Evolution and the 'Wisdom of Crowds' 804
An anonymous reader writes "An essay by a developer of recommendation systems makes a case for why so many people have trouble grasping Darwin's theory of evolution. Downplaying its conflict with religion, the essay suggests that evolution is in a specific class of "equilibrium seeking" concepts that tend to be extremely counterintuitive to most people. The hypothesis is supported by the observation that so many people reject the notion that evolution-like systems such as Wikipedia, prediction markets, and recommendation systems can actually be effective. Particularly fascinating is the description of his surprisingly simple algorithm for competing in the Netflix prize contest."
typo (Score:2, Funny)
There, fixed it for you.
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Every other developed country in the world has a significantly higher number of people who prefer the scientific version to the religious one when it comes to the origins of the species.
When it comes to evolution, the USA is closer to Turkey than the west-european nations. In fact, in a lot of Europe, Creationism/"Intelligent design" are almost unheard of. (AFAIK, and I just live there..)
Not only that, but the USA is the only country in the western world with a decli
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That's an interesting thought. Whenever I discuss points of US Christian dogma with European Christians I usually get a pitying look before being told 'well, of course, they're not proper Christians - they have some crazy ideas'. Thing is, I expect US ones say much the same about them and African ones being different again. All religions seem to be awash with variations, each sure they are the One True Version and that the others are deluded.
Re:typo (Score:5, Insightful)
That's true of humans in general. Religions don't have a monopoly on arrogance.
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Well things are changing in other developped countries as well. I've watched a report concerning Biology classes in Belgium few weeks ago. Some teatchers complain that it is more and more difficult to teach evolution in classes where there is a significant fraction of immigrants from poor socio-economic backgrounds. Qur'an is considered by those folks as the Alpha&Omega. Somes even believe that modern science discoveries can be easily traced back to this holly book.
The problem is that it is not si
Re:typo (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome fellow Belgian. It's horrible to see how we've been conditioned in excusing ourselves for statements which "potentially could be read in a racist way" because of the constant idea we are "against multiculturism" and are overly sensitive to "cultural differences".
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EVERY muslim university preaches creationism (even more stupid than that : young-earth creationism)
Most Indian universities preach creationism
and most Chinese also believe in creationism
That's 50% of the world where there isn't any discussion
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Re:typo (Score:5, Insightful)
muslims inside england use terror to avoid evolution in biology lessons :
http://forums.muslimvillage.net/index.php?showtopic=37975 [muslimvillage.net]
in france:
http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2007/02/france-muslim-anti-evolutionist.html [blogspot.com]
This is in Turkey, the most moderate muslim nation existing (where both islamists and atheists massacre eachother, creating a balance) :
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/science/17book.html?_r=1&oref=slogin [nytimes.com]
If you thought Christians are trouble when it concerns evolution, you're in for a rude awakening. Christians don't kill you. Don't threaten you. And they don't gang up on your family just because you don't "respect" creationism. Muslims do.
Re:typo (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a theatre production by the Reduced Shakespeare Company where they do the entire bible in 90 mins or somesuch. *Everytime* I have seen it there have been jossling, abusive Christians outside telling me I was going to hell for watching it. I've also numerous reports of people killing in the name of Christianity. I think we need to be clear on this, all religions, whether Muslim, Christian or whatever have extremist factions and that's where the problems are. the mainstream ones are generally fairly laid back.
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in france:
http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2007/02/france-muslim-anti-evolutionist.html [blogspot.com]
Oooh, a lunatic fringe group sent a handful of copies of a book to some education institutions.
How dare they.
Are you one of those US people who lives in the fantasy world where the middle east is invading Europe ? You might want to book a ticket on one of those cruises [independent.co.uk] if that's the case, you'll make lots of like minded friends (and I heard psychiatrists weren't allowed on board so everyone is perfectly safe).
be fair, be fair (Score:3, Interesting)
Pat Robertson said what he said, and was condemned by many Christians. How many prominent Muslims have openly condemned the contract on Salman Rushdie's life?
