What's the best strategy for defending evolution?

I don't think it's necessary to trick people into accepting evolution; if one believes that evolution is not consistent with religious faith then they should be free to say so. They should make every effort to make it understood that that position is a seperate question from "is evolution accurate?" but no matter how often a person does that, their opponents will surely conflate their arguments to equate evolution with atheism.Evolution is inconsistent with fundamentalism, and fundamentalists don't really seem to draw much of a distinction between moderate believers and atheists. These comments are a misguided attempt by religious moderates to placate fundamentalists who can never be placated. And predictably it's happening at the expense of atheists, whose views must once again be silenced.The battle isn't one of tricking people of faith into accepting evolution. The battle is one of teaching people to think rationally, scientifically, about the world they live in. Of what possible use is it to believe in evolution just because somebody told you that you were allowed to? We're trying to get people to think about the world in a rational way, not present evolution in a light that seems acceptable to a superstitous mode of thought.

Only if one stipulates that one's religious beliefs be logical. I don't see any indication that this has to be the case. Maybe it is for you, though. Are you an atheist, too?

I disagree. People want to think this way. The idea that rationality and critical thinking are virtues is instilled in us from a very early age in our culture. People want to be able to approach things this way but they don't often know how.The evolution debate gives us an opportunity to do that, because it's the perfect example of emotionally-comforting falsehoods on one side and scientifically-supported, ominous truths on the other. I think that's absolutely a mistake. For one thing, we'll never be as good at lying as the creationists are. You can't lie for truth; you'll get caught every time. And when you do it makes people wonder "if what he was trying to get across was true, why did he have to lie to do it?" There are some groups that the American people simply won't allow to use underhanded tactics, groups like science and the Democratic party. It's unfair but true. Lying and deciet are tools that Americans will only allow Republicans and creationists to employ.

I don't think evolutionists should even respond to such an accusation. Shepherding people's faith isn't the job of scientists. If someone's faith can't withstand reality then there's not much we can do about that. They were going to run headlong into something they couldn't reconcile with their fundamentalism, anyway."The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected." - H.L. Mencken

Do you really believe it's that hard to substantiate the theory of evolution? That it really takes years of study? I mean, seriously? I've never seen an anti-evolutionist come up with an argument that withstood even cursory examination here on this forum, and the vast majority of us here don't have degrees in biology. I don't even have a degree in anything, yet. That doesn't explain why many, many people who are not scientists can so easily defend the theory against the arrayed forces of religionism.You know, many people - just about everyone - accept the statements of their doctors with literally no ability to assess the results of tests or diagnoses on their own. Does that make all of America "medicists?" We hire lawyers to navigate the minefields of the criminal and civil legal codes, because we often can't understand legal machinations without years of study - are Americans largely "counselists"? Is that "lawyerism"?It's not faith that we have in scientists, or doctors, or lawyers; it's trust. Trust, because our continued acceptance in their conclusions is contingent on those conclusions being borne out. Trust is what you have when something hasn't let you down before. Faith is what you have in spite of being let down. There are relatively few things I have faith in, and science isn't one of them. I have plenty of trust in science, however, because science gets results. That which does not exist cannot, of course, go away. Everyone is a scientist, about some things at least. Absolutely everyone recognizes the utility of empiricism for learning certain things about the world. Indeed the only people who don't recognize the superiority of empiricism in regards to knowing things are the people with ultimate faith in philosophy - philosophists? - like yourself, who are far more committed to the destruction of knowledge than to its increase.

No, it's called "trust". I'd like to point out that I did anticipate this argument to some degree:

quote:

---

It's not faith that we have in scientists, or doctors, or lawyers; it's trust. Trust, because our continued acceptance in their conclusions is contingent on those conclusions being borne out. Trust is what you have when something hasn't let you down before. Faith is what you have in spite of being let down. There are relatively few things I have faith in, and science isn't one of them. I have plenty of trust in science, however, because science gets results.

---

Well, except for the results. I mean, either you get better, or you don't. If your doctors conclusions don't result in you getting better, you usually go to another doctor.If your lawyer's advice doesn't pan out, you hire a different lawyer. But religions have built-in explanations for their utter failure to actually bring about what they claim they were going to bring about, so it's pretty rare that anybody gets a second opinion on their religion. In fact one of the prized aspects of religious faith is that you keep believing even when it seems like you're just not getting results (see "Footprints.")

It's like the old canard "God always answers prayer; it's just that sometimes the answer is 'No.'"

But this has already been rebutted. It's honestly not that hard to be sufficiently educated. It takes a high school education in biology. Spoken like someone who has never taken a math class. Probability deals with open-ended system all the time. Ever seen a normalized distribution? This is exactly the sort of nonsense I would expect from the adherents of philosophism - a dogma perversly obsessed with what other people don't know and completely unconcerned with actually generating knowledge of their own.Iano your post is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's a lot of words that don't add up to anything, mostly because they're based on a complete ignorance of how science is actually done.

As to what, exactly? "Objective truth or fact"? Could you define those terms, please?

Oh, I get it now. You're not saying that evolution is hard; you're just saying that American kids are mouth-breathing dumbasses.Gotcha. Much clearer, now.