I came across this quote from a creationist the other day
—Christianity has fought, still fights, and will continue to fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” G.R. Bozhart
We humans are permanently in a search for answers to everything. Anyone with kids has heard the frustrated question 'but why daddy? from their frustrated child a million times. But people like Mr Bozhart already have the answer. We see it in different forms here a lot, from Faith's biblical inerrancy to Phat's 'I believe this, so there must be some other way to make this work in reality' approach to GDR's rationalisations and plasticity of belief. But in the end it's all the same, they already had the answer and therefore anything that seems to contradict it is wrong. Already 'knowing' the answer is The Barrier to knowledge.
We're all the same of course, we all have our ideas that we think are correct and that's why the scientific method was invented - to sort the snake oil from the asprin. We're all ok with the rational, critical thinking approach when it's something we personally don't have any emotional investment in, but as soon as it crosses into that territory all our defensive mechanisms spring into action. Where we stand affects what we can see.
I had absolutely nothing to do yesterday and the weather was vile so I went to Evolution Fairytales and watched Mike the Wiz with increasing fascination. He's an amazing egotist, often incredibly impressed with his own arguments, gloating about having PROVED something in
highlights and
multicolours and is almost always wrong.
I don't mean wrong as in got the wrong anwer - though of course he has - but as in thinking wrong. He's learned every fallacy in the book and believes that he's a great logical philosopher but he commits all the logical sins he accuses other of - but in
bold. (It seem that messing with text formating is determinate of the nutter.)
But MtW is pretty intelligent in the IQ way of the self taught. He just hasn't got the ability to self-criticise or self-regulate. He already has the answer; he thinks he's smart, he either not had or has rejected formal education and thinks that his ideas are as good as anybody else's in any area of knowledge.
This man can only convince himself but unfortuantely the internet has allowed him to connect with others of a similar shaped mind so they can form an echo chamber.
It's all pretty hopeless really, people aren't built to be rational, they can only create it artificially with procedure - in this case the scientific method - and there will always those that refuse to accept it because of prior belief.
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona
"Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.