Dissecting the Evolutionist Approach to Explanation and Persuation

I like the analogy and I do understand it. And see to me what you just posted would have been a great response to that specific statement.

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Similarly, fossils being everywhere is not evidence for a specific scenario. There are lots of possible ways in which fossils could have been distributed all over the world. Only by studying the details can we form a valid conclusion on which scenario is most probable.

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So, while the fossils are evidence, in and of themselves they are not evidence "for" anything.

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This part is perfect. It's not demanding that the creationist do anything, but it leaves the door open for a nonscience person like myself to ask more about the details if I was so inclined. Plus your point is out there and a seed of doubt is planted, if that was your goal.I'm not saying that you need to be that basic all the time, but try to discern the level of who you are talking to.Now if the creationist provides no more details, their part is done. I see no purpose served by demanding more from them.You can always post to build on what you have stated, if you are so inclined.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

Good observations, I'll think a bit about how they might be applied.--Percy

au contraire, it seems to me you're acting more as a canary in a mine shaft than a whipping boy... hehe... hopefully they get you back to the surface in time Seems like P is trying to learn something from you & share that lesson with the rest of us. You've both got my attention right now.

There's a clever term for all this: Confirmation Bias. Twice now Faith has done tests on these boards in relation to confirmation bias. Both times she has shown that she does it (its quite common and not a reflection of intelligence). However, this is what we see in Faith's evidences. If there was a Global Flood we would see Fossils all over the place, she's right, but let me take the baton of analogy and run with it.I can't remember who it was (and I'm on a laptop with no mouse, so I'm not going to check), but whoever it was above mentioned a murder scene. Let's play sliding doors:

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Forensic scientist: Almost missed the train today. phew. Anyway, to business. The house owner's fingerprints were found all over the place. Then again, it is his house, so that could be explained in other ways. Also we have his passport which shows that he was out of the country at the time of the incident, which falsifies the idea that it was him that committed the murder. Also, the house owner is very ill at the moment according to German hospital records (where he is bedridden according to the same records).There is a partial print that matches a rapist's, a size 15 foot print matches the rapist's trainers.Let's hall him in and get some answers.****Sliding doors*****Confirmation Biased Forensic scientist: The normal guy isn't in today, he missed his train. OK, so the house owner's fingerprints are all over the place, exactly what we'd expect to see if he was the killer. The other fingerprints are a piece of data that is problematic for my model but my theory is more elegant and parsimonious.I knew it had to the house owner anyway, the I Ching said that the house owner would rise against his fellow with flashing blade. It was a knife that killed him so it all fits together.It's all speculation anyway because we don't have a witness, and we can hardly test the past. Bring me the owner.

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This confirmation bias makes it very difficult to discuss the subject fully. When somebody considers something evidence of an event which they happen to believe in strongly, they have a tendency to simply not see or regard all the evidence that contradicts the model. Therein lies the differences in the approaches. Evolutionists look for evidence against something, and if it can't be found, and evidence for it can, then we've got something interesting to explore. Creationists look for evidence that confirms their beliefs and dismiss evidence that couldn't be there if their beliefs were true. Usually by saying that it will be explained later, or that the evidence is not being correctly interpreted.From the definition I linked above: The only real option for us Evolutionists is to point out this confirmation bias in the hopes that it will be seen and understood by those who are not as clouded by it.

Thank you, hopefully it will help.There is a lot of knowledge among the members of this board (I'm not worthy!), but sometimes I think it gets lost. The goal is missed.Could you explain that I'm not really dissin science, just the presentation.I think I'll go back to my side of the river and take a nap. Drink some grape juice. Replenish my purpleness. BTW, do I get a purple heart for this?

