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Self-examination and revision of opinion. Does it happen and with whom?

Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Dan From Smithville Some of what I’ve said might not be relevant. I would need to see some specific examples of what you’re wondering about. There might many different answers to your questions, in different circumstances. Maybe a person thinks that the Bible can never be wrong, and that they have some way of knowing what the Bible says. Can you understand a person thinking that science can be wrong sometimes? If science can be wrong sometimes. and what the person thinks the Bible says can never be wrong, then any time there’s a contradiction between the two, then it must be the science that’s wrong.

That isn’t how I think, but I can easily imagine people thinking that way.

I feel like I’m still not really understanding what your question is. Is it because when you try to tell some people some things that you think should make a difference to them, it doesn’t make any difference to them? Is it because you don’t understand why people haven’t considered everything that you’ve considered, or if they have, then how could they not be agreeing with what you think about it? Whatever the question is, like I said, there might be different answers for different situations. I don’t know how far you would want to go with this. For now I’m interested in exploring it as far you would want to. I think we might need to look at some specific examples.

I want to try to explain some more what I was saying about my own view. It looks to me like what people think they know that they call “science,” in forum debating, is mostly what they’ve seen some other people saying, that they’re trusting to tell them what science says. They have some fuzzy idea that it’s based on something that they think of as “scientific research.” Every time I’ve probed into it, it turns out to be some kind of synthesis of the views of some people with science degrees in some fields of study that are allegedly relevant to the topic that is being debated.

However that may be, I don’t see any need at all for me to try to conform my views to anything that anyone calls “science,” no matter how many people with science degrees allegedly agree with it.

If someone would point out to me some research results that they think invalidate some view of mine, that would interest me. Just to call my views “unscientific,” or to say that I’m disagreeing with any number of people with science degrees, means nothing to me.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
@Dan From Smithville Some of what I’ve said might not be relevant. I would need to see some specific examples of what you’re wondering about. There might many different answers to your questions, in different circumstances. Maybe a person thinks that the Bible can never be wrong, and that they have some way of knowing what the Bible says. Can you understand a person thinking that science can be wrong sometimes? If science can be wrong sometimes. and what the person thinks the Bible says can never be wrong, then any time there’s a contradiction between the two, then it must be the science that’s wrong.

That isn’t how I think, but I can easily imagine people thinking that way.

I feel like I’m still not really understanding what your question is. Is it because when you try to tell some people some things that you think should make a difference to them, it doesn’t make any difference to them? Is it because you don’t understand why people haven’t considered everything that you’ve considered, or if they have, then how could they not be agreeing with what you think about it? Whatever the question is, like I said, there might be different answers for different situations. I don’t know how far you would want to go with this. For now I’m interested in exploring it as far you would want to. I think we might need to look at some specific examples.

I want to try to explain some more what I was saying about my own view. It looks to me like what people think they know that they call “science,” in forum debating, is mostly what they’ve seen some other people saying, that they’re trusting to tell them what science says. They have some fuzzy idea that it’s based on something that they think of as “scientific research.” Every time I’ve probed into it, it turns out to be some kind of synthesis of the views of some people with science degrees in some fields of study that are allegedly relevant to the topic that is being debated.

However that may be, I don’t see any need at all for me to try to conform my views to anything that anyone calls “science,” no matter how many people with science degrees allegedly agree with it.

If someone would point out to me some research results that they think invalidate some view of mine, that would interest me. Just to call my views “unscientific,” or to say that I’m disagreeing with any number of people with science degrees, means nothing to me.
If a person believes the Bible is infallible and that science is wrong, that is fine. They are free to believe as they choose. But when they take that belief to application and make claims outside of their personal belief, the are making positive assertions that require support. Further, such claims are not limited to forum arguments and are applied to action that has an effect not just on the believer, but on man others.

Do you agree that there is a difference between what a person believes and what they can objectively support? A person can believe in Bigfoot, they may be correct. To my knowledge, however, there is no evidence to show that Bigfoot exists and arguing that it does is an argument of belief.

Further, if a person wants to demonstrate that science is flawed, shouldn't they be using the best information to support their conviction? If they wish to convince others, knowingly using poor information that others can obviously see is poor would be unconvinced by the assertions about science and question even points that the person is correct about.

What if the better information, when properly explained, would convince the person objecting to science that they are wrong in their view about the science? Wouldn't this bridge some gaps between people if they checked their own information and the logic of their own arguments? People tend to believe themselves before they believe others that they feel are ideologically opposed to them. Wouldn't challenging their own pre-conceptions lead to enhancing their own beliefs? People fear that it would lead them astray, but it can lead them to greater understanding and strength of position too.

