The predominant ways in which Christianity has spread are conversion by the sword, parent to child transmission, and social ostracism for people who refuse to believe it. It spreads for reasons related to its fitness as a system of ideas but unrelated to its factual truth. This is not how evolution spreads.
Also, distinguish between “anyone can claim X” and “anyone can correctly claim X”. Creationists could claim that evolution spreads the same way—but they’d be wrong.
It spreads for reasons related to its fitness as a system of ideas but unrelated to its factual truth. This is not how evolution spreads.
The historical survival of religions and societies is a matter of factual truth. Evolution rewards success, not epistemic purity. Is peacock’s plumage related to factual truth?
Please don’t be Internet-pedantic here. “Factual truth” here means “the factual truth of the statements made by the religion”, not “factual truths about the religion”.
Maybe there’s a confusion being caused here by the sentence “This is not how evolution spreads.”
It could mean at least one of the following:
1) “This is not how the theory of evolution itself was spread”
2) “This is not the mechanism according to which evolution spreads ideas”
It seems as if Lumifer interpreted your statement in the second sense (as I did initially), whereas reading your post in its original contexts suggests the first sense was the one which you intended.
Also, distinguish between “anyone can claim X” and “anyone can correctly claim X”. Creationists could claim that evolution spreads the same way—but they’d be wrong.
Assume a climate change denier or a creationist who (a) makes such an argument and (b) firmly believes it to be correct. How would he be best convinced that he is, in fact, wrong?
Same way you convince him of anything else—by arguing specific facts.
Just because two sides can produce arguments with similar forms doesn’t mean they also have similar facts. “Anyone can claim X”, divorced from the facts about X, is only about having similar forms.
Hmmm. Could work. Or perhaps the first thing he’d conclude is that you are infected by the meme plague, and the second thing he’d do is suspect that you are trying to infect him with the meme plague.
He could respond to this in two ways; either by ending the debate, in the hope of immunising himself; or by arguing against you, in the hopes of curing you.
...huh. Actually, thinking about this, a lot of bad debate habits (ignoring the other person’s evidence, refusing to change your mind, etc.) actually make a lot of sense when seen as protective measures specifically to prevent infection by meme plagues.
The predominant ways in which Christianity has spread are conversion by the sword, parent to child transmission, and social ostracism for people who refuse to believe it. It spreads for reasons related to its fitness as a system of ideas but unrelated to its factual truth. This is not how evolution spreads.
Also, distinguish between “anyone can claim X” and “anyone can correctly claim X”. Creationists could claim that evolution spreads the same way—but they’d be wrong.
The historical survival of religions and societies is a matter of factual truth. Evolution rewards success, not epistemic purity. Is peacock’s plumage related to factual truth?
Please don’t be Internet-pedantic here. “Factual truth” here means “the factual truth of the statements made by the religion”, not “factual truths about the religion”.
Maybe there’s a confusion being caused here by the sentence “This is not how evolution spreads.”
It could mean at least one of the following: 1) “This is not how the theory of evolution itself was spread” 2) “This is not the mechanism according to which evolution spreads ideas”
It seems as if Lumifer interpreted your statement in the second sense (as I did initially), whereas reading your post in its original contexts suggests the first sense was the one which you intended.
Assume a climate change denier or a creationist who (a) makes such an argument and (b) firmly believes it to be correct. How would he be best convinced that he is, in fact, wrong?
Same way you convince him of anything else—by arguing specific facts.
Just because two sides can produce arguments with similar forms doesn’t mean they also have similar facts. “Anyone can claim X”, divorced from the facts about X, is only about having similar forms.
Hmmm. Could work. Or perhaps the first thing he’d conclude is that you are infected by the meme plague, and the second thing he’d do is suspect that you are trying to infect him with the meme plague.
He could respond to this in two ways; either by ending the debate, in the hope of immunising himself; or by arguing against you, in the hopes of curing you.
...huh. Actually, thinking about this, a lot of bad debate habits (ignoring the other person’s evidence, refusing to change your mind, etc.) actually make a lot of sense when seen as protective measures specifically to prevent infection by meme plagues.