Dissecting the Evolutionist Approach to Explanation and Persuation

In thread Global Flood Evidence: A Place For Faith to Present Some Faith presented some of her evidence and arguments for the great flood, and at one point (Message 176) PurpleDawn attempted to clarify the discussion by explaining to evolutionists how the debate looked from the perspective of someone not very familiar with science. My impression was that she thought the evolutionist demands appeared to some extent to be unreasonable, and that evolutionists often weren't clear about what evidence they wanted or why. She also thought she noted a condescending tone.The purpose of this thread is to examine what is wrong with typical evolutionist approaches to explaining their position, and I'd start off by raising the issue of evidence. PurpleDawn appeared to be saying that she sees a difference between presenting evidence versus showing how that evidence supports your position (she called it "proving your evidence", but I think I've captured her meaning).I think few if any of the science-minded on the evolution side would ever have anticipated such a criticism, but if PurpleDawn's perspective is widely shared by those unfamiliar with science, and I'd have to say that Faith obviously shares this view, then it might go a long way toward explaining why there is often such a large disconnect in these discussions.So I guess the place to start is to discuss how evolutionists might explain the difference between presenting evidence and showing how that evidence supports theory. I think to a lot of us that when Faith says, in effect, "The presence of fossils everywhere around the world is strong evidence for a global flood" that she may as well be saying, "That fire is hot and ice is cold is strong evidence for a global flood." In other words, we can't see how one (global flood) can in any way follow from the other (fossils everywhere).Obviously our knowledge of other evidence (and what Faith would call our preconceptions) is what leads us to not for even a second consider the fossils as flood evidence, so *we* know that we dismiss the evidence for good reason. But how are others unfamiliar with this evidence specifically and with science generally supposed to know?--Percy

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