Tricia

I finally found it! BWAHAHAH! I've been looking for Weiner's book all over the place and I finally bought it at Border's. I'm interested in reading it, seeing as how it got a pulitzer prize.

~Tricia

Arrowman

Hi ilgwamh - One of the pieces you quoted struck a chord with me, and I have started a thread on the subject: Is Theology legitimate Science or Philosophy?

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000595" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000595</a>

Please feel free to join in if you like.

RufusAtticus

Excellent! It's one of the books my department uses to teach Evolutionary Biology. I have still have my copy so we can discuss sections if you wish, (preferably in a new thread ).

~~RvFvS~~

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]</p>

KC

I have a copy as well as one of Peter Grant's 'Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches'-- which should help if further detail is needed.

Cheers,

KC

KeithHarwood

Getting back to the original topic, here is another hint that evolution is not a religion. In religions the older the book is, the better. Just look at the number of posts in BC&A talking about the dating of the gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts. This is because religions depend on a prophet, someone who has had a revelation. The assumption is that the nearer you get to what that person had to say the more accurately you understand the revelation. This is true even of newly invented religions such as scientology and wicca.

In science, on the other hand, the older a book is the more it is deprecated. No one who wants to understand evolution reads Darwin or Wallace or anything before, say, 1980. The assumption is that the nearer you get to the present day the more refined the theories are and the more evidence there is to support them and the more accurately you understand the subject.

Quetzal

Keith: I think you're absolutely correct. I've long maintained that the reason for creationists' love for "argument from authority" arises from the same roots. The "word of the prophet(s)", personal "witnessing" etc. are crucial to their worldview. Since you can never deny or question an individual's "witness" under that system, by extension if anyone says something it must be taken as "gospel" - and hence not open to disagreement. At least if that someone is an "authority" of some kind...

RufusAtticus

Trica,

How's the summer reading going?

Starboy

Hmmmmm, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't one of the hallmarks of a religion that the followers take its teachings to be true without question. It is difficult for me to see how if someone is doing real evolution science and testing predictions of the theory that they could be considered to be accepting it without question. Now I suppose there are people that are not scientists that could be religious evolutionists, but if they exists doesn’t it indicate that a better job of teaching the public about the process of science is needed (i.e. less science fact and more science method and critical thinking)?

Starboy

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: gkochanowsky ]</p>

Tricia

It's going. Unfortunately, I can't seem to stop reading those darn WOT books. I've only read a couple of chaps of the book by Weiner, but I'll try to read some more today.

~Tricia