"Watching, listening and even commenting on the cultural debates over climate change, evolution and education, I come back to the evolution debate and the cavalier discounting of evolutionary theory by the vocal members of the belief culture: evolution is just a theory, they state emphatically. "Just a theory" reveals two very important aspects of the failure of the belief culture.
First, the statement reveals that most people misunderstand the term "theory." "Theory" is a scientific term (and, thus, a nuanced term) that is analogous to what laypeople would call fact, since a theory is the conclusion drawn from applying the scientific process to credible and extensive evidence. And that leads to the second important aspect we can draw from the statement.
By conflating "theory" with "hypothesis," the spokespeople for the belief culture are suggesting that "theory" is no better than "belief" - that we shouldn't accept things without evidence.
And this is the central problem with a belief culture - espousing erroneous and contradictory ideas while discounting reasonable and evidence-based information simply because that knowledge contradicts tradition.
Leaving a society trapped in the most dangerous aspect of belief: entrenched ideology."
To read more, go to: http://www.truth-out.org/belief-culture-we-dont-need-no-education67154
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