I like to use the word think in these situations.

“Think” works if you’re talking to people in a rational context but honestly, on some of the hotbutton topics, people are not rational.  Personally, I prefer stronger language than “I think xxx” and I like Amanda’s suggestion of framing the discussion in terms of accepting (a theory / reality) or denying it.

I don’t understand the 2nd of the 4 examples—an ethical position isn’t the same as an evidence-based fact (although of course the best of ethical thinking is tied to reality). But in that case I’d say the better use is that you believe that abortion should be legal. The “accept” version might work for a fact-based alternative (eg. whether you believe/accept that legalising abortion increases certain societal indicators)

I have noticed over the years the overuse of the word “believe” when like you said “accept” or “deny” or other words and phrases should be utilized. I try to avoid as often as possible the use of “believe” as I find that when talking to believers, it lets them think that the facts or concepts you are talking about are on a par with their faith nonsense.

I know someone who uses the phrase, “I am confident that…” as a substitute for believing. It would be good to start a collection of words and phrases here for situations in which “believe” needs to be sent packing.

“Think” is a bad word, because it implies subjectivity.  In fact, it’s used often by people to soften statements of fact or strong opinions that they know will be received poorly.  Don’t soften the truth.  You don’t “think” global warming is true.

You know it.  Because it’s a fact.

frik, in #2 and #4, the correct answer is “believe”.  I included them to demonstrate that we use “believe” more often to refer to value judgments or mythical/unprovable things.  Which is why we should not use “believe” when describing matters of fact, especially when those facts are controversial.

“I’m convinced that…”

“I’m of the opinion that…”

The latter is kinda stuffy and unwieldy, but that can actually be handy (giving you time to think and to hopefully bore your interlocutor a bit ;p) when asked something controversial you aren’t immediately ready to take a stand on. For example, when I was asked what I thought of “Big Pharma” by a neighbor at an Xmas party… I wanted to sound a little professional, but also a little dull and noncontroversial!

Interesting post. I registered specifically to disagree with the argument made here because it is a pet peeve of mine.

The term “believe” has been hijacked by religious extremists, its definition twisted and used against liberals.

The term “believe” has no restriction on what direct object it can take. More importantly, it says nothing about the criteria used to justify the belief. You can believe a claim because the evidence and facts compel you to believe it, you can believe it based on the authority of the person presenting the claim, you can believe it because it makes you feel really really good to believe it, or you can believe it because you are threatened with dire consequences for failing to believe.

Saying that you believe something says nothing at all about the legitimacy of the belief (although it may imply that things that are believed are above tests of evidence).

Replacing “believe” with “accept” or some other substitute won’t solve that problem. Either the new term will be hijacked by opponents, or they will try to “gotcha” people into admitting they actually believe what they believe.

I think that liberals should take back the word “believe” and take every opportunity to point out that there are different reasons for believing something to be true, and that some of those reasons are better than others.

Another strategy to strengthen statements is to take “I” out of it altogether.  “The argument is persuasive,” or “X theory is demonstrably true by any reasonable scientific standard”.

This is a great idea.

Elegant and effective.

*My beloved grandmother is dead. When I get the news, my shoulders fold and I start crying.  Am I accepting her death or believing in her death?

Both. You have to believe the information is true in order to accept it.

*I’m debating with someone on whether or not abortion should be legal. Do I accept or believe that abortion should be legal?

Either, depending. You might accept that abortion should be legal in order to protect women’s rights even if you believe that, in an ideal world, there would be no abortions.

*Someone giving me directions says to turn left at the light and then the location is on my right.  Do I accept these directions, or do I believe them?

Both. If you’re following them, you have accepted them.

*Do small children accept Santa Claus or believe in Santa Claus?

Both! To accept something as true generally means to believe it.

As #1, I like ‘think’.  To me it implies that one has looked at the evidence/data and come to a conclusion based upon that. I agree with #8 that ‘believe’ and ‘accept’ can be used whether or not you have looked at the data.  ‘Think’ implies that your brain has been at work.  But maybe I’m betrayed here by English being my 2nd language.

