[PassedOut]

jtfanclub, on Aug 24 2008, 09:17 PM, said:

To me, it feels almost religious to say everything has a common ancestor.

Yes. The Florida statement you quoted is an oversimplification, as are so many statements of that type. And I'm not sure what purpose is served by that particular oversimplification.

On the other hand, I confess that when I was in the corporate world I made the conscious decision to oversimply my own statements quite often, so I'm not the one to throw stones. In business I had learned that (most of the time) introducing nuance or complexity to a group tended to reduce the impact of the main point, and did not convey strength of conviction.

It was my impression that the situation was better in that regard in the academic community. But the standards in the article were for high school students and were the product of a committee, so maybe the oversimplification was intentional.

[Trinidad]

helene_t, on Aug 24 2008, 05:31 PM, said:

Rik: I don't think your experiment will settle anything. As a scientist, I can easily think of a mechanism by which natural selection would favor belief in Creationism and other irrational ideas. Conversely, I am sure a biblical literalist could think of a reason for god to want people to believe in evolution.

As a fellow scientist, I have to agree with you. However, I would think that the simplified reasoning behind my 'experiment', has a stronger foundation than the reasoning put forward by creationists. My 'experiment' will certainly not yield a 100-0 answer, but it was designed to loose about equally on both sides (through mechanisms that you pointed out), making it reasonably 'fair' to both sides of the argument. At least, it seems much fairer than the current practice in the USA.

BTW: I don't think that you should take my contribution to this creationism/evolution debate too seriously, which is why my 'experiment proposal' contained a , just like this one:



Rik