Your EvC Debate Dream Team - Fantasy Debating

I think the causality is much more local then any grand trend in the creationist movement. I think it simply is that many creationist that come along are quickly gone because many posters here come to the table with a boatload of preconcieved notions about them.I mean, just look at my own first thread (salt in oceans - where is the thread number, I can't find it to create a link?) here and the very first reply I got from Dr.A.Because those creationist who do want to get rational discussions going won't be encouraged to stay by snarky remarks etc., and so you are left with those who just like to pick a fight on the internet

Yeah well fortunately, there were some kinder folks that replied after you. But I certainly would not have sustained that for long if it would have been a general feature of the posters here. I like your writing style a lot of the times, but when you bring all the accumulated notions from previous discussion from other creationist, and then apply them to a newly arrived one, it is not a winning formula.

You realized that everything you said to justify having preconceived notions, are themself preconceived notions about creationism/creationist ?How do you know any given creationist is a brainwashed person with no rational basis for what he believes ? Because you have already made up your mind that, if he is a creationist, then de facto he must be a brainwashed person with no rational basis for what he believes.This is then reinforced when approaching someone with this in mind, because it usually chases away those that don't fit that mold, while sparks tensions with those that are like that. So it becomes sort of a vicious circle.Because seriously, what do you think I told myself when I saw the very first reply Dr.A gave me ? I told myself:''This guy is seriously retarded'' (of course this opinion has changed with time ) and usually, rational people don't have time to wasted with retards.

I never said it did. However, there is ample counter-examples to this specific preconceived notion to make it false. There are bunches of intelligent, rational people out there who are creationists, and once in a while once comes along, and you need not greet him as if he was a stupid caveman idiot.Its is as if every 1 times out of 5, you would meet an engineer incapable of basic math. Would you then be justified to continue to hold unto the preconceived notion that ''all engineers are capable of basic math'' ? But it seems severely compromised only for your point of view, because your opinion of the situation is that the theory of evolution is a settled, established thing.But keep in mind that there are many well-thinking people out there who do think that the there is still place for genuine doubt on the validity of the theory of evolution. I'm not saying their aren't very ignorant creationist. I'm saying that approaching new creationist members as if they were ignorant is bound to chase off any well-thinking ones. That's because intelligent, rational people don't have time to waste talking to people who treat them as if they were morons.A sub aspect of this is if a creationist does stay, and that eventually you start to realize ''hey this guy does have some logical thinking in him'' you immediatly engage in post hoc rationalization; usually being ''he was just brainwashed, it's not his fault''. But this is simply discarding counter-examples to your preconceived notion. But what I'm saying is that, in the rare case you do have a creationist who comes in saying ''I think that the world/universe/humanity was created by an intelligent being because of... 'whatever' ", you reply to him as if he had posted word-salad.(BTW I'm saying ''you'' in a general manner, not you personnally)

You don't actually believe this to be the case, do you ? If a scientist disagrees with another on the interpretation fo such and such set of data, he is not obliged to still include it into his own hypotheses.How else could science move forward ? If all scientists hypothesized that Ether existed, would I then be forced, as a physicist, to fit it into my physics theories ? You find many crackpot theories amongst layman creationists, but there aren't that many trends in creationism as a whole.YEC scientists almost all agree on a well defined framework, and disagree on the finer points.I don't see how this is any different from evolution, where the framework is general and the diagreements on the specifics. And where you sometime find the layman with some excentric view of all of it. (I had a philo professor that thought apes came from humans, not the other way around. for example) I think it is only logical that, you would be better off having a good preconceived notion about people then a bad one. It is better for you to be wrong about someone because you viewed them higher then they were, then to be wrong because you viewed them lower then they were.

It is more then simply expectations. Preconceived notions are a definite statement about particular individual (in this context) because of an assessment you made about the larger group.If you have stated ''all creationists are idiots'', then it is more then expectations when you meet one. You will speak to him, treat him as such, until you start to see it is maybe otherwise (which, depending on the strength of the preconceived notion, may be never no matter how intelligent the person is)Note that, in my view, even if all the creationist you had encountered up to date were idiots, this attitude would still be unjustifiable, because of what I ended my replies to Ringo with. The fact that you do have counter-examples only makes it that much worse. There are plenty of skeptics of the current theory of evolution out there. I'm arguing against people having already a firmly bad opinion of somebody else before he has even said a word.Of course, we will always have an opinion of someone even before they speak, what I'm saying is that we must force unto ourselves that this opinion be a unsettled, but good, opinion.

Scientists don't just disagree on ''the frontiers of science''. This whole idea that scientists play such a team game that they fit into their own hypotheses what other scientists say has no legs at all.In fact, if we take the example of evolution, the only thing every evolutionists agree on is that evolution happened. After that, it's an open game, and you could probably find someone who disagrees with the majority on pretty much every single point. YEC creationists have all answers they all agree upon on all those questions.Of course, you do relaize what you are doing, right ? You are implicitly using a definition of creationism say god damn large that it is normal there are a whole bunch if disagreeing people in the pack, anything else then that would be surprising.You even included directed evolution in that, which is clearly not creationist from any reasonable definition. In fact, when you do take the real definition of creationist, there will be only to great trends: YEC and OEC. This is a very simplistic and irrealist view on this. If there is a group of YEc and of OEC at ay given point in time, it does not mean any particular member of one group never was convinced of the validity of the other pov. Srawman, if we were strictly looking at revelation there would probably in fact be only YEC

