Should scientists debate creationists?

[articulett]

I don't think cyborg is offensive... I think he's damn funny... what if the people who believe in pixies are offended having pixies compared to god? If nothing else, it asks people to back up their claim with measurable evidence...otherwise, it will be treated as imaginary from the scientific community. The scientific community doesn't deal in the imaginary... even if some people are looking for proof of their position.

And I must say, that I have never seen a creationist change their view... nice or not. I'd have to find a former creationist and listen to what it was that got them thinking. I have a feeling it would have to do with the comparisons between their god and the assorted invisible entities people have been inventing for eons. It started me thinking thats for sure. When we defer to beliefs... whether it's fundamental Muslim (who are creationists) or Christians or Raelians... we inadvertently support the notion that belief is something respect worthy. It's not-- not in science-- not in math. Beliefs aren't useful unless they are well supported by facts. Why respect beliefs and stick up for beliefs and the right for people to inflict these upon trusting people?

 

[Wings]

I'd like to reserve judgement and retract my previous comment in this thread. I've come to think there are four main questions I need to ask to come to a reasonable conclusion.

1. What are the agendas of scientists and creationists in the debates?
2. Whose agendas are served more by the debates, scientists or creationists?
3. Do the arguments meet critical thinking standards, how many inaccuracies and fallacies are generally employed in the arguments?
4. How effective are these debates at persuading creationists or scientists to look deeper at the opposing views?

These are the four main questions I have right now. I admit that I have been offline for a week so I haven't been able to keep up with the thread, so I'm going to reread the whole thread. If anyone thinks I need to keep in mind any more questions to reach a satisfactory conclusion, I'd be happy to hear them.

 

[Beth]

I'd like to reserve judgement and retract my previous comment in this thread. I've come to think there are four main questions I need to ask to come to a reasonable conclusion.

Good questions all!

1. What are the agendas of scientists and creationists in the debates?

A good question. I think I'll ponder that one a while.

2. Whose agendas are served more by the debates, scientists or creationists?

I think it pretty clearly the creationists agenda is better served by such debates

3. Do the arguments meet critical thinking standards, how many inaccuracies are in the arguments generally?

Creationists arguments don't do very well on deep examination. Scientific arguments require deep examination to really understand them well.

4. How effective are these debates at persuading creationists or scientists to look deeper at the opposing views?

I don't know. At this point, I don't think they persuade as much as entrench people in their already held position. I think they serve to drive people out of a middle position, towards one side or the other. Most people are going to be more attracted to the side that treats them with more respect.

These are the four main questions I have right now. I admit that I have been offline for a week so I haven't been able to keep up with the thread, so I'm going to reread the whole thread. If anyone thinks I need to keep in mind any more questions to reach a satisfactory conclusion, I'd be happy to hear them.

I think one thing to keep in mind is how much background knowledge is required to understand the tremendous weight of the evidence for the theory of evolution. Consider the use of Carbon-14 dating - an incredibly well-understand method of assessing the age of certain things. A person needs to understand physics, chemistry, biology and math through calculus. For most people, especially those who avoided the hard sciences in school, it's an inpenetrable mystery to them. Further, it's not a mystery they are interested in exploring. THey have other priorities in their lives. Like church.

So, they choose what they believe based on who they believe. This doesn't make them stupid. Ignorant maybe, but we all have areas of ignorance.

People ask, why is religion special. All I can say is, it is. It is special because we, human beings collectively, cherish our religion. My country was founded because people were unhappy that they did not have the right to worship their creator as they saw fit. They were willing to go through tremendous risks and sustain horrific losses to build a life where they could live their lives as they saw fit, which was largely centered around the practice of their religion.

You don't have to cherish religion for yourself to understand that others do. I give respect to it because it is such a vital part of the lives of so many people I respect for their own sakes.

 

[articulett]

I don't think respect sways people... it just enables more confirmation bias. We want a populace that thinks using facts... not faith. Respecting faith adds credence to the notion that there is something good about believing something despite evidence. That's a recipe for both ignorance and manipulation.

Many of the founders of the US were deists, Beth. And their biggest innovation was a separation of church and state. They rebelled a church and state as one. Freedom of religion also included freedom from religion. Would you defer similarly to belief in astrology? Respect it? Prop up the delusion? It doesn't do anyone any good when people feel special and chosen and saved because they believe the right unbelievable story--especially when these stories don't agree and have no more evidence than astrology or pixies. They also cause more harm than astrology or pixies. I don't recall a pixie inquisition or a war fought over astrological signs. There's no need to bust into churches and call the people deluded. But respect should be earned. And your not doing any kids now being indoctrinated any favors by propping up the right for their parents to tell them any damn story they want under the guise of "higher truths".

