Reasons for Creationist Persistence

I really don't see the reason that the Creos keep arguing creationism as science. Every so often they come up with some different piece of "evidence" to support their position. The evidence ALWAYS has some sort of flaw, and ultimately is shown to be fake, misinterpreted, etc.So, what really keeps those Creos ticking? How can you present point after point after point and have it rejected, and still keep trying? Do they actually think that one day we might be swayed? That sometime they will find a dino-human print combo and we'll see the Light? They must surely be dilusional to think such stuff. Perhaps they could tell us their motives here?It's like having your credit card rejected after swiping it for the 86th time and handing it back to the clerk to have them try it again! When will they learn!?Jon Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Title changed from "We're Not Going to Budge: Evos UNITE!." to "Reasons for Creationist Persistence"

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In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species

They expect victory any day now, and have been doing so for the last 180 years ...

Jon, you're a evc addict.. and a junkie. I love you!

It's the PT Barnum principle at work.

It's public relations. They don't really care if they convince the scientific community. Their goal is to convince the general public and those who are in positions to make policy decisions about what's going to be taught in schools.Scientific success and accuracy aren't nearly as important as surface plausibility. And, keep in mind, at this stage, they don't have to prove that they are right, they only have to raise a certain level of doubt about whether science has it right.To a degree, crash is right about the P.T. Barnum effect. If they keep saying the same thing over and over, people will begin to think there's some truth to it, even if we keep making the same refutations over and over. For those who aren't well-informed enough to understand the sometimes arcane arguments made, the natural response is, "Well, if they keep saying it even though it's been refuted, maybe the refutation missed something."

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Well, I'm not one of them, but I can tell you what I think they're up to.They are not trying to sway scientist. They are just trying to make their view not impossible. Rather than find support for their view, the resort to trying to refute the evidence against it. And it doesn't even have to be a plausible explanation, it just has to not-impossible.

If only it were that simple! What is the evolutionist's equivalent of snipping a credit card in two?

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

This should have gone through the "Proposed New Topics" process and (presumably) ended up in one of the evo/creo debate forums.Closing down.Complaints or comments? Find a topic in the "signature", below.AdminnemooseusEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Change ID.

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Per requests and negotiations here, this topic is reopened and about to be moved.Adminnemooseus

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Thread moved here from the Coffee House forum.

It's important to understand why there even is a creation/evolution debate. Evangelical Christians perceive evolution as a threat to both faith and morality, and so they will always oppose evolution. They're not going away, and the pressures they exert to diminish treatments of evolution in public schools will not go away, either. And as long as they create the impression in the public mind of a legitimate scientific controversy that is yet unsettled, they will continue to have a great deal of success. My own guess is that the movement will in the near term attempt to maintain a low profile so as not to call itself to the attention of the courts. When they don't pass laws or remove evolution from the curriculum, when all that happens is that teachers spend less and less time on evolution, then though they're not getting what they want, they're pretty much getting everything they need.We must recognize that Creationism is in the midst of another tactical shift. Young Earth Creationism a la Henry Morris and Duane Gish of ICR was overturned in federal district court in Arkansas in 1981, and at the Supreme Court concerning a Louisiana law in 1986. This caused creationism to switch to a strictly grass-roots approach of lobbying state and local school boards as well as text book publishers.But the flaws in this approach were readily apparent to the younger generation of creationists, and aware at some level of the flimsiness of the scientific support for the campaign against evolution they embarked in a different direction based upon an older tradition, best epitomized by Paley's watch though the tradition goes back further. And so Intelligent Design was born, and for a few years it was successful at portraying the creation/evolution struggle as a scientific controversy. Dover changed all that, and now creationism is once again floundering about for a new tactic. What that tactic will be is anyone's guess. In the short term the Discovery Institute appears to be increasing efforts at actual scientific research, but that can only be a stopgap measure since their research can at best merely explore avenues that science long ago discovered were dead ends. Discovery Institute's long term goal is the overturning of naturalism in science, by which they mean that it should be acceptable for scientists to conclude, "We cannot see how this could have happened naturally, so these experimental results reveal the hand of God."But Dover places creationism again at a crossroads, and what the next tactic will be is anyone's guess. The movement is not uniform. Organizations like ICR want the focus to return to Young Earth Creationism, while organizations like the Discovery Institute still want to change the nature of science itself. These are two opposing approaches, by the way, since, for example, ID has no objection to an ancient earth.--Percy

This is the trouble with labels. I consider myself an Evangelical Christian but I have no problem with evolution or any other branch of science. I might add that Francis Collins considers himself an Evangelical Christian.I have found on this forum that so many of the terms used mean different things to different people. I'm a creationist because I believe we're created beings in a created world, but again I have no problem with the TofE. I believe in ID but don't think it should be taught as science. It appears to me that both sides of the debate use this ambiguity to their own advantage.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

You want more precision? I think I'm long-winded enough already! If there are really people out there who don't know that not all evangelical Christians are creationists, then your post corrected that impression.We have to be aware of the success with which the evangelical community has promoted the public impression that evolution is a theory in trouble. This impressive success is the answer to Jon's question, why creationists don't just give up. Why would they give up in the midst of such success. Sure, they're not convincing scientists or anyone familiar with science, but they're succeeding where it counts, in public school classrooms and with the American public that votes for school board members. Convincing scientists is unnecessary once they've been isolated and neutralized, which is what happens as the public begins suspecting that scientists might really be what creationists say they are, ivory tower iconoclasts with an anti-religious agenda.--Percy

The lessons learned in Kansas and other places, taught the Biblical Creationist, ID cult that even controlling school boards is not sufficient. The current plan is to make yet another end run, bypassing even that level. Instead, the plan is to isolate the children into thought limiting Church Schools and Home Schools. That way the children can be kept in near total ignorance.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Jar's above statement reflects what I perceive to be the concensus opinion of this site, that is, the idea that the Christian/Creationist paradigm somehow "keeps" such students in a state of ignorance resulting in an incapability to reason and perform, especially in the sciences.While the high reknown of "fundamentalist christian scientists" throughout the centuries bears witness to the absurdity of such a claim, it is not to antiquity that I want to turn, but to the present.As one who falls into both of Jar's favorite categories ("Fundamentalist Christian and Home-schooled student) my personal experience as well as those of countless friends and acquaintances categorically denies any such implication as a result of being raised with a pardaigm of "ignorance"...Although many similar claims have been leveled before - at me, at acquaintances, and at home-schoolers/christians at large..never is there any standard of measurement applied by those asserting the claim. HOWEVER, based on the traditionally-valued standards of academic success, I find these claims to be absolutely baseless and ad hominem in nature, as such claims are never empirically validated.Attention moderators: If such a response is deemed Off-topic, I'll gladly start a new thread