Friday, February 7, 2014

I should be nicer

I just realized my last two posts were in judgment of other people. That's not very nice of me, whatever I believe about the issues involved and whether or not anyone ever reads any of this. I apologize, and I should do better than that.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Bill Nye vs. YAGNI

So, here's a famous video of Bill Nye refuting himself:


Why do I say this? Well, he sets it up himself. The US is very successful at innovation despite a lot of people here disbelieving evolution. I don't know what percentage of successful innovators have which belief systems, but this presumed dichotomy exists in our nation.

A somewhat rational conjecture then is that you don't need belief in evolution to be able to innovate, at least in many areas. Even in areas where evolutionary or deep time matters do play a key role, there's perhaps no requirement for uniformity of belief in every aspect. There may even be scientifically testable hypotheses related to my conjectures. I suspect studies even exist, but this isn't my field.

Another way of saying this for me it is YAGNI. As in, belief in evolution isn't a key requirement for much innovation.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nye, you can have your own children if you want to teach them your world view. Or make more YouTube videos. Let me and everyone else teach our own children, too. And our children can also choose for themselves what to do with it. We have all kinds of various beliefs. That's freedom, rather than state indoctrination.

(Also note that I don't state my own beliefs about evolution in this post at all. They're irrelevant to my main point.)