Doubting Didymus

I make it a policy not to respond to creationists unless I have a fair degree of confidence that they will stay past the op, and actually read the responses. I can't help but feel terribly dissapointed when people put effort into a genuine attempt at education, only to have it utterly ignored. Remind me to never become a teacher.

Bubba

I'm Saddened also. My voyage of discovery since I became a believer in evolutionary biology has been very interesting...creationists just don't know what they are missing.

Chris

Oolon Colluphid

Hi Lisa

May I ask what attracted you to read that book? I mean, out of all the books on evolution, you chose one that argued against it -- why?

And secondly, having read it, why you’ve tripped merrily into a discussion forum with pronouncements on evolution... without questioning if this guy is right? Don’t you have even the merest curiosity as to why thousands of working scientists think Denton and co are spouting the most monstrous lies and distortions?

Did it not occur to you to investigate a bit first -- to read a pro-evolution book to get a balance? Maybe a dip into a proper biology textbook -- you’re a teacher, right? I’m sure your science department must have one or two.

You could also ask your history colleagues how they’d react if someone stated that the Romans never existed, and that Catullus, Ovid, Virgil, Cicero, Sallust, Horace, Pliny and Tacitus, Livy and Seneca, were all just made up; that the Pantheon was built in the Renaissance, 'Roman' coins are fake and all the painstaking work of archaeologists is crap?

I see you teach English. How would you feel if a student popped up having read some book claiming that Shakespeare never existed, and that ‘his’ works were knocked out by a hack writer in 1900, and that the entire literature profession was engaged in a cover-up of the truth?

These are understatements of what creationists do with biology.

And what would you do, presented with such a book in your own field? Surely look damned closely at what the evidence is, yeah?

But before you could judge the merits of the book, you’d need to know what the evidence for the ‘standard’ version is first, right?

In other words, before accepting what Denton says -- which is more than a bit controversial in the relevant field! -- why not find out what the mainstream experts actually say, and what the evidence really is: find out why it is so well accepted by people who spend their lives doing this stuff?

Or to put it in a harsh nutshell:
Don’t comment on an area about which you know so little. You’ll only reveal what a fool you are.

Now go follow the links you've been given to a tiny fraction of the evidence for evolution. When you've read and comprehended these prescribed texts, then you may comment on them.

TTFN, DT

Albion

Apparently Lisa has left the building.

Doubting Didymus

That DT's heartfelt post will never be read is a matter of small distress to me. Perhaps education is not the answer after all, if there is no-one willing to learn.