Hello Mike,
>>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".
>
>I see, so we can lift paragraphs from their overall context and treat books
>like thousands of separate mini-bulletins? I think it is rather clear that
>Dennett does not distinguish between evolution and evolution by natural
>selection.
Well let's have another look at your own words, from your previous post:
>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."
You accused me of misrepresenting Dennett's views by replacing his use of
"evolution by natural selection" with just "evolution". But now you say it's
"rather clear that Dennett does not distinguish between evolution and
evolution by natural selection"! How can I be misrepresenting him if he
doesn't distinguish between them? And anyway I used the very expression
("evolution") which Dennett used in the paragraph that Brian and I were
discussing.
It looks like you got confused and mixed up misrepresentation of Dennett
with misrepresentation in general. Will you acknowledge that you made an
error here? If you can't admit even this one minor error, then I don't think
there's any point in us continuing the discussion.
>After all, what is the title of his book? Is it "The Idea of Evolution?"
>Nope,
>it's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea." Okay, so Dennett doesn't want parents to
>be able to have their kids opt out of education about evolution. Do you
think
>we would allow them to opt out of "learning" that natural selection was the
>mechanism that did indeed evolve human beings? If it's a falsehood to
believe
>that Man is not the product of evolution by natural selection, clearly this
>falsehood
>should be corrected in education, right?
This is irrelevant to the issue of whether I misrepresented Dennett.
>>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.
>
> I don't think it was a trivial misrepresentation as this is a very common
and
>significant misrepresentation that characterizes this whole dispute.
If your "it" refers to my supposed misrepresentation of Dennett, then it
wasn't a misrepresentation at all, trivial or otherwise.
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 - 12:52:29 EST