Getting the basics wrong

[Argon]

This is a lot of the human condition with social media. Not that it didn’t happen before, but it was slower.

[Terry_Sampson]

@Argon

Hi Terry. You gotta meet people where they are

• Ha! I’ve met him. First to admit that he doesn’t know anything and the first to tell you that you know even less than he does.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@RichardG

It is more the principle of lauding or dictating over others or daring to crticise how somone else thinks or reasons.

I see nothing wrong with criticism as long as it is focused on ideas instead of the person. Criticism is how we grow and learn.

[Argon]

If scientists and philosophers took criticism more personally, there’d be fewer alive after each conference.

[jammycakes (James McKay)]

@RichardG

There is no good reason for the common person to understand science other than its applications, and even then it is only from a user point of view. if it goes wrong then you find an expert.

@knor

You seem to expect quite much from a person that has no university or even high school level education. There are probably many who have very little or no understanding about how research is done at the university level. The persons would have enough of intelligence to understand the basics but nobody has teached them about these matters.

I think there’s a little bit of confusion here about who I’m talking about or what I’m expecting of them.

I’m not talking about the common person. I’m not talking about people who have no university or even high school education who are just looking on from the sidelines.

I am talking about people who:

• are teaching about science and faith in their churches
• are actively participating in debates and discussions about science and faith
• are claiming to have enough understanding about science to be able to challenge scientific theories
• in some cases, actually have university degrees in science.

Nor am I expecting them to understand how research is done at university level.

All I am expecting of them here is to understand the elementary basics of what error bars are, what they signify, and what kinds of claims they do and do not justify. After they have had it explained to them.

Stuff that, as I say, was taught to me in the first half hour of my first A level physics practical class.

If that’s expecting quite much, then quite frankly I don’t know what isn’t.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Argon

If scientists and philosophers took criticism more personally, there’d be fewer alive after each conference.

I can only speak for the science side, but what you say is true. If you are going to make it in the scientific research arena you need to be able to handle criticisms that are often blunt and undiplomatic. Most of the time it is focused on the science, but there are times where it can become personal, unfortunately. Science can be a trial by fire.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@jammycakes

are claiming to have enough understanding about science to be able to challenge scientific theories

That old chestnut.

Been there, don’t want to go there again.

Richard

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@Argon

The problems are transparent. Sloppy apologetics doesn’t end well.

Very interesting video.

Of course I am very much an example of that different direction of thought coming from scientist nonbelieving side of things. And this different approach comes up with such different answers.

For example.

Instead of coming from the assumption that humans are so different from other animals, if you instead ASK the question of whether we are very different then you are much more likely to come up with the answer that we ARE very different and then truthfully assess the ways in which we actually are different. And the funniest thing about this is I come up with the answer that we are far far far more different from the animals than how these YEC Christians ever understood. According to them we just the last and pinnacle creation in long line of things God created with a few words added like “very” to saying we are good, made in the image of God, and dominion over the rest of creation. Whereas in my view we are a completely different form of life altogether in the different medium of human communication rather than just the medium of biochemistry.

While for them it is everything they believed in falling apart, for me it is a matter of constructing a whole new way of thinking for myself.

Another example.

Instead of having to come up with justifications for why the resurrection of Jesus is the only reasonable thing to believe. I am perfectly free to simply ask myself what is the most reasonable thing about the resurrection to believe? The fact that it is so critically important to Christianity does NOT distort this for me. Besides the place in the Bible which addresses this directly 1 Corinthians 15, is not focused focused on the same direction as what I see in a lot of Christians that this has to be an objective historical event, but rather upon the details of our own resurrection – not like the Gnostic liberation of the mind from the body but coming to an existence with a different kind of body. It is the spiritual future transcending physical death which looks to be the most important in Paul’s explanation and it echoes what Jesus spoke of as well. It stands in opposition to the change of Christian teaching into a worldly philosophy like the social gospel. I frankly think this is what the whole conflict in John 6 was about.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@jammycakes

All I am expecting of them here is to understand the elementary basics of what error bars are, what they signify, and what kinds of claims they do and do not justify. After they have had it explained to them.

Stuff that, as I say, was taught to me in the first half hour of my first A level physics practical class.

If that’s expecting quite much, then quite frankly I don’t know what isn’t.

There are very few YEC claims I’ve seen that can’t be demolished using only high-school level skills and knowledge. Many can be demolished by 5th grade maths.

Most claims made by YECs can be refuted by the simple process of:

1. Reading what the YEC has written;
2. Reading the original source;
3. Highlighting the differences between the YEC claim and the original source.

It really is that straightforward.

[Argon]

@mitchellmckain

While for them it is everything they believed in falling apart, for me it is a matter of constructing a whole new way of thinking for myself.

To be honest, I don’t think humans and animals (particularly the great apes) are wildly different. Given that, I’ve got a clear cognitive dissonance about by my not being vegetarian – at least with respect to mammals and birds.

In any case, rigidity and fragility seem to correlate, IMHO.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Argon

Given that, I’ve got a clear cognitive dissonance about by my not being vegetarian – at least with respect to mammals and birds.

I’ve run into that as well. I will have a brief thought about how birds eating other birds is somewhat cannibalistic, even as a munch down on a hamburger made from a fellow mammal.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@Argon

To be honest, I don’t think humans and animals (particularly the great apes) are wildly different.

