Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

The harm is in the Illusory Truth effect, and the Continued Influence effect.

Basically, it makes you more likely to regard false information as true, and make it difficult to update your knowledge away from falsehoods. You have more success if you avoid false information in the first place.

Linda

Ah right - I dare say the Communist party in China, the Catholic Church at the height of its power, or the former USSR, and maybe NK (it isn't yet clear if they are freeing up or not) would justify their control over the media on roughly the same grounds - the need to crack down on falsehoods. I am sure they felt that they were doing what they did for the common good, and I suppose you feel the need to preserve Darwin's theory.

It is hard to find a good historical example of a movement to preserve truth that looks good with the benefit of hindsight.

A truth only remains true if it is open to challenge. I remember reading how a famous physicist (I forget who) received many letters from crackpots, and gave them to his students to answer, explaining precisely what was wrong with the ideas expressed. The idea was that by explaining the errors in other people's thinking they would strengthen their grasp of physics. 

The famous mathematician, G.H Hardy received lots of junk mail like that, and one day he opened a letter from a self taught mathematician in India - the rest is history. The scientists who hide away from debates with doubters, lose a lot of respect.

It is hard to find a good historical example of a movement to preserve truth that looks good with the benefit of hindsight.

If something is hard to find, it may be because it was buried beneath mountains of something else. That which is lost may be the most precious, or it may be worthless. But the mere fact of its loss doesn't allow us to conclude whether it was positive or negative, or neutral.

Ah right - I dare say the Communist party in China, the Catholic Church at the height of its power, or the former USSR, and maybe NK (it isn't yet clear if they are freeing up or not) would justify their control over the media on roughly the same grounds - the need to crack down on falsehoods. I am sure they felt that they were doing what they did for the common good, and I suppose you feel the need to preserve Darwin's theory.

It is hard to find a good historical example of a movement to preserve truth that looks good with the benefit of hindsight.

I’m an advocate of free speech. I’m talking about taking personal responsibility for what you fill your head with. I agree with you that attempting to “preserve truth” as a top down approach is likely to fail. Much better to teach individuals about valid and reliable information and leave it to them to choose what they want to read. 

For example, if I wish to understand the impact of a Nature paper on reconstruction of the ancestral metazoan genome and genomic novelty, I go to the article and look at the citations of that article. I then read those citations and look at what the authors have to say about the original Nature article (e.g. https://elifesciences.org/articles/38726) and its impact. I most definitely don’t go looking at a website whose agenda is to present a specific, ideologically motivated, perspective, since there will be a conflict of interest between what I am looking for (a reasonable representation of the unvarnished truth) and what they can offer ((mis)represent the results in a way which supports their ideology). Note that this applies to websites devoted to either side of a debate.

Linda

I’m an advocate of free speech. I’m talking about taking personal responsibility for what you fill your head with.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that you are attempting to take personal responsibility for what we fill our heads with - not quite the same  I don't understand why you spend your time debating with the intellectual unwashed - I guess you are to be admired for trying to help such an unworthy crowd!

I’m an advocate of free speech. I’m talking about taking personal responsibility for what you fill your head with. I agree with you that attempting to “preserve truth” as a top down approach is likely to fail. Much better to teach individuals about valid and reliable information and leave it to them to choose what they want to read. 

For example, if I wish to understand the impact of a Nature paper on reconstruction of the ancestral metazoan genome and genomic novelty, I go to the article and look at the citations of that article. I then read those citations and look at what the authors have to say about the original Nature article (e.g. https://elifesciences.org/articles/38726) and its impact. I most definitely don’t go looking at a website whose agenda is to present a specific, ideologically motivated, perspective, since there will be a conflict of interest between what I am looking for (a reasonable representation of the unvarnished truth) and what they can offer ((mis)represent the results in a way which supports their ideology). Note that this applies to websites devoted to either side of a debate.

