Thread Reopen Requests

This forum has recently shut down a number of Creationists for reasons consistent with the forum guidelines. Names that come to mind are Salty, Peter Borger and Inquisitor. Then there's Syamsu who has been "persuaded" to stay in the Free For All forum. Booboocruise just disappeared, and now I'm afraid Buzsaw may do the same since his primary thread, Noah's Flood Came Down. It's Goin Back Up!! was just closed after IrishRockHound enumerated his reasons that Buzsaw had lost on almost all the points from his opening message.Naturally I agree with Irish Rocky, but it is becoming obvious that we're making it damn difficult for Creationists to participate there. They sort of get a month or two to see if they can get a feel for the nature of science, start to understand some scientific principles, and get into the habit of supporting arguments with evidence, and if they don't then we just gradually turn up the pressure until they're forced into misbehavioral patterns that cause discplinary actions that eventually influence them to leave, or they just leave on their own.There's no reason why we should tolerate illogic and ignorance, but Creationists can only maintain their beliefs if they have healthy doses of both. Their goal is the defense of their religion, not the advancement of science. The prominent Creationists defend their religion through the construction of pseudoscientific arguments, and they feel good about their accomplishments because their work bolsters the religious beliefs of those of their faith, which was their goal. And while science suffers by their efforts, as much as they might care about science they care much more about their religion.If Buzsaw departs then I'll feel sad because he leaves without ever understanding almost everything that was explained to him. On the other hand, as I've said many times, it is very rare that anyone is ever convinced by discussions at discussion boards, so the likelihood that we'd ever make progress with Buzsaw is tiny, no matter how long we argued.I don't know what we're to do. This board is now dominated by evolutionists when the goal was to have some balance. But how can there be balance if board administration is determined that the primary component of any argument be evidence. The rhetorical arguments that are more the realm of philosophy and religion don't carry much weight here.I often ponder this problem, but the only answers I can come up with involve more active moderators, and we tried this a few months ago. It bothered the evolutionists more than it bothered the Creationists. The more recent and more subtle approaches haven't raised the ire of the evolutionists but appear to have been even more effective at discouraging Creationists.Given that my initial goal when I created the site was balance it disappoints me that the board is probably gaining a reputation as a pro-evoultion site. I suppose that's unavoidable, but I prefer to think of this as a pro-science site. It puzzles me that we can't even reach agreement about proper scientific arguments with the Creationists who appear to know a lot of science.No answers, I guess, just some musings.--Percy

Given the recent changes, this may be a bug - let me take a quick look.--Percy

Okay, Denesha, you can edit that post now.Moose - I had to change the forum permissions. I had set it so that only board administration could post replies, and the software checks if you're allowed to reply before allowing you to edit. This may require some tweaking of the software, let me know what you think you really need.--Percy

I haven't seen anything from DarkStar, but if he and MrHambre would like a moderated debate then they can start as soon as they're ready. One of them should start the debate by posting a message in [forum=-25] clearly describing what is being asserted so that the two opposing positions are carefully delineated, and then making the case for his side. As soon as one of the moderators approves it, it can be moved to [forum=-8].I recommend two moderators, JazzLover and someone else.--Percy

Please, no replies to this message or any other message on this topic. I erred by not noticing what thread this was when I replied. I'll begin a new thread soon in [forum=-11].Hi Faith,Thanks for the feedback. I understand where you're coming from, I really do, and I think the key difference between Creationism and science is captured by what you say here: If by "evidence" you mean "scientific evidence", then you're correct, the Bible is not considered evidence here. One of the key requirements of science is replicability. A single observation by an expert scientist means little by itself. It is only after the observation has been repeated by many other scientists that it becomes accepted. And a single observation by a layperson with no scientific training a couple thousand years ago in a religious book carries no weight as scientific evidence at all.Even if we accept Biblical evidence, say if we consider the Noah's flood account as one observation, then the scientific requirement of replicability demands that we verify it by repeating the observation today. This is precisely what early geologists tried to do in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they quickly came to the conclusion, even by the paltry evidence available at that time, that there had never been any global flood. And all evidence gathered since that time has reinforced that view a million million times over.From a faith standpoint you can know that the flood really happened, but from a scientific standpoint there are no supporting facts. The seriously critical characterizations I made that you found so objectionable have very specific Creationists in mind like Gish, Snelling and Austin among many others who simply make up facts for presentation to the faithful so they can rest easy that evolution is really false. If you doubt the insincere nature of Creationism then just look at the contradictory arguments of Creationism over the past decade or so:

1. Debates with Creationists used to be dominated by different arguments than today. Issues like lack of moon dust and the shrinking sun were common grist for the debate mill. While the Creationist position on these issues lacked any scientific evidence whatsoever, few were the Creationist websites that didn't repeat these arguments, and many still do, and as a result many Creationists argued that the truth about these issues was being kept from children in science class by evilutionists. Once Creationist organizations like AIG began counseling to avoid these arguments they faded away. We hardly ever see them here anymore.
   ​
2. The water of the flood came from a vapor canopy (ICR), or the water of the flood came from vast underground reservoirs. Switching from one view to the other is easy when evidence doesn't matter.
   ​
3. Traditional Creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science class, or ID should be taught alongside evolution in science class. Of course, neither has any scientific supporting evidence. And once traditional Creationists realize that ID does not accept a young earth the fascination with adding it to science curriculums will disappear.
   ​
4. A specific instance of incredible Creationist insincerity: It is a well-established fact of radiometric dating that the longer the half-life of the radiometric element, the less appropriate it is for dating recent events. For example, ¹⁴C has a half life of around 5730 years, and so it can validly be used to date events as recent as a hundred years ago. But the half life of ⁴⁰K is 1.3 billion years, and it can only be used to date events millions of years old, certainly nothing younger than a half million years. Yet Andrew Snelling of ICR turns out paper after paper where he uses K/Ar dating on volcanic events only a hundred or two years old. He gets incorrect results, just as any scientist would expect, and reports them to the faithful as evidence that radiometric dating is flawed. What he's doing is equivalent to using the mile markers on a highway to measure the width of a human hair - of course you'll get wildly inaccurate results. Further proof of Snelling's dissembling are the recent efforts of Creationists Humphreys and Baumgardner described in Message 1.
   ​
5. Another specific instance of incredible Creationist insincerity: Steven Austin's analysis of the age of the Grand Canyon. Austin weaves an extremely complicated web, I won't try to sort it all out in this message but you can see it all unraveled at A Critique of ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project.

So Creationism that once advocated teaching the vapor canopy in classrooms is now advocating teaching ID. What they share is a lack of any scientific foundation, and since evidence isn't involved Creationism will have no problem switching horses once again somewhere down the line.Science doesn't teach what's true. Science teaches what the methods of science have discovered. If you want to believe that the flood of Noah was a true event that is your right. But there is no scientific evidence for Noah's flood, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either ignorant or fooling himself or lying.By the way, it's important to recognize that the objections of Creationism to science go way beyond evolution. To Creationists it is the entire edifice of science that is wrong. In essence Creationists are saying cosmology is wrong, astronomy is wrong, physics is wrong, chemistry is wrong, geology is wrong, radiometric dating is wrong, genetics is wrong, paleontology is wrong and archeology is wrong. And I probably forgot a few. To Creationists it must seem that only scientists working on new TVs and new cars and new communication satellites and new medicines and new crops ever get anything right. All the rest just make one stupid mistake after another. Do you really believe this?The argument that when science disagrees with the Bible then science is wrong is a religious argument, not a scientific one. Science is a systematic methodology for learning about the universe we live in. Science class teaches what we've learned using scientific methodology. The knowledge of Creationism comes to us by way of revelation and not by way of scientific methodology, and so it has no place in science class. The evangelical community's desire for inclusion of Creationism in science class is religiously, not scientifically, motivated. Creationism will become represented in science class when it finds support using scientific methodology to find supporting scientific evidence.And that is how the debate is framed here at EvC Forum. Science *does* have a definition, and it doesn't change just because its methods arrive at conclusions that offend some group's religious sensibilities. Within the science forums one is supposed to argue from evidence that has been established scientifically. Arguing from a Biblical foundation simply concedes at the outset the unscientific nature of Creationism.If you really believe the Bible contains scientific evidence that trumps observation of the natural world (which is supposedly as much the creation of God as the Bible), then you can make that argument in the [forum=-1], [forum=-6] or [forum=-1] forums. But in the science forums one is expected to argue scientifically.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 03-19-2005 08:16 AM

The original title of the thread was something much more ambiguous than the current title.--Percy

Is Evolutionist Disparagement of Creationism Justified? was originally opened because Faith responded to something I posted a couple years ago. So far I've only been able to make two replies a day apart. Independent of whether Faith has sufficient time for the Great Debate thread, I think the discussion in this thread was proceeding along constructive lines.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 03-21-2005 09:58 AMThis message has been edited by Percy, 03-21-2005 10:08 AM

I know Eta and I were into a meta-discussion (with me as Admin), but it's my fault and we were waiting for PeaceHarris to reply to the spectra information posted by Eta and me (mostly Eta). I've found the discussion incredibly informative, and I think there should be an opportunity for PeaceHarris to react to what's been explained.--Percy{Added by edit: Topic reopened - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 04-12-2005 03:44 PM

I can see why topic drift might be concluded by the casual reader since many side issues are being visited, but if you glance at the last post, Message 251, it directly addresses the topic. Although the main topic is perhaps not as significant a proportion of the thread as one might hope, it is still being discussed. God is defined by his words and deeds, and in Message 251 Phatboy replies to me concerning evidence of God's deeds.--Percy