And I don’t think that is honest (more reactionary?). All you have to do is LOOK at the world and I don’t see how you can come to any other conclusion than a VAST difference from the simple fact of how much humans have changed the world and made itself responsible for all life on the planet. It is frankly an even bigger difference than what the YEC Christians understand. Liberated from this anti-scientist irrationality of the YEC, science itself becomes part of the huge differences from the animals.

But to be sure the differences that the YEC have imagined are all wrong. When it comes to physical origin, biology, and genetics we are closely related – one family. Though even differences in that respect are pretty important ones (persistent hunters, cooking, and language). No I don’t think we are a special magical creation – we are certainly not golems of dust and bone created by necromancy. That understanding is frankly a trivialization of the differences. It is just that physical origin, biology, and genetics are not so fundamentally important as they think. That is NOT what we are. That is NOT what makes us human. That is a thinking more suitable to eugenics, and such (maybe materialism? social darwinism?) .

Of course there is also the question of whether this is a gap which we can artificially cross, uplifting other animals to make them part of what we have become like so many sci-fi entertainment has suggested. But that must wait until we actually achieve it because we frankly don’t know how possible this is. If we do, I would frankly call them human and no different from ourselves – not homo sapiens, sure, a different biological species. I just don’t think the biological differences are quite so important.

[Argon]

@mitchellmckain

And I don’t think that is honest (more reactionary?). All you have to do is LOOK at the world and I don’t see how you can come to any other conclusion than a VAST difference from the simple fact of how much humans have changed the world and made itself responsible for all life on the planet

Hello.
No, that really is my honest belief. For me, it’s not about what we can do, it’s how we are based on largely the similar ‘hardware’ and brain biology. Significantly, some apes appear to have a sense of minds and can model the existence of other minds. Depression, anxiety, happiness and play seem to work out in many animals similar to many humans. Differences biologically but by degree, for sure. Humans do have modified traits that permit ‘exponential force multipliers’ on our influence but the traits aren’t exponentially different in themselves. This is also why I’ll grant great apes and perhaps other animals recognition that they be treated humanely and as sentients.

So, I’m not judging on the basis of impact or manipulation of the world. In that regard, being tongue in cheek, cyanobacteria probably win the award for ‘most effect’ by an organisms on the terrestrial ecosystem. They killed millions of species through the oxygenation of the Earth, caused the great iron deposits to form that we mine today, and allowed metazoans like us to thrive and evolve.

Which all boils down to my belief: After you die, if someone says you’re in heaven but the are no dogs around, they are lying and you are actually in hell. Also, I would have a lot of makeup work with a herd of cows for sure …

[Argon]

@mitchellmckain

uplifting other animals to make them part of what we have become like so many sci-fi entertainment has suggested.

Nice. The Uplift War series by David Brin springs to mind! Those were excellent, IHMO, though I’m not an authority on SciFi.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@mitchellmckain

And I don’t think that is honest (more reactionary?). All you have to do is LOOK at the world and I don’t see how you can come to any other conclusion than a VAST difference from the simple fact of how much humans have changed the world and made itself responsible for all life on the planet.

I think it was Darwin who said (paraphrasing from memory) that while the difference in intelligence between us and other apes is profound, it is actually quite small when we compare humans to ants. I’ve always found that to be an important point to remember.

Also, how close did the other apes come to the same tipping point of language and culture that humans attained? How close did our lineage come to disappearing before doing anything more complex than simple stone tools? For that matter, why did it take so long to move from simple stone tools to modern technology, and why?

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

When traveling around and looking at cathedrals in Europe, it was interesting to see the units of measure carved on the walls near the entrance. Thus, the association of accurate measure with Godly conduct is long standing. Also, it is on interest that when various kings took over areas, they too tried to standardize measures, with our current foot being the length of King Henry I 's foot, as I recall.
An article that may be of interest:

The Measure of Things: on the Size of a Loaf or the Length of a Poniard

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Argon

@mitchellmckain

And I don’t think that is honest (more reactionary?). All you have to do is LOOK at the world and I don’t see how you can come to any other conclusion than a VAST difference from the simple fact of how much humans have changed the world and made itself responsible for all life on the planet

Hello.
No, that really is my honest belief. For me, it’s not about what we can do, it’s how we are based on largely the similar ‘hardware’ and brain biology.

100,000 years ago, humanity had not changed the world, and had not “made itself responsible for all life on the planet”.^[1]

Looking at humans vs other great apes 100,000 years ago, that vast difference didn’t exist. But humans then were pretty much the same as humans now. Only our technology and culture has changed.

So the “VAST difference” isn’t between humans and great apes. It’s between technology now and technology then.

---

1. We still haven’t, but that’s a side point. ↩︎

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@T_aquaticus

I think it was Darwin who said (paraphrasing from memory) that while the difference in intelligence between us and other apes is profound, it is actually quite small when we compare humans to ants. I’ve always found that to be an important point to remember.

Yes but I think we have learned from AI that intelligence is not as important as we thought either. So yeah while so far as we can tell there is a definite intelligence gap, I don’t have much invested in seeing this as any greater than what we can actually measure. And I think our intelligence has dropped rather than increased in recent evolutionary history.

[Argon]

Look up the “Smoot”. You can see the Smoot marks along the Harvard Bridge across the Charles River in Cambridge/Boston

[Argon]

@mitchellmckain

And I think our intelligence has dropped rather than increased in recent evolutionary history.

Definitely in the past dozen years or so in the US and UK. But we shouldn’t go there …