Finally, what about an obligation that people have to intellectual honesty? Their own as well as others. When claims are taken to the public space, I consider that there is an obligation to be honest in supporting those claims. Failure to do that reduces credibility to the point that any opposition will no longer be open to anything a person claims or believes. It closes doors. Ultimately, the person that inspired me is someone I no longer engage. On any subject. To me they are so closed and narrow in their views, so willing to post misinformation, that nothing they discuss can be considered to have much merit. They are posting their belief and I can dismiss that by ignoring them or simply stating I believe otherwise and for these reasons and end it there. They have lost out due to their own failures in my opinion and may never be able to recover the ground they were fighting so hard to win.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
If a person believes the Bible is infallible and that science is wrong, that is fine. They are free to believe as they choose. But when they take that belief to application and make claims outside of their personal belief, the are making positive assertions that require support. Further, such claims are not limited to forum arguments and are applied to action that has an effect not just on the believer, but on man others.

Do you agree that there is a difference between what a person believes and what they can objectively support? A person can believe in Bigfoot, they may be correct. To my knowledge, however, there is no evidence to show that Bigfoot exists and arguing that it does is an argument of belief.

Further, if a person wants to demonstrate that science is flawed, shouldn't they be using the best information to support their conviction? If they wish to convince others, knowingly using poor information that others can obviously see is poor would be unconvinced by the assertions about science and question even points that the person is correct about.

What if the better information, when properly explained, would convince the person objecting to science that they are wrong in their view about the science? Wouldn't this bridge some gaps between people if they checked their own information and the logic of their own arguments? People tend to believe themselves before they believe others that they feel are ideologically opposed to them. Wouldn't challenging their own pre-conceptions lead to enhancing their own beliefs? People fear that it would lead them astray, but it can lead them to greater understanding and strength of position too.

Finally, what about an obligation that people have to intellectual honesty? Their own as well as others. When claims are taken to the public space, I consider that there is an obligation to be honest in supporting those claims. Failure to do that reduces credibility to the point that any opposition will no longer be open to anything a person claims or believes. It closes doors. Ultimately, the person that inspired me is someone I no longer engage. On any subject. To me they are so closed and narrow in their views, so willing to post misinformation, that nothing they discuss can be considered to have much merit. They are posting their belief and I can dismiss that by ignoring them or simply stating I believe otherwise and for these reasons and end it there. They have lost out due to their own failures in my opinion and may never be able to recover the ground they were fighting so hard to win.
I’m confused now about what your purpose is in this thread. Originally I thought it was to try to find possible explanations for some people’s behavior. Then I thought that maybe that behavior was getting in the way of what you were trying to do, and you were trying to find some way around that. Now I’m feeling a little lost.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
I’m confused now about what your purpose is in this thread. Originally I thought it was to try to find possible explanations for some people’s behavior. Then I thought that maybe that behavior was getting in the way of what you were trying to do, and you were trying to find some way around that. Now I’m feeling a little lost.
I suppose maybe I am confused about what it is that is confusing you.

I have noticed that some people seem to rely and return to poor information without any apparent effort to review what it is they are stating. They make claims, but when correct information is provided, they ignore it. Some of it may be intentional, but it prompts me to wonder if it is and if not, do these people review the information they are using. Do they update their positions based on new information or do they just continue to recite the same information over and over?
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
I’m confused now about what your purpose is in this thread. Originally I thought it was to try to find possible explanations for some people’s behavior. Then I thought that maybe that behavior was getting in the way of what you were trying to do, and you were trying to find some way around that. Now I’m feeling a little lost.
I assumed our conversation was evolving, but within the confines of the OP.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
If a person believes the Bible is infallible and that science is wrong, that is fine. They are free to believe as they choose. But when they take that belief to application and make claims outside of their personal belief, the are making positive assertions that require support. Further, such claims are not limited to forum arguments and are applied to action that has an effect not just on the believer, but on man others.

Do you agree that there is a difference between what a person believes and what they can objectively support? A person can believe in Bigfoot, they may be correct. To my knowledge, however, there is no evidence to show that Bigfoot exists and arguing that it does is an argument of belief.

Further, if a person wants to demonstrate that science is flawed, shouldn't they be using the best information to support their conviction? If they wish to convince others, knowingly using poor information that others can obviously see is poor would be unconvinced by the assertions about science and question even points that the person is correct about.

What if the better information, when properly explained, would convince the person objecting to science that they are wrong in their view about the science? Wouldn't this bridge some gaps between people if they checked their own information and the logic of their own arguments? People tend to believe themselves before they believe others that they feel are ideologically opposed to them. Wouldn't challenging their own pre-conceptions lead to enhancing their own beliefs? People fear that it would lead them astray, but it can lead them to greater understanding and strength of position too.

