science, just sophistry.
Except animal husbandry, not evolution, was used as the excuse, as they didn’t believe in evolution….What a fuckwitted idjit you are. One step above slime mold.
Gee reality.
In other words, bullshit presupposed without evidence, like imaginary deities, and mythical/fictional holy books being inerrant. What stupid fools.
You can choose to believe reality or delusion. You choose delusion, without evidence in sight. What a loser you are, delusional through and through.
…..ah you see the responses. Evolution theory turns people’s mind to shit.
You cannot reason with people who deny free will, because you require understanding of choosing, understanding of fact and opinion, in order to reason.
What morons……
No, that’s phanstasms that don’t exist, except as a delusion in your mind. You mind is shit.
You are entitled to your stupid, ignorant, and presuppositional opinion. I am entitled to point point at you and laugh at your stupidity, ignorance, and presuppositonal delusional. There is no talking to you. You won’t examine your beliefs against evidence, and supply none for your imaginary deity….,.LOSER.
chigau, #47
Ah, that is pretty interesting…
there is no original sin? delusion? making what is good and evil into a scientific fact makes you feel high. Just try it, just assert as scientific proven fact that you are a good person. it makes you feel high to think like that. The smug high is addictive, you are all on this drug released by knowing as fact what is good and evil.
You are all hardly capable of any reasoning at all, you can see from your responses, you’re all high like a monkey in a coconut tree because of original sin.
@47, @67: Indeed — a blast from the past!
NOPE, sin is a RELIGIOUS, not scientific concept. Your religion is irrelevant to science, like your opinion is irrelevant to science. Only scientific evidence is relevant to science, and you present none.
WRONG. Science has nothing to do with good or bad. That is humans and religion that define that. You show delusional thinking.
And you describe yourself, not science. Science doesn’t deal with good and evil. You do. You and your fuckiwtted opinions aren’t and never will be science. Only more science refutes science.
There is no reasoning in your fuckwittery, it lacks EVIDENCE. Evidence is required for rational discourse. All you have is your presuppositonal EMOTIONS.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @ 68
Ah, so that’s what he’s on about. He’s saying that ‘evolutionists’ assert people to be good or evil, probably by talking about biological foundations for behaviour. We’re evil because we think peoples’ behaviour can be dictated by more than a disembodied, non-corporeal “free will”.
Frankly, Mr. Syamsu, I don’t make any assertions about people being good or evil – myself included. I just look at the evidence that I can see and the sensible conclusions that evidence leads to. You’re the one making assertions about what I believe or how I behave. You’re the one asserting that “free will” is real – I’m perfectly content to say “I don’t know” to answer that question.
Rein it in a little, buddy!
Underneath all MNS’s word salad is the concept that deities exist, and science doesn’t recognize them.
Sorry MNS, you must provide physical evidence that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. With evidence for your diety, it is only imaginary, existing only between your ears.
Now, where the fuck is your equivalent of the eternally burning bush, or the “POOFERY” where new species “poof” into existence? Without evidence, you are dismissed as delusional fool.
I had high school biology in 1978, in a Chicago suburb. Even back then there was some sensitivity to creationists, who only gained power after that. In that class, evolution was not hidden, but the teacher read a prepared statement about religious concerns before she started talking about evolution early on in the class. She presented it in a way, though, making it clear that the disclaimer was a political requirement, and evolution shouldn’t be doubted.
The creationist troll of the moment sez:
So, smug absolutism in regards to morality is a bad thing? Okay. Hope you can stick to your story on that one. I have some fundamentalists for you to meet.
(I imagine your actual stance is “it’s only bad when science does it”. When you get your morality from a holy book, though, you are ALLOWED to feel high and be smug. Because reasons)
People who deny free will don’t understand choosing? It’s like saying atheists don’t understand God. Or that conservatives don’t understand human decency. No, the understanding is there, they just don’t believe in it.
Understanding good and evil =/= Turning good into evil
Also, with the logic of original sin and the opposing knowledge of good and evil…..what the fuck are you trying to do in blaming science for evils? And talking about free will and shit? Isn’t the point of original sin that humans are sinners and evil by default, regardless of virtually all choices that don’t involve begging Jesus for a Get Out of Hell Free Card?
What the fuck are you even on about?
With original sin, religionists have their cake and eat it too.
Original sin is the product of free will that humans totally needed to have because reasons.
Original sin means that your free will is meaningless because no matter what you choose to do, you are a sinner.
Also: sorting out optimal results and deciding on the one that is best IS CHOICE.
Is….is this supposed to be from a Harry Potter fanfic? I can’t comprehend what this means otherwise.
