Jehova's Witnesses

[tj_rowe]

Jehova's Witnesses just knocked on my door to pass out their magazine about creationism vs evolution. And they used the 'b' word. They're probably the same sort of people that say 'I don't believe in gay people' - they're going to keep existing whether you believe in them or not!

You not understanding a thing (and the hardcore atheists like fucking Richard Dawkins using religious language to describe geeky stuff REALLY doesn't help) doesn't mean that the thing doesn't work, wtf. I don't understand the stock market, but I'm sure I would if I read 'the stock market for dummies'. However, doing so is not at the top of my list of priorities. I said that an explaination of how evolution actually works as a mechanism could be found in any GCSE biology textbook, after asking 'what do you mean by that?' whenever they made a factually wrong assertion and they got quite flustered.

And then I told them that I'm a pagan and asked whether they cared about tree spirits.

Comments

[adk104.livejournal.com]

What's the "B word"? This may be obvious but I'm quite curious.

[tamerterra.livejournal.com]

'Believe'. As in 'Some people BELIEVE in evolution'... -_-;;

(Also, I totally forgot to pass along the details I meant to on Sunday. Are you going to be there tomorrow?)

[clericalkender.livejournal.com]

Er... what's the problem with that?

Science is all about "believing". Or, alternatively, "guessing". You can never prove a theory right, you can only prove it wrong. Probably more obvious historically in physics than in biology, but the idea that even the best-loved theories of the day can be proved wrong by experimental evidence and then modified or scrapped completely is pretty much the point of the scientific method. Knowing that we "believe", rather than "know", is what makes it science, rather than tradition.

(It might be obvious - this is a rant that I care about a lot. Richard Dawkins doesn't annoy me by his claim to completely dismiss faith - that's up to him and if he actually stuck to it I'd have no problem with it. He annoys me by treating science like a religion and claiming it can find "truth" - it's in complete contradiction to the way he treats other people's religions, it's an insult to everything science should be AND HE'S TEACHING PEOPLE TO THINK THAT'S WHY SCIENCE IS GOOD! GAH!)

Unless you mean something different than I do by belief, I guess.

Er... spot the philosophy of science graduate... *shifty eyes*

[clericalkender.livejournal.com]

Although, having re-read the original post, it seems more likely you're meaning belief in the sense of "opinion held regardless of sense and that the holder is unable or unwilling to defend rationally", rather than in the sense of "opinion held that the holder isn't confident enough of to call knowledge". I tend to default to using (and assuming other people are using) the second definition, which makes it totally not an insult to rational people.

But yeah. Other people sometimes mean that other thing, because language. In which case, those guys should probably just stop being allowed to talk to people.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

The preachy door-to-door myth peddlers mean the "blind faith" form of "believe," even when speaking of scientific principles.

I can look at bacteria under a microscope, I can map an entire genome, I can observe developmental biology in embryos of any species of my choosing. I can take empirical measurements to support scientific statements. That's not "belief" in the way the preachy folks mean it. When they use the term "believe in evolution," they're trying to bring science down to the same discussion platform as "belief in creationism," pretending that one belief is equivalent to the other. They're intentionally clouding the fact that one is blind faith, with no empirical evidence, and the other is FACT-based, empirically supported, testable, and observable. One is "I believe" and the other is "I observe."

Science is not about "guessing," and the fact that you even said that indicates that your understanding of the scientific method is flawed. A hypothesis is an educated guess based on observation, BUT nobody mistakes a hypothesis for a fact or a theory. Facts must be proven. Theories require vast amounts of evidence. No blind faith or random guesswork is necessary or welcomed in the process.

The problem with language in this case is not that words have multiple meanings. The problem is when people who have no grasp of science, like these Jehova's Witnesses, try to apply non-scientific definitions to science terms. They hear "theory" and they want to pretend it's wild guesswork, calling it "belief" instead of observation.

You said you personally define belief to mean "opinion held that the holder isn't confident enough of to call knowledge." If that's how you're using it, then that word STILL has no place in a scientific discussion. When scientists work on theories such as evolution, it's not opinion, and I would ABSOLUTELY say that the scientific community is confident enough, BASED ON EVIDENCE, to call it knowledge. When a scientist presents research, they don't have an opinion - they have facts, and they know.

[clericalkender.livejournal.com]

Huh?

