0012 - Evolution and Creationism with the Rock Doctor

Dysevidentia

Complete Transcript:

*Guitar Riff*

MAKO: Warning. This show contains adult themes and language, including grown adults failing 7th grade biology.

SQEAKY: Dysevidentia is an inability to reliably process evidence and this is a podcast all about it.

MAKO: This episode was released on July 21st, 2021, and we are discussing dysevidentia because it is clear millions of creationists are suffering from it.

SQEAKY: I am Sqeaky.

MAKO: And I am Mako.

SQEAKY: We discuss logic and evidence because there is insufficient selective pressure against creationists.

MAKO: You can support us by becoming a patron at patreon.com/dysevidentia.

SQEAKY: If you spent all of your money on an expedition to find Noah's Ark, you can still like, subscribe, and leave a review to help us out.

MAKO: If you have a paper you have written or a small business to plug let us know.
The small business of the show is 2RealVR. They are a small game developer out of Alberta, Canada. Their new game, VRAstroSmash, is on Steam with direct links in the show notes.

SQEAKY: Go to Steam and search for "VRAstroSmash" if you want to fly around in space and shoot stuff.

SOURCE [1:01]: Website - https://www.2realvr.ca/
SOURCE [1:01]: VRAstroSmash - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1675170/VRAstroSmash/
SOURCE [1:01]: 2RealVR on Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40765532

MAKO: Today we are going to discuss our interview with the rock doctor, and to debunk a little bit of creationism.

SQEAKY: But first, I'm going on a rant.
This show contains adult themes and language including "im"-

MAKO: "Im"?

SQEAKY: Y'know, we spent all that time proofreading, we left that in there.

*Guitar Riff*

SQEAKY RANTING: On July 8th, I was in the hardware store. I was buying some material to make a ramp for my dog to climb into bed easier. Shasta is getting old, but still likes to lay on me and my SO's feet, even when it hurts her to jump into the bed. While we were discussing screw prices, another shopper, a kindly-looking older man in a fisherman's hat, sparked a conversation.
I don't recall exactly how. Perhaps his claims that gang violence, or, I am quoting, "Illegals driving up the prices" was the reason screws were more expensive. Nevermind that this was the store charging more than the one down the street and had knowledable employees. No, it had to be so nefarious. Some other to fear. Over the course of a brief conversation, he brought up a picture of George Soros, without prompting. He claimed Sweden was a cesspool of crime, that the US has the best healthcare. He claimed no country other than the United States had opportunity to start businesses or speak freely. Let's mostly ignore how anti-semetic conspiracies are generally baseless. And Soros is a billionaire who certainty commited real crimes, so we don't need to concoct fake ones. Let us also gloss over how we have whole episodes debunking some of his talking points. To pin that real quick, episode 5 was mostly about American gun crime. Episode 8 was about how shitty it is to be a worker in America, and that Episode 11 was about how we ranked in the 40's among developed countries for healthcare and really should be doing better. Links for these in the show notes. Let's slide pass how nearly every country has freedom of speech, and that we rank 44th in the "Reporters without Borders" freedom index. So there are at least 43 countries that do freedom of speech better than America. This person was conversant, building something, planning, aware, and able to use a smartphone effectively. Despite having access to all of this cognitive power, and instant access to information, they still insisted on the nonsense I stated previously. And, much racism I won't go into further about middle easterners. But also, this next part. They insisted American slavery wasn't bad. They insisted slaves weren't whipped or abused. They claimed Benjamin Franklin was a slave, and they claimed to have personally been a slave as well. Slavery, particularly American chattel slavery, was abominable. Even the pathologically neutral Wikipedia describes it as "generally brutal". I found no evidence Ben Franklin ever spent any time as even a servant, let alone a slave, and this person was certainly never a slave and likely confused working any job with slavery, or just lied to my face.
For whatever reason, this old, white man with money to spare at the expensive hardware store, had seen it important to put himself on the same level as chattel slaves. I doubt this person was lying about everything. But even if he was lying to me about the most extreme views, so many of what remains are common talking points that I would be hardpressed to draw the line between his lies and his mistaken beliefs. I know that many have come around to the idea of dysevidentia as a topic and real deficiency in their peers' cognitive function. But many still think that there are some magic words to convince some of these people, or that these people don't belief this stuff. This person is real, and he is one of millions of people with ideas that don't map onto reality, and is holding those ideas in spite of strong evidence that they are likely aware of. Simply by vurtue meeting this guy at large, I can never be the person to change his mind. Only a deep emotional connection will get this person to even start accepting evidence. If he has no one close, and never befriends someone closely, there may never be someone to help him. This is why we all need to learn. We all have someone close to us. We can't really change anyone elses' mind unless they want to change it. We need to have millions of conversations to help the 40% of this country that disbelieves evolution. The 15% accepting that the election was rigged because Q said so. And the scattered millions who think the earth is flat, and so on for every cognitive failing we have. The alternative is what we have been doing and letting this harmful bullshit spread.

*Guitar Riff*

MAKO: We had a few cases where our recording programs just crashed immediately when we hit the record button.

SQEAKY: Yeah, and then we'd turn and face each other and have a conversation and be like "Ah crap."

MAKO: Just waste twenty minutes of conversation.

SQEAKY: Today we have a special guest, Doctor Sean Hodges. He studied uh... general geology at Oxford University, uh... studied vulkanism and geochemistry for his PhD. He goes by "Rock Doctor", and he's worked in the oil company for a very long time and very qualified to answer a lot of our questions. Is there anything else you'd like me to put in there before we dive into questions, Dr. Sean?

ROCK DOCTOR: Nope, sounds very impressive, thank you.

*Mako laughs lightly*

SQEAKY: I think you have more education than me and Mako added together.

MAKO: Uh, yes.

ROCK DOCTOR: Education doesn't count for very much. What do you do with it?

MAKO: Smart things, presumably.

ROCK DOCTOR: Well Ill just knock people on their podcast.

SQEAKY: We're trying, we're trying. A lot of people are telling us this but not the people who need to be hearing it.

ROCK DOCTOR: Well you always need a geoscientist. We're the fundamental science. We sit underneath the floor of your house wherever you are.

SQEAKY: Sounds foundational.

*Sqeaky laughs*

SQEAKY: Sorry, that was terrible.

*Rock Doctor chuckles*

SQEAKY: Okay, so we brought you on to address a couple uh... common sets of talking points. In America, it turns out that about 50% of people are creationists, as in they think the earth is some thousands o...