Upside Down Day Comment Thread

It looks as if the main thread Upside-down Day is in a pause, either temporary or permanent.What went wrong?I think that a successful devil's advocate debate depends on their being a substantial core of facts on which both sides agree. There might also be disputed facts, but there needs to be a core of agreed facts as a basis for the debate. The debate then centers on differing interpretations of those facts, or different ways of drawing inferences from the agreed facts. This often is a matter of differences on the relative importance of the core facts.In the evolution-creation dispute, there does not seem to be a sufficient core of agreed facts. This is actually a common problem with disagreements over which paradigm to use. A scientific theory, to some extent, dictates the kinds of facts to seek. For example, ToE tells us that genetic similarity is a basis for finding relations between organisms. The creationists want to relate organisms depending on whether they are the same kind, rather than the species/genus style of classification. But the term "kind" is ill defined.

On the IC sub-thread the main problem was that randman chose to use a counter-argument that he apparently doesn't really understand. If he really knows about the better arguments I mentioned in Message 19 as he claimed in Message 21 then it's inexplicable why he would make such a mess of his defence - especially as it calls into question his understanding of IC itself. Either he's throwing the argument deliberately or his grasp of even his side of the argument - let alone the response he's been trying to use - is inadequate.Then there's the YEC subthread randman started. Apparently it doesn't deal with the sorts of issues randman wants to discuss (but if he DIDN'T want to discuss the Flood why raise it ?) and arguments agaisn tthe Flood aren't arguments for evolution even though that was the supposed topic of the sub-thread. The only interestign result was that randman several times used dimsmissive and even insulting language - bear that in mind next time a creationist moans about "ad hominems" or rudeness. (And if randman claims that he deliberately threw that in because evolutionists do he is admitting to deliberately weakening his argument - against the thread rules).Percy and robinrohan can comment on their threads but IMHO part of the problem there was that the arguments are uncommon.