THANK YOU!  The overuse of the term “believe” when talking about facts of a verifiable nature drives me insane.  (That and the pronunciation “nukular”.)

This may sound stiff of me, but I dont’ even like “accept” because of the interchange potential.  Like “theory” these are phrases that literally have different definitions depending on the context.  Also, “accept” has a submissive connotation to it, which bothers me in an inarticulable way.

At the expense of being awkward I’d much rather use phrases like “verify”, “factually demonstrate” and “have evidence for” which also adds the bonus of being something that doesn’t make scientists want to give up on the rest of humanity and go colonize Mars.

Oops, reading comprehension fail on my behalf! Overall the sentiment is a very good one, I’ve heard it a lot in terms of not saying “I believe in evolution” but it makes a lot of sense to expand it to all other fact-based areas.

There are some interesting issues being raised here, but I disagree with FuzzyEgg on the idea that “believe” has been hijacked. In my field, in academic arguments, saying “X believes Y” is often a way to discredit X’s position.
“Believing” is subjective, and thus to talk about believing in global warming is to accept the argument (put about by those who want to deny global warming) that it is the kind of phenomenon for which there is no real proof, and that it’s just up to an individual to believe in it or not.

When I’m feeling passive-aggressive (or, more often, tongue-in-cheek) I use that therapylicious “I feel” language ... such as “I feel like you are an idiot” or “I feel like you have no fucking clue how evolution is supposed to work.”

But that’s not a helpful suggestion.

In my field, in academic arguments, saying “X believes Y” is often a way to discredit X’s position.
“Believing” is subjective, and thus to talk about believing in global warming is to accept the argument (put about by those who want to deny global warming) that it is the kind of phenomenon for which there is no real proof, and that it’s just up to an individual to believe in it or not.

Well, this is exactly what I’m talking about. The word “believe” has these unfortunate connotations, such that one academic can actually use it to discredit another…even though s/he may believe a set of conclusions for perfectly legitimate reasons.

Believing is not inherently subjective. It has been given a connotation of subjectively. We must work against that.

To believe is not to imply volitional belief.

I teach high school, and get the “do you believe in global warming” question all the time from students.  I always tell them ‘no, I don’t believe it, that’s for things we can’t prove; my acceptance of global warming is based on the facts.’

Also, “accept” has a submissive connotation to it, which bothers me in an inarticulable way.

I see what you mean, but I also think (hah, there I go) that there is a level of submission to accepting something. Global warming, for example, is going to continue being a real thing no matter what the denialists claim; the rest of us have “submitted” to this unpleasant reality consciously by accepting the science but the denialists are fighting that. It’s a very egotistical thing to refuse to “accept” well-established theories like evolution and global climate change, ‘cause it’s refusing to submit your puny belief-ridden worldview to, well, the actual world.

I feel you are an idiot…

I like that one!

Yeah. This is something that really bugs me. A good friend of mine said, during a discussion on a similar topic, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. They’re not, however, entitled to their own facts.” It’s basically the same thing. We don’t get to form opinions (or beliefs) on whether or not something is true.

On a related note, is there a quick term for when you don’t accept something, not because you’re denying it, but because you don’t have enough evidence to form a conclusion? Or the evidence you do have isn’t convincing? The best example I can think of is the existence of life and civilizations on other planets. I don’t feel comfortable using the term believe, because it’s not a matter of opinion or faith: either that life exists or it doesn’t. At the same time, I can’t accept that that life exists or accept that it doesn’t exist, because there isn’t enough evidence in either direction. Is there a word that can be used to sum that up? Or does it always require a paragraph?

“I feel”, when used by a woman, can open the door to being dismissed on accounta our being touchy feely emotional lesbians swaying to soulful guitar strumming.

I like “The evidence suggests to me that” or “It seems to me that the evidence is clear” or “there is a lot of evidence that”.

