Stabby-

If one has no education in the fields of Chemistry, physics and math, would evolution be counter-intuitive?

What does science teach about world view, that allows for evolutionary thought. What intuitions does a scientific education instill?

Must one grasp those intuitions before conducting a valid complaint of evolution and its natural selection mechanisms?

Stabby------

Quetzal

Hi Stabby. I personally find chemistry, physics and math to be counterintuitive. I suppose it depends on how you've been raised and how your mind works. I find the explanations of the development of interrelationships among modern organisms provided by ToE and its mechanisms to be totally intuitive. In a broad sense, it's actually fairly easy to understand. All you need is a certain amount of exposure to the natural world and a desire to ask "why". ToE is such an elegant theory that we can use it to explain a whole continuum of relationships from the microscopic level to changes in populations and ecosystems to biodiversity.

I'm not sure a scientific education instills intuition. Rather, it provides a methodology for undertaking to understand the world we live in. The "scientific method" can be used in everyday life to examine claims of advertisers, debunk scam artists (or politicians - same thing), etc. It's a worldview that eliminates (or attempts to eliminate) nonsense, irrationality, and superstition. For those purposes, it's the best thing going. It doesn't, however, try and answer questions of "purpose" (why are we here?) or ultimate Truth (TM). It also has little to state about destiny (where are we going?). Science leaves those questions to the philosophers.

Weeeell, depends on what you want to do. If you are attempting to refute 150 years of scientific research and testing, then you're going to have to spend a whole LOT of time studying before you can even begin to understand what you are arguing against. If you simply want to understand the ideas, you can probably get away with reading some good references on the subject. After all, you don't have to understand the chemical evolution of a specific metabolic pathway to understand the basic idea behind how it could have developed. OTOH, if you're going to try and refute the naturalistic explanation, you'd better have some real science behind you - and that requires a lot of work.

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HRGruemm

"Must" is probably an exaggeration; but IMHO having learned and understood relativity gives you a good impression for the limitations of our "common sense".

Regards,
HRG.

DMB

The distinguished embryologist Lewis Wolpert has written a whole book called The Unnatural Nature of Science (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674929810/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">here</a>). He suggests that science does not constitute a natural mode of thought for human beings. Perhaps that explains why so many fundies find it hard to get their heads round it.


[Edited by Oolon for Infidels / Amazon link]

[ January 21, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

butswana

Not only fundies. Most people don't know jack-shit about science or the natural world. From my experience, you have to want to know about this stuff to begin with. It requires that one THINK. The closest most get to science is that geek Ross on "Friends", who works in a museum. Pretty sad, actually.
My 12 year old was telling me that her science teacher was getting agitated with her because she kept interupting class to correct her(they are studying evolution). Apparently, she is teaching straight out of the textbook. Her classmates loved "The Evolution Book". A few even said they wished thier parents would by them books like that. The kids think evolution is cool!

Mageth

Bad teacher, that. If a student shows initiative and understands the subject well enough to recognize errors, as a teacher, I'd do everything I could to encourage the student, and use him/her as an example to the other students of the value of questioning and how to think for yourself and not take everything you're told, or read, at face value.

[ January 17, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

The Resistance

I don't know. But for me, once I was told the basic ideas behind evolution like antural selection, it made sense. I would think it'd make sense to anyone... else of course they had some sort of relgiious hangup.

Viti

I'm with The Resistance...I have only a high school education, but the basic idea of evolution made much more sense to me than the silly creation story. I don't know everything there is to know, but what I do know just seems to ring true.

Stabby-

Thanks for the replys all.

So, is the Evolution/Creation Debate, not really debate but forced education? Should the US vs. THEM model therefore be rejected? People don't learn when they are distracted by the debate format: trying to find weaknesses, thinking of other things, entrenching their position. This is what happens in these debates as they occur today.

What new model of communictation could we use? How would it be introduced?

Should there be a Basic Evolution Competency test that one needs to pass before they try to "debate?" Those who fail are instructed to keep on studying?

Stabby----

CodeMason

All we need is a patrick vs. flood geologist debate and the matter will be settled.