Finally, what about an obligation that people have to intellectual honesty? Their own as well as others. When claims are taken to the public space, I consider that there is an obligation to be honest in supporting those claims. Failure to do that reduces credibility to the point that any opposition will no longer be open to anything a person claims or believes. It closes doors. Ultimately, the person that inspired me is someone I no longer engage. On any subject. To me they are so closed and narrow in their views, so willing to post misinformation, that nothing they discuss can be considered to have much merit. They are posting their belief and I can dismiss that by ignoring them or simply stating I believe otherwise and for these reasons and end it there. They have lost out due to their own failures in my opinion and may never be able to recover the ground they were fighting so hard to win.
I don’t know what to say. It looks to me like you’ve found all the answers you were looking for, and there’s nothing more to discuss.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
I will have to review the conversation. Perhaps we have run out of points. I had not thought so.
The topic as I understood it was a kind of behavior in Internet discussions, where people don’t inform themselves as well as we would like them to, about whatever we’re discussing with them. They might be informing themselves as much as they would ever need or want to, for their purposes. It looks to me like you’ve found all the answers you were looking for. My only other interest, apart from whatever you might like to discuss, would be in how Internet discussions could be more fruitful and beneficial for everyone, and how that might possibly happen. My interest in that would be in how I can help it happen.

I have more thoughts about why people don’t inform themselves any better than they do, but it doesn’t look to me now like that would interest you.
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
I will have to review the conversation. Perhaps we have run out of points. I had not thought so.
I’ll try posting some thoughts about people not informing themselves better than they do. There might be different reasons for different people. We could just ask different people why they don’t inform themselves better than they do. I wouldn’t know how to answer that question, myself. I have to stop somewhere. I can’t spend all my time, all my life, informing myself. That would defeat the whole purpose of informing myself, which is to see what my possibilities are, to consider what to do about them, to live the best life I can. I want to spend some of my time actually living my life.

Part of my purpose in Internet forums has always been to spend time with some of the people whose ideas and interests seem most contrary to mine, and try to see things their way and see the good in what they’re doing. That leads to looking at what they say are their reasons for it. I try to find some way of understanding what they’re saying, that I can agree with.

It looks to me like the views that people appear to be promoting and defending in Internet discussions are mostly whatever is popular in some faction that they identify with, and that’s all being fed to them from whatever media and faction sources are popular in that faction. They believe whatever those sources are saying, and dismiss any sources that contradict them as unreliable or even dishonest. I don’t see anyone on any side going any deeper than believing what some people are telling them, whether it’s about what science says or about what their scriptures say. The only difference I see is in which people they are trusting to tell them whatever they need to know, and all they need to know about debate topics is what is the popular way of thinking in their faction. That’s why they never look any deeper than their faction’s favorite sources. Not only because it wouldn’t serve their purpose of being popular in the faction but because they might learn things that would create an internal conflict between their own thinking and the popular thinking of the faction.

That’s how it looks to me.
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Dan From Smithville Then there are the one-person factions like mine, who each have our own story that we’re proud of, and that some of us have been working on for years or even decades. That’s resistant to change because of that pride, and also because it’s scary to think of moving, removing and replacing planks in the floor you’re standing on. Beliefs, and things that people think they know, are especially resistant to change, almost by definition. I’ve been trying, more or less successfully, not to have any beliefs, and not to think that I know anything.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Dan From Smithville I’m not sure that it would help to consider my reasons for not informing myself any better than I do, because it looks to me like my way of thinking is completely different from any other people’s ways of thinking, in these forums or any others. I’ll try to explain anyway, for whatever it might be worth, why I’m not informing myself more than I am about people’s reasons for what they’re saying in debates about creation theories. Frankly, I just don’t care. I don’t see what practical difference it could possibly make for me, or for anyone else, or for society, whether the earth and all its creatures were created by some unknowable essence 6000 years ago, or whether it all goes back gazillions of years to some other kind of unknowable essence. The feuding about that just looks like a middle-school spit-wad fight to me. In my way of thinking, it’s just different ways of modeling something, without even knowing, or even having any conceivable way of ever knowing, from direct experience, what we’re modeling. In my way of thinking, models are not true or false, right or wrong. They’re more or less useful, depending on how they’re used and for what purpose. All that I see creationist and anti-creationist models being used for in Internet discussions is endless, aimless debating, as an end in itself, for social interaction and to pass the time away. That doesn’t interest me, so there would need to be some other reason for me to want to inform myself about about people’s reasons for endorsing or rejecting creation theories. I suppose if someone would like me to, I might do it, just for that reason. That’s something to consider. You could try just asking the person, just as a friendly thing to do, to inform themselves about whatever you want them to be informed about. Maybe that’s something we could discuss. What would you like people to know, who believe in creation theories, and how can I inform myself about that? I’ll inform myself all about it, just for you. :)