Yes, the Bible contains a lot of violence, and yes, many Christians say they believe "every word," but in reality they aren't going to kill their kid for r
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Re:typo (Score:5, Informative)
Bush: No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.
Current stats:
85% of Americans self-identify as Christians. (2002)
7% of US adults classify as evangelicals (2004) (see Evangelical category for more information)
38% of US adults classify as born again, but not evangelical. (2004)
37% are self-described Christians but are neither evangelical nor born again
Atheists and agnostics comprise 12% of adults nationwide. (2004)
11% of the US population identify with a faith other than Christianity (2004)
s/Christian/Muslim/g
Nuff said... No further comment...
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Re:typo (Score:5, Funny)
NAMBLA polls kids all the time.
*ducks*
Re:typo (Score:5, Informative)
I brought this subject up several times in a conversation with europeans. Those who don't follow slashdot and similar sites hadn't heard about the concept of "intelligent design" at all, and needed it explained. And all of them went "WTF?" at the explanation.
The vast majority of the population hasn't even heard of ID. All the religious arguments I participated in (and there were quite a few) always revolved around the existence/inexistence of a deity, evolution wasn't brought up even once.
Re:typo (Score:4, Informative)
So yeah, Europe is doing something to stop pseudoscience from finding its way into schools.
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Also, if you're going to call someone a fucktard for only considering one more continent then try mentioning more than one other. South America is largely catholic (a religion that explicitly supports evolution theory). Africa is quite diverse, Australia is evolution accepting, though australasia may not be, depending on where you draw borders, due to indonesia. Though I'm not familiar enough with indonesian islam to know w
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Yes, we did. But, some of us believe that an omnipotent god could conceive a universe where living creatures do NOT need "a patch" from him to exist. If you see conflict between evolution and life being a miracle, between freedom of choice and prophecy, it might not be the same for an hypothetical entity that exists (also) outside the influence of space and time.
Back to the topic. A minister in the previous government in Italy "forg
Re:typo (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion and science are not viewed as polar opposites. They do disagree on several points but that does not mean anyone with religion is against scientific teaching. Darwin himself was obsessed with the Bible.
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Not all religions ban the teaching of evolution. Pope John Paul II never condemned evolution.
No, but the current pope is moving backwards in time with astonishing speed on this and other issues.
Background info:
"Evolution, a doctrine that Pius XII only acknowledged as an unfortunate possibility, John Paul accepts forty-six years later "as an effectively proven fact." (ROA, 82) "
And then:
"(Associated Press, Nov. 11, 2005)
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has waded into the evolution debate in the United States, saying the universe was made by an "intelligent project" and criticizing those who in the
Re:typo (Score:5, Informative)
Got any proof? Because I've got some that shows you're wrong. Link [nationalgeographic.com].
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Religion vs Darwin vs Technology vs Society (Score:5, Insightful)
What is happening today to the common man is that he/she is getting immune to technology, which leads us to the possibly false premise that the lay person understands technology any better than say, evolution. Given this assault of seemingly illogical and complex information (which completely undermines a person's ego, mind you), religion provides a very convenient framework to make life simple, seemingly secure, and less fragile. Religion is hence, more of a survival tool for a society that shields away a person's insecurities. For that matter, that is the reason why societies and families formed in the first place, which is to increase the probability of our survival and proliferation. For the common man, religion and society practically mean the same thing, and hence interchangeably attribute the positive aspects of one with the other. This is also why they are willing to put up with the restrictions and rules of religion, just as we do for society's laws and restrictions!
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Alternatively, it is a tool used by some in society to control others. Use some peoples fear, uncertainties and doubts and offer them an easy, quick fix and watch the wealth and power flow in.
1) invent god(s)
2) market said gods
3) profit
If it is a "survival tool", it's the survival tool of a few at the expense of the many.
Re:Religion vs Darwin vs Technology vs Society (Score:4, Interesting)
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You can only really validly apply Darwinian evolutionary principles to the idea itself, not the adherents of the idea.
