The creationists who bring up an old topic don't realize it has been repeatedly brought up and supposedly debunked. It is freshly new to them. Creationists, for the most part, get enthusiastic about an idea they think will finally seriously undercut "evolutionistic philosophy". They will excitedly bring it up in a forum such as this and then face ferocious, mocking and ridicule. They don't even realize how they have been debunked. They can't realize it because they don't have the slightest idea of what the opposing arguments are.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. That is the situation that I have been describing for decades. Of late, I have referred to it as "Barnum's Law", as in "a sucker born every minute." And do please note that this situation has been created and is continually sustained by the creationist community and by the religious denominations, sects, and congregations that embrace "creation science." And the solution must come from that community and in those churches. And every solution starts with individuals.
Now, the history is that creationists came up with claims, which turned out to be false, and presented them to themselves and to the general public as part of their current (ie, post-Epperson vs Arkansas, 1968, which had led to the striking down of the 1920's "monkey laws") political agenda to remove evolution from the public schools. Part of that agenda was their travelling "medicine-show" debates which local scientists and educators were duped into and through which they were exposed to those false claims and which motivated them to learn all they could about those claims, which led directly to those claims being refuted. Most of this history unfolded by the early 1980's, such that most creationists claims had been created and refuted by that time.
And despite their claims having been refuted, the leading creationists continued to publish and to use those refuted claims. In fact, if you were to walk into a Christian bookstore right now and browsed through their creationist books, you would find those exact same false claims that had been refuted three full decades ago and no mention whatsoever of that fact.
Real-life example, the full story of which is at
http://cre-ev.dwise1.net/moondust.html. In 1985, I encountered Dr. Henry Morris' false claim of a "1976" NASA document, "well into the space age", that showed through direct measurements that a 4.5 billion-year-old moon should have a layer of meteoric dust nearly 300 feet thick. When I pulled that NASA document off the library shelf, it turned out to be a 1967 printing of papers from a 1965 conference, a full year before our first lunar landing on 02 June 1966. I shared my findings with Gish, who had responded for Morris, as two astronomers also researching this claim had done with Morris. Both Gish and Morris at first tried to bluff us, ignoring our findings, xerox copies of which we shared with them, and ended up ignoring us; when I approached Gish at a local appearance, he professed total ignorance of that claim but took down my name and address to send me a response, but the only response I got was the immediate and unexplained cancellation of my subscription to their newsletter,
Acts & Facts. Then circa 1991, Morris mentioned in the preface of a new book that they no longer use the moon dust claim because they found it to be unreliable. However, Morris' book,
Scientific Creationism (2nd edition, 1985), which contains that false NASA document claim, had never been corrected and is still being sold as "current". Furthermore, almost every one of the ICR's books (through their publisher, Master Books) has an appendix of "Uniformitarian Estimates of the Age of the Earth", which lists a very large number of creationist "young earth" claims, all false and refuted and many attributed to an "unpublished work" by Harold Slusher, who is also the earliest source of that false NASA document claim that we have found. And, yes, the false moondust claim is in that list.
Which brings us back to walking into just about any Christian bookstore right this instant and browsing through their creationist books and finding all those old, old false and refuted creationist claims present as the latest thing, none of which has, according to them, ever even been addressed by "evolutionists", never giving any indication that those claims had in fact not only been addressed but also soundly refuted.