So... when Newton defined the laws of motion, is that knowledge? Cause it's a pretty awesome theory, based on observation and testing and stuff, that works in most cases, and yes, I'm a physicist and I know just how useful Newton's laws are for working stuff out, and how much stuff has been done with them that we couldn't have done without. We still use them all the time today, because they WORK. But...

They're not knowledge. Know why? Because they're not true. They only work because they're a pretty good approximation of how stuff works under very specific circumstances (macroscopic objects moving at fairly low speeds).

So then we have Einstein's laws, which are more general, and therefore more useful in some circumstances (but we still use Newton's when the approximation is good enough, because the maths is easier). But the only reason we have progressed to those is that the scientific community is willing to ADMIT THAT THEY COULD BE WRONG. If not for that, we'd still be stuck with Newton, and completely unable to model anything very small, or very fast, or even very accurately. A sensible hypothesis, based on observation, is that the latest theory could also, in time, be proved flawed. The greatest scientists throughout history have been the ones who looked at the theories of the day, and looked at the evidence, and thought, "Yes, that explains X, but I can explain X,Y, and Z if I scrap it and do THIS instead".

I'm not in any way trying to diminish science by using words like "guessing", and I certainly wasn't intending to imply any kind of randomness or flippancy in the process (though historically, random guesswork has worked spectacularly well a few times). I'm more trying to emphasize (though exaggeration, hence the g-word) the wonderful, genius power of rational thought that allows scientists to consider the idea that they and everyone else might be wrong. Not only that, but they can take something being proved wrong and count it not as a failure, but as a great victory in our understanding of the universe.

Again, I think it might be a language fail that has us misunderstanding each other. When I say "theory" or "law" in the context of physics, I usually mean "model that gives useful predictions". When I say "knowledge", I mean "justified true belief". The TRUE bit is what is important here. Under the parameters in which they apply, Newton's theories hold. For a long time, people believed that they always did. That wasn't knowledge, because it isn't true. They had just never yet observed any situations in which the laws failed them. It is pure hubris (and terrible science) to assume that just because our current theory is better, it is the best it can possibly be. At some point, someone else could find a situation in which it doesn't work, and come up with an even better set of rules that are even more general. And that will be brilliant. It still won't be provably universal, but it will be a tiny step closer. And that is awesome.

Er... that's a pretty massive derailment. Sorry, Stacey. I'll shut up now.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Okay, I see where you're coming from, and we're in agreement but just hashing semantics. No worries. We're talking minuscule differences in what terms mean in science, and at the core of it, we agree. And yes, as technology improves and our ability to test new things increases, we change our working models. Still, I hold to the point that whenever I've encountered the super-religious door-to-door preachers, when they say "belief," they MEAN blind faith. As a fellow scientist (I happen to be a biologist), I'd hope you'd agree that science isn't blind faith, even if our conclusions are not always 100% accurate due to the limitations of technology and human perception.

As a physicist, in regards to the "Theory of Gravity," I'm wager that you'd say that even though physicists are still trying to hash out the details of how gravity functions, you'd never doubt that gravity EXISTS, as we've seen the effects repeatedly, in everything from dropping your keys on the table to the motion of celestial bodies in orbit. Same thing with evolution. We've seen it in action again and again, and at this point, biologists also know the mechanisms of HOW it works, too. Still hashing out the fine details, of course, and we expect new information will come about and modify parts of the theory, but denying that evolution exists as a force in biology would be like denying the existence of gravity altogether. THAT is what the door-to-door myth peddlers are trying to promote.

Anyway, sorry for getting bristly. I hadn't had my coffee yet. Tis another law of the universe - Mijan before coffee is squirrely.

[tamerterra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean the first one. I believe/have faith in a lot of things that have no rational basis whatsoever except that I feel them to be right, and those are generally the things that I won't pull into a conversation unless it's with someone likeminded, and I'm not going to try and convince anyone of them either, because that would either be impossible or involve overwriting their own feelings on the matter.

(And yes, so much word and agreement on the Dawkins rant.)

[mijan.livejournal.com]

"And then I told them that I'm a pagan and asked whether they cared about tree spirits."

EPIC WIN.

Seriously, those people drive me nuts. It's bad enough that they don't "believe" in evolution, but then they try to corrupt other people... it's practically criminal, in my book.