“...he distance between global warming theory and fact is so thin as to be irrelevant; it’s basically a fact.  “

As long as we are on words and usage, ‘theory’ and ‘fact’ are not on a continuum, they are different categories.  A ‘fact’ is some observation of which we have a record. A ‘theory’ is an explanation for the relevant facts, or at least of many of them as possible. The better the theory is at explaining facts and predicting the value of new observations, the more accepted the theory should be. But, a theory is always in some sense wrong, since it can always be improved/refined/extended. Facts are what they are, and stay that way.

I always tell them ‘no, I don’t believe it, that’s for things we can’t prove; my acceptance of global warming is based on the facts.’

Alas, you are modeling an incorrect picture of science when you state this, in that a key feature is that everything must be accepted provisionally.  The better comment would be “I believe in it because the preponderance of evidence supports it” or “I accept these theories because they have predictive power and fit the evidence best”. 

You might even use an analogy such as “I believe in it in the same way I believe the earth is round, the stars are far away, and the sun is hot.”  This could be extended by asking the students to prove to you, acting as a denier, that the world is round - and then applying that to discussing what science is.

“I feel”, when used by a woman, can open the door to being dismissed on accounta our being touchy feely emotional lesbians swaying to soulful guitar strumming.

That’s why ya gotta follow it with a scathing personal insult. So they’ll know you’re actually the belligerent kind of lesbian. (But yes, I certainly wouldn’t use it in a serious scientific context!)

The better comment would be “I believe in it because the preponderance of evidence supports it” or “I accept these theories because they have predictive power and fit the evidence best”.

This is something I find really interesting, personally, the whole idea of how to communicate with non-scientists while balancing correctness with being convincing. For example, the whole vaccine kerfaffle—one idea put forward about why all those non-scientists keep whining about a lack of “proof” that vaccines are safe is that scientists just can’t bring themselves to say “we’ve PROVEN vaccines are totally safe!” or anything like that, because it’s not precisely accurate. At best one can say stuff like “dozens of studies have shown no significant correlation between vaccines and X!” ...and the public falls asleep/starts screaming at you halfway through a sentence like that. :p

But I certainly don’t have an answer to that conundrum. For a teacher, a lot of that balance probably comes down to the age/education level of their students. I would certainly love for more people to get out of high school with a half-decent grasp of the scientific method, of course.

@21

On a related note, is there a quick term for when you don’t accept something, not because you’re denying it, but because you don’t have enough evidence to form a conclusion? Or the evidence you do have isn’t convincing?

My own preference is for phrases like “I’m considering ...” or “I’m unconvinced ...” depending which direction I’m leaning on the inconclusive subject.  Which leads to exchanges like:

“But do you believe that blah blah blah de blah…”

“I believe it’s possible, I don’t know that it’s necessarily so…”

At which point the True Believer often gets frustrated and stomps off looking for the veggie platter and I can go have a more interesting conversation with somebody nuanced.

As Penn and Teller said “i don’t know”. Anyone who says, without question, that Humans are RESPONSIBLE for the earth warming (which it may or may not be) is an absolute fool that should be laughed at. Freaking joke. So the U.S. should destroy its own economy to reduce greenhouse gasses? You think China or India would do that? Only liberal morons would think that idea was good. And what if I dont want to buy that taxpayer subsidized Volt, or keep my house cold in winter…then what? You support the government forcing me? putting me in prison? Would you bet your LIFE on the theory that HUMANS are responsible for warming the planet. This place is 4 billion years old. talk to me in a million years with your temp data and we can discuss things. And lets say you get everyone on board with this bullshit theory and we need to dump fossil fuels…what’s the liberal moronic answer…..windfarms and solar!. lol. I would have at least a shred of respect for a greenie if they said that they know that realistically, the only way to generate all the electricity we need would be Nuclear (solar and wind are expensive and near useless). But greens have a problem with that too!. Liberals really are insane.

Fuzzy, this discussion is in the context of laymen’s everyday language, and bringing other, irrelevant context to it isn’t helpful.  Non-academic, everyday language?  There’s a big difference in the connotation of “believe” and “accept”.

alle @23: see my comment @29. This discussion is about laymen and common language.  Introducing the way the same words have different meanings in different contexts is as relevant as saying, “Well, you’d only weigh 80 pounds on the moon!”  Yeah, well, that doesn’t make my jeans fit any better, and it serves only to irritate and frustrate.

