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Member (Idle past 4735 days) Posts: 283 From: Weed, California, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Books By Creationists? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
slevesque writes:
I don't think that's a point of contention at all. I don't think anybody has suggested any such attitude. That's the attitude that we constantly decry among creationists, not one that any science-minded person would advocate. The point of contention seems to be at what point do we effectively have an attitude that makes it practically impossible for the evidence to change our minds. If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4671 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
I don't think that's a point of contention at all. I don't think anybody has suggested any such attitude. That's the attitude that we constantly decry among creationists, not one that any science-minded person would advocate. Well isn't that the kind of attitude Tram Law is promoting in this thread, by saying we read a book with the a priori intention of debunking it (ie having already decided what our conclusion will be) ?
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ringo Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
slevesque writes:
No. Well isn't that the kind of attitude Tram Law is promoting in this thread, by saying we read a book with the a priori intention of debunking it (ie having already decided what our conclusion will be) ? If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Since I didn't claim to KNOW your wondering is irrelevant speculation. However the fact that they cling to the literal truth of the Bible's Flood Myth is strong evidence for their attitude.
quote: So according to you someone who goes into a book with the intention of debunking it has an unchangeably closed mind even if, when they do the work they actually change their mind. That's obviously false. And since telling if their mind is unchangeably closed is even more difficult than telling their attitude it is obviously more sensible to judge the work rather than the attitude - even if you had a good reason for calling the attitude dishonest - and you don't.
quote: Since I quite clearly did not your English comprehension failed you very badly, to the point of misrepresentation. What I said would be dishonest, would be to dismiss a valid critique on tha basis of your spurious idea of "dishonesty".
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.1 |
Hi Slevesque,
No, I'm saying, in typical 'future scientist' fashion (I study math and physics), that I would consider myself dishonest if I had this attitude when reviewing papers ... Why? That's what you're meant to do isn't it? When reviewing a paper, for peer review or otherwise, you should be aiming to debunk it. You should be actively looking for the flaws. It's to do with the limits of inductive logic. No matter how much positive evidence a paper can present, if it is founded upon a single mistake, the whole thing can fall apart. It's much more efficient to approach papers with this challenging attitude. If you try your best to find a flaw and you come up with no objections, then the paper might just be correct. If I were a scientist presenting a paper (dream on!), I would be perfectly happy for people to approach my work in this hyper-sceptical manner. Indeed, I would expect it as a matter of course, certainly at the peer review stage. It is also true, as others have pointed out, that these judgements are not made in a vacuum. I have seen a lot of creationist arguments. A lot. So far, they have all turned out to be complete poppycock. That this particular book, whatever it might be, will be the one to buck the trend of appalling wrongness, seems unlikely. Sure, we should give it a fair chance, but by critiquing it as harshly as possible, we are giving it a fair chance. To my mind, that is exactly what a fair chance would look like. If the book has good arguments, it will be able to withstand such treatment. Mutate and Survive Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given. On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4671 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
Since I didn't claim to KNOW your wondering is irrelevant speculation. However the fact that they cling to the literal truth of the Bible's Flood Myth is strong evidence for their attitude. Then you are suffering from memory loss, because that is exactly what you said:
quote: So according to you someone who goes into a book with the intention of debunking it has an unchangeably closed mind even if, when they do the work they actually change their mind. That's obviously false. No, I'm saying that if someone approaches a book having already decided that he will debunk it afterwards, that such an attitude prevents any type of evidence from ever affecting what he has already decided to be true.
Since I quite clearly did not your English comprehension failed you very badly, to the point of misrepresentation. The first part of that sentence certainly doesn't make sense to me.
What I said would be dishonest, would be to dismiss a valid critique on tha basis of your spurious idea of "dishonesty". And thanfully no one has done that here yet.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4671 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
Why? That's what you're meant to do isn't it? When reviewing a paper, for peer review or otherwise, you should be aiming to debunk it. You should be actively looking for the flaws. It's to do with the limits of inductive logic. No matter how much positive evidence a paper can present, if it is founded upon a single mistake, the whole thing can fall apart. It's much more efficient to approach papers with this challenging attitude. If you try your best to find a flaw and you come up with no objections, then the paper might just be correct. I'm talking about the difference between a highly critical approach, and a I-am-for-sure-never-letting-this-paper-pass approach. It's deciding the paper is trash before even reading it, that is what I think is a dishonest attitude.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
quote: Thanks for proving that I did not claim to know - although I have to ask how you can get the idea that I am suffering from memory loss when I remembered correctly.
quote: Then that "No" should be "Yes". You have prejudged the outcome, rather than waiting to see what it is.
quote:There should be a comma after the "not" . Aside from that you only need the context. quote: But why else would you want to label a fair and accurate critique as dishonest ?
