>your beliefs are based just as much on faith as theirs’

I’d take issue with that point. There’s lots of evidence for evolution. I’d ask them if we should stop teaching about the revolutionary war because there’s a leap of faith that it really happened.

To use the non-zero faith required to believe something as proof that’s it’s as real as the FSM demonstrates either:

* A desire to manipulate disingenuously, which one of the few evils I recognize
* Stupid
* Intellectually lazy
* Parroting something someone else said, probably in conjunction with one of the above 3 characteristics.

The context is the coming presidential election where three of the republican candidates (and 44% of population) do not believe in evolution.

The context is the current president vetoing the stem cell bill and, when asked if he believed in evolution, answering

“Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about”.

When several of my friends start repeating the party line from Answers in Genesis – that ‘your beliefs are based just as much on faith as theirs’ – I start to wonder why that might be.

Feels like a cop-out on my part, but I don’t think I can answer your question without the context of the statement. That person could be correct in a very narrow sense, if they further qualified it. “So we should treat them the same in school” doesn’t logically follow.

>what it

The it I mentioned? It = “arguments about semantic technicalities” are dangerous in that they can become conversational rat holes.

I don’t see the relationship between the original message about a trivial leap of faith and teaching evolution. All you need is “OK, I can’t prove xyz, so believing it may technically involve a micro-leap, though xyz is obvious, and practically speaking it’s truth is clear enough to be taught in school”. Rather than challenging the existence of a non-zero leap, put the leap in context.

“It’s a leap like trusting the sun will come up” rather than “it’s not a leap, as there’s no leap in faith in trusting the sun will come up”.

I’m not trying to say that I’m right and you’re wrong, but that this line of reasoning may be more effective.

I will continue to say teach evo in science class, and “the controversy” in social studies.

I don’t think the 44% who think it ain’t true use “it involves a non-zero leap of faith” as their primary evidence.

And what is the ‘it’ that’s dangerous? Is it the assertion that believing in evolution is a leap of faith (just like believing in creation)? Or the challenge to that assertion?

And what should schools teach? That some people believe in creation and some believe in evolution and let the kids decide? Teach the controversy?

Look at the numbers again – 44% of Americans think evolution is not true (USA Today poll) including 3 presidential candidates – and then tell me what’s dangerous…

I think the sorts of folks who get hung up on leaps of faith as compromising the validity of a belief in the absence of evidence are insecure in their beliefs…
they protest(eth) too much…

For example, if someone said “I know God doesn’t (or does) exist” when they really mean they’re 99.999% sure and can’t prove it, which is “practically sure”, they may resent the notion that there was a leap of faith involved, despite it’s ironic value. They may even suggest that “practically sure” = “sure” for any reasonable value of sure. YMMV

Agnostics may be less uptight about the distinction, but I can’t prove it.

I’m comfortable calling my suspicion about the sun rising tomorrow a leap of faith. A meteor could strike tonight.

I’m comfortable that things that can be proved need no leapage. Falling things accelerate in a vacuum at 9.8 m/s ^2 etc.

Normal person (whatever that means): “XYZ is true”
Pedant: “You can’t prove it, so you can’t be sure. You’re making a leap of faith”.
Normal person: “Well, it’s practically true”
Pedant: “Fair enough, but careful with the unqualified absolute statements”
Normal person: “Pedant!”
Pedant: “Linguistic anarchist!”
[scuffle ensues, fade out, break for commercial]

It does seem dangerously like arguing about what is is, or the cactii bit…