Or if you insist on applying it, use it as social Darwinism - the evolution of the society which plays host to an idea, not the individual which plays host to it.
Ideas are accepted and perpetuated regardless of their fitness to survive. Ideas are accepted and perpetuated based on how useful they are to the alphas in any society.
For instance (and not escaping the su
Re:Religion vs Darwin vs Technology vs Society (Score:4, Funny)
2) market said gods
3) prophet
Fixed.
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This is such a narrow view of a skeptic. To every person religion offers something, and that is why it is a survival tool for everyone. Like this forum, religion is a form of sub-culture, a way people bond without knowing each other. Like every tool it is mis-used, and it might very well be a product of some "evil" brain, but it sells and continues to sell because at the end, people buy it. If it a survival tool for just
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>>> Religion is like the appendix, it was useful at some point in our evolution, but for modern man, it's more likely to kill you than to do anything for you.
.. then yes as a Christian I agree. Christ himself despised blank religion, true faith brings action and transformation. Religion brings rule following, guilt and selfish living.
.
If you genuinely mean religion is useless
Anyway. Did you know that the appendix is currently considered to be used as a bootstrap for your digestive system. It harbours bacteria in the event of diseases that flush out bacteria from your gut. It was even reported on Slashdot with a link to http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/10/05/appendix.purpose.ap/index.html [cnn.com]
Yes, and I made a glib comment about it too. It harbors bacteria, good or bad, and it sometimes inflames, bursts and kills you. If you have it removed, you live fine.
Something that *might* help you recover bacteria or *might* kill you is not useful or needed. If you need a fresh dose of digestive bacteria, just french somebody, or grab a yogurt.
Just as something that *might* ease your anxiety over our mortality or *might* make you more anxious about hell, or lead to other people stoning/torturing/burning/c
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Rubbish. We are physically different from our ancestors even a few hundred years back (average height [wikipedia.org], for example), there's a whole field of psychology [wikipedia.org] concerned with our psychological evolution, and you're plain ignorant of philosophy if you claim with a straight face that our philosophies haven't moved on in thousands of years.
The old saw-horse that we're no different than our caveman ancestors is simply not true.
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Re:Religion vs Darwin vs Technology vs Society (Score:5, Interesting)
Apart from the fear thing, I have exactly that reason to explain why I have always believed in evolution (since reading about it myself in a book at 7). Even then I was struck by the vastness of the universe, and the idea that some god person had made it all seemed a bit too simple. Even then I was utterly fascinated by astronomy, and looking at the night sky, especially in Australia, where we actually had a visible star scape, was an experience that filled me not with religious conviction, but with a determination to find explanations for what I saw. 'God did it' was never an option.
Having grown up now I realise why so many people need to believe in the biblical creation myth. Believe that and everything becomes easy, simple enough that you don't have to worry about it. Reject it and boy have you got a lot of work to do. For one thing you actually have to understand things, not pass it of as 'the work of god'.
I find it amusing that creationists/ID'ers seem to want a stupid god, incapable of anything but focusing on one planet in the vast universe, as interested in the fall of birds (why is it always bad stuff?) then the formation of galaxies. I prefer the idea that if god exists, he was smart enough to set things in motion at some point (at the start of this universe? a previous one, no idea), and it all works without intervention. Of course this implies that there is no god, since a system that does not require a god to run doesn't need one to exist at all.
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Denying God because you understand the tools he uses is like denying Michaelangelo because you once saw a chisel.
Re:Religion vs Darwin vs Technology vs Society (Score:4, Insightful)
Understand? did I say that? Want to understand yes, but understand the reason for the existence of the universe? hah, as if I could. The best I can do is study and research using the scientific method.
What I do though is not put myself into a cushioned frame of mind that requires no conclusions beyond 'god did it'.
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Because once you're willing to discard some religious beliefs you don't have much reason for keeping gods around. Only your first teaching above might require God to be there, and even that's questionable -- rearrange the sentences a bit and you have an entirely secular philosophy. Why add a go
Re:Religion vs Darwin vs Technology vs Society (Score:5, Funny)
The vastness of time (Score:3, Insightful)
Eh. (Score:4, Insightful)
While there may be many that reject that these systems can be effective at all, I'd suggest that there's many more that would actual argue that while these systems do work, they aren't necessarily the best or only method that is effective.