Actually, it was whatladder at #15 who mentioned academic language. I was simply responding to that particular example.

I am talking about everyday language, and disagree as to the extent of the difference between “accept” and “believe;” for me, they are synonyms.

I further assert that the connotation of “believe” specifically is used *against* people who think that evolution is true and that AGW is real. The way to fight this is not to discard “believe” in favor of another term, but to point out that believe something can be reasonable or unreasonable, depending on the reasons for that belief.

Amanda @30. The problem as I see it is the deliberate transfer of a statement/concept from one context into another in order to mislead: “it’s only a theory” is a favorite wingnut use of this tactic, which is why I never tire of trying to establish the proper use of these terms in lay discussions.

I’ve had this exact pedantic nit bothering me for over 20 years now, since the g/f of a friend was lamenting how her parents didn’t believe in pre-marital sex, and I went on a rant about how that’s absurd, there is clear, well-known and documented evidence that it happens, and she quickly explained that she just meant that they didn’t think it’s the right thing to do.  Oh.  Embarrassment on both sides of that conversation.  But, um, it’s not like “believe” is a word that most people don’t really understand, guess it’s kinda like “could care less” - the individual parts of “don’t believe in” are small and easy to understand, but when they’re combined, people only think of the idiom and not the actual meaning.

Though, in this case, I think it might possibly be worth the pedantic effort - enough people understand the difference between things that are to be (or not) believed in and things that are (or not) accepted depending on the evidence.  Sure, some people are oblivious to that distinction, but I like to believe that the majority of people would not be as embarrassed as my friend years ago, would be like implying that they didn’t quite understand that Gilligan’s Island was not one of our “historical documents” of real events.

Ooops, would be as embarrassed by, I meant.  People may not really understand which things are belief things and which are factual things (see: Sky Fairy) but are embarrassed if called on the inability to differentiate, since this is such a huge part of growing out of toddler-hood.

I had something similar happen to me a few years ago.  Some shithead named Pat went full “global warming is a religion” on me when I used the word “believe.”  Since then I have always used “accept” or “acknowledge”  when talking about it.

“I’m usually not one to argue semantics anymore—-in fact, I really have come around to hating nit-picking semantic quarrels that people get into that end up distracting from the real issues.”

I’m the exact opposite.  Semantics mean everything in debates and don’t distract from the debate.  In fact, conservatives have become the masters of semantics and it’s time for liberals to get even.

Re: #32

The use of “it’s only a theory” is one of the reasons why I can’t simply let laymen language be laymen language. Once people start conflating the different contextual meanings of the term, the only recourse is to point out, each and every time, that “theory” does not mean what you/they think it means.

In other words, the corrective recourse for this sort of definitional drift is to insist on the accurate, denotative meaning of the term each and every time.

For “believe,” this would prevent the kinds of tactics described by Albert Cirrus (#35).

the g/f of a friend was lamenting how her parents didn’t believe in pre-marital sex, and I went on a rant about how that’s absurd, there is clear, well-known and documented evidence that it happens, and she quickly explained that she just meant that they didn’t think it’s the right thing to do.

Yeah, remember that girl who won the fight to take another girl to the prom, so the school’s reaction was to move the prom without telling her? I remember her saying that her parents “don’t believe” in homosexuality.

It’s all about taking a thought that you can criticize someone for and moving it into the realm of a thought you can’t criticize someone for.

We must work against that.

You believe we must work against that.  I don’t accept it.

Anyways, I’m fond of the “I am convinced that” structure for similar reasons.  “I am convinced that anthropogenic global warming is the only reasonable explanation for the changes we are currently seeing.”  The nice thing about “convinced” is that it is a word with strong connotations toward reason and depth of thought.  It challenges the reader (or listener) to consider whether they are “convinced” of something or just “believe” it.

