Telling fact from fiction

[ignoramus]

I don't have disbelief in science, although I don't believe every claim of scientists just based on authority.  I have come to question some of the evidence of evolution, just because I have found out, that their evidence wasn't quite what they alluded to.   When someone is making all sorts of claims about how a creature walked, and daily life, and then I find that this is based on the evidence of a partial jaw bone, then I think that is questionable.  Therefore I question what the claims are based on.    But I don't feel the need to see for myself every fossil, and piece of evidence, I just ask what they are basing their claim on.  I do tend to believe what they say they have seen, and others have confirmed, or there is other independent evidence supporting.

That's actually good!
If only you applied the same level of scepticism and critical thinking towards the God theory, you'd be an atheist.
And we don't even have a partial God bone either!

[RoadRunner79]

I don't have disbelief in science, although I don't believe every claim of scientists just based on authority.  I have come to question some of the evidence of evolution, just because I have found out, that their evidence wasn't quite what they alluded to.   When someone is making all sorts of claims about how a creature walked, and daily life, and then I find that this is based on the evidence of a partial jaw bone, then I think that is questionable.  Therefore I question what the claims are based on.    But I don't feel the need to see for myself every fossil, and piece of evidence, I just ask what they are basing their claim on.  I do tend to believe what they say they have seen, and others have confirmed, or there is other independent evidence supporting.

That's actually good!
If only you applied the same level of scepticism and critical thinking towards the God theory, you'd be an atheist.
And we don't even have a partial God bone either!

What makes you think I'm not skeptical and apply critical thinking?   Because I don't come to the same conclusion as you?

[Cyberman]

Please, share with us some of this scepticism and critical thinking. It might prove instructional.

[bennyboy]

I could potentially see those things, but I think there are some problems with your hypothesis.

It's not a hypothesis. It's a definition of process.

The list of things, that I haven't experienced for myself is large.   I could go to Sweden, but what about all the other odd and different cultural differences.   Not to mention all the unique and odd creatures I see on Nat Geo and Discovery Channel.   I could go back to school to learn about evolution, but would I actually see evolution occur?   And what about the other subjects I'm interested in (physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, archeology, and geology.   I may be able to see fossils, that some say you can infer evolution, but I can't see many of the claims in evolution demonstrated.   Perhaps you are independently wealthy, and have a lot of free time.   But, I have a business to run, and not enough money to do all those things; not to mention the other things I would be neglecting.  Perhaps you can fund me!

I'm with you to a degree on evolution. It's not a thing, and it doesn't "exist." It's a description of the statistical interactions between patterns than emerge from chaos, and the time over which they emerge. When you talk about the genetic evolution of species, then you are stuck making inferences based on phenotypes: certain animals have very similar bone structures, etc. etc.

So then the reproducibility problem I cited a while ago (from the journal nature), is a very large problem, in science, and a good deal of science is fiction.  This also brings up another problem that history is largely unrepeatable.   I need to gather all the facts, and determine how they go together to figure out what the best explanation of the evidence is.   This is largely what I was proposing, and you seem to disagree with.   I cannot repeat history, and I don't think that I need to understand how the pyramids where built (without modern machinery), to know that they where.   It may be unbelievable, that they could do this, at this time, but the pyramids being there, is evidence.  And I haven't even seen the great pyramids of Egypt for myself.  Even many of these fossils , while I may be able to see the fossils ( if they exist )  I may not have seen them removed, and much of the evidence that is used for dating them.

Reproducibility isn't really a problem in that sense. Science isn't black or white-- you take the best evidence you can collect, then make theories about it. Okay, so you dig up a bunch of dinosaur bones, look for patterns, and arise at the conclusion that some species are closely related. You compare them to birds, and see how bird species are related, and the idea of ancestry and species variegation makes a lot of sense.

But here's the thing-- the theories only come up as a response to evidence. It is increasingly good evidence which allows us to refine or discard theories. Even with regard to history, we dig up new Egyptian sites all the time, and new ideas are drawn and tested.

There's no NEED for a theory about Jesus, or in general, God, because there's no evidence popping up which is best explained by those ideas. Nor is there much opportunity to collect more information and refine religious ideas based on the application of critical thought.

I don't have disbelief in science, although I don't believe every claim of scientists just based on authority.  I have come to question some of the evidence of evolution, just because I have found out, that their evidence wasn't quite what they alluded to.   When someone is making all sorts of claims about how a creature walked, and daily life, and then I find that this is based on the evidence of a partial jaw bone, then I think that is questionable.  Therefore I question what the claims are based on.    But I don't feel the need to see for myself every fossil, and piece of evidence, I just ask what they are basing their claim on.  I do tend to believe what they say they have seen, and others have confirmed, or there is other independent evidence supporting.

