Slit my wrists with Occam's Razor

Which is worse…

  • Only knowing one side of an argument, and taking a stance for that side because you can understand/support/grasp it better than the other?
  • Knowing both sides, but not understanding how Occam’s Razor works and taking a stance for the side that requires less words to describe it, or it’s just simply easier to "understand"?
0 voters

Say you know that A and B are opposing propositions. Your knowledge/understanding/grasp of A is greater than that of B. Is it logical to automatically assume that A is the truth B is false? How can you take that stance when you do not know enough about B?

Or say that you know/understand/grasp both A and B equally. What is your decision process in deciding which is more likely to be true? The one that takes less words to describe? Or the one that makes the least assumptions?

On a call-in show i was listening to the other day (see bottom for citation) a guy called in whom favored creationism over evolution. His main counter-evolution claim was that he couldn’t see how a chain like amoeba->fish->lizard->cow->monkey->human makes sense, and that it makes more sense for God to have designed everything as we see it today. Obviously his concept of evolution is extremely different from how it is described by extremely prominent evolutionary biologists. One could even go so far as to say that he knows little to nothing about evolution. He basically sees it as “one cell → monkey → human… poof!! that’s evolution.” Ironically his evolution-poof is just as radical as his creation-poof.

I can sort of give him the benefit of the doubt for him siding with creationism because his idea of evolution is unsound. “A” for effort, but he doesn’t know jack-shit about evolutionary theory.

If he were to learn about evolution and what it entails, and he could explain it even better than today’s evolutionary biologists can, then we’ll have a different scene. But currently he doesnt know about it at all really.

He is siding with the proposition that requires less words to describe, rather than the side that makes the lesser amount of radical assumptions.

Wheres the logic in that?

“Why is the sky blue daddy?”

“Because, Billy, that’s just the color of the sky during the daytime.”
OR
“Because, Billy, the blue color of the sky is caused by the scattering of sunlight off the molecules of the atmosphere. This scattering, called Rayleigh scattering, is more effective at short wavelengths (the blue end of the visible spectrum). Therefore the light scattered down to the earth at a large angle with respect to the direction of the sun’s light is predominantly in the blue end of the spectrum.”

The second response may take longer to say and might be a little bit harder to understand, however it is the CORRECT answer.


Citation: Atheist Experience podcast #497 “Redefining Words” 53:50 minute mark

why is it more complicated to go from god-poof-human than from amoeba-poof-double cells animal-poof-…-small fish-poof… amphiban-poof… lizard-poof-better lizard-poof… …monkey-poof-human…

only one poof from god, or hundreds of thousands of poofs with many missing steps for evolution…

both are theories for poofers

-Imp

It’s not the amount of poofs that is in question. Any “poof” is just as irrational as the next. There are no “poofs” in evolutionary theory. Any sort of evolving occurs on a gene to gene basis. Lizards dont go from blah->better with a “poof.” They go from “best lizard so far” → “same lizard with a minute genetic difference” → “better lizards than before because the genetic mutation allowed for more efficient living.” This might not be entirely accurate but in no place does a “poof” fit into evolutionary theory.

Your representation of the two sides (creation vs. evolution) is inaccurate. Evolution is not hundreds of thousands of “poofs”. Any “poof” is an assumption of an unexplainable event. Like the rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick.

Creation assumes that things “poofed” into existence from god. This assumes that God exists in the first place. Hence the fallacy.

and every poof along the evolutionary system is a miraclulous mutation with no physical evidence where a new gene magically appears to create a new creature…

evolutionary theory falls prey to the same logical fallacy as the god theory…

or has science found every single missing link?

and where is the evolutionary causa sui?

-Imp

I chose “only knowing one side”. That implies dumbness.

If one know both sides and mis-applies Occam’s, that not as bad.