Hello Mike
>>I understand Dennett's point to be this. If the cost of saving the
Baptists
>>is misinforming children, then that's too high a price to pay. We should
>>teach children about evolution, and, if they all turn away from Baptism as
a
>>result, then so be it.
>
>and
>
>>Please be clear. What freedom are you talking about? Dennett is referring
to
>>the freedom to keep children from learning about evolution. Denying this
>>freedom is certainly controversial, but it's far short of the things which
>>some people are accusing Dennett of.
>
>I thought you said that you found it important not to misrepresent? Well,
>you have just misrepresented Dennett's views twice. The "falsehood"
Dennett
>wants to eliminate is as follows: "that "Man" is not a product of evolution
>by natural
>selection." Note the specific and explicit inclusion of "BY NATURAL
>SELECTION."
>Dennett is not simply talking about "evolution" as you represent him. He
is
>talking about a specific type of evolution - that which occurs "by natural
>selection."
>This Darwinian mechanism is, after all, the meat-n-potatoes of all his
>sermons,
>is it not? And "evolution" is not the same as "evolution by natural
>selection."
>
>It didn't take long for you to misrepresent after all.
1. Neither my post nor the one I was replying to was referring to the
paragraph where Dennett uses the expressions "falsehood" and "that "Man" is
not a product of evolution by natural selection." We were referring to the
following paragraph, which occurs 3 pages earlier:
"Save the Baptists! Yes, of course, but not _by_all_means_. Not if it means
tolerating the deliberate misinforming of children about the natural world.
According to a recent poll, 48 per cent of the people in the United States
today believe that the book of Genesis is literally true. And 70 per cent
believe that "creation science" should be taught in schools alongside
evolution Some recent writers recommend a policy in which parents would be
able to "opt out" of materials they didn't want their children taught.
Should evolution be taught in the schools? Should arithmetic be taught?
Should history? Misinforming a child is a terrible offense."
See? -- "evolution", not "evolution by natural selection".
2. I'm sure you can find cases where I've misrepresented people in trivial
ways. Everybody makes trivial misrepresentations all the time, and we don't
normally draw attention to them.
If you draw my attention to a non-trivial misrepresentation that I've made
(and I do sometimes accidentally make them), then I'll admit it was a
misrepresentation and I'll correct it.
Richard Wein (Tich)
See my web pages for various games at http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~tich/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 22 2000 - 07:54:09 EST