Re: [Phys-l] Intelligent designists fight back

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Actually what they don't realize is that the religious training is often not
as effective as they would like, but it can in some cases be extremely
effective.  Also the standard courses which cover the neo-Darwinian theory
of evolution are actually fairly ineffective in changing embedded paradigms.

Lawson has studied this, and it seems that individuals who readily accept
the evolutionary model of the development of species tend to be at an
extremely high thinking level.  He has dubbed this the "Theoretical level"
(as I recall).  Individuals at this level can readily understand things
which can not be seen, while below this level, individuals have great
difficulty with invisible processes.  He has categorized concepts according
to this classification, and it seems that atoms, evolutionary origin of the
species, and many physics concepts are among the most difficult.  There is a
category of concepts which is intermediate between invisible, and concretely
visible concepts.  These are concepts that could be seen over a period of
time such as mountain building, plate tectonics...  These concepts have
intermediate difficulty.

Actually most religious groups have seen a liberalization of their concepts,
and have accepted many ideas which 50 years ago might have been anathema.
The groups which have successfully resisted modern science have generally
been closed groups.  Over the past 50 years there has been a general shift
in favor of accepting the evolutionary origin of the species.  The real
problem is that the minority seeks to impose its ideas on the majority.
While it is a slim majority in the US, it still seems to be a majority.

It is very difficult to change paradigms.  Witness the revival of religion
in Russia where atheism was taught in the schools.  Of course it was taught
by standard lecture methods in a very authoritarian manner.  The result was
that the teaching ended up being not very effective in the long run.  The
lecture method is extremely ineffective in changing paradigms, and the
effectiveness goes down as the cognitive challenge of the concepts goes up.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX

> > There is no
> > need for conflict between us until or unless you decide it's your right
> > and/or duty to "correct" me and/or my children.  That would be, and is,
> > totally unnecessary, and it would be presumptuous of you to take it upon
> > yourself to do so.
>
> I'd like your take on the following. One of the issues seems to be
> that one's children are always one's children. That is, they grow up,
> and go to places like college, where they get exposed, in a serious
> way, to "foreign" concepts, esp evolution. In principle, parents
> should not fear their children going through this process, but many
> do anyway, and in fact are terrified of it, and hence try to go out
> of the boundaries you have described, politically, to influence
> institutions, and by extension, society, to sway others to what
> amounts to their personal religious views.