Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Parade's PhDs
Via Friendly Atheist, Parade Magazine has a poll on its website asking readers:
Do you agree with Darwin’s theory of human evolution?
Agree?
Does Parade's readership consist entirely of biologists? Are those that frequent its website all taking graduate-level courses in genetics? Are they sporting lab coats as they click the little radio buttons on the poll, having just put down this week's edition of Science?
Ahem.
Agreement, I think, implies that one has a strong, working understanding of the argument that has been put forth. I don't "agree" with the Big Bang theory, heliocentrism, or gravity because I haven't done even the slightest bit of technical research on them. I believe them and accept them because I know that other people far smarter than I have done centuries of self-correcting work on them and have reached these conclusions, which have since been proved and re-proved again and again.
So perhaps "accept" or "believe" would have been better choices for this poll, no? That's all I'm saying.
[Cross-post at Bloc Raisonneur]
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Thoroughly Pharyngulated
And it hasn't even hit Pharyngula yet. I guess it's been Friendly Athiestated.
To be a bit contrarian . . .
. . . just to liven things a little (and because I still have the damned chest gak I've been fighting all week, thanks to travel, and am a cranky bastard), I'm going to say "believe" would not be better in this case.
Why? Because we already have enough problems with the idiots out there who think that science is some kind of religion, on the same level as their "belief" in the Big Daddy Ju-Ju man.
There's nothing wrong with people getting a little education and coming to the conclusion that any given scientific theory is probably correct. No, you don't need to be a biologist or a geneticist to understand the basics of evolution. Just as you don't need to be a statistician to decide whether or not to play the lottery. This is to say that it is better for people to *understand* a bit about the world around them, rather than to just accept some authority.
Jim "grumpy old bastard" Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
I don't accept or believe that you don't agree, uh, or, accept
Indeed, you can certainly understand the basics without subtle, technical knowledge (that's where I am!). But I think to "disagree" with it is to assume you have a grasp of the full data set, as it were, to affirm or deny the work of those who have built th theory, as opposed to "rejecting" or something, which can spring from ideology, creed, dogma, etc. I know, I nitpick.
I feel like the word choice of "agree" is part of a larger problem where people decide whether or not they buy into an accepted scientific theory because of how it feels or by some other subjective criterion. A poll asking whether you "agree" that Obama would be a better president than McCain makes more sense, it's more of an unproven, subjective hypothesis. I am sure Parade didn't think this hard about it. :)
I have a similar feeling about "believe," so perhaps the more colloquial "I buy that?"
Paul "Militant Elitist Oligarch" Fidalgo