Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Creationism and macroevolution

Regarding the inaccurate definition "Evolution is the belief that . . . ."

<<Probably I'm just being pedantic, and you mean the same, but note that you can't actually believe in evolution. It's not a belief, form of belief, system of belief, faith, deity, apostle, prophet, spiritual guideline or magical formula. (this list non-exhaustive, but you catch the drift) :-) Kim Bruning 13:21, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)>>

Sure. :-) But, if you would put your bet on Evolution being the best of the available explanations for how we got here, then I would bet that you "believe" in Evolution in the sense of belief. Or let me use myself as the example. I would say that, in light of available empirical evidence, I "assent to the proposition that humans speciated from the ancestors of the chimpanzees around five million years ago." Therefore, in the words of the Wikipedia belief page, I "believe" in Evolution because "belief is assent to a proposition."

You suggest that "I Rednblu am just being pedantic." That may be. How would I know! :)) That is, how would I know without taking into consideration your worthy feedback. :) But it seems to me counterproductive for the evolutionists to define "Creationism is the belief that . . . ." The improvement of Evolution over Creationism is not in the lack of believing but in the verifiability and in the testing against empirical evidence before the believing. Would you agree? Where would you improve upon my statement about belief in Evolution? ---Rednblu 17:00, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hmm, if you really dig all the way to the roots of the matter, then all statements made by the theory of evolution are nescesarily Justified true belief. Cool, I learned something today. Fortunately for my argument, a justified true belief is a belief, but a belief is not a justified true belief. So I'm saved, and the above still holds. phew. Kim Bruning 19:25, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC) (Evolution is part of the realm of epistemology, so be aware that I'm using the epistemic definition of belief, as opposed to the separate and different definitions used in psychology or religion.)

Sure, no problem. But even then, it is my guess that you would not want to define Evolution as "Evolution is the justified true belief that . . . ." This is so, because the useable part of Evolution resides in the definition "Evolution is shorthand for the modern theory of evolution of species based on Darwin's theory of natural selection." That is, the useable part of Evolution resides in the iterative process that includes forming a verifiable hypothesis and testing the hypothesis against empirical data. The justified true belief is merely a current snapshot; we both know that tomorrow's justified true belief will be different from that of today--at least if some of today's questions are answered. ---Rednblu 20:00, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

From the direction this is headed, it looks like we're going to end up in WikiWikiWeb:HeatedAgreement on this particular point. Kim Bruning 20:20, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

You mean "we will be so far indented that there will be nowhere else to go"? ---Rednblu 20:45, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

:-P Kim Bruning 20:55, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Discussion with User:Ardonik

Kim is right: accepting evolution as explaining evidence is not belief. Why single out evolution? It's not like that's the only scientific theory young-earth creationists currently have problems with, or have had problems with in the past. Do you "believe" in:

1. Radioactive decay?
2. The speed of light and measured stellar distances?
3. Carbon dating?
4. Plate tectonics?
5. Red shift and the expansion of the universe?

Or do you simply accept (or reject) them as satisfactorily modeling observed phenomena?

I say, just come out and say it: "evolution does not explain observed phenomena." That assertion can then be demonstrated or refuted, and would lead the debate on interesting paths. But instead of doing that, scientific creationists often insist on equating religious belief (and belief it is) with evolutionary theory--as if to say "beliefs have no weight, religions are belief, and evolution is no better."

If we're going to get into a pedantic battle over the definition of the word "belief," you can count me out right now. I'm not interested. --Ardonik.talk() 17:47, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

---

I'm now sure what you are responding to.

Would you agree with the Wikipedia belief page that a "belief is an assent to a proposition"? ---Rednblu 18:04, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I was responding to your first post on this page. As I said before, I'm not interested in debating the definition of "belief"; I despise pedantry. At issue (for me) is why evolution is being singled out. What makes it "belief" and the other things I listed above "theory", when there is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence supporting all of them, evolution included? --Ardonik.talk() 20:11, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)