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I prefer to call it "understanding of evolution". Not critiquing your comment, just adding a viewpoint. "Belief" is a right to be asserted bluntly. People feel

I prefer to call it "understanding of evolution". Not critiquing your comment, just adding a viewpoint. "Belief" is a right to be asserted bluntly. People feel socially comfortable saying they "believe" in all kinds of non-evidence based conjectures. But ask someone whether they "understand" evolution, and they are likely to give the question more thought. An unapologetic "no" has a bit of self-inflicted Socratic burn to it.

bhelkey 3y ago
One can understand something and not believe it is true. I'm sure flat earthers understand the concept of a sphere or more specifically a oblate spheroid. They just don't believe that earth is that shape.
- deleted 3y ago
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- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > I'm sure flat earthers understand the concept of a sphere or more specifically a oblate spheroid This isn’t understanding the concept of a spherical planet. The radial symmetry of gravity, for instance, is critical to understanding why penguins aren’t constantly falling off Antarctica. Someone can understand the physical possibility of a sphere without grasping the fuller concept.
  - ta8645 3y ago
    > The radial symmetry of gravity, for instance, is critical to understanding why penguins aren’t constantly falling off Antarctica. I don't understand how your point challenges the notion that people can understand something while not believing it. A flat earther can understand how gravity protects penguins on a sphere, but not believe that it is relevant to the flat disk they inhabit.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      Fair enough, I wasn’t disputing the general assertion. Just the narrow point that flat earthers tend to understand the model they’re dismissing. In my experience, they do not. A spherical earth isn’t simply implausible, it’s impossible to them.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  > One can understand something and not believe it is true Of course. "Belief" is subjective. It requires no fact or reasoning, and is independent of "understanding", so can correlate with it or not. > I'm sure flat earthers understand the concept of a sphere or more specifically a oblate spheroid. Your example isn't quite what I was talking about. A rational person can understand and believe in a relationship between spinning and oblate spheres, without logically concluding that the Earth is a sphere, spinning or oblate. Relevant "understanding" questions would be, do they understand General Relativity? The Higgs field? The Coriolis Effect? Gravitational density maps? The topology of airport locations and travel times, the topology and latencies across the internet, land, sea and orbital, the ring of geocentric satellites? Etc. Understanding any of those things, means understanding: why large masses pull themselves into (spinning oblate) spheres, that Coriolis torque is a measurement of speeds varying across latitude, or that travel and communications map to a sphere, or that anyone can directly view an unbroken circle of satellites directly above the unbroken ring of the equator, etc. All without getting mired in someone's unilaterally subjective "beliefs".
cptaj 3y ago
Do you understand the flying spaghetti monster?
pesfandiar 3y ago
It's the most common way of saying it, maybe because the alternative explanations need to be believed.
globular-toast 3y ago
Don't forget there's a difference between what people say they believe and what they actually believe. Do you really think the average Christian believes in heaven and the word of Christ? If they truly believed it I don't know how they'd sleep at night. Or perhaps they are all addicted to a lifestyle they believe will send them to hell for all eternity? Either way, what people say and how they behave often reflect wildly different beliefs. I tend to believe what they believe is reflected in their actions, not their words.

bhelkey 3y ago

One can understand something and not believe it is true. I'm sure flat earthers understand the concept of a sphere or more specifically a oblate spheroid. They just don't believe that earth is that shape.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> I'm sure flat earthers understand the concept of a sphere or more specifically a oblate spheroid This isn’t understanding the concept of a spherical planet. The radial symmetry of gravity, for instance, is critical to understanding why penguins aren’t constantly falling off Antarctica. Someone can understand the physical possibility of a sphere without grasping the fuller concept.
- ta8645 3y ago
  > The radial symmetry of gravity, for instance, is critical to understanding why penguins aren’t constantly falling off Antarctica. I don't understand how your point challenges the notion that people can understand something while not believing it. A flat earther can understand how gravity protects penguins on a sphere, but not believe that it is relevant to the flat disk they inhabit.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    Fair enough, I wasn’t disputing the general assertion. Just the narrow point that flat earthers tend to understand the model they’re dismissing. In my experience, they do not. A spherical earth isn’t simply implausible, it’s impossible to them.
Nevermark 3y ago
> One can understand something and not believe it is true Of course. "Belief" is subjective. It requires no fact or reasoning, and is independent of "understanding", so can correlate with it or not. > I'm sure flat earthers understand the concept of a sphere or more specifically a oblate spheroid. Your example isn't quite what I was talking about. A rational person can understand and believe in a relationship between spinning and oblate spheres, without logically concluding that the Earth is a sphere, spinning or oblate. Relevant "understanding" questions would be, do they understand General Relativity? The Higgs field? The Coriolis Effect? Gravitational density maps? The topology of airport locations and travel times, the topology and latencies across the internet, land, sea and orbital, the ring of geocentric satellites? Etc. Understanding any of those things, means understanding: why large masses pull themselves into (spinning oblate) spheres, that Coriolis torque is a measurement of speeds varying across latitude, or that travel and communications map to a sphere, or that anyone can directly view an unbroken circle of satellites directly above the unbroken ring of the equator, etc. All without getting mired in someone's unilaterally subjective "beliefs".

cptaj 3y ago

Do you understand the flying spaghetti monster?

pesfandiar 3y ago

It's the most common way of saying it, maybe because the alternative explanations need to be believed.

globular-toast 3y ago

Don't forget there's a difference between what people say they believe and what they actually believe. Do you really think the average Christian believes in heaven and the word of Christ? If they truly believed it I don't know how they'd sleep at night. Or perhaps they are all addicted to a lifestyle they believe will send them to hell for all eternity? Either way, what people say and how they behave often reflect wildly different beliefs. I tend to believe what they believe is reflected in their actions, not their words.