Summations Only

I have to agree. Too many evolutionists here have little patience with creationists, dismissively descending into denigration and sarcasm at the drop of a hat. We seem to forget that even though we've rebutted a position a hundred times that the new creationist member is often figuring out how to defend it for the first time.It should be possible to be right without becoming despised in the process.--Percy

This thread isn't about you. Figuring out how to stop yourself from turning every thread into a discussion about you is one of the prerequisites before a return to the science forums could be considered.--Percy

Hi Xongsmith,This site exists to examine the claim that creation and ID are every bit as much science as what is currently taught in public school science classrooms. This is how I originally came to the debate, and this is still how I frame it.--Percy

We've all read Shapiro's, as Larry Moran accurately refers to it, "schtick." We advised you before you sent your email to Shapiro that if you phrased your questions by misusing terms like "intelligent" and "sentient" and "nonrandom" in the same way that he does that of course he is going to say that you understand him. My own particular advice way back in Message 688 was this: Cells are not intelligent, nor do they guide their own evolution. Shapiro has chosen this manner of description as a means of gaining himself attention. He certainly has yours. But within the general biological community Shapiro has won few converts. No consensus is building around his ideas.That's not to say it won't happen, but it seems very unlikely given that any attention he garners is due to an extravagance of expression rather than any useful new ideas or research. Seeking opinions is your problem. You're weighing opinions when you should be weighing evidence. Unable to understand the evidence, you attach yourself to the opinions you like the best.--Percy

Hi Shadow,I didn't say Shapiro had no converts. I said he had few converts. What percentage of the community of biologists do you think accept Shapiro's views? 1%? 2%? 3%? How high do you think the percentage should be before it could be considered a consensus? 50%? 60%? 70%?If you're going to weigh opinions instead of evidence, then the weight of opinion is vastly against Shapiro.--Percy

What he said...--Percy

Hi Marc,Crash already said it, but it bears saying again. Sure science causes atheism. This is because the more we know the more it conflicts with ideas that are wrong, and science is a great way of identifying ideas that are wrong.But science doesn't teach there is no God. It simply reveals, for example, that the Earth is billions of years old, not thousands, and that therefore Biblical literalism is wrong. The conclusions one draws from this knowledge are highly individualistic, but that there is no God is certainly one of the many possible.--Percy

My worldview is that evidence is the best way to understand the nature of the universe. Objects and events (in other words, things that exist and things that happen) leave evidence behind.There are some things I believe exist for which there is no evidence, such as God, but if I were to get into an argument with an atheist over the existence of God and he said that there's no evidence I would heartily agree with him. And since the atheist and I both understand that science is tentative, neither of us would hold a worldview that one time dimension and three space dimensions must be all there is to reality. I"m sure few atheists here hold any scientific viewpoint as inviolate.But we do have evidence of an ancient Earth, and of one time dimension and at least three space dimensions, which is more than you can say for a six-thousand year-old Earth or the resurrection of Christ, and that's all that really matters. If it makes you feel better to say that it isn't impossible that the Earth is six-thousand years old or that Christ was resurrected then that's fine, and I think we would likely all agree with you that it isn't impossible, but any claims that the evidence supports such views are simply wrong.--Percy

Yes, that's an good example of Buz exhibiting the precise problem creationists have interpreting evidence. Another familiar example, though not necessarily from Buz: If there was a global flood then we should find seashells atop mountains, and since we've found seashells atop mountains therefore there was a global flood.But I don't believe the creationist shortage here has anything to do with anything EvC Forum is doing. I believe it is due to much more global forces:

• Social websites.
• Move to mobile platforms.
• Creationism no longer actively seeking confrontation with science.