He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
Societies may have "invented" the notion of religion because religion led to ethics, which led to less killing of their neighbors. All of the sudden, it's survival of the fittest, as non-ethical tribes tended to be killed off, while religious tribes thrived.
An obvious second example is the notion of being against birth control (or for large families). Tribes that were for large families and passed those beliefs down to their children tended to grow.
So my question is: Even if there is no God, and you are an atheist, is it possible that a world containing religious people is actually a "better" society than a world full of atheists? The Earth's people evolved into a world of mixed beliefs (some religious, some not), which could be argued to be the survival of the fittest idea or world. The mixed-belief world appears to be the "fittest" world, as opposed to such less-fit worlds of all atheists or all Christians, as examples.
If we evolved to be a mixed world of beliefs, as the "fittest", perhaps we should accept that, and quit trying to convert people with arguments for our favorite religious/non-religious belief.
Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically, some of the worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of God. While your idea has merit for a very young civilizations, religion as a means of social control became obsolete as soon as secular law was invented. Since then it's only been abused to manipulate and extort people, at least on a scale that has any impact on society as a whole. (Exceptions made for those small groups who actually practice what they preach.)
Evolution is a pretty slow process... I guess 3000 years or so isn't quite long enough to breed out the religious nutjobs.
=Smidge=
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Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson do not make up all of Christianity. Just like Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il and Stalin do not make up all of atheism. But if we were to play by your rules:
Just adding up the body count should convince anyone that religion is a bad idea for humanity.
I think that statement has just been shot to hell!
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Well, let's not forget Stalin, Hitler, Communist China, and others. Shining examples of people not controlled by "nutjob" religious ideas, eh?
They were all in the idealogical line of Rome, which killed Christians for not worshipping Ceaser. Atheists are capable of the worst atrocities by making Gods of themselves.
Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:4, Insightful)
2. The claim is not "some people who happened to be theists also did bad things", but rather that "people did bad things in the name of their religious belief". If you want to counter that, you need to show how someone's lack of belief caused them to do bad things.
Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:4, Informative)
Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:4, Informative)
Julius Caesar would beg to differ. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's simply not true. This charge has been parroted by the anti-religious people, and it completely ignores the historical record.
Let's compare the post Roman world to the pre-Roman world. Prior to Christianity, the world believed in conquest without justification. IF someone had more stuff than you, you sent in an army and to
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Prior to Christianity, the world believed in conquest without justification.
I'd like to direct you to the not-too-ancient concept of Manifest Destiny [wikipedia.org].
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That's a wild-ass guess. There are many alternatives that I find far more convincing, if you read "The God Delusion" there's a chapter devoted to a few alternatives.
One very simple alternative is that children are genetically disposed to believing thei
Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
I've wondered about that as well. I suspect that the "believe your parents" bit is partially the origin of religion. My reason is partially the fact my daugher (3.5 years) wants an explanation for everything. "Just because" does not satisfy her, but she isn't quite ready for the real explanation for a lot of things. I'm sure I could get to quit asking "Why?" with enough references to god. Humans seem to want to understand but frequently don't have the capacity or knowledge required, so left to them selves they abstract the problem away another step. ie. Saying god causes the rain isn't a explanation of how or why god would want rain, but it answers the immediate question of why it's raining.
I really don't want to read "The God Delusion" as you suggest. Why are you pushing your religion on me?
Just to be pedantic I did say, "if you read." I mentioned it more as a citation for an idea that wasn't really mine.
But in reality I do believe the world would be a better place if religion would go away.
Re:He doesn't address the evolution of ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mainly because I believe the real problem is the people who think their way is the only truth.
I'm a strong atheist, and have only become more so in the past few years. I (like everyone else) sometimes find myself angry at others for their beliefs. However, I try my best to stay calm and logical any time a heated discussion comes up. When we let ourselves get angry, it only builds barriers that become harder and harder to break down.