Opinions are based on facts. There are things called opinions that are not entirely subjective: they are beliefs derived from facts about the world. They are logical conclusions or “choices” about how to view things based on evidence. That is what opinions are. They are not ALL perfectly subjective.
Facts are such stubborn things. I am so sorry that facts rob you of the freedom to be comfortably wrong.
If facts do not apply to a thing that is Free and making Choices, that it cannot exist in an environment where facts exist. It cannot make choices that involve any facts.
So you have this scenario:
You believe you are choosing to drink tea instead of coffee. Drinking is an action based upon evidence, acting upon the fact that is tea, the fact that coffee exists, the fact that there is a cup in existence, in your hand, that can contain either liquid. The fact that you are thirsty and prefer the taste of tea over coffee in general also prohibit you from considering this decision as a choice. You are being unfairly constricted by the cruel injustice of the facts that make up reality. You are not Free. Therefore, you do not have free will in this regard and your choices are entirely an illusion.
It is only in the realm of opinion that free will exists. So you exist in the aether, untouched by facts. Do you exist? Maybe, people might disagree. Are you a human? By some definition, I’m sure there’s some debate on the matter. So you decide to move. Move where? Can’t really say. Move how? It’s anyone’s guess. Move from where? Why get bogged down in specifics? Move why? Because Freedom. So you move. You then decide to prefer jazz to heavy metal. What are those things? Well you might think you know, but you are a fool, for if you did, those definitions would be based in fact. That simply could not be, because in order to decide, it must be opinion all the way down! You foolish, foolish meat puppet you.
It is truly intriguing: you’ve decided that free will is so damn important than you are willing to make arguments that define all of existence as essentially illusion in order to cement free will’s existence and importance. Or at least, that is how I interpret the logical implications of your incoherent babble. Perhaps imagining that logical implication can be done in regards to such nonsense is the source of my inevitable error.
You should consider that anybody who does not accept free will is a moron who cannot reason.
And again, all these responses i’ve heared 20+ times before. Standard moronic evolution crap.
How are things chosen in the universe? The first decisions, decisions in the inanimate world, decisions in the DNA world, decisions of organisms, decisions of people, the last decisions?
Decisions in the DNA world
dna can make an ant and a plant, and an elephant. These are very different from each other. Therefore the information in the dna can represent anything. We can put a representation of a car in the dna, even we cannot grow a car from it. Therefore there is a dna world, which world is basicly the same as a 3D computersimulation, but then in real 3D. It is shown dna sends and receives radio signals, in the future this signal will be translated 1:1 to a computersimulation, so that we can directly look into the dna world on a computer screen. The dna world of a human being is supposedly alike the garden of Eden. Supposedly it contains a representation of the adult organism, a representation of the other sex, and lots of other things are in this 3D dna world. In the dna world representations of adult organisms as a whole.
– the representation of the adult organism in the dna world, guides the development of the organism to adulthood
– the non coding dna, it is much representations of things in the dna world, like representations of the moon and the sun, and the weather
See how this works? You first accept as fact that free will is real, and then you reason with it, and explain things.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @68:
Dammit. SIWOTI strikes again!
Well there’s no evidence to support the idea that original sin is anything more than a mythlogical concept. Perhaps if you had some evidence to present us with you’d be able to persuade people that original sin is real.
Gotta warn you though, that’s a monumental task ahead of you. Around here, we value evidence, and you’ve brought none of that to the table. In addition, many of us are more than familiar with most of the ::ahem:: so-called evidence in support of religion and it’s *all* been found wanting.
How do you know this is occurring? Where is your evidence that this happens?
I won’t assert anything of the sort. What I will say is that I try my level best to be a good person. As a human being, I am not perfect, and I have made and will continue to make mistakes. What I try to do is ensure my actions have as little a negative affect on others as I can, and work to make sure that when I do make mistakes, I acknowledge them, and if I’ve caused harm, to apologize and not make the same mistake again.
Sorry, no scientific assertion there.
Are these facts? Where can they be verified?
Once again, I have to ask: are you here to talk WITH people or AT people?
No need to respond though, bc I already have a good idea of what the answer is.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu @76:
I don’t see anyone in this thread denying the existence of free will.
I think you’ve mistakenly wound up here. Did you take a wrong turn at Albuquerque?
I love when creationists accuse everyone else of being big stupid stupid heads. It’s so frustratingly adorable.
Also: DNA as a radio computer simulation that can represent a car that represents adult fully grown organisms and with non-coding DNA like moon and weather. And all of it is a world like the Garden of Eden.
Is it possible for something to not even be Not Even Wrong? I can’t even begin to try processing any of that. I twitch just thinking about it. I think it might be an LSD trip all the way down.
