Do we talk up or down to fundies?

Although I agree with a lot of what Nuggins says, I think you have put your finger on the key problem I have with his overall argument. As the fundies have been consistently defeated over time, their arguments have become more "refined". As little as 20 years ago, almost all the arguments they broached against the ToE were of the "evilution is false because my dog doesn't give birth to a cat" variety. Simplistic arguments that are easily defeated by simple responses. Some creos are still using that level (e.g., Hovind, Baugh, etc). However, when a fundy cribs a short one-line quote from a creo website concerning something like polonium halos refute an old earth, or multiple annual growth rings, or statements like:

quote:

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Darwinian evolutionists suppose that extrinsic factors, such as starvation, disease, and predation are responsible for the maintenance of population sizes, and thus lead to natural selection of variants more resistant to these factors, eventually giving rise to new species, and so on, up the evolutionary scale. If it could be shown that organisms possess some intrinsic self-regulating mechanism that controls population sizes, this would weaken the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis. (from here)

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even if they don't understand the question, the response requires a nearly book-length, technical explanation of why the basic premise is false. Not to mention an overtly simple statement like the bacterial flagellum quip you noted. That's in large measure why the Gish Gallop is so effective.The fundies these days are dragging up really esoteric points. They've learned from creo websites to demand peer-reviewed articles (because that's what we've been asking them for all these years) to support our points. I agree with Nuggins that they'll never understand the responses, but that's not their objective. Take a look at the sophistication of arguments on AiG, for instance. They're all hopelessly wrong, of course, but how easy is it to explain in simple terms why? Edited by Quetzal, : fixed ubb code

I'm not sure I completely agree with you, here. Oh, in a concrete, rather trivial sense you are correct: I would imagine it's hard to maintain a belief in your ability to fly when you're 10cm from the ground after a 200m fall off a cliff. However, I think you may be underestimating the incredible ability our species has for self-delusion, and our willingness to cling to irrational beliefs that make us feel good in the face of even overwhelming evidence. To paraphrase ICANT, "How can anyone NOT 'believe' in the validity of the ToE?" And yet, according to polls, the vast majority of the people in the US (at least) DON'T. I don't think it's simply a question of patiently explaining something to people that they may not have thought of. Outside the hallowed halls of academia, the average person has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the present (forget the future), especially when science conflicts with myth and culture, any time there has been any scientific advance that affects them personally.Ignorance and superstition will almost always trump science and reason. It's ever so much easier to swallow.