I like it. Maybe something similar would work like “Resist Rationalism”
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Rats! I’m so insensitive and senile I didn’t notice! What did you say?
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Nothing worth repeating, assuming I could remember now. We’ll leave it disapperated, until I blow it again in a different key. 
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For me the main reason why I accept something like the scientific consensus as reflecting a healthy and accurate interpretation of reality is because I can chew gum and walk at the same time…. I made it though middle school with ABCs and high school with all As.
A bigger question to me is why would someone reject the opinions of people who are the most educated on a specific subject that have dedicated 8+ years of academic studying and 20+ years of professional research on it. But not just one, thousands of them.
It would be like if I look at every phd botanist on the planet and told them , no vegetable is a botanical term….
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I presented some of the findings of a recent paper to my class introducing why start with the scientific consensus, but didn’t say that a scientific consensus is “reality.” I appreciated this summary from the NeuroLogica Blog
With a particularly relevant quote:
This is just probability – people who have an understanding of a topic that is orders of magnitude beyond yours are simply more likely to have an accurate opinion on that topic than you do. This does not mean experts are always right, or that there is no role for minority opinions. It mostly means that non-experts need to have an appropriate level of humility, and at least a basic understanding of the depth of knowledge that exists. I always invite people to consider the topic they know the best, and consider the level of knowledge of the average non-expert. Well, you are that non-expert on every other topic.
Interestingly, rejection of scientific consensus is correlated with “a dramatic lack of humility, lack of knowledge, and overestimation of one’s knowledge.” Certainly, that characterized me when I used to reject the scientific consensus on many topics, though I wouldn’t have thought so at the time.
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I think you’re right to make that distinction. Science is powerful but even with science, what reason do we have to think the aspects of the world it reveals comprise the whole picture? It is obvious hubris to make that assumption. To think reality just is a heap of stuff that interacts in mechanistic, deterministic ways is an assumption that cannot be demonstrated. It can be a person’s faith position but it isn’t reasonable to insist it must or should be integral to everyone’s worldview. I find it lacking, nothing about non theism demands it. Science is wonderful but scientism is a mistake.
#MeToo!!! (And yes, the body is quite clear and is a complete sentence.)
It does not need to be demonstrated beyond being nothing but demonstrated. Where isn’t it?
One should always make ones own mind . I have listened to scientists argue with Steven Meyer and I swear if I hear one more person say “thats not science” or “its not a theory” I will puke. I have heard them all and that is the best they can come up with. They cannot make a real argument so they just deny that there is intelligence design in nature. It would be like me standing outside at midnight looking at the moon and saying over and over again " it is the sun it is, it is, it is. You cannot win an argument by just saying the other side is wrong. I dare any evolutionist to prove that there is no design in nature when it can be seen with my own two little beady eyes.
What do they see mate?
And how?
And why?
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Before he died, Phillip Johnson, the co-founder of the intelligent design movement, lamented the fact that there was no theory of intelligent design worked out. The best you seem to have is “we can’t explain this, so the designer must have done it.”
No, the burden is on you to demonstrate that something in nature was designed.
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I understand exactly what you mean. There is a right way and a wrong way to respond to claims of ID proponents, and complain that “it’s religion, not science” or that “it is introducing religious presuppositions into science” is very much the wrong way. It really, really grates with me when people come up with that kind of argument – it just makes them sound like they’re trying to introduce anti-religious presuppositions of their own into science and weaponise it as if it were some kind of blunt instrument with which to attack religious conviction.
And I say that as a Christian who accepts the scientific consensus on the age of the earth and evolution, who recognises that many ID arguments are weak at best, and who finds young earth creationism in particular to be outright dishonest.
Another thing that really grates with me is when people appeal to Kitzmiller v Dover or the First Amendment or other US-centric arguments like that. These things may have a lot of influence over what goes on in America these days, but they are not the ultimate arbiters of reality, and in fact, for those of us who do not live in the USA, they are almost completely irrelevant.
No, the correct way to address ID claims is to focus on one thing and one thing alone: what facts are they not getting straight? What calculations and measurements are they fudging? What quotes are they taking out of context? What scientific methods, procedures or evidence are they misrepresenting? Because anything else is just sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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They are twisting facts because of their twisted religion.
Well yes, but which facts are they twisting? This is where one needs to be specific.
You are misplacing the burden of proof. It is ID supporters who claim there is design in nature to provide positive evidence for their claims. It is not the job of skeptics to disprove an unsupported claim. If the ID supporter is additionally claiming that ID is scientific, then they need to present scientific evidence.
If you are convinced that life is designed because of what you see, then great. However, don’t expect the scientific community to change their mind until there is objective evidence and a testable ID model.
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They twist the facts concerning ancient Christian texts.
They twist the facts concerning ancient Jewish texts.
Which the ancient Christian texts twist.
They add their own twist to all of that: You can’t believe Jesus died for your sins unless you believe YEC.
Twisting science necessarily follows.
That’s more twisted than chromatin.
And you’re always spot on scientifically James. But saying twisted religion is not the basis of all that follows is… not straight.
But even our religious scientists, e.g. Ken Miller, know that religious ideas have no part in scientific investigations.
It’s mostly here in the USA that creationism is a problem that threatens the science education of public school children. BioLogos is an American web site, so you’re going to hear a lot of American stuff here.
Good points, @jammycakes, and I have to admit some of the same problems are present is what are sometimes called “soft sciences” like psychology, sociology, and the like. It even gets worse in my field of medicine where you find claims made for alternative medical treatments that have little to no data supporting them, and while some have plausible actions, many are just made up. In fact, there is a lot things alternative medicine has in common with ID, with a lot based on philosophy and supposition, but no real supporting data. And like ID, alt. Medicine is attractive from a philosophical viewpoint, which supporters capitalize on with both.
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That’s not entirely true. The inspiration for a hypothesis really doesn’t matter as long as the hypothesis is testable and consistent with existing observations.
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I’m talking about scientific investigations. Religious ideas are beyond the scope of science.