Vs. Creationist

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

I decided to post this here hoping someone will find this as humorous as I currently am finding this. To give you a little bit of a backstory on this. This is actually an exchange that started when I was looking through the comments section of a Christian metal band on myspace (the source of all intelligent conversation :rolleyes:) and saw an individual had made a rather inflammatory comment which, on a whim, I decided to respond to in a message. Well this led me back to his profile where I ended up responding to a blog entry claiming to refute evolution. We've exchanged abit this morning regarding evolution and the original message (actually it isn't fair to say he responded to anything about evolution. I responded to scientific claims regarding evolution and he showed me a bunch of quotes from the bible in response).

His personal forums can be found here (http://ppleqlsht.proboards102.com/index.cgi), the thread regarding the original message here (http://ppleqlsht.proboards102.com/index.cgi?board=religion&action=display&thread=71), the thread regarding evolution here (http://ppleqlsht.proboards102.com/index.cgi?board=religion&action=display&thread=11), and my blog entries on the subject here (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=242541392&blogID=432893123) and here (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=242541392&blogID=432367969). With his original post on evolution here (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=30575799&blogID=231112962) but also linked in my blog on the subject.

I have some hope that I may actually educate this individual. Converting him into atheism doesn't interest me as I have no real problem with religion on its own merely the dogmatic anti-intellectualism espoused by so many of them. So I hope he may learn something from this, though as some of my older friends who have more experience this have told me, I won't hold my breath.

[thequixoticman]

Well, I read through your conversation with him, the first one you linked to and not the evolution one. I tried to read his evolution post but my brain collapsed instantly as noxious poorly constructed arguments tirelessly assaulted it (Good show being able to get through that, by the by). I guess that where I'm a little stuck, I sort of understand that it could be fun to yell at a person like that, but you and I and he and everyone he talks to knows that he is never going to be swayed by a logical argument. Perhaps you feel as though you were baiting him, but I would bet that in his first post, he hoped to bait you as well.

Like I said, I read through the first group of forum postings that you went through. I thought you made some good points, but I can't help feeling that they're wasted on a person who obviously thinks himself to be some strange modern day profit. I refer here to his statements about how special he is, how he angers both the religious and the non-religious, all that clap-trap.

I guess I just don't quite get it. Is there really a point to arguing with this guy? As it's been said, you can't rationally argue someone out of a position they came to irrationally, and this gent seems ready to hold those irrational positions until the sun goes nova and all the Christians think the wave of energy boiling the planet is the Rapture.

[Safe-Keeper]

I've seen the "we've _________ and called it _______" sermon before, on Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/wright.asp). I'll look into the rest of it now. Seems to be just recycled nonsense and misunderstandings.

[Sideroxylon]

(From his blog):
Here's one more pertinent consideration, never reported by the most devoted Darwinian: Charles Darwin's own statements of doubt about his theory. He openly acknowledged "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe … as the result of blind chance or necessity." His subsequent disciples evidently dismiss that thought. Doesn't fit the "Theory."


They always latch on to these kinds of statements by Darwin and other scientists because they don't seem to recognise the value of honestly to the extent of expressing doubts about their position. It seems they themselves would rather quote mine and avoid contrary evidence while employing all manner of sophistry to sell their position. This reminds me of what richard Feynman said about the difference between pseudo-science and the real thing:

It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -- a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid -- not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked -- to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

[Delvo]

They always latch on to these kinds of statements by Darwin and other scientists because they don't seem to recognise the value of honestly to the extent of expressing doubts about their position.It's even worse than that. The quotes aren't even expressions of the authors' own doubts. They're setups to lead in to explanations of why they're sure of what they say. The way they did that was to first briefly lay out the opposing side and then follow it with their own. The format is essentially "I know it must seem odd and hard to imagine how this could be... but here's why I believe it is." The creationists are just quoting the setup before the ellipsis and leaving out the takedown after it. Darwin did this repeatedly. For example, you can find a quote in TOoS to the effect of "This theory would be toast if there were even one organ that could not have developed by gradual stages having served slightly different purposes in its past forms." But when a creationist quotes it and stops there, you'd have no idea that the very next seven words are "But I can find no such organ," followed by pages of examples of how various previously suggested candidates fail to meet that standard.

So they're using real quotes to imply exactly the opposite of the original authors' actual meanings and thoughts. It's like an environmental agency office I was in once which had a poster on the wall with a quote from Abraham Lincoln saying that if one species were to go extinct, then so could another, and then another, until all of creation was un-created. He did write that (when he worked for a newspaper, before his Presidency), but his point wasn't a warning to preserve things and not let them go extinct; it was that extinction was impossible. (Creation is still here, so obviously it hasn't been getting lost by attrition, so the extinctions haven't been happening.)

Worse yet, the whole reason why they think it's even worth the bother to claim that evolution's "heroes" doubted it is that they're thinking in terms of idolization of authority figures, which isn't how science works. In science, unlike religion, ideas are judged by the evidence for them, not by the ideas' creators' fame or level of certainty in the idea. Einstein couldn't convince himself of photons even though they were his idea; today nobody doubts them at all, because the evidence showed that Einstein was wrong to doubt them. His doubts about the idea didn't make it wrong.

[Sideroxylon]

Thanks for your response Delvo. You are right about the way the quotes are taken out of context. I think people like this author are probably unaware of what proceeded it as they simply plucked it from a creationist website or heard it from one of their heroes. Perhaps its also this reliance on authority that leads them to fail to explore the evidence of evolution for themselves. Sadly many well educated people here in Turkey have no clue about the theory and feel no need to try to understand what it says. From my experience the standard responses to why they think evolution is wrong are "Because I'm a Muslim" (authority again) and "We came from monkeys? How absurd!" (displays lack of understanding of theory).

[arthwollipot]

A very useful resource for this sort of thing is the Quote Mine Project (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html) on Talk.Origins.

Just be careful letting on it's from TO - a lot of creationists in my experience instantly dismiss everything on TO as worthless and beyond consideration.

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Should anyone be interested he's responded to the first message. Mine is forth-coming.

ETA: I've responded. The argument has gone mostly purely scriptural and hence I'm most likely going to end this exchange. No word on the bit about evolution which I suspect won't get a response.