Is talkorigins.org a propoganda site?

It defines evolution as any change in the gene pool of a population. This is the definition of evolution - they then discuss a simple example of gene pool changes. Its not an argument: its an explanation. Indeed - the title says everything, its an introduction to evolutionary biology.It says that evolution isn't about any change, but heritable change. Which is what the article goes on to say: Its pretty clear - microevolution being observed is not being used in 'proving' macroevolution. So the article is not 'a fallacious argument because they are leaving the impression that the broader concept of evolution is true, that the theory of evolution is true, just because one can define "evolution" as meaning any heritable change', since the article talks about the observation of microevolution and the evidence of macroevolution as being seperate things. It does say that the lessons we learn from microevolution can be applied to macroevolution, but dedicates quite a large section to macroevolution and how that is inferred.

Because there are more than one post and person making comments, I am posting this as a general comment.I wrote the following in Message 188. Sometime later, PaulK makes this statement: Imo, this statement is false as I have amply shown. They use more than one definition of "evolution." There is a massive difference between heritable change on the one hand and universal common descent and macroevolution on the other. The latter is generally what is under discussion when we talk of evolution, but as the quotes I provided above show, TalkOrigins calls the latter a fact, or "the fact of evolution.""The fact of evolution" in the TO site is defined: They link to an article, which Modulous and PaulK try to rest their case on, which contains some ambigious statements, but the overall impression is very clear, that "evolution" is a fact, and only the mechanism is a theory. Modulous points out that they may be appealing to common descent from multiple origins, which is nothing but a slight nuanced change regardless. The same point I have made holds. They say universal common descent and macroevolution is a fact, and "the fact of evolution" can be clicked on to link directly to an article stating "evolution is a fact."Regardless of inconsistencies in some articles, the effort overall is very clear. They are using different definitions of evolution within the same logic in a manner indicative of propaganda.

It defines "evolution" as heritable change, but then goes on to state macroevolution and even universal common descent are part of evolutionary theory, but not abiogenesis.Then we see this gem: Note the use of "the theory of evolution" and "evolution" interchangeably. What are they saying? Are they saying scientists consider heritable change to be a fact? Are they saying scientists consider macro-evolution to be a fact? Are they saying they consider universal common descent to be a fact?I think it's quite clear they are using "evolution" to refer to the broad concept of the theory of evolution which does include universal common descent. Is that not true here?

You forgot about the part where it talks about what the change happens to - gene pools of populations. Abiogenesis is clearly not included in this. Looks like sloppy writing to me, but the meaning is clear. Evolution and common descent are considered fact by the scientific community. It doesn't look like that. Evolution seems to be 'heritable changes in a gene pool of a population', macroevolution is large scale changes, micro is small scale changes. The theory is the explanatory framework which is used to explain how these changes occur. The theory doesn't really include universal common descent, though one can make the case for universal common descent using the theory.

A little perspective is needed here.TO is not a person, it is a web site. TO is not stating anything. It's the authors of the various pages who are saying things.In that particular web page, Larry Moran is giving his view of what should be the definition of evolution. I doubt that he cleared it with Dawkins.There isn't a unanimous agreement as to how "evolution" should be defined.If the pages you list appear to contradict one another, that's a disagreement between Moran and Theobald. To consider that propaganda makes no more sense than to consider the contradictory theologies of catholics and evangelicals as Christian propaganda.

One point to remember is that the essays are written by differnet people. Perfect agreement is not to be expected. One of the points of disagreement is that the author of the article dealing with evidence for common descent considers universal common descent to be so well established that it should be considered a fact while the author of the "evolution as fact and theory" article does not. (And of course either author might have changed their mind since wirtng their contributions).Another thing to remember is that the propaganda charge depends on the use of equivocation. So far every essay referred to has made clear the definition in use and stuck to it. The charge is therefore completely baseless.Since you quoted your Message 188 I'll comment now on an example of your argument

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Evolution is a Fact and a Theory

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Keep in mind that the fact of evolution is universal common descent so to say it is "observed today" is flat out false. It is not observed today, but once again, perhaps they are playing loose with terms in their effort to convince people because they seem to resort back to the definition of evolution as heritable change.

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Every significant point is false. The "fact of evolution" is NOT defined as universal common descent. There is no claim that universal common descent is observed today. There is no retreat to a different definition of evolution.As to your points about my Message 207, you have not demonstrated any significant distinction between the definitions used in the two articles referred to. It is absolutely necessary to read messages in context. Those are http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html and 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common DescentThe common descent article comes closest to a definition when it discusses microevolution which it describes as The article on the definition of evolution - which is about evolution as a natural phenomenon, not the theory of evolution, sums up the deifnition as " Which is in close agreement - yet allows for larger changes which are clearly macroevolutionary (e.g. "humans and chimps have evolved from a common ancestor").

