Political compass for the21st century

[pbrower2a]

(07-03-2021, 09:28 PM)(really a rewrite) Wrote:

(06-24-2021, 02:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-22-2021, 07:32 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (I have a hint for a yellow-purple character just on the side of the purple line: a wealth-cult evangelist such as Joel Osteen, who has a huge following in America). Swaggart, Hagee, and the like might fit somewhere more in the more-clearly purple part of the circle.

These folks have no connection to the purple sector. Osteen might be a moderate blue whose prosperity gospel would put him near the yellow line. But just being religious doesn't put one in the blue sector. The blue sector is a political program of putting religion in charge of the state. I don't know Osteen's political views. He seems non-political. Hagee fits; he is a political evangelist. Not so sure about Swaggert.

At the time I misconstrued the "blue" zone as purple.  Hagee is very much on the political Right, which is where one would expect the theocrats. Swaggart is the sort of person who called evolution "EVIL-ootion"... grossly anti-Enlightenment for being so anti-science.  The late Jack Chick, who supplied so many crude tracts in which people who violated his idea of Christian standards (evolution, Dungeons & Dragons, benign entertainment such as Bewitched, and anything either non-Christian or the "wrong" sort of Christianity such as Roman Catholicism) as damned to Hell. 


 

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First of all, why must a college-level teacher teach evolution to people who already believe it? Singling out for ridicule someone who holds a minority view that poses no obvious harm is horrible educational practice at any level. It is not tolerated in K-12 education at all, and it is unlikely to be tolerated at all at the liberal arts school depicted here.  

Obvious scientific falsehoods appear here. First, there are no Six Basic Concepts of Evolution; the quack Kent Hovind created those as a strawman.  The Big Bang is a violent event, and nucleosynthesis in stars either in normal fusion (hydrogen to helium up to nickel-56) are violent processes for the elements themselves -- and that is before one even discusses the formation of elements heavier than nickel in stellar collisions. Just as one does not call the consequences of a collision of vehicles 'evolution' of a valuable automobile into a totaled wreck, scientists are careful about the application of words so that they are not used in confusing ways. Scientists would never call violent processes, whether nuclear fission or fusion, supernova explosions, fire, gunshots, or even vehicle collisions "evolution". Evolution separated the biological lines between cats and dogs about 55 million years ago even if cats and dogs are similar enough that one would be compelled to think them related. Cats and dogs have many similarities of build and behavior, which cannot be coincidence. Valid science never uses words in ways that confuse their meaning.   



More significant is that physical processes operate today as they did in the past. That's the uniformity principle without which science becomes nonsense.  That is basic to biological evolution and to the processes that shape the Earth to this day. 



"Doctor" Kent Hovind is a fraud, having gotten his PhD in a field unrelated to biology or paleontology, and even that suspect degree from a diploma mill "Nebraska Man" and "Piltdown Man" are both frauds detected by biologists within the scientific mainstream. The fellow couldn't conform with the usual expectations of tax law, and has been incarcerated in "Club Fed" for that. 

The message:

  

At this point I must delve into theology, an area in which nobody really knows anything. First of all, God damning people for interpreting the natural world as the result of evolution suggests that God forged a fossil record to deceive people so that they could be damned. In view of all the murderers, rapists, thieves, arsonists, child molesters, drug dealers, and financial cheats who do such out of their cruelty, greed, selfishness, or fanaticism, evolution looks tame as a theological offense even if it were wrong. God is powerful enough to treat people who made tiny  mistakes as a contrast to such a grave sin as perpetrating the Holocaust.  As far as that goes, isn't an All-Powerful God able to choose the theology that He finds useful at the time of Judgment. Damning someone who recited the Shema while expiring of Zyklon-B sounds more like a gangster or despot than any Deity I would want anything to do with. 

...So how would I handle that class were I a college-level teacher?

Obviously not as Jack Chick that that a college-level teacher would put it. I might ask the class whether they consider evolution settled as an explanation. If there were a student convinced in young-earth creationism who volunteered that evolution, even if mainstream science, is false I would tell him that I hope to convince him why the scientific mainstream is the norm. Basically, science works, and nonsense disintegrates upon close scrutiny.

I would never threaten to tear to pieces someone who believes in young-earth creationism, which is not going to send anyone to torture chambers or sites of mass murder. Maybe I would tear Nazi ideology or Stalinism to pieces, but such is a very different story. "Hey, kid: you mean well, but you are still wrong." Maybe some preacher has convinced him that even worse than being contrary to a literal reading of the Bible, evolution leads to all sorts of moral horrors such as Nazism and Stalinism. Obviously Nazism and Stalinism are horrible for reasons other than their views on science.

As a teacher I would not allow a student to hijack the educational process by redefining the terms.  But if he did get to the "six core principles of evolution", I would ask him who he has as an authority. "Doctor" Kent Hovind? I'd rip Kent Hovind for calling "evolution" four things that are in no way evolution what mainstream explanations of evolution are, or misrepresenting the origins of anything. 

The uniqueness of Homo sapiens does not rely upon any special creation. From the nasal cavities downward we are undeniably apes, and even rather typical animals. The anatomy of humans is very similar to that of rabbits, animals that look little like us but are among the most closely-related animals not in the primate line.  Medical research can use other creatures in research due to their similarities of internal organs. Yes, animals that look so dissimilar as pigs and whales (really, pigs and whales are surprisingly-close relatives) can have similar internal organs that distinguish them from reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fish -- let alone octopuses.    

If it is an issue of protecting faith in Christian religion, then I would explain that many Christian denominations have made their peace with evolution. Evolution cannot refute moral laws which make life tolerable and prosperity possible. Anyone whose faith can be cut down by a scientific discovery has a terribly-flawed faith. If anything, the Roman Catholic Church has accepted that evolution is to be taught in Catholic schools because young-earth creationism is more likely to tear at Catholic faith than to serve it.