All discussion boards should be affected by the first two issues. If I'm correct then participation at discussion boards generally should be declining all across the Internet.--Percy

The industry is innovating away from me faster than I'm implementing. It's beginning to look hopeless.--Percy

Hi Marc,We often see arguments from creationists that the only acceptable evidence is that of eyewitnesses, but even our legal system is becoming aware of the pitfalls of human memory, plus when you mention eyewitnesses of Christ's resurrection you don't really have eyewitnesses but only second hand accounts that include eyewitnesses as part of the story. These accounts are no more reliable or evidence-based than the Mormon account of Jesus's post-resurrection detour to visit the then-natives of North America.But I was only responding to your misconstrual that atheists believe the universe can only consist of one time dimension and three space dimensions. Most anyone who accepts science as the best method of understanding the universe in which we live would not hold any view so dogmatically. We must let evidence, not belief, be our guide. Belief is just our current interpretation of the evidence and must never be held dogmatically.You denigrated evidence in general, but what is it eyewitnesses provide if not evidence? All scientific evidence is eyewitnessed as scientists conduct experiences and make observations, but science goes beyond that and requires multiple eyewitnesses (replication of experiments and observations) and documentation (papers in scientific journals), as well as review and consensus building.This difference between science and religion is expressed in the difference between their respective communities. Religious communities divide into differently believing sub-communities over time while scientific communities come together behind the hypotheses with the best evidence before moving on to the new frontiers of knowledge.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

I'm sure many murderers are convicted for murders that were not observed by anyone other than the murderer. But murders leave behind evidence (blood, fingerprints, hair, etc.), and that evidence has eyewitnesses, and the experiments conducted on the evidence have eyewitnesses, and the data produced by the experiments has eyewitnesses. In fact, the observed tendency is for evangelical juries in states like Texas and Alabama to convict more easily in the absence of eyewitness testimony. Evangelicals seem to place a greater reliance upon this evidence you denigrate to a greater extent than any other group.Evidence is just formal information gathering. How are you to know anything without information? Is there anything you know that didn't come to you through information presented to your senses?We all learn what we know from evidence presented to us from our surroundings. The richest sources of information are other people, but we gather information from everything around us. And when you formalize this information gathering process you have evidence.--Percy

That's roughly the same situation Christianity was in with respect to Judaism in the early years after Christ, and is still in. So I guess Judaism wins out over Christianity? Perhaps you'd like to reconsider your criteria, which you chose because it helps you confirm your beliefs rather than because it has any worth.But in science these two philosophies have roughly equal merit when one assesses the evidence. Except that it *is* something we can find evidence for, and since extra dimensions have already been conceived it is obviously not beyond human comprehension. String theory postulates 11 dimensions, and it is hoped that the Large Hadron Collider may eventually find evidence for or against this possibility. The possibility that string theory is a more accurate model of our universe than the standard model is why nobody here thinks that one time dimension and three space dimensions must be all that is possible. As Arthur Eddington once said, "Reality is not only stranger than you think, it's stranger than you *can* think." Although it's hyperbole it does very effectively make the important point, and I'm sure many here on the science said embrace this view.Many here on the science side would also likely concede that very few things are truly impossible, but science focuses on what the evidence indicates. What you believe may not be actually physically impossible, but there is no evidence for any of it. Yes, of course, which is why science demands evidence, replicability and consensus. Really? So when you become ill you seek a minister rather than a doctor? You pray instead of taking your prescribed medicines? Well now you're just making things up. The Unitarians don't even accept the trinity. The Episcopalians allow gay marriage. And science has nothing against religion. Anyone who understands the nature of science knows that it can't take any position for or against much religious philosophy, and many in science are deeply religious and have no wish to eradicate religion, perhaps the most famous being Francis Collins who headed the Human Genome Project.The basic premise of this website is that the scientific method is the best way to understand the world around us, and it exists in part to examine the claim by those creationists who assert that the scientific method has brought to light evidence that supports their fundamentalist Christian religious beliefs. That no such evidence actually in fact exists does place them in a somewhat disadvantageous position.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Correction, Methodists do not currently endorse gay marriage.

Hi Marc,You've got to stop making things up. That the Earth is ancient was first suspected over a couple centuries ago. In 1788 James Hutton wrote, "The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,—no prospect of an end."Getting back to the topic, the reason there's a creationist shortage here has nothing to do with our reputation. Would that we were so famous, but the fact of the matter is that most creationists come here at random as the result of a web search or clicking a link somewhere else. Not only do fewer creationists join these days, just plain fewer people join these days. The reasons have nothing to do with anything this site is doing.--Percy

The problem with the site statistics is that they include hits from indexing by search engines. Several of them read every single page of this website every day, and since there are roughly 44,500 pages it grossly distorts the statistics. At this very moment we're being indexed by Beijing Baidu Netcom, later it will be Google, then Bing, then Yahoo, and who knows who else. Filtering's a bitch.--Percy