I just happened to spend some quality time on Talk.Origins today. Though I had been there before, I had never really looked through the resources available. Although I did appreciate the vast amount of information, and depth of some articles, I was largely disappointed. Particularly when reading through the many 'answers' to Creationist claims. It seemed most of these 'answers' I read through were nothing more than a single paragraph containing very generic and general information. It was also a bit of a mockery to include a link about the Flat Earth Society (here- bottom of the page), holding all of 3000 members worldwide, as if any Creationist actually believe it. Of course it says 'most' do not, but it's inclusion is simply to mock Creationists. It would be the same if a Creation site had links for Raelianism, saying 'some' Evolutionists actually believe such nonsense (I actually do know one). It's just for the purpose of mockery and is quite unprofessional.Other than that, I did find a contradition which I expected to find, as I have seen it many times before. here they say: "We cannot observe the supernatural, so the only way we could reach the supernatural explanation would be to eliminate all natural explanations. But we can never know that we have eliminated all possibilities. Even if a supernatural explanation is correct, we can never reach it". But then here they say: "Nothing in the real world can be proved with absolute certainty. However, high degrees of certainty can be reached". So, if it is for Evolution, high degrees of certainty can 'prove' it true. But against Evolution, it would be impossible to disprove it (as we can "never know that we have eliminated all possibilites"). Could there not be a high degree of certainty that all natural explenations have been eliminated, and thus that a supernatural explanation must be true? I'm afraid I find such logic to be poor at best, and deceptive at worst.In conclussion, I was disappointed by the site, and do believe it has more to do with propoganda than the pursuit of truth. Having also just looked at this forum today, I found it to generally (not always) contain much more professional attitudes than Talk.Origins.That's my brief review and finding, as I think the thread-started wanted.

Nice report. Thanks. That's a better critique than we have seen in the previous 291 messages in this thread.Welcome to evcforum.

What kind of idiot has a problem figuring out that you can't observe something that happened before you were born? Kevin Kelly -- Chapter 15: Artificial Evolution
Kevin Kelly -- Chapter 15: Artificial Evolution"The 80 evolved, and the 22 is a product of evolution."Are you confused over whether you and the 22 (or 80) share a common ancestor?This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 04-04-2006 04:47 AM

If you look at the associated with the Flat Earth link, it states a vlaid reason for including it and cautions that creationists in gneeral do not beleive in a Flat Earth. If you're going to all a site "propaganda" it really is better not to leave out facts like that.Second l y you seem to have concentrated mainly on a single set of pages which is intended to give short answers to creationist claims so it seems a bit oddd for you to claim that the answers are short. It would be a huge effort to write long answers to so many points and there are many longer articles on the site dealing with specific issues. The more so since the pages state in the introduction: An Index to Creationist ClaimsIn short it seems that some of your ci ticisms do not hold up to a simple inspection of the pages in question. Quite frankly on the evidence I would judge your criticisms to more closely resemble propaganda on that ground alone..

Welcome Dierotao!I had a look at pages you referenced. The Flat Earth thing could be seen as fair, out of context. Looking at it in context, it seems quite clear it is not as mocking as all that. It looks like the idea is to show 'The lengths to which one might go in a literal interpretation of the Bible'.More interestingly is your other comments. Let us look at the quotes in their context to see if poor logic is actually being displayed. Let us take this as true, and see if we end up with a logical contradiction with the second statement: This seems to be saying that we can attain a high degree of certainty if we have positive evidence and data. I see no contradiction here, despite the apparant one. We can attain high degrees of certainty if there is evidence for it, but as far as I know there is no evidence that would strongly suggest you have exhausted every natural explanation for an event. So it is not possible to know, with a high degree of certainty that you have exhausted all natural explanations. It probably should be stressed that the T.O website is written by taking notable posts on a bullettin board (and possibly submissions by email I'm not entirely sure), often by professional biologists but not in a professional arena. This gives the website a peculiar feel to it, where each page is written by someone else entirely who has a different way of explaining similar things. Often it can look like they are contradictory, sometimes they are. This is not propaganda, just disagreement.Once again, welcome to EvC. That was a more calm and reasonable tone to have adopted when critquing a website. It's good to have you on board here, and I hope you stick around!

WIth the exception of the "post of the month" feature, it is not true that many of the articles started as posts on a newsgroup - except in the sense that they were posted to the newsgroup for review, as some are.(It may have been true at one time, but it wasn't true when I was following the group some years ago and I can't see any indication that it is true now).The newsgroup itself is a less controlled environment than here. (When I was there the only real moderation was automated moderation to control cross-posting - and that was only installed because of frequent use of excessive cross-posting to multiple groups - and to deal with one especially vile individual who used the group as a way of harassing the suicidal and rape victims on the support newsgroups).n

