Duvenoy

I can't speak for anyone else, but I do it because There are too few, dissenting (read: fundie) views showing up here.

It's fun, if you don't take it too seriously.

doov

Dark Jedi

I've been there. it's a good site to re-affirm my complete distrust in humanity's ability to think for themselves.

If I spend too much time here, I begin to doubt that stance. They kind of balance out.

tribalbeeyatch

Argh...The part of that thread that really got under my skin was the little 'rhetorical question' tangent. That knucklehead TheFiveSolas goes so far as to post a definition of "rhetorical question" that clearly demonstrates that she/he is wrong, but still doesn't apparently realize it.

Lobstrosity

Same here. It's nice when you have a chance to make cogent points that do more than simply preach to the choir, you know? Sadly it seems that most of the creationists at TWeb either are scientifically illiterate or at the very least lack the esteem/drive to respond to scientifically-oriented questions. Right now it seems that only Socrates and Socratism bother taking up the creationist fight when confronted with logical arguments and/or scientific evidence. Most of the other creationists just appear to sit back in the wings and watch, which is kind of sad as the discussions with the Sox start to get a bit old after a while.

Doubting Didymus

You could always try tackling a controversial topic within the accepted evolutionary science in here. It is certainly possible to get more than just a chorus of nods from certain topics. What's your take on gene-versus-organism centric selectionism? Do you think macroevolutionary concepts are important central themes in evolutionary theory or just distracting tag-alongs to good, strong adaptationism?

Lobstrosity

That's why I'm still here ... however, in all honesty, as I am not a biologist, conversations that get rapidly into specifics soon become conversations to which I have little to contribute. The concept of evolution is just intuitive to me as I see it from an algorithmic/mathematical perspective, but when you start getting into the low-level implementation (like, say, the assembly language behind C routines), I gots nothing. It seems this is the area where most of the major controversy now resides.

Doubting Didymus

Oh come now. You think I am a biologist? The concepts I've mentioned aren't really specifics at all. I've personally seen you expound on them before.

Lobstrosity

I realize that, which is why I do expound upon some of the more general concepts like the ones you detailed. I'm not much of a thread-starter, but when the right thread comes along I'm all over it

Doubting Didymus

Any suggestions? I'm itching for something to get my teeth into myself.

MrDarwin

Here's one of my favorite out-of-context quotes from botanist E.J.H. Corner, here in its most complete form as used by creationists (it is usually shortened to a single sentence):

The citation is given above as it is usually presented, although the citation is erroneous. Hence my sneaking suspicion that most people have never read the article itself, having only copied it from somebody else, and have no idea what Corner was actually saying (in fact I had some trouble tracking down the quotation the first time I came across it, because it is cited wrongly).

Here is another example of the quotation from Evolutionism: A study in contradiction (here, at least, they have a proper citation!):

Duane Gish made much of being criticized for using this quotation out of context (although it’s still not clear whether Gish ever actually read the paper itself):

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...sh2/gish2.html

As used by creationists, the quotation certainly makes it seem that Corner is arguing for special creation and against evolution, but nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some more examples of where it is reproduced in support of creationism. Note that in many of the them it is reduced to a single unqualified sentence, "I still think that to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation":

http://members.shaw.ca/mark.64/hcib/greatquote.html (without citation)
http://home.apu.edu/~jsimons/quotes3.htm)
http://www.maui-sda-ohana.org/maui-s...l/creation.htm
http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolutio...5-10/0293.html
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c006.html
http://home.hkstar.com/~johnfok1/Apologetics/8.htm
http://www.delusionresistance.org/cr...evoquotes.html
http://members.aol.com/KentWilken/bible/creatqts.htm
http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn18/evolution.html
http://www.ucgstp.org/lit/gn/gn018/evolution.html
http://www.webmecca.com/creation/articles/article58.htm
http://www.creationevidence.org/scie...se_evidn4.html
http://www.innercite.com/~tstout/cs/pog_7.shtml
http://www.bibleprobe.com/creationism.htm

The list goes on; I got several hundred more Google hits from this phrase. Finally, I've found it paraphrased almost beyond recognition at http://home.hkstar.com/~johnfok1/Apologetics/8.htm:

As a follow-up, I will post some more about the quotation in context because I can actually get my hands on the book in which it originally appeared. Unfortunately, I'm home from work today so it will have to wait until I can get it from the library tomorrow.

In the meantime, mull over the fact that creationists are citing 40-year-old quotations about the fossil record without examining whether the fossil record has improved any in the intervening time, and I'll leave you with this website, which directly addresses Corner's out-of-context quotation in an evolutionary context:
Where did duckweeds come from?