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Author | Topic: Dissecting the Evolutionist Approach to Explanation and Persuation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
If I understand you correctly you are saying that we all know that Faith was blowing hot air and didn't really have the evidence that she claimed to have. Isn't that an adequate reason for calling her on it ?
She wasn't being asked for huge amounts of technical detail - she would need to know some basic geology to answer the OP, but by making the claims she did without qualifying them she was implying that she understood the basics well enough to at least attempt it. If there is a valid criticism of the OP it is that, as an OP it could have done with a bit more explanation of the issues. To further set the context, consider what Faith says in message 16 in the thread:
quote: Isn't it reasonable to ask her to back up that claim ? On the issue of behaviour I'm in favour of going easy on creationists because it seems that they can't help themselves. But on the issue of the actual evidence I think that it is right and proper that their claims to have evidence should be open to question. Isn't it demeaning to say that we shouldn't question them because they don't know what they are talking about ? But that is what you seem to be suggesting.w
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
On further reflection I believe that the main problem with the thread was the OP.
It should have better presented Faith's claims and either provided a fuller rebuttal or simply have asked Faith to explain the evidence and the reasoning underlying her claims. The Flood and Flood geology are a major part of mainstream YEC views. The question of evidence for the Flood and Flood geology therefore must be open to discussion here and creationists must be allowed to put their case. Whether it changes the personal views of creationists is less important than that the issue is properly discussed. We've discussed more marginal issues (such as Pyramidology or Ron Wyatt) with people at least as bad as Faith. If we judge that a creationist is incapable of holding up their end of the discussion then we have a choice We either give them the chance to work at it and improve or we ban them. Keeping them around as a sort of "freak show" - or even as tokens - is patronising and pointless. The present situation where creationists are given a little extra slack has already been criticised on similar grounds. I regard it as acceptable only because it appears to be necessary to keep creationists around. To exempt creationists from the need to defend their claims - even when the claims are directly relevant to major issues of discussion on this site - seems to me to undermine the reasons for keeping them around in the first place.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
I would say that my own points on the "fossils on mountains" issue are the most reasonable answers.
Here's a simple version 1) Faith and conventional geology agree that mountains arose only after the fossils were laid down. (Why don't you think that this is important ? Surely the intuitive reading - the reason why the fossils are thought to be evidence of a Flood - relies on the assumption the mountain was there first ?) 2) The rise of mountains is not attributed to the Flood (and there is no good reason TO attribute it to the Flood). So there's no problem gettng the fossils onto mountains (becaue they aren't there when the fossils are deposited), or in the mountains themselves forming where it would help to invoke a global Flood. Therefore the existence of fossils on mountains as such is not directly connected to the Flood in any way. The major difference betwene conventional geology and Faith's views on this point is the timescale - which causes a lot of problems for Faith's views. If you disagee with this - if you can see some reason why the mountain location is connected to the Flood without contradicting Faith's own statements about how the fossils got there - then please explain it. And providing a reasonable explanation of that would be exactly the sort of reasoned arguemntation that I am asking for. Let me also point out that I have agreed with you that the original OP wasn't very good, but there are posts in the thread that make good and valid points.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Faith has made it quite obvious that she cannot support her points and is now simply trying to bully people into accepting her opinions. That's the other side of these threads - exposing creationists for what they are - and the creationists often cooperate nicely.
Why are fossils all over the world evidence for the Flood ? Fossils will accumulate wherever conditions are right. With hundreds of millions of years available there should be a lot of fossils in a lot of places. Some of them are even formed in very dry conditions (e.g. buried in a sandstorm). So at best this very superficial point is not very telling. And if we consider more evidence - such as the fossils formed in dry conditions, the order in the fossil record, the fact that the Flood cannot account for the rocks the fossils are embedded in - the Flood explanation doesn't even appear to be viable. So we get to another question. Can a superficial statement of the evidence be considered "staggering" evidence at all, unless it is something very exceptional ? I would have to say that in general it could not be because there is too much room for further data that could completely change the assessment. As there is in this case.t
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
While there is a subjective element to evaluating evidence. "staggering" evidence would have to be pretty good by sany rational assessment. But the distribution of fossils isn't really good evidence for the Flood, because it's something that is equally expected if covnetinal views were true and there was no Flood.
So while it might be considered evidence for the Flood in a very loose way it's the sort of evidence that has no significance and can reasonably be dismissed. Of course, the very fact that Faith is reduced to insulting her opponents for refusing to unquestioningly accept her word shows she is in no position to assert that any of the items on here list are significant - let alone "staggering" evidence for the Flood. If they were then she could eplain why they should be considered so signifcant - and she can't.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Really what I want is for Faith to explain why I should believe her assertions. And the answer seems to be that she will call me "stupid" if I don't. And Faith has the nerve to accuse others of relying on "browbeating" when she is by far the worst offender on this thread - and the other one.
As to your comments on the Flood, belief in the Flood isn't really the issue. It's belief in non-Biblical YEC ideas that is the issue, The Bible never says that the Flood is responsible for a significant part of the geological record - YECs say so because it is the least bad explanation they have. If you don't assume that (and there is no good reason to unless you assume YEC), then most of Faith's "evidence" really makes little sense. And that's part of the problem. Faith can't see that her own assumptions colour her assessment of the evidence to a much greater degree than is true of her opponents. It seems to be a major feature of creationist argument that they almost always try to blame someone else for everything - even when the failing is theirs. It's an ego thing, I suppose - and not at all Christian.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
Don't forget that according to Faith in Message 151 person A's tactic is perfectly reasonable. If she really beleived that I wonder why she now denies doing it.
And I'd add that in my experience creationists often falsely accuse others of doing what, in fact, they are doing.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17822 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
From the actual progress of the thread it seems that strogner enforcement of the rule might have helped. Relaxing it would seem only to help people who want to avoid genuine discussion.
Is this a case of proposing a rule change for personal benefit ?v
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