DirtDiver said:
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I still don't get what "imagine" has to do with anything, or why you think that's a valid point. We have to imagine thermodynamics, theology, organic chemistry, and history. None of those are things we can see and watch. Abstraction is fundamental to every aspect of human mental effort. So saying that you need imagination to understand evolutionary theory is like saying that you need to use your brain to understand evolutionary theory. It's true, but it's not exactly a "gotcha"
Do we use our imagination when thinking about other topics? Absolutely. Is it fun? Yes. Take History for example: Imagine what the battle of the Alamo is like or imagine what it would have been like to live during the Gladiator days. The question is: Does our imagination tell us the truth about historical reality?
Bait and switch: Students are presented with details about natural selection and then being taught an atheistic "imagined" history of the universe that is unchallenged and unobserved.
This is a lot longer than I meant it to be. . . sorry.
I worry that you are reading 'fantasy' in place of 'imagination'. Imagination is not some nefarious tool used in problem solving, it is an indispensable requirement for the type of logical problem solving we are talking about.
Any time you see something broken and then think through how to fix the item, you are using your imagination to understand how the items is broken, the steps needed to fix the item, the methods used to carry out those steps, the techniques you'll use to to employee those methods, and you are imagining what the 'fixed' end product will look and be like.
A detective solving a murder gathers data and then uses imagination to determine possible scenarios that fit the data. These possible scenarios may not be 'reality', but they give the detective avenues for further exploration. And as further exploration proves specific scenarios incorrect, those scenarios are either modified or dropped.
It has always been a strategy of science to imagine a solution to a problem and then to test that solution and to explore whether or not it fits what can be tested and observed. If observation and new data and facts can be shown to contradict an imagined solution, the imagined solution is modified or it is discarded. Science helps us build models to describe reality. And those models are meant to evolve as we learn more about reality.
Take the formation of a mountain. We cannot witness the formation of a mountain nor can we recreate it in the lab. Our earliest imaginations described them as the work of gods. Early scientific theories imagined them as sedimentary deposits from large primordial oceans or as the result of volcanic activity. Later theories included descriptions of mountains as the result of imagined catastrophic events like huge earthquakes. It wasn't until recently that plate tectonics made an appearance which introduced theories that suggested mountain ranges could be built off of moving and colliding plates. Measurements of the growth of those mountains or the overall movement of plates added to the imagined solution to the problem of how mountains are formed. A proper geologist, I'm sure, could explain the mountain (pun intended) of data which reinforces our current understanding of how mountains are formed. But, until time travel is invented, its still an imagined solution . . . an imperfect model which I'm sure has gaps.
What is interesting to me is that very few religious persons will object to the claim that our best scientific understanding of mountains is that they are generally formed through tectonic forces at plate boundaries where Earth's crust is compressed or through volcanic activity. And yet, this claim requires our imagination. It requires us to see what exists now, measure slow change, and imagine what slow change can do over longer periods of time. And then, the same scientific methods applied to evolution is objectionable because it employs the same tactics that we found agreeable just a moment ago when dealing with mountain formation (which has far less theological implications)??
I think that perhaps ALL scientific progress and understanding requires imagination.
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The question is: Does our imagination tell us the truth about historical reality?
I would say that imagination does not alone direct our understanding of historical reality, but it plays a role in interpreting and understanding it. ANY attempt to reconstruct or understand our past, regardless of how much historical evidence we have, will show gaps in information and evidence that we must fill with imagination to create the most plausible narrative about what might have happened.
An archeologist digging in ancient ruins finds a small ceramic bowl. The archeologist does not witness the ancient civilization making or using the bowl. But, the archeologists imagines how they may have made it and they imagine what the bowl may have been used for. Is the archeologist playing fantasy? Or is the archeologist using their imagination to create a narrative that they feel reflects a good understanding of that historical reality? Is a history book that states that 'Our best understanding of [insert ancient civilization] made ceramic bowls to be used for storage vessels or for eating from' being irresponsible on account of the use of an imagined possible historical reality? It is possible that tomorrow the archeologist will find a painting at the site showing people using bowls as hats. If that happens, the text books may be updated. But until that happens, I do not see an issue with an informed imagined solution to the mystery of the bowls that conforms to all of our best understandings - permitted that it is described as such.
Without imagination, an archeologist would look at the bowl and only conclude that a ceramic object exists. Absolutely no further deductions would be permissible.
All that said, I agree that we should be careful how we teach science. The idea that sexual reproduction arose through evolution and natural process is not a fact in the sense that we can witness it or that we can recreate it in a lab and prove how sexual reproduction arose in our far distant ancestors. But, that doesn't make it fantasy. Kids should be taught how and why scientific theories are developed and understand their basis rather than be indoctrinated into accepting things as fact without understanding.
The problem with the Christian claim that "God created sexual reproduction" is that it is even more of an imagined solution. Not only is God creating sexual reproduction not observed or testable, it is, by how it is defined, implicitly impossible to observe or test.
Often when religious persons discredit science, it is done with the false believe that doing so proves their supernatural theories as more correct. In other words, if answers to a question include "Answer A", "Answer B", and "Answer Other", then showing flaws in "Answer A" does not make "Answer B" more correct. So, if our current understanding of the evolution of sexual reproduction is not correct, that still doesn't mean that God did it. It simply means we still don't know.