The best thing to do is to step back, and ima
I suggest a new strategy, believe in the god. (Score:4, Funny)
actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
And in one way or another, we're all atheists. Is the world worse off because people don't believe in Thor anymore?
Re:actually... (Score:4, Interesting)
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I disagree. Natural selection doesn't mean "strong people beat up weak people", it means things become more efficient at survival. In the case of humans, who only survived in groups, this would mean groups would evolve toward cooperation. A group of cooperative pe
"Wisdom Of Crowds" (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't wait for this meme to die. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who controls the content of Wikipedia articles? Is it a large crowd of seemingly random contributors each imparting their own bits of wisdom? Or is it a small set of contributors providing the base of an article with a few mostly minor revisions submitted by random people passing by? In my experience, it's the latter. Usually a small set of people, no more than 3 to 5 which make the core of a Wikipedia article.
These same people are also generally the ones that cultivate the article and keep it consistent and well editted. Occasionally these same few people come to disagreements and end up in "edit wars" in which they call in another set of few members interested in judging to judge the issue. There's no "crowd" at work here, it's a lot of small groups of vested individuals who have interest in a particular domain and an efficient way of contributing and collaborating in that domain.
There may be hundreds of such groups, but they typically stick to their domain or they become edit whores and stick to minor revisionary work on a large amount of articles. Either way, I don't see much of a "crowd" once I break it down and look close, much less a wise crowd. Have you ever noticed that different subsections of Wikipedia have their own "feel" or "identity"? Maybe the particular manner of phrasing or the type of consistency shown throughout that sub-section which differs somewhat from another unrelated domain. This is largely a result of edits by the aforementioned small group of vested individuals. Each group leaves their own tint which colors a section and gives it life.
Wisdom of Crowds? No. Small, intelligent groups of people focused on achieving a well defined goal? Yes. If you really want to test this "Wisdom of Crowds" concept, take a look at SomethingAwful.com or any of the various large web forums and learn of the "Wisdom of Crowds". Even there, it's generally a very few amount of people contributing intelligently with the rest just being meaningless drivel. This meme needs to die.
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But Wikipedia has about 2 mio. articles, and it ain't the same 3-5 people doing them all. That is what TFA alleges to when it talks about "wisdom of crowds".
Re:"Wisdom Of Crowds" (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually in 2000 the "wisdom of the crowds" picked Al Gore. The electoral college and the Supreme Court put GW in the Whitehouse.
An election is NOT a "Wisdom Of Crowds" situation (Score:3, Insightful)
To sift the wisdom from the noise, there has to be some method of determining which are 'good' inputs and which are 'bad'. With Evolution, the feedback is easy to understand, bad mutations die/fail to breed/whatever, good ones get more food/sex/whatever and are more likely to reproduce.
An election has no such feedback. There is no good method of looking at the individual inputs from the r
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Well, it only took 7 years, but you're finally past "denial." Good for you! With 6 more steps, you'll be cured of Bush Derangement Syndrome in about 42 years.
the wisdom of the crowds (Score:5, Insightful)
Crowds contain individuals ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't that the obvious conclusion?
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language evolution (Score:2)
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Are you kidding? That's even worse. Even people who accept biological evolution often cling to bizarre ideas about Language; like with e.g. British English vs. American English there is that impossible-to-kill meme that the Brits 'invented' English, so what they speak must be the 'original' English, etc... etc... ad nauseam
And they will even argue those points against trained Linguists so, sorry, no salvat
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Huh (Score:2)
Bad analogy? (Score:3, Insightful)
> mutation, of course, is non-directed...that is, "random." It could be bad or good, but most of the time
> it is bad.
IMNSHO this is simply untrue. If this is true Wikipedia is dead for long: it never keeps a large, visible "pool" of "genes" (different version of the same article) that the "nature" (viewing public) can "select", and the "nature" simply is too busy to "select" them anyway. They have many version of the same article, but there are not many who will go into the version and select to revert to one of those. To me, the success of Wikipedia is that those who don't know much about a subject will normally refrain from editing the subject, so most edits are actually of a rather high quality. It is a social behavior, not an evolution behavior.