Fundamentalism traces back at least a century, though during most of its history it had been a small fringe group. Then circa 1970, their ranks were suddenly swelled by disaffected hippies (AKA, "The Jesus Freak Movement") which in turn led to a campaign of aggressive proselytizing that further increased their numbers immensely. All those new members needed to be brought up to speed quickly, so their education became an important issue. It has been suggested that this caused those churches to abandon their traditional approach of a lifetime of biblical study to arrive at one's own understanding and interpretation in favor of effectively reducing the Bible to quote-mined sound-bites and having the students accept the minister's interpretation as Gospel. Part of what they were taught was creationism and "creation science". And as these new members were newly armed with this "mountain of evidence" "against evolution", they zealously joined in the fight against evolution and started using "creation science" as a tool in their proselytizing. They did well against victims who did not know enough about science nor about "creation science", but anyone at all knowledgeable about science could immediately see through their albeit not personally intentional deception. Those creationists who did encounter knowledgeable victims found themselves shot down in flames, not understanding what had just happened, not unlike what they often experience on forums (which are a fairly recent venue, though it did happen on CompuServe in the late 1980's). Most often, those creationists retreat and refrain from discussing creationism, while many come to question what their religious leaders had taught them with a number of them ending up leaving the faith just as their religious leaders had taught them that they must do; similarly, those creationism-based churches are hemorrhaging their next generation as 65% to 80% of their children raised on creationism not only leave the faith, but give up on religion altogether, leaving those churches depending on proselytizing to keep their numbers up. And as new members join up and existing members turn their interest towards "creation science", the cycle repeats itself.
Which brings us to Barnum's Law. As creationists fall by the way-side, new creationists appear to take their place. On CompuServe, it was called "slaying the slain" (has kind of a zombie sound, doesn't it?) while here the term is PRATT, "Points Refuted A Thousand Times". One generation of creationists have a go at it and get shot down and give up (OK, there are several possible outcomes, but best left to being discussed elsewhere) and they are then replaced by the next generation, with a generation time being only a couple/few years, if even that long. Each new generation learns from the same place, the creationist community and the creationist literature, which has now gone on-line. And each new generation only learns the claims and none of the other history nor any of the truth.
They go away angry and despising atheists and what passes for scientists and probably never attempt to engage them again.
Yes, they failed and are confused because they cannot understand what went wrong. When I and a creationist co-worker left that 1985 debate, he was in shock, repeatedly muttering, "We have mountains of evidence that would have blown those evolutionists away. They (ie, ICR master debators Gish and H. Morris) didn't present any of it. Why not? We have mountains of evidence ... " At a 1991 amateur night debate event a young creationist got up and announced that he had new scientific evidence that will just blow the evolutionists away (his own words): "The speed of light has been slowing down." Immediately, the non-creationist half of the audience burst into uncontrollable laughter while simultaneously trying to explain why Setterfield's 10-year-old claim, which had been soundly refuted immediately, was wrong. The poor guy just stood there in shock without any idea what had just happened.
Now, when those creationists go away angry, is it really because of how their false, deceptive, and thoroughly refuted claims were received? Or is it because their claims turned out to be false, deceptive, and thoroughly refuted?
Remember, part and parcel of creationism is being taught that those creationist claims must be true or else Scripture has no meaning and God does not exist. During the "Jesus Freak Movement", I was a fundamentalist "fellow traveller" (borrowing from McCarthyism in which friends of communists were themselves implicated as "fellow travellers") in that friends and family of friends had converted (and a couple decades since then, my own sister as well, but like a virus over time that church became less virulent; yet another example of natural selection at work ... in the case of the virus, at least, and of the church only by analogy). I understand the hold that biblical literalism has and I understand the utter importance of religious faith has on these people. So I can also understand the allure of "creation science". And how its lies can poison a believer's soul. Or at the very least how it can hold a believer's faith hostage.
