A while back, I wrote a series of posts (listed at the end) on whether or not creationists were in fact being rational in their choices of who to believe about science, based on what information they had available to them as they were growing up.
Now, a paper has been published in The Edge by psychologists Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg, which is a revised version of a paper in Science, May 18, 2007, which argues pretty much the same thing. I only wish the paper I have forthcoming in Synthese had got published earlier, but they have data, something philosophers must avoid according to the Guild Rules. Anyway it's nice to find support for my idea. There's a summary discussion at The Accidental Blogger.
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Comments
John, in your previous series, you mentione that you "converted" (or really, de-converted) at an older age than is normal. How old were you? I'm just curious, because I stopped being a believer when I was about 27, which seems to be quite old to me for making that kind of change. I hear more from people who rejected religion during their teenage years.
Posted by: writerdd | May 30, 2007 8:49 AM
I would have been about 24 when I finally dusted off my religious sandals. I initially converted at about 14 or 15 (memory is rather hazy - there were a few drugs imbibed in the interim). I started my BA in philosophy and history the next year.
Posted by: John Wilkins | May 30, 2007 9:02 AM
memory is rather hazy - there were a few drugs imbibed in the interim
Lab work is essential when studying the nature of mind and consciousness. Shame that no credits are awarded for it, tho.
Posted by: jeffw | May 30, 2007 11:14 AM
Hah! You guys were spring chickens. I was 44 when I finally dumped religion (after a conversion at age 15). Of course, I never went in seriously for Creationism, and was basically a compatibilist most of that time, thus minimizing the cognitive dissonance.
BTW: excellent series of articles, John. I missed them the first time through being on vacation and offline (though it's surprising how many campgrounds now offer wi-fi these days).
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 30, 2007 11:53 AM
I have a friend that is a creationist, and for the life of me can not understand how he has such a belief. I point to the mountains and say, ok, explain that, and he calmly replies, “god did it”. His faith and belief are probably greater than my own belief of science and for the life of me, I can’t see how he can believe such rubbish.
If you are asked a question, and depending on your answer, you are shot dead or left to live, you will probably choose the answer that allows you to live.
This is the creationist’s world. If you believe in creation, you can go to heaven. If you believe in Darwin, you are eternally damned and are going to hell.
People that have even the slightest belief in God, hear the question as “Do you believe in the literal account of Genesis, or are you a heathen bastard that is going to burn in the pit of hell for all eternity?
In the mind of the person that has such a belief, there is no real value in defending science, so they choose creation on the survey, just to be on the safe side of getting that….damnation thingy.
Posted by: elbogz | May 30, 2007 1:26 PM
I'm surprised the Science article did not mention a primary source of information about how the world works: cartoons. From cartoons, I learned that you do not begin to fall after running off a cliff until after you look down, along with many other principles of physics.
Posted by: mark | May 30, 2007 1:38 PM
Now, beofre you dismiss creationism as being unscientific, you should check out answersingenesis.org. There are high level scientists of every field that would gladly entertain serious seekers. Please do not be abrasive, or rude. No one of any persuasion should be subject to that type of treatment. We can all agree to disagree. I only ask that you make sure you have checked out the experts who do hold to creationism. You may be in for a surprise.
Respectfully, Maureen Breese
Posted by: Maureen Breese | May 30, 2007 5:37 PM
Ok, Maureen. I'll take one for the team and answer you. AIG is full of lies, mistruths, and distortions of reality to support belief in a middle eastern tribal creation myth.
Have a look at resources like www.talkorigins.org and find out why I say this.
YOU might be surprised.
Posted by: KiwiInOz | May 30, 2007 7:09 PM
Now, beofre you dismiss creationism as being unscientific, you should check out answersingenesis.org.
Uh, Maureen: most of us have checked out AiG (and ICR, and Dr. Dino, etc, etc) and that is why we say Creationism is unscientific -- when they're not getting their facts wrong, they're screwing up on logic, and when they're not doing that they're just plain propagandizing on the evils of Darwinism and the need for doctrinal (ie. their doctrines) purity. Having a Ph.D. is no guarantee of reliability, or even competence, especially when an overriding ideology is involved (and the Creationists make quite clear they've got one of those).
Posted by: Eamon Knight | May 30, 2007 8:19 PM
Bloom and Weisberg write:
I hope this is just badly phrased. The way I read it, they're suggesting that laypeople who profess belief in evolution make two errors: they think its Lamarckian, and they think that evolution occurs by offspring being better adapted to their environment than their parents. If they don't think that, then why do they mention the latter at all - why not say that people are confused, inasmuch as they think that evolution is Lamarckian (after all, if evolution were Lamarckian it would be no mystery why offspring were better adapted to their environment). Any ideas why they put it like this?
Posted by: Neil | May 30, 2007 9:30 PM
Selection of course does not imply that each and every progeny is better adapted than their parents - it's an overall or average population effect: according to the Fundamental Theorem, it is the average fitness of the population that increases, not for a given lineage. To think that each offspring is better adapted is to posit some Lamarck-style feu ethere, which drives progeny to perfection.
I think they framed it exactly correctly, given the history of misconstruals of natural selection that we have already seen and see daily in popular culture.
Posted by: John Wilkins | May 30, 2007 9:56 PM
I think we need to keep questions about mechanisms separate from questions about phenoptypes. I don't think it's a real misunderstanding to think that offspring are better adapted than progenitors. It's vague but that's okay (we don't seek precision in informed laypeople); because it's vague its compatible with the claim that offspring are, on average, better adapted. Now that claim is true, and independent of the question whether the mechanism is Lamarckian. If inheritance were Lamarckian, it might still be true that offspting were (only) better adapted on average (after all, parents might acquire traits that are not adaptive, by accident for instance).
Posted by: neil | May 30, 2007 11:30 PM
No, because if inheritance were Lamarckian, it would necessitate progeny being better adapted than the parents (because the parental experience would instruct the progeny, so they'd start off better than the parents did).
Recall that "Lamarckian" (with all kinds of historical injustice to Lamarck himself) inheritance means that only adaptive changes are passed on, through some mechanism nobody was ever quite able to express.
Amusingly, there are now cases of inheritance that are indeed Lamarckian (inherited antibodies being a case in point, as well as epigenetic methylation).
Posted by: John Wilkins | May 30, 2007 11:54 PM
If that's right, then I'm not using Lamarckian correctly. Wikipedia defines it as I do: the inheritance of acquired charactersitics. Even if Lamarckianism should be limited to the inheritance of acquired adaptive characteristics, which would make the claim tautologically true, the second statement believed by laypeople is still vague and still true, under one interpretation.
BTW, it occurs to me we should stop arguing. We'll be cited as evidence that the theory of evolution is in trouble by AiG!
Posted by: Neil | May 31, 2007 12:09 AM
Hell, Mark, I learned to fewkin' drive by watching cartoons. (I drive a white Pontiac Grand Prix, so be warned if you are ever in the Twin Cities in Minnesota.)
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | June 1, 2007 10:44 PM