In addition, one thing that intellectual folks like the people who frequent (but do not troll) this blog don’t really understand is how abhorrent formal and serious thinking is to most people.  So far as I can tell, sitting and thinking something through and trying to resolve (or at least state) the contradictions in a line of thought is the hardest, most unpleasant thing that people can do, to a majority of persons.

That doesn’t mean that many of them can’t be persuaded to do so.  But persuasion which relies on strong reasoning (as versus persuasion which has strong underpinnings of reason but is also emotionally resonant) will fail for a flat majority of the population.

PM, that’s so hard for me to keep in mind, like people who declare themselves to be allergic to math.  I accept intellectually that such people exist, but I have a hard time really believing it.  It’s as strange to my experience as people who dislike breathing oxygen.  How can such people possibly exist?

I really don’t think it’s actually a majority of persons, since they are so rare in my experience, but I’ve seen enough of them to know that they’re real.  They are not often persuaded by embarrassment, of course, IRL experience, they’re very proud of the fact that they avoid intellectual thoughts of any sort.  On failbook, they seem to be about evenly divided between embarrassment at not thinking and anger at the person who points it out for the world, but of course I’m not suggesting that’s a representative sample of anything of relevance, just that it’s not just my social and workplace sets that enjoy serious thinking.

@Casp: Would you bet your life that humans aren’t responsible for Global Warming? Would you bet the life of billions of human beings? Oh right. You already do.

@Casp: Would you bet your life that humans aren’t responsible for Global Warming? Would you bet the life of billions of human beings? Oh right. You already do.

Oh, global warming won’t destroy humanity.  I have faith in our ability to survive.

It might just destroy human civilization, though, and I’d rather that our descendents didn’t cling to life in a sort of post-apocalyptic dark age - forever.

It might just destroy human civilization, though, and I’d rather that our descendents didn’t cling to life in a sort of post-apocalyptic dark age - forever.

postthought: Unless, of course, they’re Australians - the Mad Max movies were entertaining, and those buggers deserve it.

Oh, global warming won’t destroy humanity.  I have faith in our ability to survive.

Why on earth would you believe that?  Extinctions are pretty damn common - the vast majority of species that have ever existed don’t any more.  Now, I accept that humanity is a bit different from your average species, but at some point humanity will either go extinct or evolve into something(s) else.  That’s a fact.  And since global climatic events have been responsible for a lot of extinctions in the past, there’s no particular reason to think the current one won’t either.

The earth, on the other hand, will survive climate change, like it always has.

And Casp, dear, you are confusing scientific arguments for and against climate change (I note of course that there aren’t really any valid arguments against the existence of climate change) with political and economic arguments regarding what to do about it.  Two different things, y’see?

“The earth, on the other hand, will survive climate change, like it always has.”

The bar for that is pretty low — basically anything short of the Earth plunging into the Sun represents the “survival” of the Earth. 

Of course, our human arrogance brings many to believe that our destruction or the destruction of “civilization” (BTW, which is kind of silly — anything humans do together is by definition “civilization” so even if we’re back to living in caves, any living humans would still have a sort of civilization — it’s the loss of “modern”/“contemporary” civilization that is a source of worry for some) would represent the “end of the Earth”, when in reality it would only represent the “end of the Earth” as we know it, while any bacteria, molds, insects, fish, or reptiles still alive after we’re gone (or set back a few thousand years) would be blissfully unaware that their Earth had “ended”...

“postthought: Unless, of course, they’re Australians - the Mad Max movies were entertaining, and those buggers deserve it.”

Isn’t it true that, from a Kiwi’s perspective, Australians already live in a dark age?  So the only difference between now and Mad Max is the addition of an apocalypse, right?... 

Re #28: You left something out, that should be “As Penn and Teller said on the episode of Bullshit they did on global warming, which they later admitted they were wrong about and apologized for.”  Funny that you forgot that part.