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Granny Magda Member Posts: 2462 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.1 |
I'm talking about the difference between a highly critical approach, and a I-am-for-sure-never-letting-this-paper-pass approach. Yeah, okay, but I don't see how you got that from Tram Law's OP. He said that he might read a creationist book for the purpose of debunking it, but he didn't say that he would never accept any creationist argument under any circumstances. I think you are reading too much into this.
It's deciding the paper is trash before even reading it, that is what I think is a dishonest attitude. It is a creationist paper though. Creationism is false Slevesque. The very fact that it takes creationism as its subject virtually guarrentees that such a paper will be basically wrong. You have to understand that for most of us, this issue is settled. It has been settled for over a century. It has been settled by the scientific community and it has been settled for us personally, by a comprehensive review of the evidence. The results are in. Creationism is bullshit. Now place yourself in our shoes for a moment. Imagine the example that has been mentioned before; a geocentrist text. Can you really honestly say that you could read such a text without already having a pre-conceived idea that it would be nonsense? I mean, how could it be anything else? If it wasn't nonsense, it wouldn't be geocentrist, now would it? It's the same for creationism. Just how many chances must we give to an idea that we know to be false before you are satisfied? Mutate and Survive On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9208 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
The issue with creos and fundies is that when you look at where they are coming from you can see that they are not presenting evidence honestly. They have a preconceived world view that no amount of evidence will change.
If you go to the authors websites or the websites of the publisher you will find something like what I posted on another topic about creation.com.
quote: Why should we be open minded about anything people like this have to say? You may notice that people that present science do not have a statement of faith. Edited by Theodoric, : spelling Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given. Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.6 |
More to the point, doesn't this statement of faith give us a good reason to think that they have firmly decided their conclusions before they start any study ? And according to Slevesque that means that they are dishonest (and unchangeably closed-minded, even if they are not).
Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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Tram law Member (Idle past 4735 days) Posts: 283 From: Weed, California, USA Joined: |
slevesque writes: I don't think that's a point of contention at all. I don't think anybody has suggested any such attitude. That's the attitude that we constantly decry among creationists, not one that any science-minded person would advocate. Well isn't that the kind of attitude Tram Law is promoting in this thread, by saying we read a book with the a priori intention of debunking it (ie having already decided what our conclusion will be) ? No, I am not. Experience teaches us that creationists will intentionally mislead and lie about what evolution is all about. An example straight from the book:
3. Fossils Although Darwin expected millions of transitional fossils to be found,none have been found, except for a mere handful of disputable ones. Evolutionist Dr Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History responded as follows to a written question asking why he failed to include illustrations of transitional forms in a book he wrote on evolution:‘ I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? ‘I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to writeit now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when theysay there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the linethere is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. Even Archaeopteryx, often claimed as the transition between reptiles and birds, shows no sign of the crucial scale-to-feather or leg-to-wing transition. While it is always possible to maintain faith in evolution by belief in unobservable mechanisms, the evidence of such a systematic paucity of the anticipated evolutionary ‘links’ on a global scale is powerful, positive support for biblical creation, regardless of any argument about how and when fossils may have formed. Footnote: Letter (written April 10, 1979) from Dr Colin Patterson, then Senior Palaeontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, to Luther D. Sunderland, as quoted in Sunderland, L.D., 1984. Darwin’s Enigma, Master Books, San Diego, USA, p. 89. Patterson subsequently tried to play down the significance of this very clear statement.
the lie here, of course is that no transitional fossils have been found. I'm not a scholar or an expert on the subject, so I looked up transitional fossils on Wikipedia and it shows this:
The reconstruction of the evolution of the horse and its relatives assembled by Othniel Charles Marsh from surviving fossils that form a single, consistently developing lineage with many "transitional" types, is often cited as a family tree. However, modern cladistics gives a different, multi-stemmed shrublike picture, with multiple innovations and many dead ends. Other specimens cited as transitional forms include the "walking whale" Ambulocetus, the recently-discovered lobe-finned fish Tiktaalik[4] and various hominids considered to be proto-humans. A middle Devonian precursor to seed plants from Belgium has been identified predating the earliest seed plants by about 20 million years. Runcaria, small and radially symmetrical, is an integumented megasporangium surrounded by a cupule. The megasporangium bears an unopened distal extension protruding above the mutlilobed integument. It is suspected that the extension was involved in anemophilous pollination. Runcaria sheds new light on the sequence of character acquisition leading to the seed. Runcaria has all of the qualities of seed plants except for a solid seed coat and a system to guide the pollen to the seed.