Kids have a right to learn about evolution without fearing eternal damnation or arrogantly presuming they know all they need to know. It is one of the greatest understandings of science... the genomes we've mapped... what it illustrates.

I don't respect it. I tell my students that people have all sorts of creation stories and have for eons, but scientists can only go with the facts that are the same for everybody--even if they don't match up with everybody or even anybody's creation story. I have a darwin fish in my room, and some kid said it was against their religion, "I said, "so"... I just am not going to prop up the stupidity promoting lie-- the faith don't really need extra respect... they've gotten a little arrogant feeling saved and all-- they need a dose of reality. Or they need to stop making scientific claims. I'm for mocking them rather than debating them... except on this forum of course. We like to debate them here, because it's a solid growing theory with tons of supporting evidence, and they can't shout us down or play to the audience or change the subject (ala the Gish gallop). Plus, it's fun and informative for all involved. The creationist never changes their mind, but others read and learn and are amused.

 

[Meadmaker]

Creationists arguments don't do very well on deep examination. Scientific arguments require deep examination to really understand them well.

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it. To win, you have to convince them, "I can't prove it to you tonight, but you could prove it to yourself given some time."

 

[articulett]

Does anybody know a former creationist who would have been willing to debate for that side, but now accepts evolution. I wonder if Michael Shermer was a creationist during his religious years? I know that Dan Barker (former minister; cofounder of FFRF) was. He speaks about how it's all about asking loaded questions which require a bit of foreknowledge and complexity to answer well-- but once he started asking himself questions... about some of the more horrific stories in the bible... the delusion came crashing down.

A creationists questions are not designed to be answered, but designed to imply they already have the answer. They are the ones who need have questions asked of them about their theory if they want to be taken seriously by scientists.

 

[Puppycow]

Should scientists debate the Time Cube guy?

 

[JoeEllison]

Should scientists debate the Time Cube guy?

The only people who should even talk to that guy are mental health professionals.

Which brings up a good point, at this point in the thread: what is the difference between that sort of raving, and the sort of raving based on the more-accepted religious "holy" texts? Why is one rejected as crack-pottery, and the other treated as an eccentricity at most?

 

[Puppycow]

The only people who should even talk to that guy are mental health professionals.

Which brings up a good point, at this point in the thread: what is the difference between that sort of raving, and the sort of raving based on the more-accepted religious "holy" texts? Why is one rejected as crack-pottery, and the other treated as an eccentricity at most?

Some faith-heads can at least speak in coherent sentences? And safety in numbers?

 

[JoeEllison]

Some faith-heads can at least speak in coherent sentences? And safety in numbers?

The ability of the proponents of the more popular belief systems to intelligently rationalize their beliefs, and the popularity of those beliefs, are no defense from the fact that those beliefs are really no different from the beliefs in any other fictional entities, including but not limited to Unicorns, Pixies, Thor, and Captain America.

 

[Wings]

Blasphemy, Captain America was real! Are you telling me my childhood hero was a fake!?

 

[JoeEllison]

Blasphemy, Captain America was real! Are you telling me my childhood hero was a fake!?

Maybe I should pull some woo nonsense, and claim that your truth and my truth are different, and what is true for you is just as "real" as what is true for me...



... but that would be stupid, illogical, and dishonest. Sorry, chum... Cap is a fictional character. Apparently a dead one too, at least this month.

 

[Wings]

Come on, be open-minded about it, you just need faith and you'll see the truth!

On-Topic, those are some good responses Beth. One question I'd have to ask then is on point number 2, who's agenda is better served.

What of the scientists agenda for coming to the debate is served by participating in the debate?

 

[JoeEllison]

Come on, be open-minded about it, you just need faith and you'll see the truth!

This is kind of on-topic, and also relates to the "dangerous ideas" thread, although it will be hard to discuss without offending some people. We're forced to censor our true feelings when it comes to belief in mythical creatures of the POPULAR faiths, although we can mock the exact same sorts of beliefs if they involve pixies and such.

 

[VanillaCone]

Yikes -- this thread grows quickly!

I'm also not convinced that creationists in general know that they are presenting or believing false information.

I had to think about this comment for quite a while. When I hear ID officionados debate, I perceive it as an attempt to obfuscate science. But that can't be right. Why would they put so much effort toward muddying the waters for mud's own sake? IDers must believe what they are arguing is actually correct, right? Unless they are just hired guns for the people who do truly believe. Or maybe they believe in ID but their rhetoric is still disingenuous because they are trying to argue on a logical or intellectual level what they feel on a visceral and emotional level. In any case, they use semantic trickery that's just downright dishonest. How can it be unintentional? Nobody is that crafty unintentionally, are they?