Oh, and I like the irony of how climate change denialists, while rejecting the consensus of every climate scientist on Earth, often put forth the actual unproven allegation that reducing CO2 emissions would “destroy our economy”. even though there is absolutely no evidence that that would be the case.  Hell, the anti-environment industry folks made the same claims about the the clean air and water acts and the efforts to reduce acid rain and ozone depletion, and yet the economy kept humming along fine when those regulations went into place. 

Do you know why you never hear about the problems of acid rain or thinning of the ozone layer anymore?  Because we put new pollution reducing regulations into place that solved those problems; environmental regulations work.

Why on earth would you believe that?

Because, like rats and cockroaches, we’re a weed species, capable of adapting to and thriving in many different ecological niches.  Extinctions occur when a niche changes under a species adapted to it; that won’t happen to us. 

Cockroachy-like things have been around since the Devonian, before the dinosaurs, and ratty-like things have been around since the start of mammals - barring something outre such as Skynet or deliberate biological warfare, humany-type things are going to be around for a while.  However, our technological civilization above and beyond language, fire and the sharp pointy stick may be considerably more fragile.

Not that language, fire and the sharp pointy stick are to be sneered at - go ask the sabertooth tiger about that.

“However, our technological civilization above and beyond language, fire and the sharp pointy stick may be considerably more fragile. “

Porn would probably make it too.

Caution:  Conva-Rage Ahead.

So the U.S. should destroy its own economy to reduce greenhouse gasses?

Like the U.S. economy was destroyed by switching from steam to electrical power?

You think China or India would do that?

They can and are.  China has taken the lead in investments in clean energy, spending nearly double what the US did in 2009, as it ramps up projects in both renewable and traditional energy, a report said Thursday.

Only liberal morons would think that idea was good.

Yep, those liberal Chinese.  Just like those moronic Dutch.

And what if I don’t want to buy that taxpayer subsidized Volt, or keep my house cold in winter…then what? You support the government forcing me?

How about a fuel tax?  It works in Europe.  For those who consume more than their fair share of resources, they can pay more then their fair share to support their waste.  After all we already subsidize oil drilling and processing, logging, and mining.  We should pay the tax payer back for their contribution to cheap fuel and resources.

Or do you think its fine as long as the tax payer is subsidizing YOUR consumption?

putting me in prison?

Only conservatives believe in cruel and unusual punishment, but thanks for bringing a strawman to keep me warm.

Would you bet your LIFE on the theory that HUMANS are responsible for warming the planet.
Comment #28: Casp

So reducing, renewing and recycling is going to kill me?
Really?
What the average timeframe this will happen?
Will I die faster if I insulate my house?  Will double pane windows give me cancer?  When I ride my 40 MPG motorcycle rather than my 25 MPG car does the additional miles per gallon come from my life-force?  When I replaced my CRT with an LED monitor and installed anti-vampire switches on my electrical outlets did I die a little inside?

Yes, I know I shouldn’t feed the trolls, but Casp is such low hanging fruit…

”...barring something outre such as Skynet or deliberate biological warfare, humany-type things are going to be around for a while.  However, our technological civilization above and beyond language, fire and the sharp pointy stick may be considerably more fragile.”

I have to agree with Phoenician about this.  We are a tough species, and have already weathered (pun intended) very serious changes in our environment(s) before.  Pretty much everywhere it’s possible for human beings to live there are human beings living there — from very hot to very cold, from lush jungles to arid deserts, subsisting on diets composed of cow’s milk + cow’s blood, to all fish diets, to all plant diets, etc.

Where other species often have to change their “hardware” (physical characteristics) to survive massive changes, usually humans can change our “software” (culture) to cope.

“Advanced” technology, OTOH is very fragile.  It’s not clear at all that a small band of humans (let’s say a few hundred-thousand), starting out with our present level of technology, could hold on to much of it over any significant length of time.  When things go to hell, a knife is more useful than knowing how to use a computer; knowing how capture, raise, and tame a horse is more important than knowing how to fix a car; knowing how to use (and make) an axe is more important than knowing how to smelt aluminum or make steel.

Within a hundred years after a sufficiently major apocalypse we’d be plunged back several-thousand-years-worth of technological evolution, at least…

Interesting.