I think you've read Christian accounts of the evidence on evolution. These tend to go on very old or inaccurate information: what evolution IS, or exactly how evolutionists refine their views. Evolution is a convergent idea-- this means that a variety of different observations point to the theory. One example is vestigial organs-- they are a poor example of Design and a good example of what would happen if a species had to adapt to an environment in which that organ was no longer advantageous. Another is (as I mentioned) the very clear similarity of species over millions of years, and the way in which other species either arise or disappear.

If you actually read a proper book on evolution, from cover to cover, in which the history of the theory of evolution is described, and hundreds upon hundreds of examples illustrated, then you'd have a hard time arguing against it, I think.

Now here's the clincher though-- all this data doesn't contradict the God idea. It doesn't contest the reality of a divine Creator. What it does is sheds light on things like Genesis, showing them to be parables or metaphors rather than literal truths. And I think for a Christian to arrive at this conclusion, based on a sincere study of the universe, is the most honestly God-seeking thing he can do. In my opinion, a sincere Christian should take much of the Bible as parable, and look for truth in a way that is more truth-producing: careful observation and analysis of reality. This is much more in accord with the idea of a living God, for whom literally everything in the universe should be taken as evidence, than is the tendency to dwell on the scriptures of ancient desert-dwellers who lived more than 2000 years ago.

[Angrboda]

Sooner or later you're going to come up against the fact that for a child, there are a lot more Swedens than they will ever possibly visit. One thing I notice is not on this list is if a trusted adult says it is true, then it likely is fact. This is probably one of the most important sources of knowledge for a child. But it's based on trust and faith, neither of which is a surefire index of the truth. So in having this 'talk' with your child, do you tell them to trust their parents, teachers, and other adult authority figures (like scientists)? This certainly puts the child at the whim of what the adults believe, but I don't see any other practical solution. (Ever have a neighbor who told tall tales to your children? What do you tell your children? Most likely simply not to trust so-and-so. These rules don't come into play. What if your neighbor is a creationist, or simply has different religious beliefs from you?)

So, is what a child's parent tells them is true a good guide to what is fact?

[robvalue]

That sounds like a slightly different subject to me. I don't think I'd tell me kids to blindly believe anyone, but I might tell them that in certain situations it's important to trust so and so.

I might discuss the kind of people who are likely to be reliable, but I'd still want to develop critical thinking by examining what the person is saying. Like if someone offers to show you their pet dragon, you have a red flag.

I'd never tell them to blindly believe me, that would be an abandonment of teaching critical thinking.

[bennyboy]

Sooner or later you're going to come up against the fact that for a child, there are a lot more Swedens than they will ever possibly visit.   One thing I notice is not on this list is if a trusted adult says it is true, then it likely is fact.  This is probably one of the most important sources of knowledge for a child.  But it's based on trust and faith, neither of which is a surefire index of the truth.  So in having this 'talk' with your child, do you tell them to trust their parents, teachers, and other adult authority figures (like scientists)?  This certainly puts the child at the whim of what the adults believe, but I don't see any other practical solution.  (Ever have a neighbor who told tall tales to your children?  What do you tell your children?  Most likely simply not to trust so-and-so.  These rules don't come into play.  What if your neighbor is a creationist, or simply has different religious beliefs from you?)

So, is what a child's parent tells them is true a good guide to what is fact?

^

This is the source of most of the world's grief, IMO: that children cannot possibly know that many of their parents' factual assertions are based on magical monkey farts, and not on a superior knowledge of reality.

In some ways, children know MORE than their parents: they at least still have the capacity to see reality pretty much as it is, and to draw basic inferences, for example that the emperor is naked, and is NOT in fact wearing wonderful new clothes.

As a teacher, I sometimes have students confidently say really stupid shit to me: for example, we had a full-on outbreak of MERS in our town (about 50 died in Korea, I believe) last year. Some kid comes and tells me, "My mother says that we didn't get MERS because we ate lots of kimchi," and wouldn't listen to me say anything else about washing hands, wearing masks, etc. Fuck me if I don't think there were a couple hundred just in my district who told their kids that Jesus saved them.

[bennyboy]

I might discuss the kind of people who are likely to be reliable, but I'd still want to develop critical thinking by examining what the person is saying. Like if someone offers to show you their pet dragon, you have a red flag.

Why do people always keep their pet dragons in the back of 1980's Whose the Boss-style vans?  And why do they never invite ME to see them?
Man, kids get all the breaks these days.