Much of the time we're only superficially discussing aspects of the creation/evolution debate. Beneath the surface details lies the true problem, how to have constructive discussions with people who are unpracticed in drawing logical inferences about the natural world.
Many of us from the science side are surrounded in our daily life with those who largely share our familiarity and facility with science, and this gives us little experience with those from the religious side who have little or even no interest in or familiarity with science, except perhaps as a tool for promoting their religious views.
How do you have a discussion with someone for whom you have to both supply all the facts and explain how to think about those facts. It's not uncommon for threads here to turn from explaining evidence to explaining how to think. When even logical inference errors that measure 10 on the Richter scale have to be explained, how are you to get your point across?
I don't think there are any answers to this problem. If we knew how to counter people's vulnerability to nonsense and flim-flam then there not only wouldn't be any creationism or ID, but no homeopathy, therapeutic touch or ghost hunters, either.
--Percy
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