(Ron) Natural Man [drifting inexorably off topic]
Achilles Sophia achillesz@usa.net
Tue, 22 Sep 1998 14:32:34 -0400 (00906507154, 18323433322728@cfagroup.com)
>> ACHILLES
>> Actually, the vast majority of working scientists last I checked (like the
>> population at large) were professing xtians. This would seem to indicate
>> that science cannot be trusted because it is devoted to proving the bible
>> correct, not the opposite. On purely demographic grounds we should expect
>> science to provide *more* support for religion than is warranted, not less.
>>
>> My own personal story on this may illustrate what I mean, as an
>> undergraduate I proposed that humans are not just the closest relatives of
>> apes, but should be classified as apes just as much as the other apes
>> (Orangutangs gibbons chimpanzees bonobos and gorillas) - none of my
>> instructors ever offered a valid scientific reason why this was not true,
>> they only said that their funding was in enough doubt already without
>> provoking the bibliolaters further...
>>
>
>BRIDEAN
>Don't you know that it is the person making the positive claim that bears
>the burden of proof? You are the one making the positive claim, i.e. that
>humans "should be classified as apes just as much as the other apes".
>That is a positive statement, therefore YOU bear the burden of proof.
>
ACHILLES
As a matter of fact you are correct, and at the time I did have the texts on
hand to prove this. All you have to do is present the standards by which
family pongidae is defined (primarily morphological, and genetic evidence
can be useful for confirmation) then point out the morphological
characteristics of the various members of genus homo, and genetic evidence
from the single living species in that genus, to provide compelling evidence
that genus homo should be considered to belong to family pongidae, rather
than to a separate but related family called hominidae. What I was saying,
basically, was that hominids were not known already and someone discovered
them today no one would have the slightest hesitation to initially classify
them as belonging to family Pongidae, and further investigation would only
confirm that classification.
The resistance to this idea is not confined to xtians of course - even
atheists sometimes resist accepting their identity as an ape, but to xtians
it is not merely unsettling but positively sacriligous. Any scientist who
went on record stating what every primatologist already knows here would
risk Jesse Helms and the rest of the religious right making it their top
priority to kill their funding. Thus a scientific question is simply avoided
by scientists for political reasons.
Achilles
"...we are not simply contending in order that my view or that
of yours may prevail, but I presume we ought both of us to be
fighting for the truth..."
from Philebus, the Dialogues of Plato