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Originally Posted by Filtherton
What portion of those 50% that don't believe in evolution are trying to actively subvert science or force you to agree with them?
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Some. Many more than one. Again, I don't know what specific number.
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Originally Posted by Filtherton
If you don't know, then it's a red herring because you're trying to claim a correlation between not believing in evolution and exercising religious intolerance without actually having any evidence of a correlation. I mean, it seems like a plausible correlation, I guess, but a lot of things that seem plausible don't stand up to scrutiny. It's bad science to assume something is true without actually trying to prove it is. It isn't bad theology necessarily, but it is bad science.
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Again, some do. Why? Because they believe in bad science. Remove that incorrect belief, and you remove the danger.
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Originally Posted by Filtherton
How is it dangerous? People didn't believe in evolution for most of human history. I think that the theory of evolution is irrelevant to most people. I know that if you were to surgically remove any concept of evolution from my brain whilst leaving everything else intact absolutely nothing would change about the way I look at the world, and I believe in evolution. It's just that as far as theories that play an active role in shaping my world view go it ranks somewhere near geology-- it's trivia.
Given that many people have problems wrapping their heads around basic math, chemistry and physics it doesn't seem that out of the question that there would be a lot of people who have trouble wrapping their heads around the concept of evolution. And since knowledge of evolution doesn't really matter all that much in the day to day activities of most people, including most scientists, it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people don't seem to care about it, or understand enough of it to see how much sense it makes. It certainly doesn't scare me, anymore than the fact that Bush got elected to a second term scares me. It's par for the course as far as humanity goes.
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Anything that actively works against scientific progress is dangerous by it's mere existence. Examples are glaring through history. There was a time when transfusions were disallowed by the fundamentalist religious. Then it was transplants. Many people still today refuse medical care for their children opting instead for prayer. And the children die. Pretending like this isn't dangerous is underestimating a threat to not just progress but safety.
This isn't about having trouble understanding evolution, though. It's about willful ignorance. Have you ever debated an ID proponent or creationist?
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Originally Posted by Filtherton
I won't disagree with this.
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YEEEEEHAAAAWWW!!!! *DANCES*
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Originally Posted by Filtherton
I just don't think that it's as dramatic as you and Mr. Missile think it is. Maybe that has more to do with the fact that I live in a really liberal place where religious intolerance is generally viewed with contempt (by lots of people who also happen to be religious) and so it doesn't often have the chance to get much momentum.
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Very few people live in a more liberal area than I, good sir. I'm not intolerant of religious beliefs. I could care less if you want to believe in a carpenter who could make wine from water. I have a problem, though, when subjective faith becomes ignorance that's forced on others. Scientologists can believe in thetans all they want, but when they sue people for talking about their religion, they've crossed a line.
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Originally Posted by Filtherton
I wasn't talking about meaning, I was talking about making sense of reality, something which is the cornerstone of scientific inquiry. And if you think that philosophy and science aren't closely related you should do more science. It's like pig once said, and I hope he'll forgive me if I'm misappropriating his words for evil ends: there's a reason that the highest degrees offered in most scientific fields is a doctor of philosophy. Science is philosophy.
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No. Science is factual, philosophy is subjective. Philosophy can tell us if we should do something, science tells us if we can. They are quite different.
Trust me, this is the same coversation I'm having on a good dozen forums and several emails right now. Science is factual, philosophy is subjective. They can go hand in hand, but they are very different.