Linda

No matter what you say or how often, these types of persons have pretty much made up their minds they are on the path of knowledge even discovered it. Hopefully though, what you say reaches the tens of thousands that only read what you've written.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that you are attempting to take personal responsibility for what we fill our heads with - not quite the same  

Wow, that’s a new one! I’m just doing the same thing as everyone else here - discussing ideas, giving an opinion, offering information, etc.

I like to collect examples of how the same behaviour is characterized when it comes from a proponent vs. a non-proponent (on the iterations of the Skeptiko forum and here).

For example, in a protracted back and forth discussion/argument, the proponent is “patient” while the non-proponent is “obstreperous”. Or if a reasonable thing is said and it’s misunderstood as something dumb, when the proponent clarifies it is accepted, apologies are given and everyone moves on. When the non-proponent clarifies, the dumb thing is doubled down on, and the non-proponent becomes a “liar” or “mentally ill” for insisting on the reasonable thing.

So now proponents are “debating” and non-proponents are “trying to control what fills your heads”.

It should be exquisitely obvious that I have no control whatsoever over what goes into the head of proponents. : I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about psi/afterlife stuff if it was otherwise, though. I realize how important these beliefs can be for people. If someone’s mind was changed, I’d be uncomfortable if I was responsible for that.

I don't understand why you spend your time debating with the intellectual unwashed

Curiosity. Optimism.

If you look more closely about what I write, it’s mostly about trying to understand the perspective of a scientist or skeptic, or what a particular bit of research shows. The only “win” for me is if someone says, “I see what you mean”. Nobody needs to agree with me. And I think I have a lot to offer from my experience and knowledge, for those who are interested in those perspectives.

Linda

Wow, that’s a new one! I’m just doing the same thing as everyone else here - discussing ideas, giving an opinion, offering information, etc.

I like to collect examples of how the same behaviour is characterized when it comes from a proponent vs. a non-proponent (on the iterations of the Skeptiko forum and here).

For example, in a protracted back and forth discussion/argument, the proponent is “patient” while the non-proponent is “obstreperous”. Or if a reasonable thing is said and it’s misunderstood as something dumb, when the proponent clarifies it is accepted, apologies are given and everyone moves on. When the non-proponent clarifies, the dumb thing is doubled down on, and the non-proponent becomes a “liar” or “mentally ill” for insisting on the reasonable thing.

So now proponents are “debating” and non-proponents are “trying to control what fills your heads”.

It should be exquisitely obvious that I have no control whatsoever over what goes into the head of proponents. : I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about psi/afterlife stuff if it was otherwise, though. I realize how important these beliefs can be for people. If someone’s mind was changed, I’d be uncomfortable if I was responsible for that.


Curiosity. Optimism.

If you look more closely about what I write, it’s mostly about trying to understand the perspective of a scientist or skeptic, or what a particular bit of research shows. The only “win” for me is if someone says, “I see what you mean”. Nobody needs to agree with me. And I think I have a lot to offer from my experience and knowledge, for those who are interested in those perspectives.

Linda

For the most part psi sympathizers are shouting eureka, while you me and others are saying hold on there for a minute and let's be sure.

For the most part psi sympathizers are shouting eureka, while you me and others are saying hold on there for a minute and let's be sure.

What’s interesting, as we saw in the “Message from Mom” thread, is that saying, “hold on there for a minute, let’s be sure” is either allowed or denigrated depending upon whether the speaker is in-group or out (in that case the in-group speaker was the one doing the denigrating when you said the same as them).

Linda

I do think, in fairness, there is a strong motivation among some ID advocates to preserve a place for God.

However this to me seems like a great error, as elucidated by [Catholic theologian] Feser there is nothing [definitively] of God to be found in ID:

Signature in the cell? 


(See also Where's God?)

OTOH, the nobel physicist Josephson did suggest we all read Signature in the Cell at the end of one of his lectures about his own ideas...was years ago so but I'll try to find which one that was...

Not sure the lecture is still available, but Josephson did mention ID in one of his Closer to Truth interviews.

If you scroll down you can get all the interviews which were conducted on the subject of "Evolution & God?"

Nagel had an interesting paper regarding teleology and ID, will try to find...