The Right Way to Debunk

It flags when I click new user.Shame, I wanted to join.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

That's very suspicious. Very.

Let's not get into this again. Suffice to say that the core of your problem is not distinguishing between good and bad evidence. As long as you're willing to interpret bad evidence as credible you'll continue to draw conclusions at odds with reality. Ignoring orthodoxy is fine, that's how Nobel prizes are won. It is ignoring good evidence while accepting bad evidence that you and this crowd have in common. Alternative medicine is stuck at the same level of progress as 50 and 100 years ago, and will still be stuck just where it is now 50 and 100 years from today, because alternative medicine doesn't seek good evidence and so can't make any progress.If you want to find good science being done so you can examine their practices and see what they look like, look to where progress is being made. Not very much drives me to talk to such people at all. If they keep displaying attention deficit disorder I'll soon be gone. From evolution to the resurrection to the origin of the solar system in the space of just a few messages - amazing!--Percy

Agreed. Yes, the subjects discussed each span entire topics on this forum. They are organised in a sensible way here, but trying to see a clear way around over there is like wading through mud. I can't even find old posts because I have no idea where to look for them. I don't think Russ anticipated this problem because before I came along it was more or less a cosy creationists' corner without much traffic. One or two scientists stopped by in the past, saw that all Russ wanted to do was repeat the same insubstantial rhetoric at them, and so they quickly left. His arrogant self-assurance is probably what makes me stick to it. He thinks he understands the mind of God and he "explains" it to anyone gullible enough to listen. SoSick actually thinks that God talks to her, but somehow I doubt we're looking at a modern-day Joan of Arc.In the face of Russ' copied posts, which amounts to your scenario of a creo repeating the same thing over and over, I will redouble my efforts to try some of the ideas here. I don't think I did too well last time; I asked him if he was trying to hypnotise us all into capitulation.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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I can see fossils, I can see that they came out of strata in the geological column. It's a bit different from telling me that this drug will help me or this herb will harm me; that interpretation is more prone to being biased by the agenda of the claimant -- even if these opinions come from clinical studies published in journals.

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That is not true.Science is science, LindaLou. The basic method is the same no matter if it is a Paleontologist studying fossils or a Organic Chemist studying organic compounds or if it is a researcher running drug trials.The distinction you make is your own bias and is based in faulty reasoning, anecdote, and emotion, not fact.

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You see, though some of the people there go to extremes and totally deny reality, seeing conspiracies in everything, they do appear to have a redeeming virtue. That is, they do not allow themselves to be limited by what orthodoxy says is right and correct.

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No, LindaLou, I think your analysis is completely wrong.You seem to want to characterize these people as being open-minded or as having a unique take on the evidence, but neither is correct.They are incredibly closed-minded and not interested in learning a thing. Certainly, they are terribly threatened by any sort of challenge to their dearly-held beliefs.They are far, far, far more limited in the way they tink than any of the people you would call "hard core skeptics" here.Skeptics are constantly looking for evidence, no matter where it leads, whereas those folks are completely blind to anything that doesn't already support what they prefer to believe.

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You seem to be frustrated that the discussions on the creationist forum jump around everywhich way. I agree, it's hard to keep people on topic. I also think RAZD is going to end up banging his head against the wall with the particular people he's talking with. Can I ask what drives you both to talk with people like that? What makes you feel it is a good use of your time?

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The same reason we kept talking to you regarding your wacky health claims.For the lurkers.

RAZD has a remarkably hard and patient head.I think his patient recitation of the facts will get through to some readers, even if his responders there remain wall-eyed.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

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Percy, I like your proposals in the OP for the most part and actually have found that what you are advocating above works for me as well as a Biblical creationist. For example, I have three or four hyper-active seemingly 24/7 members (with time on their hands who must be either smothering in $$, on disability benefits or on welfare) who tag along behind me with anything I post so as to post something; anything that might resemble a response, quite often with narry a smidget of substance pertaining to effective refutation of my message.I've come to the realization that there are a segment of members on both sides of the ideological isle in these forums who are eating up the energy, time and effort of their interlocutors (new word for my vocabulary from Wounded King:cool so as to cause me to be obligated to refute nonsense which leaves me with little or no time to actually go on the offensive and gain yardage for ideology which I espouse.The problem is if I go with your proposal, they allege I'm running. Well, with one or two of them, yah, I'm running, and will continue to run until they stop me with an obstacle substantial enough to merit a response. Edited by Buzsaw, : forgot to check spelling

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Off topic, but hi, Lindalou. I was afraid we lost you. Glad you're still with us.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Percy, obviously you've not been privy to the mushrooming of the science on the alternatives, to the point that many MDs who's interests are to their patients more than their own pockets are integrating into their practice, MDs like Dr. Julian Whitaker, who owns the largest alternative Wellness Clinic in America. The science on alternatives is advancing to a far greater extent than the science of conventional medicine as per the medical journals which Deborah Ray and others continually reference in their radio talk shows. Do you ever listen to them and have you actually applied/tested their methodology to/by your own personal healthcare as we have?

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Oh, Buz.I am so glad you brought up Deborah Ray. Your wife got those cites yet?

To Molbiogirl, Percy and Nator: This thread is called "The Right Way to Debunk," which presumably means discussing strategies for debate. It is not a thread devoted to the old "alt med is nonsense" conversation that I was having a few months ago. That is OT here and if any of you want to try to lure me into that somewhere else, it won't work. I came back here to get info for the debates I'm having with creationists.At some point in the future I'm sure I'll be willing to discuss my own beliefs here again. At the moment I'm very clear where I stand and where you think I should stand but I don't feel like getting the skeptics' grilling again right now.Buzsaw hello to you

Buz, Percy is NOT offering another excuse for evasion. Everyone knows that you are running away on yourt assertion that the Flood messed up all the dating methods that prove that the Earth is old. And it isn't because of a lack of substantive opposition - because there is no substance to YOUR assertion.The simple fact is that you can't support your assertion. You know that you can't support yourt assertion. But you lack the honesty to admit that you can't support your assertion. That's why you run.

I wasn't talking to you.When I am talking to you, you will know.

A thousand apologies.