I don’t think the argument made in this post is much different from the idea that women should stop using hedges and other linguistic forms that soften the impact of their language (“I feel that…”, “I think it MIGHT be the case that…” etc.), and speak more assertively (“I know”, “it is the case”) in order to have themselves taken more seriously.

I’ve always had mixed feelings on that suggestion though, if only because sometimes there’s a fine line between assertive and arrogant. In some debates (and certainly in diplomacy), speaking like that can damage your case, particularly if you prematurely “accept” something that at first seems as though it is true. And if you’re a privileged person speaking to a non-privileged person, for example, using language like that is going to come across as dismissive/‘splainy. Certainly, when it comes to scientific facts, it would behoove the speaker to do as you suggest (though again, this could easily be co-opted by defenders of pseudo-science to erase the experiences of others*). Humoring the delusions of the right regarding climate change or evolution isn’t something we need to be concerned with. But I think there are plenty of situations in which an accomodating, if not submissive as others suggested above, use of language can be beneficial to one’s case. People of all genders could do with better judgement on when to be aggressive and when to be accomodating.

*Imagine ev-psych enthusiast saying “I accept that these data have proved women are naturally submissive/rape is an adpatation/people of African descent are genetically less intelligent than whites”, for instance.

This is one of my pet peeves, but I think the actual problem is the phrase “believe IN,” e.g., “I don’t believe in abortion.”  Clearly, abortion exists and always has.  “I don’t believe in the RIGHT to have an abortion,” fine.  We definitely disagree, but whether or not our constitution implies a right to have an abortion depends upon your legal interpretation.  The Constitution certainly does not say, “all women in the U.S. have the right to have an abortion,” so the subject is appropriate for debate.

Evolution and climate change generally require “accept” or “deny.”  However, I do think that there is some wiggle room - I ACCEPT that current evidence overwhelmingly indicates that both processes occur, and I BELIEVE that the climatologists and evolutionary biologists (i.e., people who know more about these processes than a neuroscientist like me) practice good science and have analyzed their data appropriately.  I can’t evaluate the data in the same way that they can, so I can’t be sure. 

That’s actually the way most science works - if I’m doing an experiment, that usually means that I don’t yet know the answer.  Above, you were using “accept” (mostly) in the context of things that are actually true (i.e., grandmother’s death), and by definition I can’t *know* that my data are accurate.  If the data are somewhat equivocal, I need to say that, and my interpretation of those data require some level of subjective *belief.*  Furthermore, I do need to “accept” that my data can be disproved.

For similar reasons, I disagree that #5 above requires the use of “accept” or “deny,” because both parties may be unsure.  The person giving directions clearly *thinks* that the destination is on the right side of the street, but she of course may remember incorrectly.  I may have driven past the destination before and thought that it was on the left side of the street, but I too may remember incorrectly.  In that situation, I *believe* that my friend is inaccurate.

“Believe in,” however, is a phrase that really needs to be used almost exclusively in the context of gods, Santa Clauses, and Easter bunnies - and, preferably, mostly by children.

Cris @55, because we have such enormous diversity in this country, we don’t really have set rules for polite exchanges and corrections. The conversational rules that were based on WASP principles aren’t really taught outside of the home, so if you went to public school, you were left trying to figure it out from friends and their families—That is, if you were aware enough to sense that it was necessary to learn a certain set of behaviors to become an American. I say this as a bicultural, naturalized citizen whose friends in grade school made sure that my behavior fit in.

I did have the advantage of attending a parochial school were the nuns made sure that everyone was taught manners, table manners, the art of conversation, etc.—in short, how to become a civilized human being. They made sure everyone was given these lessons so that the students who came from problematic homes didn’t feel that they were being singled out—everybody had to participate.

What I find now is that so many young adults had no such training at home or at school and so the rest of us have to put up with their lacks.