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

No, it's a snapshot of today'S species.

robinrohan, Not necessarily, & so what?The correlation of genetic AND morphological relationships, nested hierarchies etc. of modern species is still a borne out prediction.Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

I think what people are failing to grasp about this is how there is no reason whatever to expect there to be fossils all over the world in the abundance they actually exist. There is little reason to expect them to occur much at all except here and there under unusual circumstances, if the standard geo view is correct. This attitude that Well yeah there they are so what else is new, and our explanations are better than the flood explanation simply reflects the fact that everybody's USED to the idea that they are everywhere. But logically they shouldn't be everywhere if the OE view is correct. You're just used to accepting this actually very bizarre fact of life and rationalizing it however you can with whatever you've got. But the Flood explains it all wonderfully. Elegantly. Parsimoniously.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-08-2006 03:17 PM

So the truth is not important, only that which satisfies is important.I guess I am not completely following you on this. Are you saying that someone's "evidence" should not be countered just because it is evidence enough for them?I doubt that you mean that. If we followed that rule then why do we lock up the insane? I mean, obviously they have evidence that is good enough for them that they are sane.The BTK killer shouldn't be in jail because a church deacon wouldn't do that! That is evidence of his innocence...good enough for some!Actually, I thought you were arguing that the way the evidence was countered is the problem, not the fact that it was countered at all. I would have to agree with you there.

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Hey pastor! Where do we set up the Deuteronomy 23:1 inspection station?

Not sure if this is even on-topic, but how do you figure that? If living things live all over the world, why wouldn't we expect them to have died all over the world, too? Why? If living things live all over the world, and have for some time, why wouldn't we expect to find their remains all over the world?Now, what I don't understand is, the amount of fossils that exist - the abundance, as you keep reminding us - is too abundant. If the flood is correct we should expect a lot less fossils, because the number of organisms represented from their remains in the fossil record is way too many for all of them to have been alive at the same time. Inaccurately. Unrealistically. There's too many fossils for them all to have been deposited at the same time. The Flood could be an explanation for some hypothetical fossil record, but it doesn't explain the record that we actually have.

Remember the different kinds of thinking I was talking about earlier in the thread? Just about everybody encounters bullshit at one point or another in their lives; just about everybody learns how to detect when they're being lied to, to some degree. Obviously some are better at it than others. But just about everybody learns to see through some of it.One of the ways that most people detect bullshit is when the bullshitter obviously can't answer obvious questions. Posing the questions that creationists can't or won't answer is how we make their lack of credibility apparent.

"Remains" don't survive most earthly conditions very long, so most living things should simply have died and become compost, not fossils. Fossils need special circumstances to occur. The damp mud the Flood would have left behind all over the world, and the compression from the weight of its settling, account for the abundance rather nicely. Otherwise the circumstances for fossilization to occur have to be dreamed up ad hoc for every instance.

One should not make strong assertions when you are not prepared to back them up. Period!One should not enter a debate, make any assertions and then decide that they still stand when you can't support them.One should not "concede" points, say it is "out of politeness" to suggest that there is any available defense when you are unable to offer any.One should admit errors when they are made.That is the way the "evolutionist" is willing (or should be to be intellecutally honest) to conduct them selves in a discussion.If we want to discuss an approach to explanation and persuation perhaps we can contrast the "used car salesmen" approach and ask why anyone would be persuaded.I might also comment (but am already only tentatively connected to the topic) that it isn't that Faith hasn't prepared her ideas. There are scores of individuals who have had decades to prepare these ideas and they don't have any strong explantions for the evidence that is available. That's why when these things are brought up again and again nothing that hangs together on a simple examination is presented.Clearly you are right, PD, that expecting people to NOT believe the used car salesman is a fantasy in that we see lots of examples everywhere of those who do. So what do you suggest be done?

Pardon me if I claim that my assertions didn't NEED backing up, they OUGHT to be obvious to anyone with a pea-sized brain in his head. That is my view.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-08-2006 03:44 PM

The fossils are too abundant, though. So the Flood can't explain them. The Flood would be a parsimonious explanation indeed, but because it's contradicted by the number of fossils present, it must be discounted as an explanation.Contradiction disqualifies any explanation, no matter how much we may prefer it. You might consider this the corallary of the Sherlock Holmes principle.