= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
komponisto comments on Steelmanning Young Earth Creationism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (57)
I am not sure what I mean. I don't think there is a sharp dividing line between a stupid and a non-stupid position, regardless of how generous you are willing to be.
An easy example of a stupid position is one that is logically inconsistent (pi=3). There are a number of reasons to think young earth creationism is stupid:
(a) Outside reason: no one remotely smart agrees.
(b) Bayesian reason: the posterior is tiny given our data, for any reasonable setup.
(c) Historical reason: looking at the origins and evolution ( :) ) of young earth creationism, what it's trying to get done, etc.
One kind of position that I think you should consider reasonable is one that differs from another one you consider reasonable but for questions of taste (e.g. if you think Everett interpretation is reasonable, you should also think Copenhagen is reasonable). Similarly for atheism vs certain kinds of Deism, etc.
I think arguments about taste are stupid (content-free) arguments to have.
"Creationism," "conservativism", etc. are so broad that they are reasonable, I think.
I have been told that William R. Wade, a mathematician at the University of Tennessee and the author of a well-regarded textbook on analysis, is a young-earth creationist who believes that the evidence supporting the standard scientific view of geology, biology etc. was planted by the devil to test our faith.
My source for this is admittedly not a public one, but note that on his homepage, Wade states that he teaches a Sunday school class in an evangelical church, which should increase the plausibility. (Not all evangelicals are YECs, but most YECs, at least in the U.S., are evangelicals.)