Do we talk up or down to fundies?

This is a question of thread structure. Should a thread be dedicated solely to discussion with its originator? Or, if someone comes along and says something that is inaccurate is it the duty of participants to correct the misunderstanding?If somebody explains a concept incorrectly - I consider it important to correct that explanation.I somebody tries to show a flaw in reasoning, which is itself wrong, I consider it important to point it out.An example would be if somebody says 'Evolution isn't always considered gradual' - I think it important to point out that this is not scientific consensus. Otherwise the fundy will think that sometimes evolution is considered to not be gradual - which is an untruth. Our first duty here should be to the truth. They are two fantastic goals that I support entirely. However, these should not be our only goals. Agreed. However if somebody said 'if we add something enough, we end up subracting it' - we should certainly call them on that, no? The medium does not allow us the luxury of controlling everything everbody says. Telling untruths to a child is bad.The thing about forums is, it allows more than one discussion to occur in one thread and the reader is invited to read what he or she wishes. To the 'child' we can discuss basic principles of simple functions such as addition. If that child wants to try and follow the discussion about the axioms of these things - they are welcome to. Some children get such complex concepts. Some kids can't understand it and don't bother.If we are talking about evolution, a fundy should be exposed to two facts about evolution. The basic simple concepts AND the idea that it is a VERY complex, subtle subject that takes YEARS of hard dedicated study to fully grasp. In fact, decades might be needed to come close to a full understanding of it.Hiding this fact hurts the cause. Implying that the full entuire science of evolution is simple and straightforward is harmful to public understanding. We should start simple, but hiding more complex ideas serves no use whatsoever. I agree - and we should turn to one of your goals: break down the false arguments presented by the anti-science movement. Point out that there is no debate over the issue. The consensus is for gradualism which manifests as the appearance of punctuated equilibrium. That Darwin himself discussed punk eek, and that very very few people that understand the theory have ever held the notion of phyletic gradualism.We should also point out another thing - so what? That scientists don't agree entirely with one another on the subtle points of models and theories should be something we openly celebrate. It is not unique to biology, it is a universal property of science. The whole system relies on peer criticism. If everybody always agreed with each other, there would be no need for review. WE should show them the truth. We should start with the basics and work our way up. If they wish to read some more interesting debates that occur, they can. If they wish to be exposed to the subtle complications, to realize how much of the subject they are ignorant of, we should provide that opportunity.I've seen it time and time again - condescension, patronising tones and the like. Fundies are ignorant, not necessarily stupid. Talking down to them is offensive and when they see the snide comments, insults, and superior tones - they don't learn anything but that 'evos' are disengenious.Many fundies just want an argument and you will see good clear posts, educational and at the appropriate level are ignored in favour of the caustic posts. The caustic posts are easy to get the teeth into, and they reinforce what they have been taught about godless heathens.Teaching people is not going to be an easy task in this medium. We should be open with the facts, we should be clear in expressing them. We do not control the level of understanding - some people have no clue and we should talk about the fundamentals with them. Some people know a bit more, and we should be able to discuss Gould's conceptions of species selection in contrast to Dawkin's reductionist conceptions. Some people are very fluent in the subject and we should be able to talk about the effects of mutations in THRM and what happens if someone is heterozygous with this mutant allele (increased risk of myocardial infarction) and what happens when there are protein C deficiencies...This forum should not just be serving the function of discussing biology at the high school level. We should be free to discuss higher level biology with one another, without fear of being criticized for harming some unrelated cause.

Snow problem! I agree. Such an issue is best dealt with by saying 'That's a bit of a simplification, since there are exceptions, but it is generally true.' - on a point like that I would probably let it slide since it seems like such a weak point to make. A fundy does think differently, no doubt. However, in order for a fundy to ever have a hope of changing how they think - they must be exposed to different schools of thought. We cannot make science out to be a competitive religion with theirs since it will always lose. If you thought the situation were that terminal - why would you bother talking to them in the first place? I only do it, because I have seen concessions and conversions. It takes a great deal of patience, and a gift at explaining. You have to realize that you cannot talk to the fundy, but you have to talk to the voices of doubt that may only be subconcsiously present. Of course it does! It depends on what we are discussing. If it is a simple point, we Keep It Simple, Stupid. If they are trying to say something incredibally complex to prove evolution wrong, we show them that the subject is more complex than a brief scan of Wingnut Daily. The headache serves it's purposes sometimes, not always, but we have to have hope otherwise we spend hours typing out thousands of posts for what? I agree entirely. If someone says the earth is flat, there is no point in trying to prove it wrong to them using cosmological models of planetary formations with relativistic maths of how gravity effects large bodies.However if:1) Someone comes in and attempts to use a high level explanation that is wrong, we have a duty to correct them - confusing fundies with contradictory and falsifiable information will place them against us as peddler's of falsity.2) A fundy comes in and tries to prove evolution wrong using a specific and complex topic (such as the flaggellum), we have to respond with the the full complexities of the topic in order to show that said fundy does not understand it and hopefully they will come to realize this eventually. In this we agree entirely. We should pay in mind our audience. However, our audience isn't just fundies who have no clue whatsoever. There are fundies who have more clue than that, and some people we debate with are not fundies but are still antievolution. We need to speak with them - indeed they are the best hope we have of getting through to. I agree on that. I certainly wouldn't bring up minutae on a thread like that unless someone decided to fallaciously demonstrate that the Ark could hold only a few animals and have the resulting diversity using some misunderstanding of nitty gritty recom-dna technicality..