 

[Father Dagon]

Exactly, Father Dragon. They already have the truth--and can only absorb the facts that fit it. Your slime example reminds me of my own students... when they ask if we came from apes-- I tell them, "oh it's a lot worse than that--your parents had to have sex to have you"... nobody likes to think about parental sex-- but some stuff is true even if it's icky.

And if we are going to follow the path of young peoples misconceptions about sex, we will eventually end up at porn. True, pornography is basically fantasy entertainment for adults just as non-newtonian kung fu-flicks is fantasy entertainment for everyone. But people that seriously thinks that those kung fu-flicks is documentaries about real violence will look silly, eventually be killed or both. But thinking that porn is documentaries about real sex is OK...

One of the three things that annoys me most with porn is the iconic money shot. Yes, cotius interruptus is an ancient attempt to contraceptives. But the money shot makes "the slime" to appear as something that's not really part of sex, but something that easily can be wiped off with kitchen paper. So it's natural that the more marginal something seems, the less is the probability that the older kids will tell the younger kids about it.

Ironically enough, the more realistic porn with internal ejaculations came into vouge after the big aids scare. It would be theoretically more logic if the porn in the 70's almost exclusively featured those.

I think that if money shots never became part of mainstream porn, young people's misconceptions about sex would've be less severe. They would think that "sex = slime: deal with it". So they would never've tried the stunt with Mr. Explorer and the green slime, as most kids would've made the connection sex-slime. (And does anyone have the source on the film that was seen in Jesus Camp?)

Just my two cents.

P.S. The two other things that annoys me most with porn is actors looking into the camera if it's not gonzo and "class photo arrangements" where it's obvious that there's one and only one good POV.

 

[Father Dagon]

Should scientists debate the Time Cube guy?

But couldn't it be a wry joke, just as some suspect Libertarian National Socialist Green Party to be?

 

[Beth]

Aye, there's the rub, isn't it. To win, you have to convince them, "I can't prove it to you tonight, but you could prove it to yourself given some time."

That is, indeed, the rub. Another alternative approach to "win" is to convince the creationists that the scientists are more trustworthy than their minister or the bible. That's why I think it so important to treat them and their beliefs with respect.

On-Topic, those are some good responses Beth. One question I'd have to ask then is on point number 2, who's agenda is better served. What of the scientists agenda for coming to the debate is served by participating in the debate?

As I said, I'm still pondering what their agendas are. What are your thoughts on that? I do think that there is some value in simply showing up and defending the concept of evolution, but it really can't be adequately explained or defended in the format of a debate. I think about all that can realisticallly be accomplished is to correct some of the faulty perceptions of what evolution that are frequently held by creationists.

This is kind of on-topic, and also relates to the "dangerous ideas" thread, although it will be hard to discuss without offending some people. We're forced to censor our true feelings when it comes to belief in mythical creatures of the POPULAR faiths, although we can mock the exact same sorts of beliefs if they involve pixies and such.

Who is forcing you to censor your true feelings? You seem pretty open about your opinions here. Personally I find mockery of people's cherished beliefs distasteful and unmannerly. If you're complaining about getting chided for that, I put that in the category as people who complain about being chided for using the n-word when describing blacks. You know that what you are doing is offensive to the majority of the population.

Or are you complaining about the consequences of expressing those feelings openly? I'll agree, depending on the community you live and work in, it can make your life difficult to be open about such beliefs. Do you think that the success of writers like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have made it more or less costly for atheists to be open about their beliefs?

 

[JoeEllison]

Who is forcing you to censor your true feelings? You seem pretty open about your opinions here. Personally I find mockery of people's cherished beliefs distasteful and unmannerly. If you're complaining about getting chided for that, I put that in the category as people who complain about being chided for using the n-word when describing blacks. You know that what you are doing is offensive to the majority of the population.

The problem is that there's a pretty big difference between discussing what someone believes, and discussing the color of someone's skin. Beliefs are on some level conscious decisions that can be changed. Attacking someone over race is as stupid as going after someone for being blond or short or having green eyes.

Actually, come to think of it, racism is a good way to make my point. If someone says "black people and Jews are inferior races, it says so in this book", you and I and everyone else would probably join in to attack those beliefs, and their source. If someone has a similarly incorrect belief, based in the Bible or Koran, though... there's a tendency for people to hold back.

It doesn't really matter, though, how "cherished" someone's beliefs are. We go around debunking "cherished beliefs" all the time. The religious ones, though, seem to demand special, unwarranted protection. I see that as a major problem.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Does anybody know a former creationist who would have been willing to debate for that side, but now accepts evolution.

Some here.

Also [swiki]Michael Denton[/swiki] used to be an ID type person.