Yo dawg, I heard you liked creationism. So I put bafflegab in your bafflegab so you can facepalm while you facepalm.
Irrelevant to scientific facts. Loser talk.
Nope, no decisions made without consciousness. Loser talk.
DNA doesn’t make decisions. Ignorant sophistry from a loser.
Yep, and the DNA coding is different. As SCIENCE tells you, but you don’t listen.
Nope, you cant loser. A car is NOT BIOLOGICAL. Hence your statement is meaningless, from a loser.
No loser, the garden of eden, is like your deity, imaginary, existing only between your ears in your delusional mind.
No fuckwitted idjit, not only the adult, but ALL STEPS INBETWEEN. You are one stupid fuckwit.
So much word salad from fuckwitted idjit who doesn’t understand biology, but pretends to. What a self-delusional fool you are….
Meaningless word salad from somebody who understands no science. Just their emotions, ignorance, and pretends to know something. You know nothing. You are a delusional fool.
Inapplicable insult repeated without evidence or reasoning. Ignored.
Shows you haven’t been reading our responses; most of them have been “what are you trying to say?” Ignored.
PARSER ERROR x084F: INCOMPREHENSIBLE POETRY
It seems that you are attempting a poetic turn of phrase that interferes with the meaning of your words. Please restate and try again.
Atoms can make a mote of dust or a planet. They are very different from each other. What’s your point?
[citation needed]
PARSER ERROR x084F: INCOMPREHENSIBLE POETRY
It seems that you are attempting a poetic turn of phrase that interferes with the meaning of your words. Please restate and try again.
[citation needed]
Unsupported speculation.
[citation needed]
PARSER ERROR x084F: INCOMPREHENSIBLE POETRY
It seems that you are attempting a poetic turn of phrase that interferes with the meaning of your words. Please restate and try again.
Technically and trivially true, if by “representation of the adult organism” you mean “interactions between proteins coded for by DNA and environment”
[citation needed]
Yes, and you can explain why fire burns with phlogiston or why cooking pots are concave with evolution. That doesn’t make phlogiston real or evolution relevant to the concave-ness of cooking pots.
(Off topic: did comic-sans gumbyquoting get reserved for Professor Poopyhead in the last fix?)
Mohammad Nur Syamsu
Google
theuniversalmatrix.com
There is a guy there that you can communicate with.
by the passion of their arguments as represented here by “same as you” did you get the feeling that he thinks he is arguing with the Prince of Lies?
that is one of the underlying strengths of science by it’s very practice and method it uncovers lies and test everything against observed reality as objectively as is humanly possible. It holds all things as tentative and plausible until proven false by better data or deeper analysis.
Look “same as you” if I decide of my own free will that I can walk out in clear air and again decide to walk off a cliff I will fall like Wiley Coyote just as the facts described by Newton’s equations say I will ( I know Einstein).
We here who trust science do not trust any old book of myths and tales that any one could have written and said any dam fool thing because it is old or some other bloke says it is true. If it does not match reality and can not be demonstrated unequivocally it is not true and does not exist!
all else is at best art or at worse lies and fraud.
uncle frogy
Even if there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil, I don’t see why humans weren’t allowed to eat from it. Does God not want us to know about good and evil?
Hey, wait a minute…
Of course He doesn’t! He doesn’t want us to know that He is vile, bloodthirsty, sadistic, self-centered, racist, homophobic, and misogynistic.
There’S also the question how they were supposed to know that disobeying god was bad if they had no knowledge of good and evil.
If you’re inclined to philosophical wankery.
As an undergraduate I went to a Catholic college and majored in biology. Several of my teachers were Catholic priests. Jesuits are interesting like that.
.
I sometimes think that the Catholic church needs to go around monitoring what its local churches do.
I think you’re all being too harsh on Mohammad. He seems to be pretty strongly in favour of the Axiom of Choice, so he’s OK by me. (Did I read him right? It’s hard to tell!)
Besides incomprehensible gibberish, he has nothing but personal incredulity about evolution. I get very tired of folks like Mohammad who think this is a philosophical/theological discussion, not a scientific discussion. They make that category error.
They can philosophize all they want, science ignores their gibberish, and evolution remains both intact and a fact. In order to refute science, they must use more science to refute the science. Not one citation to scientific literature is seen. Point and laugh time.
Philosophy, theology, and gibberish are simply ignored as irrelevant when someone is trying to refute/dismiss evolution.
@Giliell – Frankly I have nothing against philosophy or wanking. Usually I try to avoid theological discussions but sometimes I cannot resist to point out the most obvious flaws.
