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From: ethan@utastro.UUCP (Ethan Vishniac)
Newsgroups: net.origins,net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Education of creationists' children
Message-ID: <888@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 8-Dec-84 12:33:34 EST
Article-I.D.: utastro.888
Posted: Sat Dec  8 12:33:34 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Dec-84 03:07:53 EST
References: <886@ihuxn.UUCP> <1231@dciem.UUCP> <2319@ihnss.UUCP> <2835@ucbcad.UUCP>, <6@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Organization: UTexas Astronomy Dept., Austin, Texas
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Xref: watmath net.origins:594 net.politics:6207

This is in response to a message that wasn't addressed to me particularly,
but what the hell.  

>[Karl Kleinpaste]
>It is highly unfair to attempt to  simply  dispense with half of an argument
>by  claiming  that  that  other side doesn't approach  the  problem  from  a
>rational point of view. It's  not  true,  and  the attack doesn't work. Both
>sides think. Both sides reach conclusions. The conclusions just happen to be
>different.

I certainly don't suspect creationists of being irrational in the sense of
needing to be kept away from sharp objects (or at least not more than the
rest of the net :-)).  I do suspect them of attempting to pass off as science
certain articles of faith which stand in contradiction to what we have observed
of the universe.  Whether or not this constitutes irrationality is a
philosophical issue.  If someone insisted on believing that he could fly
and proposed to try it out, then we could probably all agree that the
person in question was being irrational.  Since creationism has no harmful
immediate practical consequences and acts to buttress a belief system that
is important to creationists it less clear to me whether it constitutes
irrationality.  It is clear to me it isn't science.

>"Evolutionists"  have certain evidence which they
>find compellingly convincing. Fine. "Creationists" happen to have a body  of
>evidence (yes, evidence, you  can't  just  dismiss it as 100% garbage) which
>they find equally compellingly convincing.

Have you seen something here I missed?  Or are you espousing an "I'm OK, you're
OK" version of science?  What do you think of the Hollow Earthers?  They
claim to have evidence also.

The above will not be the official opinion of the University of Texas
until such time as it can be reliably ascertained that hell has frozen
over to a depth of at least 10 meters.

"I can't help it if my         Ethan Vishniac
    knee jerks"                {charm,ut-sally,ut-ngp,noao}!utastro!ethan
                               Department of Astronomy
                               University of Texas
                               Austin, Texas 78712