It does have the use of the reason stated, serving as an example of just how obstinante a Literalist can be in their denial of reality. When dealing with round-Earth Creationists, it effectively undermines the reasoning, "Nobody can be this delusional. They must be joking," as the level of delusion could obviously be even worse. You do realize that the form would be: ...don't you?Showing that the Bible can be used to reach insane beliefs wouldn't exactly be a good thing for a Creationist website to be pointing out. Improper substitution.
The former rules out disproving that the underlying explanation is naturalistic -- not that that explanation is Evolution. Remember, the authors are human. Patience is easy when you're dealing with your first few recalcitrant Creos -- and you'll likely see these evos spelling out their arguments in full, as they're checking for weaknesses in their and their opponents' arguments, ordering their thoughts, etc. When an evo is on his thousandth Creo, though; you'll find that the points have generally been shortened considerably, and there's very little patience for, "You're wrong 'cause I'm right 'cause the Bible sez so so nyah lalalalalalalala I can't heeearrrr yoooou."This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 04-04-2006 04:37 AMThis message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 04-04-2006 04:40 AM

First, thank you PaulK for pointing out the introduction to the Talk.Origins creationist/answers page. I was first directed to the site from a blog and was given this link, which does not actually show the introduction, but only gives another link to it. Of course I read intro's the same way I read instructions after purchasing something which requires assembly. Or more simply put, I don't. I'm sure there is a well evolved gene which excuses men for not reading directions, yes? Actually, I did want to point out one thing I have noticed more generally in this CvE debate, and now specifically in your post. As Creation and Evolution are typically seen as mutually exclusive theories, there is great effort on both sides to not only disprove certain evidence, but to turn that evidence so it favors the supported side. It looks something like this: "now look here son, not only does your evidence not help your theory. Why it actually is evidence for my theory. Ooh, gottcha there!". Of course there are certain circumstances when this is appropriate, and the effect may be spectacular. But in your case, you take my humble observation from only a brief visit to the site, and make this grand claim that I am guilty of propoganda for not including a disclaimer I may not have seen. I am only asking that if anyone sees an error in another post, they correct, offering the benefit of the doubt to the poster. We are seeking truth are we not? Rather than merely defending our desired beliefs? I will gladly point out propoganda on either Talk.Origins or Answers In Genesis if I see it. I seek the truth, not the absolute upholding of any persons or organizations beliefs. If any Evolutionist is not willing to freely admit to the mistakes, whether innocent or deceptive, of other Evolutionists past or present, in the pursuit of truth, then he is defending mere personal dogma, not truth. And obviously the same applies to Creationist, Christian, Raelianist, or Flat-Earth-Folk.Having now read the introduction, I did find this to be a bit of an over-generalization: "Since most creationism is folklore...". That's quite a presumptuous statement for an introduction to an argument.I also appreciated your response Modulous. However I will maintain that it is possible to reasonably "have exhausted every natural explanation for an event", and thus determine a supernatural truth. I could simply rework this quote to say:
"We cannot observe [all] [nature], so the only way we could reach the [natural] explanation would be to eliminate all [supernatural] explanations. But we can never know that we have eliminated all possibilities. Even if a [natural] explanation is correct, we can never reach it."
If I philosophically believe in the existence of a supernatural being, then there is no reason why I cannot start from this vantage point (unless you presuppose it by your own naturalistic philosophy).I could also use this argument for the existence of God (and in fact many theists do). Philosophically there are "high degrees of certainty" that God does exist. Thus, the atheist must eliminate all other possibilities for his position to be 'proven'. Some make the analogy that to prove there is gold in China, you need only find one gold tooth or speck of gold dust on the ground. But to prove there is no gold in China, you would need to inspect every speck of dirt, stone, and material in all of China. However, I would argue that the athiest need only present reasonably that there are "high degrees of certainty" that God does not exist (or similarly, that there is no gold in China). You need not disprove every opposing theory in order to prove yours. If you argue that natural evidence supersedes metaphysical evidence, then you are actually making a metaphysical argument.DominionSeraph, you do realize Raelianism is a theory that aliens 'seeded' earth long ago to start the evolutionary process of life? Thus, it would be "Showing that [evolution] can be used to reach insane beliefs", not the bible. They do take some tidbits from all religions, but could hardly be used against Christian interpretation of the Bible. Perhaps you have not read much about Raelianism though. Regarding your other statements, particularly the final paragraph. I'm afriad I can offer no response unless you wish to behave in a more mature manner. You can respond to this statement in my related thread here if you like.

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Of course there are certain circumstances when this is appropriate, and the effect may be spectacular. But in your case, you take my humble observation from only a brief visit to the site, and make this grand claim that I am guilty of propoganda for not including a disclaimer I may not have seen.

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It has to be pointed out that not did omit a disclaimer that you had seen. That you characterised the whole site based on an atypical set of pages - that you should have known about because you were aware of other articles. That your characterisation of those pages ignored their purpose (and if you did not see the introduction then you did not look for it - I got to it by following links on the pages that you linked to).Granted, jumping to a conclusion based on sloppy and inadequate research is better than deliberate misrepresentation but I would still tend to characterise it as propaganda unless accompanied by very strong disclaimers..