Well said Scott!

I'd like to recommend a book that supports what Scott says:

"THE LANGUAGE OF GOD: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." By Francis
S Collins. (ISBN-13: 978-1-84739-092-9)

 Amazon.com<http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/0743286391>

Nic 57/15


On Fri, Oct 2, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Scott E Antes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Ray (and All)!  Please accept my apologies for sounding like I'm in the
> classroom.  The last thing I want to do is insult anyone's intelligence.  So
> many people don't recognize what for me is a very major difference in
> thinking, though, that I feel compelled to bring it up.
>
> I make a great effort to help my students understand this: Belief requires
> no facts, just faith.  As a scientist--like anyone who simply examines the
> evidence, I need not *believe* in biological evolution; I *accept* it and I
> *know* it, from the overwhelming facts that exist.  We have fossil evidence
> of it, DNA evidence of it, archaeological evidence of it, and now we can
> *watch it occur*--something we couldn't do very well a few decades ago.
>  Most of us who teach university-level courses no longer use the term
> "evolutionary theory" because it's confusing or misleading.  (A theory is an
> explanation, but no more than that until it is supported by factual
> evidence.)  We teach evolutionary science.  Nothing we teach in science is a
> matter of opinion, it's a matter of facts.  Again, belief doesn't enter the
> picture.
>
> As far as the statistic of only 39 percent of Americans "believing" in
> evolution, that figure certainly is not representative of the hundreds of
> students I've had over the past decade and a half.  Per my experience, the
> number of university students (again, those in my classes) who accept
> evolutionary science as fact is closer to 80 percent.--maybe higher  That
> figure might be lower on the first day of a freshman class, but by the last
> day they've examined the facts for themselves and drawn their own
> conclusions, favoring knowledge.  A minority, however, always will believe
> what they've been told to believe, regardless of solid evidence to the
> contrary.
>
> Belief is an amazingly powerful phenomenon, but we don't need it in terms
> of biological evolution.  Human evolution has favored us with the ability
> for abstract thought, thus the ability to believe in that which we cannot
> perceive with our senses.  Belief was a powerful survival tool for our
> ancestors.  What they couldn't know, they had to believe.  Today belief
> still is useful to us, of course, but we have supplanted it in many respects
> with knowledge: scientific knowledge, historical knowledge, the knowledge
> that comes from a wider range of personal experiences than our ancestors
> had.  Our *scale of observation* is hundreds of thousands of times wider
> than that of our ancestors.  Yet, many people today continue to believe what
> our ancestors believed.  They will believe beliefs that have been passed on
> through millennia, even those the facts dispute them.  Pretty amazing, when
> one thinks about it.
>
> Bottom line: Please let's not *believe* in biological evolution.  That's
> like believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.  In other words, if we
> must believe in something, believe those things for which we have no
> evidence.  Otherwise, let's either accept the facts, or not.
>
> Be well.  Scott
>
> Scott E. Antes
> Northern Arizona University
> Department of Anthropology
> PO Box 15200
> Flagstaff, AZ 86011
> ________________________________________
> From: Parkinson's Information Exchange Network [
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of rayilynlee [[log in to unmask]
> ]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 1:50 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Darwin Film "Creation" Controversial
>
> only 39% of Americans believe in evolution; many people are hostile to the
> scientific method which is self correcting and this has negative
> consequences for those of us unlucky enough to have incurable diseases.
>
> Rayilyn Brown
> Director AZNPF
> Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> From: Diane Wyshak
> Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 1:04 PM
> To: [log in to unmask] ; ray ; don C. Reed ; chew Nee Kong
> Subject: Is Darwin Film "Creation" Too Controversial for American
> Audiences? « MrGreen.Biz
>
>
>
>
> http://mrgreenbiz.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/is-darwin-film-creation-too-controversial-for-american-audiences/
>
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