[Taxacom] evolution education

[Emily Gillespie]

Hi John,
I'm curious of a citation for the study you're describing (about how
scientists decide how to evaluate evidence). That's really
interesting!  Can you share with the list? It could be really useful
for students in evolution courses to consider this, too.

On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 12:47 PM, John Grehan <jgrehan at sciencebuff.org> wrote:
> Most people (including scientists) 'believe' that the chimpanzee is our
> nearest relative because the molecular folk say so, not because they are
> persuaded by the evidence, but rather than they have a belief that the
> evidence must be right because all the molecular authorities say so.
> Trying to distinguish between belief and faith in religion and that of
> science might be done if one sets out criteria and follows that criteria
> - if one should want to. Whether that makes any real difference or not
> is another matter.
>
> John Grehan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Frederick W.
> Schueler
> Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 12:23 PM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] evolution education
>
> On 2/7/2011 10:16 AM, fautin at ku.edu wrote:
>> I learned from Genie Scott how pernicious it is to speak or write of
>> "believing in evolution."  Unlike religion, it is not a matter of
> belief
>> -- it is a matter of persuasion by evidence.
>
> * but just as science can be diversely defined -
> http://pinicola.ca/kitchen.htm#scidef - "belief" can include the results
>
> of both faith and of persuasion (and of course every belief is a mixture
>
> of  different proportions of these).
>
> It may be nicer to say that "biological data are best explained by
> evolutionary hypotheses" but this means that one "believes that there's
> no real alternative to believing that evolution has occurred," which is
> easily blurred into the more tawdry "belief in evolution." This slides
> the phrase over towards the faith-based kind of belief embodied by
> "believe in God," or "believe in UFO's," which are rather different from
>
> "believing that Pongo is the sister-group of Homo."
>
> In this case, it's not a question of what one would write or say
> oneself, but how it's best to reply when a naive or hostile questioner
> asks: "Do you believe in evolution?"
>
> fred.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
> Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
> now in the field on the Thirty Years Later Expedition -
> http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/thirty/thirtyintro.htm
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-- 
Emily Gillespie, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Department of Biology
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC

gillesel at wfu.edu