FYI: What Is The Evolutionary Purpose Of Tickling? And BTW: What Is The Purpose Of Evolutionary Indoctrination?
I started reading a an insightful book today - A Pocket Guide to Logic and Faith, which explains the different logical fallacies that so often come up in news and science articles. I'm only at page 21, and I already find it exciting to see how powerful the book is in helping to discern when people go off track and make claims that are not supported by evidence or logical arguments. And so I decided to check out some science news articles, and turned to my Science tab on Flipboard.
Then very quickly, here is an article that caught my attention -
FYI: What is the Evolutionary Purpose of Tickling? It's taken from a Popular Science article, viewable rom this link.
The title alone, quickly betrays that it commits the logical fallacy of reification.
To reify is to regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing (Merriam-Webster).
And Reification, is "attributing a concrete characteristic to something that is abstract”
Excerpt From: Dr. Jason Lisle. “A Pocket Guide...Logic & Faith: Discerning truth in logical arguments.” Answers in Genesis, 2011-09-09. iBooks.
So what's wrong with the title? Evolution is a theory, it is a concept. It is not a person or a mind. Therefore Evolution does not purpose anything. It has no intentions! Therefore - BUZZ, BUZZ (error detector buzzer) - wrong title! Just as easily, the article could have been entitled "What is the Purpose Behind Tickling?"
Knowing that the title commits the fallacy of reification, the next question comes up automatically - why the need to indoctrinate the reader in Evolution? It's totally unnecessary to preach evolution in this article, because discovering and theorizing the possible origins, development, purposes and benefits of tickling, does nothing to promote the theory of Evolution. Even if God has built tickling into the anatomy and physical responses of people and some animals, nothing changes with the study of what other animals have similar responses, how tickling develops in people, how it might be beneficial socially and physically.
Here are the first three sentences of the article:
You probably know that you can't tickle yourself. And although you might be able to tickle a total stranger, your brain also strongly discourages you from doing something so socially awkward. These facts offer insight into tickling's evolutionary purpose, says Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the author of the book Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.
Notice the bias to teach evolution, because the 2nd sentence could have just as well read as follows to give a Christian spin:
"These facts offer insight into tickling's God-given purpose, says ..."
Or, to be neutral, the 2nd sentence could have read:
"These facts offer insight into tickling's purpose, says ..."
Now you might hear someone say, "what's wrong with teaching Evolution, when Evolution has been proven, and we see Evolution everyday?"
Now in making this statement, one is committing the fallacy of equivocation.
Evolution can mean many things. At its simplest, it can mean change. Or it can mean speciation like in dog breeding into dogs with specialized characteristics, or in bacteria developing into other strains of the same bacteria while still remaining bacteria. It can also mean molecules-to-man change, which means the change from non-living molecules to organic living molecules and eventually to sponges, plants, animals then man, all having a common ancestor of non-living matter. This latter has not been proven!
So, to say "What's wrong with teaching (molecules-to-man) evolution, when (changes in living things, speciation) evolution has been proven, and we see (changes in living things, speciation) evolution everyday" commits the fallacy of equivocation.
You might also hear "What's wrong with teaching evolution? Science has given us space satellites, computers and mobile phones. And science teaches us evolution!" This again commits the fallacy of equivocation.
The science that gave rise to the development of satellites, computers and mobile phones is Operational Science. While the science that teaches evolution is Origins Science from an atheistic or naturalistic position. They are not the same kinds of sciences! So to think that the teachings of evolution are justified based on objective, operational science apart from interpretation of naturalistic origins scientists commits the fallacy of equivocation.
So given all these - the big question to Flipboard, and to Popular Science, as well as to Time Magazine and National Geographic is - why not edit your articles to be neutral?? Why teach and preach the religion of Evolution? Why continue to teach Evolution as fact when more and more operational science and natural theology is providing strong points that naturalistic evolution is an unsupportable, scientifically untenable position.
For anyone who has not yet understood that Evolution has to be taken by faith just as other religions, and is actually inferior to belief in the God of the Bible when stacked up against operational science, please check my article on The Religion of Evolution.
