Hey guys,
We need to have a little pow-wow about strategy.
I've been tooling around the boards, and I keep seeing the same patterns occuring again and again.
Basically, we (the ToErs) end up playing nothing be defense.
Here's a scenario -
ToEr - Do you have any evidence in favor of your theory?
Creationist / IDr - If monkeys turned into men, why are there still monkeys?
ToEr - Well, there are a number of problems with that question. Here's all the answers (...data follows)
C/IDr - Oh yeah, well Archie was just a bird.
ToEr - Data
C/IDr - The Bible is fact.
ToEr - Data.
C/IDr - Evolution is the devil.
And on and on.
Notice we start by asking a question. That question is completely ignored, and instead a different and irrelevent question is asked. We answer. Repeat.
It's easy to fall into the trap. I have fallen in hundreds of times and I haven't been here that long. We fall in because people are asking us questions that we have the answers for, so we want to answer them.
The problem is this -
For Creationists / IDrs simply asking the questions = scoring points.
They don't care about the answers. They don't understand the answers. Hell, they don't understand the questions.
Think of the debate not as a scientific discussion, but as the audience at Jerry Springer. The Creationist grabs the mic and says "I ain't birthed on account of no monkey" (ie "You're fat ass needs to find yerself a job"). The rest of the audience cheers.
Notice that on Jerry Springer, there is no answer to these statements. Simply making the statement is enough.
I'm not saying we need to sink to their level. But what choices are we left with?
Have we converted anyone here?
Have we ever actually "won" a debate? Not by our standards, but by theirs?
In one of my threads, Iano said something to the effect of "if you could show me that there we downy feathers before flight feathers, that'd be a big step for me towards believing evolution."
I supply links. His reply "Oh, those aren't downy feathers, those are just downy-like feathers."
Obviously defense is never gonna get us there. So, what's our game plan?
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