And, yes, those creationists do probably never attempt to engage "evolutionists" again (I use quotation marks because that is a creationist term that they misuse and overload with all kinds of perjoratives; my use of "creationist" also requires explanation, since it refers to one subset instead of all believers in creation). For one thing, they have begun to realize that they have nothing, or at least that what they thought was unassailable turns out to be very flimsy at best. Apparently, that even happened to leading creationists Duane Gish and Henry Morris, who quite literally wrote the "creation science" book. In the preface of his book,
The Age of the Earth (1991, Stanford University Press), G. Brent Dalrymple, Reseach Geologist at the US Geological Survey at Menlo Park (and very well versed in radiometric methods) described how his encounters with creationists over the years had motivated him to write the book. His first encounter in 1975 was when Gish and Morris came to Menlo Park to present their case to several hundred US Geological Survey scientists, the only such creationist attempt that I've heard of. Dalrymple describes it as having been a lively session, though he mentioned that a major response from the scientists was to try to explain what was wrong with Gish and Morris' misrepresentations of thermodynamics. I think that experience might have been a source of the creationists' motivation thereafter to avoid presenting their case to scientists. Similarly, I have encountered creationists who actively evangelize through creationism. One in particular comes on very strongly, full of bluster, mercilessly bullying his victim, until he realized that his intended mark is knowledgeable, at which point he immediately changes his tune, tries to make super-nice, and tries to disengage as quickly as possible. Pathetic, isn't that? But it is one creationist reaction, which is pretty much what the leading creationists used.
So then, when you go away angry, are you really angry at the "evolutionists"? Or at the creationists for having given you crap? Or at yourself for having fallen for that crap?
This is how you keep getting new arrivals on a constant basis with the same old arguments. They don't know their fellow christians have been down the same road with the same argument.
Rather, we get new arrivals because of what I have described. And, yes, with the same old arguments, and again for the reasons I have described. And, no, they do not know what had happened to those who had gone before them, again for the reasons that I have described. Now please tell me, is that any way for you guys to run an anti-evolution crusade?
No, really, whose fault is all that? Clearly the creationists'.
But the bottom line is that creationists rarely last any time at all, while non-creationists (which includes the vast majority of believers in divine creation who do not side with "creation science", the former by far outnumbering the latter) can last much longer, even multiple decades. Which makes sense, since we have the evidence on our side while the creationists are at odds with the evidence. Let's face it, the creationist position is that the world is as we find it to be, then God does not exist, which is not at all a winning position that would promote retention of creationists. BTW, that creationist position is yet another creationist lie; if they have lied to you about all those other things, why believe them this time as well?
All they know from their fellow christians is that atheists and most scientists are assholes and act hatefully when their ideas are presented for debate. No commonality is every reached.
Wow! What an amazing coincidence! Over the years
we have learned that creationists and fundamentalist are assholes and act hatefully when their ideas are discussed. What are the odds of that happening?
Though the automatic hatred of atheists has always puzzled me. Over the decades, I have been viciously attacked for believing things that I clearly do not believe. Or for advocating things that I would never advocate. And I have been preached to about what atheists think and believe, none of which was the least bit true, but at the same time different fundamentalists have independently thrown the exact same false claims about atheists at me, which indicates to me a common source. So then, just exactly what nonsense are they telling you about us? Though I guess that should be a separate topic.
And, of course, for commonality to be reached, there needs to be some kind of common ground, or at least some kind of common understanding. Now, I know that this can be seen as derogatory, but we normals do see things differently than creationists/fundamentalists do. Or rather the other way around. In the past I have quoted Dan Barker, now "America's leading atheist", but he had grown up in the fundamentalist faith and became a fundamentalist minister. To demonstrate how fundamentalist he and his family were, his mother used to go about doing her housework singing in tongues -- can you out-fundie
that? He described the fundamentalist situation as being where your theology becomes your psychology. And I have experienced that. When I was going through my divorce I was helping a Lindy friend balance out her church's single ministry's dance classes (normally, 150 women and only 50 men would sign up and then within a few weeks most of the women would drop out) -- this was another "fellow traveller" experience for me. When the divorce actually hit (she filed, for no reason ever given), this friend talked me into going through their DivorceCare program, since that would keep me in the dance classes. She also talked me into attending a few presentations by a pair of renowned Christian counselors. Those were all geared for a completely alien mind. As a oft-time "fellow traveller", I could understand where they were coming from (as we used to say in the 60's; sorry if I'm being too anachronistic), but still it was completely foreign to me as a normal. Those counselors' presentations used some common counselor concepts (eg, boundaries), but they would then always blow it by saying that your reason for doing anything right was because that is what Jesus wants you to do. Good for a Christian, especially their kind of Christian, but completely worthless for an atheist. And the message of DivorceCare was that I could never ever recover from my divorce, because it is impossible for you to ever recover from your divorce unless Jesus made it happen. All of which demonstrates that the target psychology was based on fundamentalist theology and was completely foreign to normal psychologies.
