A charge has been made that evolution seems to be a popular religion here at TSZ and that it is difficult to separate the ideology from the science.
No specific example was given to support that claim. But as it’s an interesting claim in and of itself I thought it deserved it’s own OP, and perhaps some specific examples can be provided and then discussed.
The reason I think it’s interesting is that I don’t think that’s the case at all, I can’t see any examples of where evolution is treated like a religion at TSZ so I’m unable to provide any examples of such.
I’m hoping that those that do can provide examples.
Trolling troll is trolling.
Retard alert.
Why do you bother?
Retard confirmed.
(I guess these are not really examples of religion. But home schooled anyway).
I swear on my copy of the Origin of Species that it won’t happen again.
Glen Davidson
“Evolution is a religion” — yes, that’s a standard criticism from creationists.
To be fair, though, they probably do see it as a religion. We all say similar things, and what we say doesn’t make sense to them.
Perhaps if they would learn a bit more about evolution — well, forget it, because that won’t happen.
Let’s be explicit about who made the claim:
Mung:
Your evidence for that claim, Mung?
If we wanted this conversation to be productive, we’d have to have some understanding of what an ideology is and what makes ideology different from a scientific theory.
Kantian Naturalist,
Good idea. Per WikI
I’d say, at the risk of oversimplifying, that in an ideology, the evidence flows from the conclusions, and in science the conclusions flow from the evidence.
I would like to see the alternative history proposed by folks who think evolution is a religion.
Skip over, for the moment, the business of causes. Just tell us what happened, and when.
Evolution is the ideology that binds all of us together, Patrick, Waldo, and everybody else.
It’s just so obvious.
Glen Davidson
I am a creationist but also disagree/dislike the claim evolution is a religion. Just as organized creationism is not a religion.
We need a better analysis of ideas and conclusions and evidence.
Conclusions based on religion ALWAYS mean they are based on evidence from a witness like God(s). Not from visable evidence. Even the bible says this.
Evolutionism claims to be based on visable evidence on earth. So its not a religion.
So why the accusations?
BECAUSE each party claims the other party is not basing conclusions on evidence but on a faith in a conclusion already claimed.
The evolutionist is charged with not thinking things through and presuming their teachers are right. SO A RELIGION!
Organized creationism (ID/YEC/other evo critics) also is charged as a religion but is not.
Both parties claim and do use the evidence of this visable universe.
YEC ‘s extra witness only starts things off but we debunk evos on visable evidence concepts.
Everybody is really bitching the other side/persons don’t realize their presumptions/bias are dominating their thinking and so conclusions.
YES everybody does that and YEX can accuse everybody else.
nevertheless evolutionism or organized creationism are claimed and indeed are NOT religious investigations.
American goofball courts need to learn this too. Canada too but Canada is hopeless on anything that matters.
No evos/creos are not doing religion but yES we do conclusions based on presumptions without material evidence.
The problem is this thread is asking for examples of people basing claims for evolution on faith rather then evidence. And nobody has been able to provide such, not even phoodoo! I’m sure Mung will be along shortly to provide evidence for his claim, probably got delayed on the train or something….
So now you’ve quoted something do you agree or disagree with Mung’s claim as specified in the OP and linked in this thread? If so, can you give an example of where evolution is treated like a religion at TSZ?
I guess in religion claims without evidence are par for the course, this may explain why some make such claims with no intent to support them – they’ve never had to before!
One sign of an ideology is being blind to it.
OMagain,
An example of evolution as an ideology is in its definitions. Homology Per Wiki:
Homology comes from the ideology of common descent not the experimental evidence that two species genes share ancestry.
What biologic mechanisms have experimentally been shown to produce “shared genes”?
It takes quite an ideological commitment to deny the evidence that shared vertebrate genes typically come from common ancestors in the wild
So yes, there is ideology involved in science denial, unless you prefer to just call it theology, which is more correct.
Glen Davidson
Another Mung fail.
He blurts out a claim, then can’t back it up.
OMagain,
I think Glen has provided support for Mung’s claim.
Isn’t homology observational evidence of the mechanism of common descent? It could be argued less convincingly that it is evidence of common design.
It could be argued so have you
It would appear that TSZ is chock full of ideologues. That’s what the “park your priors” is probably all about.
Mung:
It would appear, once again, that you can’t back up your claim:
Aren’t you tired of failing, Mung?
Wow, you can accuse without reason or sense.
Nothing new, of course.
Have you had an open mind about anything, ever?
Glen Davidson
I used to have an open mind about whether or not Glen has an open mind. But he keeps slamming the door shut. Post after post.
You haven’t read my post on the subject? Jonathan Wells and Homology. You really ought to pay attention to these things.
I notice again that you are using “experimental” as a mantra. How many times has it been explained to you that not all science involves experiments? Would it help to point out that I did my DNA sequencing in a laboratory, with test tubes and everything, and that I sometimes even wore a white coat? Very sciency.
Mung,
Perhaps it’s just not there to see. Given your total inability to provide examples that is the logical conclusion.
Be explicit.
The honorable thing to do in that case is….Oh, what’s the point. It’s Mung!
Have you colewd? Read it?
Mung,
Feel free to explain why. Or not. Either way, I’m sure you make baby Jesus proud with every post. Post after post.
