Hi all!
Unhappy with the direction that the recent
What IS Science And What IS NOT Science? thread had taken, Buzsaw has been expressing his belief that biased moderation is taking place. I can sympathize with Buzsaw about his unfortunate experience in that thread, but I believe he has only his poor judgment to blame. Faith has experienced similar difficulties in the science forums, and for the same reason.
The poor judgment I'm referring to concerns decisions to participate in discussions on topics about which they know little, which for Faith and Buzsaw means many of the science topics. They seem to believe that their lack of knowledge about a subject should not be a barrier to participation as the primary party on the creation side, and once the tide inevitably turns against them they become frustrated and start leveling personal accusations at all and sundry that have nothing to do with the topic. In fact, in the recent thread mentioned above Buzsaw devoted a significant amount of message space to off-topic complaints and accusations of bias, and to unsupported reiterations of his initial premise.
It seems never to occur to Faith and Buzsaw that the poor outcomes are due to their lack of familiarity with the topics they're discussing. In almost all cases they aren't even willing to study up on a issue. They seem determined to maintain their initial state of ignorance.
Let's assume, just for the sake of discussion, that Buzsaw doesn't know how to play chess. He might in reality be a fantastic chess player, but let's assume for now that he is unfamiliar with the game. During an evening dinner one of Buzsaw's friends claims to be the best chess player in the world. Buzsaw is pretty certain that this can't be true, and he decides to prove that it isn't true. And the way he decides to prove this isn't true is to challenge his friend to a few games of chess.
His friend explains the rules, and he has to continually re-explain the rules during play, especially those tricky
en passant pawn captures and castling moves. It takes only a few hours for Buzsaw to lose 97 games in a row (those of you who have been chess beginners learning against an experienced player know how easy it is for this to happen), after which he starts complaining that the rules are biased and rigged against him, and that his friend is unfairly imposing upon him rules that place him at a disadvatage. Who decided that the king should be the least powerful piece on the board? Why can't a black bishop change to the white squares? All pieces should be able to jump, and any piece that reaches the far side of the board should be able to become a queen.
But Buzsaw has no basis for his charges. His poor performance has nothing to do with his friend's integrity nor with the rules of chess. His poor performance is due to the fact that it takes years and years to become a good chess player, and he is simply not competent to challenge his friend's claim that he is the world's best chess player.
The analogy quickly breaks down, of course. The rules of chess are arbitrary, while the qualities and methodologies of science have developed empirically after much experiment and study. But the issue of competence is the same. Buzsaw is as unqualified to challenge his friend's claim to be the world's best chess player as he is to challenge the evolutionist's claim that creationism is not science. Buzsaw might be better served asking why more competent creationists aren't taking up the challenge he has improvidently set himself.
We have all encouraged both Faith and Buzsaw to read up on the topics they discuss, but for the most part they choose not to. We've explained that familiarizing themselves with science does not mean accepting everything science says, but whether fear of being convinced or tainted plays any role or not, in they end they choose not to study up on subjects they're discussing.
And it's a mystery to me why they don't do this. Indeed, almost no creationist does this. At the superficial (usually) level that topics are discussed at discussion boards, it doesn't take a lot of time to study up to the point where you can intelligently discuss almost anything.
Anyway, Buzsaw should not conclude, and I'm sure has not concluded, that his poor performance in the aforementioned thread is the final word on the topic of whether creationists do real science. Just as Buzsaw's friend beating him 97 games in a row is no indicator of how good his friend really is at chess, Buzsaw's poor performance in that thread is no indicator of whether creationists really do science. That's because the creationist advocates in that thread were wholly unqualified to discuss the topic. The next time Buzsaw wants to dispute something in the science threads, I suggest he either study up (that doesn't mean just looking up words in the dictionary) or recruit someone who's already familiar with the topic.
Though I've used Faith and Buzsaw as my examples, I think this is good advice for anyone, myself included. Do not enter a thread half-cocked. If after a few exchanges things don't seem to be going your way, then either withdraw and lurk, or start doing your homework so you can do better. If you find yourself complaining and blaming instead of discussing the topic then you've chosen the wrong course.
| -- | Percy |
| | EvC Forum Director |
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