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Of course you could also look at the creator, moderators, editors and whomever takes an
Evolution vs Wikipedia (Score:2, Funny)
While I support Wikipedia, I don't consider those who doubt its value to be idiots. Those who argue against evolution, on the other hand....
Two Ways of Summing it Up (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Most people can't see the forest for the trees. Everybody who is not as smart as the author needs to take remedial education and secular-deprogramming classes.
Now you don't have to read the article.
You're welcome.
Nothing new.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a n-dimensional random distribution, with small adjustment steps. The 'n' of the system being chosed by hand, not even automatically computed. It works for Netflix because the domain being modeled is not 'wild' statistically, and have a very simple topology.
The 'presumed' relation with a 'wisdom of the crowds' concept is just coincidence, try to apply such a simple system to a really complex domain (ie: natural language syntax) and it will fail.
On the other hand, it's true that simple statistics can be used for a lot of tasks (ie: language/topic detection), but nothing really new here.
Faith in people (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently had to start a Wiki for 1st year undergraduate students. I found it really hard to make it writable by everybody, since I was sure that it would result in a lot of vandalism. However, if you think about Wikipedia, the vast majority of pages can be edited by anyone and yet you almost never see malicious edits by people just dicking about. In the limit, people who visit Wikipedia prefer order. That's actually quite a comforting idea.
Obviously the more subtle stuff [geeksaresexy.net] is harder to protect against.
Creationism and Evolution Artificially at Odds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, I find these kinds of statements to be a bit off-base. I really get the feeling that Creationism and Evolution/Darwinism are artificially pitted against each other as if one or the other has to "win."
The interesting thing is that there is absolutely nothing in either of the standpoints that cannot coexist with the other. I would say that the consistant framing of them being exclusive is what causes resistance (from both sides, most likey) when it isn't even needed.
If one wants to get anyone to believe in a scientific theory they are having difficulties with, framing it as, "you should believe this because what you believe is wrong and you are stupid," is not really going to win anyone over. Especially when one could easily take the stance of, "here's why this theory makes sense, and really it doesn't have anything to do with what you may or may not believe."
I've seen no strong theology that would rule out that evolution did not happen. Creationism is about a supernatural force overseeing things--it says nothing specific about how things actually happened. (And, I think, most theologists will agree that Genesis is highly metaphorical.)
So, bottom line is, if science-minded people want others to "see the light" on this one, stick to the facts and leave the religion-bashing alone. Making people defensive generally is not an effective way of getting an idea across.
Re:Creationism and Evolution Artificially at Odds? (Score:4, Informative)
Generally, the use of creationism references young Earth creationism... where part of the belief is that the Earth is only a couple of thousand years old. This flavor of creationism can't stand alongside evolution.
Nephilium
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I suppose I could generalize it even further...
Young Earth creationism can't stand alongside almost any physical science.
Nephilium
Re:Creationism and Evolution Artificially at Odds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there's just the small, unimportant, inconsequential matter of intent.
Also, a total reversal of roles, look:
Evolution, on the other hand, claims that complexity emerges during the process of evolution, which starts with very simple things.
I really see no way for two theories to coexist if their claimed starting points are exact opposites. If you can't even agree on that, everything down from there is either dishonesty or an intentional scam of one theory to not have its core assumptions examined too closely.
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Merriam-Webster says:
2 a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof
Which, I'd say, is very much head on, especially the religious overtones and the "no proof" part.
And that's why grandparent is right. A debate between one side resting on proof and the other resting on something that explicitly excludes p
This is a stupid conclusion (Score:2, Insightful)
1. It is not like a 1000 monkeys typing randomly on a type writer came up with the wikipedia.
2. The content of the wikipedia is controlled more so than most people think. There are editors, there is peer review etc.
3. You don't find a million slightly varying copies on a single topic which are then "naturally selected"
A wikipedia has as much value as shouting out a question in a packed stadium to receive the answers from a million people.
