[extropy-chat] Belief in logic (was: survey on fringe ideas: evolution)

[Dirk Bruere]

On 10/25/05, Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> --- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > Ron Numbers makes the case that those polls which
> > show a person believing mutually exclusive notions
> > should be eliminated from the final score. He suggests
> > that this could result in most of the survey-returns being
> > eliminated, but then the conclusions are much more evolution-
> > friendly.
>
> Possibility: there is a correlation between those who believe in logic,
> specifically the very possibility that evidence can disprove notions
> and that said disproven notions should then receive less or no further
> belief (depending on the strength of the argument against them), and
> those who believe in evolution.
>
> We might take this as obvious or nonsensical. Logic exists, whether we
> believe it or not. 1+1=2 no matter how much one may preach against it.
> But this is not the mindset of everyone. Some believe that preaching
> that 1+1=3 is enough to make it so - and either it has not occurred to
> them to try it, or they have rationalizations of why it has failed to
> work every time it has been attempted (possibly backed up with accounts
> of it working for other people - entirely fictitious, but they may or
> may not be aware of this, and for whatever reason they do not make much
> use of science's error-correcting mechanisms for cases like this).


Maybe they are thinking of rabbits.
Or quantum theory.

I wonder what a survey focussed on belief in a logical, rational world
> would turn up, especially if it looked for correlations with belief in
> science vs. religion (which could possibly be distilled to belief in
> evolution vs. creationism).
>

Q: Do I believe in survival of Human consciousness after death?
A: No

Q: Do I believe in ghosts?
A: Yes.

Contradictory?
Only if *you* make certain unspoken assumptions.

Dirk
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