The point of all the creationism vs evolution controversy is ofcourse accommodation for subjectivity. Expression of emotion, forming an opinion, having a religion. Subjectivity operates by choosing, it requires knowledge about how things are chosen. Evolution theory systematically destroys all knowledge about how things are chosen, and thereby subjectivity is undermined as well.
Subjectivity does not function without things the existence of which is a matter of opinion. The existence of love and hate must be regarded as a matter of opinion for there to be expression of what is liked and disliked. If the existence of the love is a fact, then to say to like something is to convey the fact that there exists love in the electrochemical information processes in the brain. Then an opinion = fact, which is social darwinism, the anti-thesis of science.
Subjective things like love and hate do the job of choosing, the job of making an alternative future the present. The existence of them is categorically a matter of opinion. But the decisions, the available alternatives, and the result of the decision are still matters of fact. And you can just do science about how things are chosen, like how representations of fully functional adult organisms are chosen as a whole in the dna world.
Mohammad sez:
That’s precisely it. Creationists want to shove away facts because they prefer their opinions. They like their religion, they like faith, they like belief. They don’t like scientific facts and want an excuse to ignore it. Usually they just do so by explicitly saying that religion trumps science, and that their opinions are backed by their holy book which is supposedly best on facts From God Himself. The ultimate authority. When it was really just a book written by men, which they can only half-admit before inserting even more ridiculous fantasy into it all.
That’s the truly interesting thing about you Mohammed: you admit that your side is basically just opinions all the way down and fact averse, while the rest of them are pretending that their opinions are based on Factier Facts than the rest of us, with our puny science.
lolwut?
Neuroscience ergo scientific facts ergo Social Darwinism.
Is it wrong that I am most interested in why social Darwinism is the antithesis of science? I mean, I agree it is terrible, but I really wouldn’t call it the polar opposite of science either. Pseudoscience, unjustifiably using a description as a prescription, used as justification for horrible actions and policies yes. But that’s not the antithesis of science, merely the abuse of it.
Deep, man.
*tokes*
I don’t even know where to begin figuring out where your understanding of DNA and development are wrong. Let’s try this:
I have a detailed and very specific blueprint for a house. It includes specific information about interior design, decor, plumbing arrangements, all of that. Someone builds that house exactly. Then you leave that building for a hundred years or so, have it go through multiple tenants who redecorate the inside, paint the outside, add a deck, tear down a wall to make two rooms into one large room. They add an attached garage, redo the roof, eventually remove the chimney and fireplace because it might collapse. They add French Doors to one section of the house. They renovate the basement so that it now has a billiards room and an additional bedroom. They completely retile the kitchen and bathrooms. They put in new cabinets and countertops as the old ones become outdated. They remove the carpets, get a new oven, new sinks. And then, one hundred years later, after all these changes: Were your blueprints a representation of the house that now exists?
Or rather: Looking at the blueprints now, are they currently still a representation of the house in its current form. Is the 100 year old “adult” house truly your original designs coming into fruition?
MSN, I get it now – you are one of these people who think that understanding how something works somehow takes away from experiencing it. You think that understanding optics or understanding the wave-particle nature of light makes a rainbow less beautiful to look at (to borrow a heavily over-used but hopefully easily recognisable example!)
Some people, MSN old chap, are capable of studying phenomena and only finding them all the more wonderful the more they understand them.
Some people are also capable of recognising that just because we could insist with all our might that the stars are god’s daisy-chain, this doesn’t alter the fact that they are mainly made up of hydrogen.
Sorry, you clearly haven’t the least grasp of the theory of evolution. How on earth can understanding how organisms evolve “destroy knowledge about how things are chosen”????? This makes no sense. (Chosen by whom, by the way? Choosing can only be done by sentient organisms; can we presume you’re talking about people choosing things? Or are you inventing some imaginary supernatural being that you think “chooses” things?)
Total meaningless gibberish. It says nothing cogent. Word salad for those who don’t grasp reality, and prefer their delusions.
Opinion =/= fact, unless backed by EVIDENCE. You have no evidence. Your opinions are meaningless and gibberish. You have no idea what science is. You are a liar and bullshitter, pretending to be as deep thinker. About as deep as a micron.
Personally, I’m totally for the destruction of knowledge.
Er, wait. The selective destruction of knowledge.
No, wait. The selective destruction of unsupported ‘knowledge’.
That’s better. That which has yet to be shown true should be destroyed as a knowledge statement. I like how Aron says it: “If you can’t show it, you don’t know it!”
You’ve got a lot of things left to show, Mr. Syamsu.
My favorite response is, “Well, if God made Man from dust, why is there still dust?”