Friday, February 24, 2006

Arguing with our eyes closed...

It is so easy to just see what we want to see.

Consider the following argument I recently read in a teacher's magazine:

"The bicycle would seem to be a good argument for intelligent design...But in fact, the bicycle makes a convincing case for evolution. In its dinosaur period, its front wheel was enormous, its rear wheel a tiny, spinning afterthought. The rider had to mount from a stool, and in those helmetless days, a fall from the bike's great height could be calamitous. To become the lightweight, multigeared, fast and friendly creature we know today, countless mutations took place, and some iterations turned out to be more fit than others. And so it goes today..."

I'm hoping the writer is kidding.

And perhaps he is, I mean does anybody really think those 'mutations' took place randomly?

But my point is this, if a person can look at a bicycle and act like it was an argument for evolution we have to acknowledge it is very, very easy to just see what you want to see.

In other words, there's no such thing as a neutral fact.

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