This post is pretty dry: it’s a good thing I’m not attempting to build an audience. Someone just let me know if I’m wrong in this, sooner or later, o.k.? This post has to do with one of my favorite sites.
3quarksdaily.com is an interesting and often informative link-portal to the web. I’ve discovered much modern art and philosophy here, many encapsulated workable tid-bits of knowledge that promise to be of worthy of further review. I can’t emphasize enough my high estimation of the site’s worth.
But this article astonished me. The title claims that “The most eminent evolutionary scientists have surprising views on how religion relates to evolution,” which is interesting as only 275 were polled and barely half that number responded. The lack of response is not surprising given choices such as “the relation between evolution and religion: A, they are non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) whose tenets are not in conflict; B, religion is a social phenomenon that has developed with the biological evolution of Homo sapiens—therefore religion should be considered as a part of our biological heritage, and its tenets should be seen as a labile social adaptation, subject to change and reinterpretation; C, they are mutually exclusive magisteria whose tenets indicate mutually exclusive conclusions; or D, they are totally harmonious—evolution is one of many ways to elucidate the evidences of God’s designs” without ever defining their terms.
Finally yesterday, days after this was first posted, somebody pointed out in the comments what I had been thinking: without more specificity B and C are not mutually exclusive. The authors don’t seem to realize this- they say “72 percent, of the respondents chose option B” and “we did expect a strong showing for choice C“. But they’re NOT mutually exclusive! What’s going on here?
The only surprises I can see here are 1) that even 55% of the scientists deigned to answer the questions and 2) that 3QD linked to this article. But I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed- perhaps I’m missing something integral here. Can anyone help me out?
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