skepticism in 15 minutes to a hostile audience?

[tophilactic]

Last spring we had the honor….err..chance of having the Discovery Institute come to the university ( I am a grad student). The science faculty all attempted to get this moved off campus and were entreated to accusations of free-speech infringement (which seems to be the main theme in “Expelled”). The DI wrote an open letter to the local paper inviting any science faculty to present evolution (in 15 min.) No faculty member did.
Would you recommend anyone accept this invitation? If so, what are your suggestions? Do you feel that the approach by the science community that has been used, i.e. trying to distance themselves rather than confront intelligent design is effective?

[vIQleS]

No - at least I wouldn't. i don't think 15 minutes is enough time to present evolution (or a good case for it). Maybe someone with a more thorough knowledge...

[NorwegianSquirrel]

I agree, 15 minutes is probably not enough time.

We had a debate between a professor in biology and some guy from the DI at my university about a year ago, and even though this was a debate, not a lecture, I'd imagine that setting the time to 15 minutes is not something they chose at random...

But in this case we were mostly students, and not exactly hostile (at least not towards the professor...)

And I encourage confronting the creationists rather then ignoring them. Show them for what they are.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Last spring we had the honor….err..chance of having the Discovery Institute come to the university ( I am a grad student). The science faculty all attempted to get this moved off campus and were entreated to accusations of free-speech infringement (which seems to be the main theme in “Expelled”). The DI wrote an open letter to the local paper inviting any science faculty to present evolution (in 15 min.) No faculty member did.
Would you recommend anyone accept this invitation? If so, what are your suggestions? Do you feel that the approach by the science community that has been used, i.e. trying to distance themselves rather than confront intelligent design is effective?
Watch Hovind v. Shermer and then ask yourself that question.

[Seventhsally]

In a general sense, no- the arguments you can supply, regardless of their cogency, are unlikely to convince people who accept revelation as a legitimate conduit to knowledge. You can offer up fact after fact, theory after theory, but if it didn't come from a burning bush, they will simply not accept it as valid. If you refuse to acknowledge science as a legitimate means of inquiry, why would you accept arguments based upon it?

[Seventhsally]

In a general sense, no- the arguments you can supply, regardless of their cogency, are unlikely to convince people who accept revelation as a legitimate conduit to knowledge. You can offer up fact after fact, theory after theory, but if it didn't come from a burning bush, they will simply not accept it as valid. If you refuse to acknowledge science as a legitimate means of inquiry, why would you accept arguments based upon it?

[tophilactic]

Thank you for the feedback. Similar sentiments behooved me to not try to participate. Fifteen minutes, let alone a lifetime, I doubt, would sway a crowd of ID supporters.

I should note that one biology undergrad did contact the DI to participate, but was refused. This was reported in the student paper through a series of emails between him, a bio professor, and Annika Smith of the DI. The DI argued they wanted scientists of the same education level as Meyer, Behe, etc., and that the open letter was to try to get the faculty to stick "their money where their mouth is", so to speak.

[CFLarsen]

Last spring we had the honor….err..chance of having the Discovery Institute come to the university ( I am a grad student). The science faculty all attempted to get this moved off campus and were entreated to accusations of free-speech infringement (which seems to be the main theme in “Expelled”). The DI wrote an open letter to the local paper inviting any science faculty to present evolution (in 15 min.) No faculty member did.
Would you recommend anyone accept this invitation? If so, what are your suggestions? Do you feel that the approach by the science community that has been used, i.e. trying to distance themselves rather than confront intelligent design is effective?

I would. It would take less than a minute, actually.

"I would like to point out that the Discovery Institute clearly fears Evolution so much that despite their demands of "equal time" for Creationism, they are not willing to give "equal time" to Evolutionists. They want hours to present their side, while only allowing 15 minutes to an explanation of a very complicated theory by using mountains of evidence.

In a word, the Discovery Institute people are hypocrites.

Thank you."

[Horatius]

I would. It would take less than a minute, actually.

