Meert / Brown Debate

I hunted for the word "putty" in Walt Brown's site, Center for Scientific Creation – In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, using the advanced search facility on google, which allows a search to be restricted to a given domain.I found six matches; all of which appear to acknowledge that rock can deform like putty under certain circumstances. The pages are:
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - A Few of the Mysteries
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Key Hebrew Words
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - How to Evaluate Theories
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Phases of the Hydroplate Theory: Rupture, Flood, Drift, and Recovery    
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - What’s Ahead
In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Is the Hydroplate Theory Consistent with the Bible?Walt Brown does update this material periodically, so this is not a proof that he never made the quote... but the onus here is not on Brown. Fairness requires a presumption that he never made the purported quote. That is not a personal criticism of Trixie; it is just a matter of how we ought to fairly evaluate arguments.As matters stand, the prosecution has no case.If context for a quote is lost or misplaced, or if material has been updated to remove a previous error, or if there was a simple mistake in copying, or whatever else, then we just shrug and move on. Since there is nothing to work with, we can't make any check for errors by either side.As a general rule, quotes should be referenced from the first instant they are introduced, especially if they are used as a basis for criticism.As a secondary point, without proper context we can't conclude anything much from a short phrase like "Rock doesn't bend like putty." It could be used reasonably in a context where there is an implicit constraint on circumstances or time frames.There is plenty of stuff in Brown's site that can be criticised as it stands. Take it as an object lesson for how to make an effective case.Cheers -- Sylas(Edit here was quite substantial. I hope this gets out before the first version is quoted.... whew. It did get updated in time.)[This message has been edited by Sylas, 03-25-2004]

There may be two views on what Brown's original debate offer implied. At best, the language was unclear, with good reason for someone to think that proposals for a change to the enumerated rules would be submitted to a third party. But this is moot, as Brown has since revised the wording.There is another good reason that Brown is not being given many offers to debate.If you look at his proposal, it is not actually for a simple debate at all. It is for two conflicting views to collaborate on writing a book! Someone taking up this debate is basically committing to a major publishing venture, with an opponent who has very little credibility and prominence even by creationist standards. Answers in Genesis, for example, mentions Brown explicitly in their list of poor arguments by creationists.Now of course, it is the nature of the game that just about anyone who makes any kind of creationist claim with some veneer of professionalism is bound to get significant support. There are worse examples of this than Brown. But why would anyone bother writing a book with someone like this? If I was going to take the time to write a whole book, there's no way I'd want to collaborate with a second rater like Brown. It is entirely consistent and sensible to look at the calibre of Brown's work, judge it to be nonsense, and dismiss the debate offer as useless.The fact that Brown is not getting people to accept his offer is not an indication that he has a difficult position to refute; though naturally he will attempt to portray it in such terms. It is because he is not worth that level of engagement.Real scientific debate is carried out without all this hoopla about mano-a-mano grandstanding. You just make your case. Brown has done this, and very laughable it is too. The counter-case is made already, in libraries and universities and research institutes all over the world.Cheers -- Sylas

I don't disagree with that. I'm just not particularly interested in that aspect of the matter.Cheers -- Sylas

Joe and others already debate the facts. The question is whether anyone should bother conducting the debate by writing a book in collaboration with Brown. I frankly think it remains far better to keep conducting the debate in the normal way. Just point out some of the many ways in which Brown's position is incorrect.One of the facts is that creationism is a religious position. A discussion of creationism which omits any mention of this aspect is necessarily superficial.Cheers -- Sylas

I know what your point is. I disagree with it.The fact is that the real debate is going on all the time, just fine.Another fact is that religion is central to Brown's creationism. If he doesn't want to talk about that aspect, that's his choice. His insistence that no-one else can talk about it either is silly, but then so is just about everything else in his writings.But it is not his choice to arbitrarily deny the reality of ongoing debate that does not take the form of collaborating with him in writing a book on his own personally chosen terms.Brown's grandstanding about his debate "offer" is not the real debate. If anyone took it up, that would not make it the "real" debate. It would be just another bit of the debate. The real debate is going on all the time without any need for all this nonsense about having to write a book about it.I think a natural reading of the original agreement is that it included the agreement that a third party would rule on variations of the written protocols, including scope. If Brown did not intend that, then the original wording was sloppy. He's fixed up the wording, so I am not inclined to fuss much about the matter.However, one thing is clear at this point. Brown has a debate offer on the table that he is refusing to take up, because he insists that the other party of the debate may not mention religion, and he is unwilling to let that point be abitrated by a debate moderator.Of course, Brown is free to set the terms under which he is willing to debate. But he looks very silly indeed posturing about how other people don't want to debate on his terms when he refuses to debate on theirs.In my estimation, Brown is a lightweight in the rather comical parade of creationists, and not worth a great deal of time. If someone wanted to write a book on creationism, then Brown's debate offer is a lousy way to go about it.Cheers -- Sylas