OMagain,
Yes, I have read this before and just re read. Do you believe that John has a valid test for common ancestry. If you do please explain why? We should start with a definition of what common ancestry means. Do you have one?
OMagain,
I think resorting to ad hominem arguments supports Mung’s claim. If you have the facts on your side you don’t need to do this and therefore it is evidence you are defending ideology.
How are they related in any way whatsoever? Do you dispute the facts of the matter? The facts are plain, Mung makes a claim, Mung does not support that claim. He will not withdraw the claim, therefore he has no honor! It’s fairly simple stuff.
I’m not defending anything. I’m asking for examples as detailed in the OP. So me calling Mung out on his dishonourable behaviour means that I’m defending ideology? Whatever mate, whatever.
colewd,
OMagain isn’t making an argument ad hominem.
Not surprised it would appear that way to you.
Without priors there would be nothing to park, so yes.
Do you dispute anything on that OP then? What?
Do you have an answer to that? Is it “because the designer wanted them to”? Then you lose.
Evolution is not religion because if you can provide a better alternative we’ll all jump on that. Unlike your religion, where the facts are set for all eternity.
Might have call bullshit on that,it seems unlikely
OMagain,
I agree with Well’s that Johns argument is circular until he can come up with an objective way to test common descent. Since common descent is a claim about transitions morphological and genetic similarity alone does not test the claim.
Can John describe the point at which he would reject common descent based on his measurements? If it is based on the closest fit to the data then the argument is based on circular reasoning.
OMagain,
So even if evolution is almost certainly wrong you will believe it until someone can explain the data better?
How about the data is difficult to explain solely through the laws of physics and chemistry.
OMagain,
How would you defend the claim that making the statement:
Is dishonorable? This is Mung’s opinion and you are making a claim that having this opinion and stating it is dishonorable? I think you you are supporting Mung’s claim through this ad hominem. When you claim it is dishonorable you are questioning his intent. Why do you feel the need to question Mung’s intent? Because this tactic supports your ideology which Mung disagrees with?
It is OMagain’s opinion, are you make a claim about the quality of OMagain’s opinion?
That is your opinion but since we have yet to establish the basis of the mung’s opinion we cannot yet know whether it is an ad hom.
.
Yes and part of the method of judging intent is the basis for the opinion
Probably the same reason mung questioned the intent and motivations of his fellow posters and the reason you are questioning OMagain’s intent with this question.
Is that why you are using the tactic?
In other words, it is an endless boring circle .
I find it hard to believe that anyone who can say that has actually read the post. Once again, it isn’t about genetic similarity, it’s about nested hierarchy. The entire post is about nested hierarchy. Common descent explains nested hierarchy, and nobody has managed to come up with an alternative explanation. Claims are tested against alternatives. Until you come up with an alternative we can’t test it. Now in fact, separate creation makes no clear prediction. But a common sense prediction is that unrelated groups of organisms would show no particular pattern of similarities. And this would result in no tree constructed from those groups being much better than any other. So any time a tree is much better than a random tree, that’s a test of common descent vs. separate creation.
Check out Theobald 2010 for an explicit test of common descent vs. separate descent. Check out Harshman et al. 2008 for an explicit test of one tree being significantly better than all other trees, which is a test of common descent. It isn’t just “the closest fit to the data”, it’s a fit that’s statistically significantly better than the fit to other trees or to no tree.
I’m not going to give you the full citations or links again. You’ve had them many times before.
Caveat: If no tree is better than any other tree, there’s actually an alternative hypothesis to separate creation, which is that the data are just poor. The way to distinguish between these hypotheses is to get more data or examine different taxa. If more data help, you can reject separate creation. If more data don’t help, you can never actually choose between separate creation or poor data, but you can make poor data a less likely explanation. If different taxa help, that suggests that since those taxa are related we have reason to suspect that others are too. If different taxa don’t help, well, that’s a situation we don’t actually observe, but if there were no trees that worked better than random trees for most taxa for most data, I’d be willing to suggest that separate creation was a possibility.
Yes!
Yes, that’s probably the wrong level to look at it at least some of the time. What have you tried before you gave up and went straight to “musta been design”?
colewd,
Well, being able to cut and paste from Wikipedia is often the first step in understanding something.
Given those brief descriptions of ideology, in what ways is evolution an ideology?
If the only available explanation is clearly false it would be best to abstain from committing myself to it, and accept that there is no explanation of the puzzling phenomena under consideration.
However, there are other cases in which “that’s just how it is, no reason” can itself function as ideology. So must be careful.
Is there any reason to believe that is so? I’d love to hear from someone who understood the relevant laws of physics and chemistry just why this is supposed to be true.
Kantian Naturalist,
I don’t think evolution is ideology but it can be used to support ideology. As Dr Harshman explained evolutions test is comparing observation and data to special creation which is also used to support ideology. Although I think there is some supporting evidence here including that some of the data falls into a nested hierarchy, the evidence does not explain how transitions occurred simply through reproduction. It also does not explain convergent evolution. The challenge of the origin of a new DNA sequence that builds a new animal is also overlooked.
Richard Dawkins said evolution allowed him to become an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This shows one case how evolution supports ideology.
The evidence for special creation does strengthen my belief that we are in a created universe although the remarkable capability of the atom for me is evidence enough.
newton,
No. I am asking whether OMagain can support his claim or is it just his opinion.
If he cannot support his claim would you consider OMagain dishonorable?