I see that what it might really be all about is the reactions of some religious factions to what’s being taught about evolution, in public schools. What I think about that is that everyone should tell their representatives and school board members and whoever else is involved in deciding the curriculum, what they think about it, and let them decide. Also parents should teach their children critical thinking, and the difference between the map and the territory. Everyone should be involved as much as they can in the education of all children, in mentoring for example, and with their grandchildren, nieces and nephews. And everyone should know more about the history of their religions and of the sciences, so that they stop thinking that they know something because their scriptures say so, or because science says so. Most of all, people need learn to value all people everywhere, and care what happens to them, and to stop lumping people together in their minds, according to what they think people believe or don’t believe, and stop making up excuses for unloving attitudes and behavior towards other people.

(later)
Also, people need to be trained better how to satisfy their psychological and social needs, so they don’t destroy the usefulness of words and ideas for modeling the world and for communication, by trying to use them to satisfy those needs.
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Dan From Smithville I forgot to say something that I wanted to say, about my reasons for not informing myself any more than I have about people’s reasons for endorsing or rejecting creation theories. Every time I’ve looked into it, it always goes back to believing what some other people are saying, either about what some scriptures say, or about what science says. It looks to me like what people are saying that science says is always coming from intermediate sources that are putting storytelling ahead of factual reporting. The stories might be loosely based on some kind of summary or synthesis of the views of some people with science degrees about evolution and the age of the earth, but I can’t think of any reason why I would need or want to know about that. For me, it’s like what people say sometimes about belief in God. I have no need for that hypothesis. I can’t think of how any creation view, or any opposing view, would be of any use to me, in anything I might ever want to do in life.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Dan From Smithville I did a Web search for evidence against creationism, and I was disappointed with what I found. I’d like to discuss that with you, but maybe that would be going too far off topic in this thread.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Dan From Smithville I don’t know what else to say about the topic of this thread. Do you have any more thoughts or questions about it? It brings up some issues in my mind that I would love to discuss, but those might be off topic in this thread, and might not interest you.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
In so many ways I used to be pretty much the opposite of who I am today. 20 years ago I would have sided with the anti-LGBT members, I voted straight-ticket Republican in my first election, very patriotic and nationalist, very Conservative, very religious, but I beat that guy with a stick and felt better for doing it. :D
Today, my positions are open to change, but it requires evidence and data. I like to exercise and challenge my views, and a few times my views were totally bulldozed and I had to rebuild them from the ground up.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
The topic as I understood it was a kind of behavior in Internet discussions, where people don’t inform themselves as well as we would like them to, about whatever we’re discussing with them. They might be informing themselves as much as they would ever need or want to, for their purposes. It looks to me like you’ve found all the answers you were looking for. My only other interest, apart from whatever you might like to discuss, would be in how Internet discussions could be more fruitful and beneficial for everyone, and how that might possibly happen. My interest in that would be in how I can help it happen.

I have more thoughts about why people don’t inform themselves any better than they do, but it doesn’t look to me now like that would interest you.
That is the general nature of this thread.

I would be interested, even though it seems like you and I do think about what we are posting. Sort of makes this limited, but surely we can find some things to carry on with.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
@Dan From Smithville I don’t know what else to say about the topic of this thread. Do you have any more thoughts or questions about it? It brings up some issues in my mind that I would love to discuss, but those might be off topic in this thread, and might not interest you.
It is late and I am tired, so I am not at my best for coming up with ideas right now. Let me relax a bit and see if I can think of anything. Otherwise, I am open to whatever anyone brings up. At least bring them out and see what they are, before casting any judgments about whether they are too far off topic.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
In so many ways I used to be pretty much the opposite of who I am today. 20 years ago I would have sided with the anti-LGBT members, I voted straight-ticket Republican in my first election, very patriotic and nationalist, very Conservative, very religious, but I beat that guy with a stick and felt better for doing it. :D
Today, my positions are open to change, but it requires evidence and data. I like to exercise and challenge my views, and a few times my views were totally bulldozed and I had to rebuild them from the ground up.
You were voting when you were 12. I am guessing 20 years is a ballpark figure. I just had to mention that.

I still live rather conservatively for the most part, but my views on social issues have pretty much been fairly libertarian and somewhat left leaning.

These things can change through a person's life. One of my favorite authors was described as a flaming liberal by Isaac Asimov, but became rather conservative as time went on.
 
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