Any textbook of physics would tell me that gravity is a fundamental force. Yet you can still find someone who questions if it even exists as a fundamental force (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1001/1001.0785v1.pdf)Does everyone now have to incorporate what he said into their hypotheses ? Or does he have to subdue his hypothese to the majority ? This is the claim Ringo made, and this is what I am claiming is not conform to reality.Sure, there are some set of data that force a single explanation, and in those cases everyone agrees. But as soon as there are alternative interpretations, you are bound to find a groupe of scientist who adovcate it.In fact, I would probably guess that there are fewer sets of data that force a single interpretation then there are sets of data that have multiple interpretations. Drawing from my own field of physics, it seems people will agree on electromagnetism, General Relativity and some parts of quantum physics. But after that, it's once again seems open game from where I stand.Don't be fooled because textbooks present a given hypotheses/theory as if it was established. It presents the majority, but not the concensus. Did lucy walk upright ? (Of course, you saying ''a fundamental tenet'' doesn't render justice to what I said. I agree that the fundamentals of evolution are agreed upon.) Your setting up a false dichotomy, in that it is either ''you base yourself on reality, and everyone agrees'' or ''you base yourself on revelation, and it's a free for all''.

That is a very loose definition of 'incorporate'But then if that's what you meant, it isn't different from what creationist do with other creationist views. They 'incorporate' them by making rebutals. They ''play a team game'' just as much as everyone else.

What ? You'll find that you'll learn more if every time someone new says something, you consider him an intelligent person until proven otherwise.Sure, maybe you'll just find one diamond in 100 piles of crap, but that 1 is the edge on someone with a negative approach. And my good preconceived notions of you are starting to evaporate Never meant to drop the 'well-thinking', I thought it would pass through as implicit since this is what I was responding to. I think you knew exactly what I was trying to say. I certainly hope your not starting to play on words

Maybe physics is different from other areas, but everyone seems to have at least one fringe opinion in one area or the other. Your confounding the range of opinions in layman creationists, which is of course much more diversified then the creation scientist.But not only that, but I think it should be obvious by now that this is simply a game of definitions. Of course, if you use a wide definition for 'creationist', you are bound to incoporate a lot of different worldviews. This has nothing to do with creationists ''not playing a team game'' as was the original accusation.

This is nothing abnormal.Evolutionists can't agree if Lucy walked upright or not, is that's a clear indication that their interpretations are not driven by the evidence ?No, because from each pov their interpretation accounts for the evidence. And when you have multiple possible interpretations, the group naturally is divided in different sub-groups.You cannot reasonably demand that, in the case of creationist, even when multiple interpretations are possible, they should all have the same concensus conclusion.

Sorry, but the ''broad scientific consensus'' is only seen when you're on the outside looking in. When I started off in studying physics, that is one of the first things I realized; it wasn't all black and white, the things we understand and everybody agrees on, and the things we don't that are on ''the frontier of science''.Reality within is that there are no point beyond questioning, and there are diverging opinion on a whole lot more points that a layman would figure out to be settled by now. Well, of course if you define 'scientific frontier' to mean 'every set of data who can be explained by more then one way' there's nothing to discuss since this is a self-serving definition.But then what I'm telling you is that, given that definition, almost everything probably falls under 'frontier of science' and only limited groundwork is considered established concensus You'll have to give me a definition of who counts as a biologists.Does a creationist with a PhD in biology count as a biologist ?Anyhow, I guess I could give another example: which modern ape is our closest relative ? You'll find a wide range of opinions starting from chimpanzee all the way to bonobo's, going through with orangutans, etc.You'd figure that by now everyone would have come to an agreement on such a basic question. But now your changing the goalpost, because it never was about ''figuring out what was going on'' but ''everybody agrees on what's going on'', and the dichotomoy was:base youself on reality: pretty much everybody will agree on pretty much everythignbas yourself on revelation: nobody agrees.But the reality is quite different: even when everybody bases themselves on reality, only the basics are mostly agreed upon, the rest is an open game with diverging opinions flying.Of course, they almost all agree on the basics: evolution happened, and RM+NS is the mechanism. A general form of the common ancestry. What I'm saying is past that, you won't find general agreement on almost everything. When was humans and apes last common ancestor ? Who was that last common ancestor ? How did the neanderthals go extinct ? etc. etc.This is only considering human evolution, a boatload of question can be asked about every other aspect of the theory of evolution, which will garner just as much diverging opinions. You may chalk all that up under your definition of 'frontier of science' but you'll end up seeing that the majority of science is at the frontier, with a very limited center core being agreed upon.And then, you'll realize that is analog to what you see in creationism. A central core of ideas are agreed upon: God created man, a flood did happen, etc. etc. And then after that it's an open game of opinions on when and how it happened.

Wow nice to know you didn't actually follow the discussion.No, the discussion was initially started when Percy offered an explanation on why we have less of the reasonable creationists brand, and more of the esoteric brand.I offered a different explanation for this, it is that creationists here nowadays are greeted as dumb idiots and that immediatly chases the more reasonable ones. I used my own personal experience from my very first post here, where I remember asking myself if I really had time to lose on this forum after being greeted by Dr.A as if I had an IQ of 50.So this has nothing to do with me whining about creationism being in a bad light. This is about if you want to have reasonable creos stick around here, don't approach them with a boatload of preconceived notions.

Orangutans May Be Closest Human Relatives, Not Chimps