"I would like to point out that the Discovery Institute clearly fears Evolution so much that despite their demands of "equal time" for Creationism, they are not willing to give "equal time" to Evolutionists. They want hours to present their side, while only allowing 15 minutes to an explanation of a very complicated theory by using mountains of evidence.

In a word, the Discovery Institute people are hypocrites.

Thank you."



That's similar to what I would have suggested. You won't have time to explain Evolution in just 15 minutes, but you could point out a few of their more common lies and distortions - then throw out the suggestion that any movement that relies on such tactics really shouldn't be trusted on any issue.

Of course, they would never agree to this.

[CFLarsen]

That's similar to what I would have suggested. You won't have time to explain Evolution in just 15 minutes, but you could point out a few of their more common lies and distortions - then throw out the suggestion that any movement that relies on such tactics really shouldn't be trusted on any issue.

Of course, they would never agree to this.

You don't need to tell them exactly what you are going to do. ;)

[briandunning]

I am going to be doing just this next month. A church group has asked me to give my presentation on debating with a creationist.

I plan to start it off with a quick primer on the many different types of creationism. Most do not require a wholesale rejection of geology, biology, or both. Priming the audience with "it's OK for a creationist to accept biology" is an important first step. This is an audience of young people, many of whom may not realize that many forms of creationism embrace evolution.

[Father Dagon]

Try Carl Sagan's routine. It goes something like this: "True, you could go to a plump-bob dangler to determine the sex of your unborn child. But they have only right on about one in two. Or you could use science to get a 99% accurate result.

Or you could spend years on trying to psychoanalyze your schizofrenia away. Or you could use medication that will remove most of the symptoms in matter of days."

(Yes, I nicked those right out of Demon Haunted World, so you better find some other examples.)

[CFLarsen]

I am going to be doing just this next month. A church group has asked me to give my presentation on debating with a creationist.

I plan to start it off with a quick primer on the many different types of creationism. Most do not require a wholesale rejection of geology, biology, or both. Priming the audience with "it's OK for a creationist to accept biology" is an important first step. This is an audience of young people, many of whom may not realize that many forms of creationism embrace evolution.

That there are many forms of Creationism is an important point, and will easily be understood.

That makes people question Creationists.

[latent aaaack]

The DI only hopes the offer will be taken so they can display that they allow the other side to come to their university but the mean scientific community doesn't allow DI at their universities, that's what the ludicrous 15 minute demand is about.

[vIQleS]

I am going to be doing just this next month. A church group has asked me to give my presentation on debating with a creationist.

I plan to start it off with a quick primer on the many different types of creationism. Most do not require a wholesale rejection of geology, biology, or both. Priming the audience with "it's OK for a creationist to accept biology" is an important first step. This is an audience of young people, many of whom may not realize that many forms of creationism embrace evolution.

Make sure you point out the difference between evolution and abiogenesis. Speaking as a recovering YEC - no creationist understands the difference.

Stress that you're either debating evolution OR abiogenesis. (I recomend evolution :-D)

Keep it simple and try to shoot down the arguments that they're going to use with some simple cold hard logic.

YECists assume that the fact that scientists believe in evolution just means that they're all part of a conspiracy, which is run by satan (No - i'm not kidding) so argumentum ad populum probably won't work.

[Quath]

I sometimes use an argument from authority and try to build trust for that authority. What I try to show is that roughly 95% of all scientists accept evolution. If you restrict it to the life sciences, you get up to around 99.8%. What this logically shows is that it is not a controversial theory among scientists.

The authority part is that these are well educated people who have studied the evidence and reached a decision. Some polls show that 40 to 50% of scientists believe in God. So these scientists should have a bias in favor of the Bible. Since most reject Creationism, the God believing ones are doing so despite their bias. This should give a sign that the evidence must be very good in order to overcome this bias. I mostly use this argument in the hopes that religious people will be more open to results reported by scientists.

I think the many different types of Creationism is a great way to go. If someone recognizes themself at one level, maybe they will feel more comfortable switching to a close level rather than feeling like they are losing it all. One step at a time.