From: riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 4 Sep 92 02:42:13 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: U.S Engineer Topographic Labs, ATD, Ft. Belvoir, VA

In article <laa4qsINNftk@news.bbn.com> ingria@BBN.COM writes:
>In article <1285@tecsun1.etl.army.mil> riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs) writes:
>
>	   But is creationism bad science ? I am convinced that one can
>   take the exact same set of data that exists now, and by changing the
>   fundamental assumptions on which the theory is based, come up with a
>   different conclusion.
>
>Care to drop the other shoe and let us know which assumptions and what
>changes?  Without that information, there is nothing to discuss, and
>the above statement has no more content than a National Enquirer
>headline.
>
>			 My assertion of this has really sent the people
>   who care about this stuff into orbit.
>
>Because it's a mere assertion.  It's sort of like someone saying that
>he's convinced that somewhere there is evidence that the Japanese
>didn't bomb Pearl Harbor, it was really a raid staged by Roosevelt to
>get us into the war.  Without any support, this is just a loony
>assertion.
>
>Note, by the way, that your claim at the beginning of the cited
>paragraph is actually much milder than what you originally said, which
>is:
>
>======================================================================
>
>As a historian, I would not hang my hat on evolution. There is not
>enough data there to prove beans. Whether Darwin was right or not depends
>quite solely on his ability to have made a calculated scientific 
>wild-ass guess.
>
>======================================================================
>
>	In the first paragraph cited above, you at least grant that
>there is data to be explained Your initial charge, cited here, denied
>there was any data to be explained.  So your claim that it was your
>assertion that there was a better explanation for the data that caused
>people to go ballistic is disingenuous at best.  What was it Big Daddy
>said about the aroma of mendacity?

	Leave it to a BBN man to cut out the baloney and get right
to the point.

	Or to cut through my rhetoric...

	In fact , the two statements only appear to differ. The key is
the lead-in "as a historian". If you look closely, the way I've been 
defining history precludes events which occur prior to human
observation. I've been going 'round and 'round with Matt Wiener on this
basically semantical issue. Call it mendacity if you like...

	As far as changing one's assumptions are concerned, I agree
with you that it is a relatively trivial point, BUT -

	Look at how we educate young people to learn about 
biology in high school. Where is the chapter on the theory of
evolution ? Chapter 1, right ? AFTER you get past the triolobites
and the pterodactyles and the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, then
comes Chapters 3 through X, wherein you learn all the supporting
data. Somewhere between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, the student switches
from "historical science" to "experimental science" - that is from
dissecting frogs and getting fruit flies to breed - and from deductive
logic based axioms to inductive logic based on experimentation.

	Something gets lost in the shuffle.

	There are a few students lost to science in Chapter 1 - because
they can't buy the logic of evolution. But there are a lot more students
lost in the transition between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, because they 
haven't picked up the ability to form their own hypotheses based on
available data, and to prove or disprove them. The purists in this crowd
would classify yours truly in that group.


	Here's a radical suggestion: Forget about the school board and
the PTA. Forget that there are creationist ministers outside the gates
trying to destroy the truth. DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT. Take all the 
information in Chapter 1 and move it to the end of the book. At the 
end of the school year, run through thst last chapter and teach
evolution as a THEORY, not proven fact. Then, in the last test, ask
a single question..."Take a position on the theory of evolution and
justify your position based on the information covered this year."


	I wonder what kind of answers we'd see...


	Bill R.


	"My opinions do not represent those of my employer or any
government agency."
-- 
Bill R.
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:15117 alt.alien.visitors:6165 talk.religion.newage:4090