Comments on: As bad as it gets: a debate with two surprisingly creationist gentlemen

By: Plupellanyday

Plupellanyday — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 20:32:28 +0000

I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:

By: Ashutosh

Ashutosh — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:31:33 +0000

Amrita: But if I had said that the truth is a continuum, then the debate would have died only because they would have made their point…just like PC postmodernists would do as you pointed out. The truth is indeed a continuum philosophically, but in real life we hardly treat it as one; even creationists don’t. We all assign different discrete degrees of confidence to various truths. So at the very least even culturally they have to admit that they are conflating degrees of confidence that they otherwise won’t.

Andrew: I absolutely agree that truth is a definition that is believed because it is useful to our lives, and that is exactly why religious people do it. I would be ok if they kept that belief to themselves and as you know that’s the real issue; their belief of what they perceive as truth has no place in a classroom of facts.

By: Andrew Sun

Andrew Sun — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:57:08 +0000

I think I can explain why some people don’t admit another definition of truth. You can distinguish them by their understanding (or belief) of the relationship between human mind and the world (outside human mind). If one thinks human mind can always somewhat influence or alter (here I mean directly and freely) how the world goes, surely he/she won’t define truth by what’s proved, but what’s believe (by his/her mind) instead, vise versa.

Definition of truth is useful to our life, so people don’t define truth in a useless way. If human mind can directly and freely alter how the world goes then why bother prove our belief? But if no, we cannot alter the world freely but have to follow some unknown rules, then it is practical to find and understand these rules, and proved your finding by practice, which science can help.

However, people who are lazy-minded and impractical will definitely believe the former, because they don’t care whether what they believe can be practically relied on or not (they are not practical), and if they defined truth as what’s proved, they would have to prove everything before it is believed, which would be a big trouble (they are lazy-minded). The ‘ordinary people’, or the public, are always to some extent lazy-minded or impractical, so there are always religious influences among them.

Well trained scientists may also be influenced by religious thought, however, if they don’t require all statements should be proved before they are believed. They at least don’t require one statement to be proved, that the Nature, with its many rules, was created and set by someone (creationism) and science is only to disclose these rules which are called the truth. If they require all statements to be proved, they won’t believe creationism, at this moment at least, because it is not proved and can’t be proved at this moment. These scientists can do good science because in most situation science is only about finding the rules of the Nature, no matter these rules are created or not.

And I think creationism cannot be proved forever. If some statement cannot be proved forever, it is just a nonsense. So creationism is only a nonsense to those who believe all statements without any exception should be proved before they are regarded the truth. In other words, as a nonsense Creationism doesn’t stand in the way of science.

By: Amrita

Amrita — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 18:27:45 +0000

Ashutosh - I would venture that what you experienced with these two people was an example of science locking horns with culture. In science, what you said about the glass (excellent analogy there btw) is true, but culturally, not so much.
The conflation of belief and truth might be of particular comfort to postmodernists but the fact is we live in a world where postmodernist thought has increasingly come to be identified as “PC” not for intellectual reasons but for the lazy reason that it allows a graceful sidestep in uncomfortable situations.
For example, as things got heated between the three of you, if you’d gone by the generally accepted PC view that the “truth” is always a continuum rather than a definite destination, then everybody would have been happy and felt valued.
Just going by what you’ve written, it appears you were having a scientific discussion, they were having a cultural one. Should the two be necessarily separate? No. But are they? Often.
For example, I recently met a “super specialist” in medicine (his words ) who regularly blogs on IT and believed that civil liberties were an unIndian western construct of no use to a “real” Indian. So a degree in science doesn’t necessarily mean you begin to apply the principles of science culturally. I guess this is why psychology is an inexact science.

By: Ashutosh

Ashutosh — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 04:29:20 +0000

Thanks for linking to that site…it’s got some great cartoons. The difference between expt evidence and faith is well taken. I am convinced it is a profound psychological problem’ no religious person can admit that what he believes is not actuallt true, because that would undermine all of this faith. When this happens, people have two choices; either should realise this and become atheists or at least agnostics, or they can be in denial and keep on believing that what they believe is also true. Sadly, almost everyone takes the latter way out.

By: anon

anon — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:34:04 +0000

Also, when someone talks about the nature of “truth”, my strategy is to clearly point out the difference between “experimental evidence” and “faith”.

By: anon

anon — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:32:16 +0000

Heard of the first law of Creationist debates?

http://cectic.com/069.html