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Author Topic:   The 6 stages of an EvC argument
Nij
Member (Idle past 4889 days)
Posts: 239
From: New Zealand
Joined: 08-20-2010


(1)
Message 1 of 29 (575483)
08-20-2010 6:00 AM


And now for something completely different...
Evening all.
After lurking for quite some time, for my first thread proposal I would like to develop a new discussion, with the purpose of identifying the various stages of a thread in progress, involving discussion of how these stages interweave, overlap, and even flip-flop around.
Possible development regarding the stages, their number and order, and some of the aspects used to define each would be better, but commentary - provided it stays on topic - about the idea of the 'stages' or specific examples of each in existing threads would be useful in the later parts of the debate.
These stages are, in brief:
  1. The initiation: the thread is established, the topic is defined. Those involved begin to post their initial thoughts about the subject, possibly overlapping into stage 2.
  2. The claims: those involved begin to make their claims and assertions, either positive ("this is") or negative ("this is not"), proactive ("here is the idea: ..") or reactive ("that proposed idea is .."), tentative ("I think") or firm ("we know").
  3. The support: sources are provided, analysed and discussed; evidence is presented, whether in support of a proposition or claim, or in denial/contradiction of it; facts are weighed by those concerned and assigned value as to reliability and veracity.
  4. The rebuttal: people begin offering secondary evidence and opinions, and replying to earlier criticisms either to defend or alter the initial proffered claims.
  5. The degradation: debate becomes heated and sometimes personal, with ad-homs more common, rationality scarce and everybody quite fired up in their posting. Moderator intervention is much more "aggressive", and the majority or blockings occur during this stage.
  6. The closure: this may follow several periods of repeated stages 4 and 5, but generally precedes abandonment/"terminal drift"/moderator locking of the thread, and normally invokes summaries of the thread from each contributor's position and what results they feel came of it.
I am unsure of what forum this would belong in; whatever concerns the meta-consideration of the EvC debate as a whole, and pertaining especially to this set of fora in particular, sounds good.
edit: is there coding to make a bulleted list? It would tidy up the '6 stages are' part much.
Edited by Nij, : Bullets?
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Added more blank lines. Do list/bullet coding (use "peek" to see method).

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Straggler, posted 08-20-2010 1:44 PM Nij has not replied
 Message 7 by nwr, posted 08-20-2010 2:25 PM Nij has not replied
 Message 8 by Dogmafood, posted 08-20-2010 3:14 PM Nij has not replied
 Message 12 by RAZD, posted 08-20-2010 8:53 PM Nij has not replied
 Message 14 by sac51495, posted 08-21-2010 1:43 AM Nij has not replied

  
Nij
Member (Idle past 4889 days)
Posts: 239
From: New Zealand
Joined: 08-20-2010


Message 10 of 29 (575686)
08-20-2010 7:54 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by Huntard
08-20-2010 1:59 PM


Oh, yay.
Thanks for the welcome, everybody. And for telling me I'm right that's always nice.
I spent maybe a few months lurking, and covered pretty much every forum (except the Bible Studies; the book makes no sense and there are plenty of more interesting ones to read).
I don't really have any favourite posters; most of the material on here is pretty good. There's the two or three that I refuse to read in their entirety, preferring to read any responses and see what the gist of it was while it gets torn to shreds by somebody like RAZD, crashfrog, or one of the fine folk that's already replied here. I finally decided to join since another site I was on decided to get boring and inconsistent. Plus I haven't had any good debate with a creo/young earther/"nice" fundy in quite a while and this seemed like the first place to try.
Now, onwards!
My earlier list was a bit more pessimistic, something on the order of:
  1. Creationist makes absurd claim.
  2. Creationist is proven wrong.
  3. Creationist goes on mad streak, throwing out accusations of conspiracy and dishonesty.
  4. Everybody abuses creationist for being... well, a creationist.
and then very rarely followed by evos actually discussing the topic at hand, often with a devil's advocate, while the creo shows up to continue step 3.
Perhaps these are actually the two main branches of the tree, the first one being what happens with a "nice" creo (Buz, etc.) and the second is what happens with a "not nice" creo (archie, etc.).
Edited by Nij, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Huntard, posted 08-20-2010 1:59 PM Huntard has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by bluescat48, posted 08-21-2010 12:28 AM Nij has not replied

  
Nij
Member (Idle past 4889 days)
Posts: 239
From: New Zealand
Joined: 08-20-2010


Message 29 of 29 (575982)
08-22-2010 7:01 AM


Oi, get yor own!
Excuse me gennelmin (and gennelminnesses, if they're here), but I believe the topic of this thread is the various stages by which an EvC debate usually follows.
While your posts may be useful as examples of the "derailing" substage, could you perhaps find a more appropriate locale for the arguments regarding why people joined this site, the relevance of formal education in science debatees, the existence of miracles, etc..
Pretty please?

  
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