Is Evolutionist Disparagement of Creationism Justified?

My own impression is very much at odds with yours. I beleive that the creationists ARE cut more slack than others, in all areas.

If you were looking towards the end of his tenure here it was pretty bad. And Peter had some really off days...but overall, a lot of interesting discussions came out of his threads. Look at the Wolemia thread for example...Quetzal was on fire in that one. I had to read up quite a bit to stay on top of it.

I remember a thread where some of the Mods expicitly stated that Creos are held to a lower standard in regards to both their debating skills and the use of evidence.

You've also received compliments about your debating ability and writing style, and a Post of the Month nomination. I don't think anyone disagrees with you that it is evidence for certain things. The a priori dismissal is of a priori acceptance of the Bible's reliability. Given the improvements in health and living standards over the past couple centuries, the deterioration of civilization may be a debatable point. But what you say about the Bible being given much greater credence a couple centuries ago is true. Many people accept that the evidence gathered since then indicates that the Bible is a compilation of works by various authors which contains some truth, some fiction, some in between, and some whose status as truth or fiction may never be known. You can challenge this position and discuss it in the [forum=-1] forum. I wasn't being dismissive, I was putting it in context. Just as there are some sects of Christianity that claim the Christian holy book is inerrant, there are some sects of Islam that claim the Islamic holy book is inerrant. Since the Koran at one point says, "Allah forbid that he should have a son," they can't both be right. Adherents to other religions accept those beliefs as strongly and sincerely as you do Christianity's. Your position that the other religions of the world are false is something you can debate in the [forum=-6] forum. Expressions of religious opinions will find a much more favorable response there than in the science forums. You've already said that historical events can't be replicated, and I've already explained that this isn't what is meant by replicability. It is the experiments and/or observations that must be replicable, not the events themselves. Using Noah's flood as an example again, one geologist can examine geological layers in the Appalachians to track the progress of the flood across the land, and he can publish a paper about his findings. Replicability means that other geologists can also go to the Appalachians and make the same observations. As you sincerely believe this, I won't try to persuade you otherwise. All I can ask is that you consider that it doesn't appear this way to many others. While this passage is an excellent example of why Creationism gets no respect in scientific circles, visiting the particulars of this passage would quickly draw us off-topic. There are many people here who would be delighted to discuss with you the details of this veritable smorgasbord of errors in the [forum=-7] forum. I haven't followed all your threads here, so perhaps no one has yet described the nature of science for you, but tentativity is a primary component of science. So the answer to your question is no, the scientic method is not infallible, and definitely not 100% infallible. Scientific theories are always being questioned, rejustified and reinterpreted in light of new evidence and improved insight. At the end of the day it is always a case of weighing the evidence to see which theories are best supported, and as the evidence mounts and the insights improve the theories will change. Science is not timeless truth, but merely a reflection of the evidence gathered from the natural world. This can all be explored if we're able to find someone willing to debate you in the Deposition and Erosion of Sediments thread. Shallow seas accumulating sedimentary layers rich in calcium? Sure. But regarding how deep the layers and the presence of fossils I'd have to do some research, so for now I'll just defer to the geological experts here. Maybe one of them can provide some information and a link or two. Glad to hear you're doing so well. You're to be complemented on your modesty! And thank you for being so tolerant of all us dunderheads! Wasn't quite able to extract the meaning from the full passage I lifted this from, but I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to emphasize once more that science is not truth. It is just a way of studying the natural world to figure out as best we can how it works.Bringing this all back on topic, the reason for the disparagement of Creationism by evolutionists is primarily due to its inability to backup its claim to be legitimate science. A key point in my previous post was Creationism's inability thus far to make any contribution to scientific progress. Combined with its tendency to severely misinform its adherents, and given its program of bringing its arguments to the meeting rooms of school boards instead of to the halls of science, it would be very difficult to justify bestowing any scientific respect, or any other kind, upon Creationism.--Percy

Peter Borger is no longer here because he turned every thread in which he participated into a discussion of his GUToB, and when asked to limit discussion of GUToB to only a couple threads he refused.Peter Borger is free to return whenever he likes, but unless he has acquired the ability to follow moderator requests since his last visit, he'll quickly lose his privileges again.

---

--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

So you can't answer that one.Let's try another.Who invented Algebra?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The choice of Peter Borger as an example was not to call into question your having banned him. But rather to serve as an example of a reasonably productive and sustained debate i.e. it is possible.