    “Okay thats cool and alll but dont ever comment on my status telling me that i am wrong everrrr     again. I didnt ask you did i? Answer: NO”

That comment above from the facebook page at Pharygula is such a fail at politeness, acknowledgment of facts, etc., and so is Jason A’s observation of a modern day response. Since when is it part of polite discourse to fail at the truth? The truth can always be offered up politely.

Perhaps what we are really looking at is a failure of courage in modern day conversations?

I can’t imagine a disaster so total that a billion humans didn’t survive it.  Now, the society they would choose to construct in order to deal with that disaster . . . it would be a deeply unfree place.  But then, that’s what libertarians really want anyways, a place so unfree that their philosophy begins to make sense.

Cris @61, I’m so there with you, and yet I know that I can be a true a-hole on the Innertubes—but there are no excuses. Speaking truth to power begins by speaking truth to each other in as many venues as possible.

I am making an effort to be quietly polite and diplomatic when having a conversation in person, so no matter what I have to say I offer it gently and without ad hominem attacks. Last week my brother observed that sometimes I come off like a “schoolmarm”. Well, Heck. That just means I have to persist in my goal of truthful politeness and tweak my tone and behavior. I’m tired of living in a society where people run from simple confrontation regarding what are facts and think the only topic worthy of conversation is celebrities. I don’t want to contribute to the problem.

Cris @64, I was confused until I realized you were referring to the nuns! Ah, the memories…

I’d love to think we are capable of maintaining a comfortable, highly technological way of life for a large percentage of our population for thousands of years to come, but I can easily imagine that we could lose our handle on it even without a major environmental catastrophe.

The other problem is that it would be impossible for us to “rebuild”.  If civilisation, as we currently understand it, was destroyed, there’s no way humanity could build it back up again.  All the low-hanging fruit, resource-wise, has already been plucked.  Our metal ores and energy-producing fossil fuels are being drilled and dug from deeper, and less accessible, sources all the time.  We can’t go back to the days when coal could be scratched from a biggish hole in the ground, or iron ore dug out easily.  It’s just not there any more.

And whilst I agree with, say, PIATOR, that humans are something of a cockroach species, the fact is that we simply haven’t been around that long, and we survive in those various ecological niches by virtue of our technologies (including in that - fur clothing, fire, and pointy sticks).  We’re not particularly well adapted to different environments really - our tolerance for high and low temperatures is limited, for example.

The trouble is, when humans think about humanity’s survival, and climate change, we can’t help but think in the short term, from a planetary point of view.  Even thinking about the next few thousand years of humanity - a long time for us - is not even a fraction of a blink of an eye for the planet.  Our existence is a miniscule particle of a picosecond at the end of existence as far as the universe is concerned.  Even in terms of climate change and, say, ice ages, we can’t help but think in the short term.  Is humanity going to survive a 100 years?  200?  Probably, yes.  But a 1000? Or more? The way we are going, I think not.

Apologies, by the way, for temporarily derailing into post-apocalyptic survival territory.  I agree with Amanda - for all the calls for reclaiming “believe”, for all intents and purposes it is now hopelessly equated with irrational faith.

I have been saying, “I accept the science” for a while now when asked about my ‘belief’ in evolution.  People want to argue about that, though, too.

I tend to go off on people and tell them it doesn’t matter what I believe, any more than it matters whether I believe in gravity when stepping out of a skyscraper window. Then, if they’re still listening, I proceed to the pascal’s wager argument: given the huge negative payoff of being wrong in one direction and the minimal negative payoff (or even positive) of being wrong in the other, the choice seem obvious.

Btw, I think the post-apocalyptic resource-scarcity thing applies mostly to energy. The current civilization is leaving behind pretty concentrated sources of most of your major metals and so forth. (There’s a site somewhere that basically gets you all the major machine tools based on the parallelism of various parts of automotive engine blocks, and those will be around for a couple hundred years at least after civilization falls…)

@4 & 6:
Actually, both accept and believe would create correct sentances, though the sentances would have different meanings, regarding abortion legality.  Believe carries a positive connotation while accept is either neutral or negative (re, someone might accept that it should be due to the world being imperfect while not believing it should be or that it should have to be-another form of denial).