Also check the extensive archives of scientific articles on the Answers in Genesis website and the discourses on the Reasonable Faith website.
To be more sharp in discerning logic and fallacies in arguments, check out the book A Pocket Guide To Logic & Faith, available from this link.
That's it for now.
Be discerning!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Then very quickly, here is an article that caught my attention -
FYI: What is the Evolutionary Purpose of Tickling? It's taken from a Popular Science article, viewable rom this link.
The title alone, quickly betrays that it commits the logical fallacy of reification.
To reify is to regard (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing (Merriam-Webster).
And Reification, is "attributing a concrete characteristic to something that is abstract”
Excerpt From: Dr. Jason Lisle. “A Pocket Guide...Logic & Faith: Discerning truth in logical arguments.” Answers in Genesis, 2011-09-09. iBooks.
So what's wrong with the title? Evolution is a theory, it is a concept. It is not a person or a mind. Therefore Evolution does not purpose anything. It has no intentions! Therefore - BUZZ, BUZZ (error detector buzzer) - wrong title! Just as easily, the article could have been entitled "What is the Purpose Behind Tickling?"
Knowing that the title commits the fallacy of reification, the next question comes up automatically - why the need to indoctrinate the reader in Evolution? It's totally unnecessary to preach evolution in this article, because discovering and theorizing the possible origins, development, purposes and benefits of tickling, does nothing to promote the theory of Evolution. Even if God has built tickling into the anatomy and physical responses of people and some animals, nothing changes with the study of what other animals have similar responses, how tickling develops in people, how it might be beneficial socially and physically.
Here are the first three sentences of the article:
You probably know that you can't tickle yourself. And although you might be able to tickle a total stranger, your brain also strongly discourages you from doing something so socially awkward. These facts offer insight into tickling's evolutionary purpose, says Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the author of the book Laughter: A Scientific Investigation.
Notice the bias to teach evolution, because the 2nd sentence could have just as well read as follows to give a Christian spin:
"These facts offer insight into tickling's God-given purpose, says ..."
Or, to be neutral, the 2nd sentence could have read:
"These facts offer insight into tickling's purpose, says ..."
Now you might hear someone say, "what's wrong with teaching Evolution, when Evolution has been proven, and we see Evolution everyday?"
Now in making this statement, one is committing the fallacy of equivocation.
Evolution can mean many things. At its simplest, it can mean change. Or it can mean speciation like in dog breeding into dogs with specialized characteristics, or in bacteria developing into other strains of the same bacteria while still remaining bacteria. It can also mean molecules-to-man change, which means the change from non-living molecules to organic living molecules and eventually to sponges, plants, animals then man, all having a common ancestor of non-living matter. This latter has not been proven!
So, to say "What's wrong with teaching (molecules-to-man) evolution, when (changes in living things, speciation) evolution has been proven, and we see (changes in living things, speciation) evolution everyday" commits the fallacy of equivocation.
You might also hear "What's wrong with teaching evolution? Science has given us space satellites, computers and mobile phones. And science teaches us evolution!" This again commits the fallacy of equivocation.
The science that gave rise to the development of satellites, computers and mobile phones is Operational Science. While the science that teaches evolution is Origins Science from an atheistic or naturalistic position. They are not the same kinds of sciences! So to think that the teachings of evolution are justified based on objective, operational science apart from interpretation of naturalistic origins scientists commits the fallacy of equivocation.
So given all these - the big question to Flipboard, and to Popular Science, as well as to Time Magazine and National Geographic is - why not edit your articles to be neutral?? Why teach and preach the religion of Evolution? Why continue to teach Evolution as fact when more and more operational science and natural theology is providing strong points that naturalistic evolution is an unsupportable, scientifically untenable position.
For anyone who has not yet understood that Evolution has to be taken by faith just as other religions, and is actually inferior to belief in the God of the Bible when stacked up against operational science, please check my article on The Religion of Evolution.
Also check the extensive archives of scientific articles on the Answers in Genesis website and the discourses on the Reasonable Faith website.
To be more sharp in discerning logic and fallacies in arguments, check out the book A Pocket Guide To Logic & Faith, available from this link.
That's it for now.
Be discerning!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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