There is a very important point and purpose to having a platform where the Classic Creationist can present their material alongside the others people.The key is that there are two audiences, the participants and lurkers and in almost every case the lurkers will outnumber the participants.It is only through sites such as this where the lurker can see the two points of view debated side-by-side. They will not find it anywhere else. And it's the lurkers who will determine the future.

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

quote:

---

Western civilization and science itself would never have happened without my religion's holy book as you so dismissively put it,

---

quote:

---

It was not the Bible but the pagan Aristotle he had offended.*

​

*{Edit for clarity -- Aristotle was the darling of the Roman Church and it was his pantheistic views of the universe with which Galileo's observations clashed. There is nothing in the Bible that opposes Galileo's scientific conclusions.

---

The point is, the Roman church was, at the time, the most powerful arbiter of what the bible meant, so what they interpreted it to mean was what everyone else was required to believe.YOU say that Galileo didn't contradict the Bible, but THEY said that it did.Now, the THEY say that the ToE doesn't contradict the bible, but YOU say it does.If you were the arbiter of what the Bible meant (which you seem to say you are), and you were as powerful as the Roman Church was back then, you would have quite a good time putting all of these Paleontologists and Geneticists under house arrest, I'll bet.Interesting how things come full circle, isn't it?

Now I remember. Of course the biggest problem was that he didn't even HAVE a "GUToB". While he may have been less unreasonable than some - at least for a while - he still ended up making grandiose claims which he could not back up.

Buz, you write:

quote:

---

The problem though is that we need to assemble a coalition of intelligent design (ID) creationists who have some gumption, if you will and the knowledge and intelligence as you have shown here so as to lend support to one another when it is needed.

---

Then Faith replies:

quote:

---

Yes, some reinforcements would help a lot. (Some YECs too though, not just IDs plz).

---

...and here is your problem.How can Creationists ever present any sort of united effort when you can't even agree upon the most basic of facts, such as if the Earth is incredibly ancient or just a few thousand years old?This is the problem that Creationism always has; you start with revelation, not evidence. Since there are as many interpretations of Scripture as there are individual Christians, and since evidence in nature is irrelevant to relevatory belief, there is no basis whatsoever for reaching consensus among Creationists.The reason most of the Evo side here present a mostly unified front is because science is evidence-driven. We can reach consensus, because we test our predictions. Those which survive many repeated tests survive, and those which do not, don't survive.What testable predictions of your ideas have been made, and if they were found to not be accurate, would you discard them?

That's not true.True Creation was/is a YEC, as was/is Mike the Wiz, and neither one is dumb in the least.

Obviously impressions are subjective. But lets try and get a bit more objective if we can.When we talk about cutting people slack, that to me is overlooking errors they commit in order to allow them to continue holding their position, or at least to keep attacking their opponent on an issue.Using that definition I am hardpressed to say where you have seen creos get cut slack on anything. There is a bit of a pile on with usually most any detail they get wrong or are perceived to have gotten wrong. And yes, I have been within those piles so I am not just pointing at others.They usually get ridden until they give up and leave, or there is a back and forth repetition until a thread is closed.This is not so true of evos. When mistakes are made, or the person is wholly errant but on the "right" political side, then I do not see the pile ons that creos get. I have even tried to start some, only to watch people disappear. Yes it happens some of the time, but it is much rarer than what is seen for creo departures from evidence and logic.Do you really see this site as people leaving creos to say what they want, while evos are generally attacked en masse?

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Well it seems that you are talking about something rather different.My point is that creationists ARE cut a lot of slack in terms of the forum rules and guidelines. And they still whine about "unfair treatment".The "pile-on" effect is due to the fact that creationists represent the minority side on the main subject of the forum and that their arguments are often easy to rebut. The inflammatory attitude often displayed by creationists only encourages the effect.

I'm not totally convinced that a 'pile-on' is a good indicator of anything other than the make-up of the forum.When someone is wrong about something, whatever their position, particularly when they are misinterpreting or misreperesenting scientific research it is incumbent on us to correct their mistakes, if we truly want a worthwhile scientific debate of the issues.I think that there is no more tolerance on this site for mistakes from the evo than the creo camp. The problem is that there are many more in the evo camp capable of seeing the mistakes which frequently crop up in a typical creationist argument than there are who would be capable of catching out Mammuthus, for instance, in an error regarding some abstruse detail of endogenous retroviral phylogenetics (not that I am suggesting Mammuthus makes such mistakes, its only an example).Maybe we need to start a rota for people to adopt-a-creationist and try and avoid pile-ons .TTFN,WK