And you may not trust Wikipedia, but under the reference section it lists the primary sources that you can find and check out for yourself. And here's the transitional origins FAQ from Talk Origins Archives: Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ So there are lots of independent sources to show that the statement of there being no transitional fossils to indeed be incorrect. So then, this is debunking, to show how creationists are indeed wrong on their statements regarding evolution. They may not fully understand the material and may change their minds when shown to be incorrect, but that is not likely. Under these circumstances, how can it be biased? It is not.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4671 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
Yeah, okay, but I don't see how you got that from Tram Law's OP. He said that he might read a creationist book for the purpose of debunking it, but he didn't say that he would never accept any creationist argument under any circumstances. I think you are reading too much into this. Maybe I am, but then again, do not be nave and think that the very same attitude of stubbornness you see in creationist is not also found in evolutionists. I see it all the time here (and I suspect that I do it myself) And if we identified the no-evidence-will-change-my-mind as the origin of the stubbornness of creationist, what is to say that same attitude isn't simply also the origin of the stubbornness found in evolutionist ? That attitude is what I felt was behind the read-a-book-just-to-debunk-it promoted in the OP.
It is a creationist paper though. Creationism is false Slevesque. The very fact that it takes creationism as its subject virtually guarrentees that such a paper will be basically wrong. You have to understand that for most of us, this issue is settled. It has been settled for over a century. It has been settled by the scientific community and it has been settled for us personally, by a comprehensive review of the evidence. The results are in. Creationism is bullshit. Now place yourself in our shoes for a moment. Imagine the example that has been mentioned before; a geocentrist text. Can you really honestly say that you could read such a text without already having a pre-conceived idea that it would be nonsense? I mean, how could it be anything else? If it wasn't nonsense, it wouldn't be geocentrist, now would it? It's the same for creationism. Just how many chances must we give to an idea that we know to be false before you are satisfied? Mutate and Survive But I wasn't talking about creationism specifically, I was talking about the attitude of someone reading a book, having already made up his mind about what he will conclude of the book. I am saying: such an attitude is dishonest. No there are two options: either you agree with me, but want to make creationism an exception because it is obviously stupid Or you disagree, but then why all the rambling about justifying the attitude when speaking about creationism ? this rambling, from you and others, about how wrong creationism is tells me that you agree that the attitude is dishonest, but not when applied to something ''we know is pure lunacy''. If this is the case, then my point stands, and since I do not consider creationism to be 'obviously wrong' then I am free to think that such an attitude towards it is dishonest. If it isn't the case, then we can all stop the rambling about YEC, since it isn't relevant to identifying if it is a dishonest attitude.
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Tram law Member (Idle past 4735 days) Posts: 283 From: Weed, California, USA Joined: |
And if we identified the no-evidence-will-change-my-mind as the origin of the stubbornness of creationist, what is to say that same attitude isn't simply also the origin of the stubbornness found in evolutionist ?
Because that is not how science works. Science works by "show me the evidence". Science wants to see the evidence first. Show the scientific community the evidence for creationism and they'll accept creationism. And by evidence it must be something that can be tested and verified with tangible results. Theists and creationist are the complete opposite. They make grandiose claims and say that you must blindly follow their interpretation of what a religions' beliefs means because they work for a higher power and that higher power gives them and only them the authority to speak for it. And all they have really are claims and argumentation with no real tangible evidence to show they are right. In fact hundreds of their arguments are summed up here: http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm And scientists can change their minds on subjects if they are shown enough evidence that they can see. Theists and creationists can, for the most part, not. Many of them are completely incapable of changing their minds under any circumstances and will simply either ignore or deny or dismiss or lie and intentionally misinterpret and mislead any other real evidence to show them they're wrong out of hand. Now that statement in and of itself is not a biased statement. It is a description of behavior and also is not a moral evaluation.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4671 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
Theists and creationist are the complete opposite. They make grandiose claims and say that you must blindly follow their interpretation of what a religions' beliefs means because they work for a higher power and that higher power gives them and only them the authority to speak for it. And all they have really are claims and argumentation with no real tangible evidence to show they are right. In fact hundreds of their arguments are summed up here: http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm Your a troll right ? 33. ARGUMENT FROM META-SMUGNESS(1) Fuck you. (2) Therefore, God exists. really ?
Show the scientific community the evidence for creationism and they'll accept creationism. And by evidence it must be something that can be tested and verified with tangible results. You may think this is true in theory, but what I was referring to was that, in practise, this is not what I see. I see people here define the words so that ''evidence of creationism'' is impossible. People claim that ''creationism isn't scientific, because it is unfalsifiable'' and then turn around and that the claims of creationism have been refuted, and therefore falsified. Conversely, many evolutionists will never question IF evolution happened, because ''evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist'' (Dawkins), and so because evolution is such an important underpinning of their worldview, no amount of evidence could change that fact. (If you doubt the relation between evolution and atheism, ask yourself if ythere exists any atheist who is not an evolutionist ?) In fact, the evolutionist who also believes in God is the one person that can believe in evolution in the I-can-still-change-my-mind way, because he still has other options such as supernatural creation. The atheistic evolutionist, has not other option within his worldview: evolution must be true, or else he cannot be intellectually fulfilled. And so for an atheistic evolutionist to change his mind on evolution, he must actually change his entire worldview, and this requires so much humility, especially when you are older, that it happens very seldomly. Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.
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