Re:This is a stupid conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
The notion of n monkeys typing randomly is used to illustrate the absurdity of evolution. It would be a great illustration if it were not intrinsically flawed from its very conception. A better analogy would be, again as Richard Dawkins again demonstrated in said documentary/book, that each change the monkeys made that took their current works of Shakespeare away from the actual works of Shakespeare were ignored, or favoured less, than changes which improved the similarity of the monkeys' work with that of Shakespeare.
So, in a nutshell, it's similar to evolution as you clearly don't understand evolution enough to ask that question
Dilbert Blog (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a part of me hoping this article gets discussed by Dilbert creator/evolution denier Scott Adams, and another part dreading it. link [typepad.com]
Randomness (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the main problem with people's understanding of evolution is the fact that it is not taught very well in schools, and people get the strong idea that evolution is a random process. I also think it is a problem with the timescales involved, which are hard for the human mind to grasp.
What about the "madness of crowds"? (Score:4, Informative)
The book is frequently referenced in discussions of investment strategy, especially so-called "contrarian investing", which often makes money for its followers. The contrarian investing principle can be summarized as being that when the crowd overwhelmingly agrees on something, go the other way.
The book describes market behavior at least as well as Adam Smith's "unseen hand", and may also well describe other aspects of crowd behavior. I had never heard of the "wisdom of crowds" before this posting, but I have heard of the "madness of crowds" for many years.
Minor quibble with TFA... (Score:3, Interesting)
Evolution by natural selecton isn't the strongest argument against an Old Testament-type creator. The story of Creation as given by the Old Testament follows the form of Hebrew poetry. And the author of it clearly could not have been at the point of Creation. Those who say that the author was somehow inspired to write the exact sequence of events of the creation of the world by God such that they would be exact are... well, putting things into the Bible that aren't there. Trying to apply scientific logic to fails even in the absence of evolutionary theory, given that there is day and night as early as the first day, but no sun until later. Only the dim-witted would consider the Creation myth a literal retelling of the story of Creation.
The theory of Evolution, our growing understanding of our universe and how we apply it are, if anything, fulfillment of Genesis 1, verses 27-28: "(27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (28) God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'"
So it's hardly accurate to call Evolution a strong argument against an OT-type Creator. The text of Genesis 1 itself is the strongest argument against Creationism, but hardly any argument at all against the existence of a Creator as the Bible describes.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Young Earth Creationists can claim that their interpretation is derived from neither a literal nor an educated interpretation of the Bible. Creationism is ultimately anti-Biblical. But it's taking that silliness to an extreme to then say that Evolution somehow is an argument against the existence of a God.
Re: (Score:2)
Darwin's theory of natural selection (Score:5, Insightful)
The mutation in Darwin's theory does NOT have to be random!
Although random mutation is perhaps the most effective way compared to its complexity. It surely is the most simple way for nature to "implement" it. And most of the time it results in very good "fuel". About your example: although the mutations are made by intelligent designers, some designs are rejected and some accepted (to be built further upon). The mutations are not random, but the selection is still in place. That's good enough.
So if you don't want to call Darwin's theory a theory of evolution, call it a THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION instead.
Keep in mind: you do not need DNA, big gene pools, parallel mutations, sexual mutations,
Thanks for the example (Score:3, Insightful)
I know the excuse, that "science is under attack in America." If it is under attack, it is under attack by many things, not just religion. Just take a serious look at how Watson is being treated over his comments about race and genetics.
Thanks for the example of how science is misunderstood. While Watson is a scientist, his comments were not science, they were opinion.
That's one crucial difference between science and religion: everything the Pope says is religiously significant, whereas a scientist's statements only matter to the degree to which they can be tested and supported.
Even most scientists are unwilling to consider the possibility that *gasp* if evolution be true, not all races are created equal, and that some might be statistically inferior to others.
Scientists are quite willing to believe all sorts of things, provided they can be objectively proven. They're just not willing to take someone's word for it.