So then, normals work with evidence. Actual evidence is how you can communicate with us. That is the common basis through which to communicate with us.
Fundamentalists and other sects based on "creation science" work with beliefs and theology and dogma, even when all that conflicts with evidence. Normally, that would not be a problem, since we would gladly allow you play in your own private little universe. But you won't allow that option, will you? You (collectively) want your own private version of "reality" to be imposed on
everybody's children's education. Also, you insist on making statements about the physical universe based on your theology, ie based on particular questionable fallible-human interpretations of what your theology wants to claim, whether true or not, as its basis.
OK then, just what should our common basis for communication be? Especially considering that most of our communication is about the physical universe. Sorry, but basing it on evidence just keeps forcing itself to the forefront. But then I am a normal.
Distrust of science and scientists grows and so they never even get started on the road to learning what everybody on this board already knows. All that is left is distrust and enmity.
That is clearly your own stupid choice. And I say "stupid" because it is.
OK, so why distrust science? Because those who know anything at all about science can recognize your claims as false? And because of that you decide to distrust science and refuse to learn anything about science? Now that is most decidedly
stupid.
In the 1970's when the creationists of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) who had literally invented "creation science" and whose
master debators (it's always tempting to delete the "de", though one should also remember to ipreface it with "mental" or "intellectual"), Drs. Duane Gish and Henry Morris, travelled their "snake-oil" debate circuit across the entire nation, most of their opponents were being exposed to "creation science" for the very first time. And, of course, those opponents, who all came out of those fiascos angry at how they had been duped into what they thought would be a scientific debate and instead got fire-hosed with all kinds of complete nonsense ("Drink from the fire hose! Drink from the fire hose!").
{voice="John Belushi from his "Pearl Harbor" speech in
Animal House"}Did they just walk away sulking and silently hating creationists while forever refusing to learn anything at all about creationism?
No they did not! They immediately started reading up on creationism. They went directly to the creationists' own writings and learned what they were claiming
in their own words. And they read those creationists' cited sources and they went to those sources and they discovered exactly what those cited sources had actually said. And they clearly saw how the creationist claims differed from those sources that they had cited. And did they keep all that
to themselves? No, they did not! They communicated their findings to their friends and colleagues. And they formed state-wide communication networks. And these state-wide networks started communicating with each other and came to take on the name of Revolutionary War communications networks called "Committees of Correspondence". And around 1980 or slightly later, they organized a central clearing house for all the information that they were gathering and disseminating and they called it the National Center for Science Education (
NCSE).{/voice}
OK, so what's the creationist response to such treatment? Do they organize? Do they at least try to learn what their opposition is saying? Do they try to research anything at all? No, they curl up in a ball, AKA "the fetal position", and hope that everything will go away.
Pathetic. And patently stupid. No insult; you (collectively) have made the case yourself.
I don't think this chasm will ever be breached.
Yes, it can. But it's up to you (collectively). As long as you choose to prevent this from happening, it will never happen.
A christian is going to believe what they do regardless of what you present to them. This isn't stupidity to them. It is the only sane way of living that they know of.
Yes, that is true. And I do realize and appreciate that as a multiple "fellow traveller". Now the question is, is that Christian believing something that is true or not? Because as a normal, the truth does matter to me. Is it the case that the truth does not matter to a Christian?
So I guess it boils down to what really matters. The truth? Or religious dogma, regardless of how questionable the source?
They are not going to let you take away their faith at all costs, and so their will be a lot of emotion involved and a lot of distrust involved.
No, they will not. But when they base their faith on a fabric of demonstrable lies, then where does that leave them?
Isn't that what it eventually comes down to?
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