long winded fool

LOL

long winded fool: Pointing out creationists who make mistakes does not discredit creationism as a whole.
Darwin's Terrier: True
LWF: It's amazing how few scientists seem to grasp this simple idea.
DT: Why should they, when the message is nothing but lies?

LWF: Don't argue against creationists in ways you wouldn't want them to use.
DT: I see... don't fire facts at them...

Paradigm shifts result in a deeper understanding of science. Meaning that the science we once thought was scientific is no longer scientifically sound, right?

I think it is you who are confused in your terms. A creationist believes the universe, (or at least life) was created by god. A creationist who believes in evolution believes that god created life through the process of evolution. A theistic evolutionist doesn't necessarily believe that a god created life, but believes in a god or gods nonetheless while also subscribing to the theory of evolution. Though the term "creationist" is most often used to describe an anti-evolution belief, this is not inherent in the term. Therefore, it IS possible to be a creationist and believe in the theory of evolution.

If you are incapable of arguing about evolution without assuming someone else believes exactly the opposite of what you believe, and you assign him or her arguments that you know you can refute, then you are here to win and not to discuss. I can't call your arguments straw men because you can find creationists who believe them. It's up to you if you want to declare these creationists as indicative of all creationism. Don't be surprised, then, when a creationist uses the belief in strict recapitulation or the Nazi's belief in the evolutionary superiority of the Aryans as proof of evolution's falsehood. If they can find an evolutionist who believed this, (and they can) then they have the same type of argument that you do.

The wise will see through this smoke screen (and that is what this is) and realize that you're using the same false arguments as the dogmatic creationists often use in order to "out muscle" them in a debate. You make the theory of evolution look bad when you use false arguments, so you ought to be careful if you truly are an evolutionist. "Since creationists deliberately lie, creationism is false," vs. "Since Haeckel deliberately lied, evolution is false." Why an evolutionist would need to do this escapes me. I guess "peer review" must be a torturous thing indeed if it elicits blatantly ad hominem arguments in such numbers. I'd hate to see the arguments resorted to by these evolutionists if they considered creationists their peers.

Albion

This is beginning to get into the realms of hair-splitting. The difference between an ID creationist like Michael Behe and a theistic evolutionist like Kenneth Miller is that the former does not accept that evolution and other natural processes are a sufficient scientific explanation for the origin and diversity of life. I suppose you could say, if you really want to, that Michael Behe believes in evolution because he accepts that modern species have older ancestors and that there's no barrier to evolution across biblical "kinds." If you really want to split hairs, you could say that Duane Gish believes in evolution because he accepts that modern species are descended from, rather than being, biblical "kinds." However, none of that alters the fact that Michael Behe, just like Duane Gish, is clear that natural processes are insufficient to explain the way life has developed. He is just, as I said in my last post, being more sophisticated about it (including being rather coy about the nature of the designer - or Designer - that overrides natural processes when the going gets complicated). He is essentially saying that the evolutionary process is insufficient to account for the development in lifeforms of complex biochemical processes. I wouldn't call that an attribute of a person who believes in evolution. The theistic evolutionist accepts the natural processes and attributes them to God. The difference between the attitude of theistic evolutionists and ID creationists to the relationship between natural processes and God is the subject of Kenneth Miller's book "Finding Darwin's God."

Albion

I disagree. A person who believes that God created life (specifically, lifeforms) through the process of evolution is a theistic evolutionist. Denis Lamoureux calls them evolutionary creationists, but he's in a nminority. I'm having a hard time understanding how anybody could be theistic and not believe that God created life (as in your description of theistic evolutionist).

Here are articles by the theistic evolutionists Keith Miller and Kenneth Miller (can't find the one by Denis Lamoureux - his home page seems to have gone AWOL or something). I think they show that these authors have no problem at all with the notion that God created life and that they have no sympathy whatever with any form of creationist.

Found it! Articles by Denis Lamoureux:

http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/Evo...ryCreation.htm
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/PhilJohnson.htm

His definition of evolutionary creationism is pretty much equivalent to most people's definitions of theitic evolution, except that he's trying to take badk the term "creationism " from the creation scientists.

long winded fool

Agreed on the hairsplitting. But "theism" doesn't necessarily indicate christianity. A theistic evolutionist can belive in any number of "gods." Theism is just belief in a god or gods. It is not necessary to have a creator god to be a theist. I was splitting hairs to point out that there can be a difference between evolutionary creationists and theistic evolutionists, even if common terminology implies that they're the same. I was just trying to clear up a cloudy issue. This has no bearing on my argument whatsoever. Unless of course it can be proven that these two things are one and the same thing. Then I will have made a mistake and am discredited and can logically be ignored, right? (question intened only for those who use ad hominem arguments to prove evolution.) The irrationality of this postition was my argument all along.

Most of you wanted me to provide facts proving that creationism is right and evolution is wrong. This wasn't my argument, but I supplied some common creationist arguments simply to illustrate MY argument. Attacking the examples of the premises is not attacking the premises. Evolutionists still make mistakes, as most of you now admit. Maybe it's difficult to tell the difference between a dyed-in-the-wool creationist and an objective argument criticizing the debate methods of some evolutionists, but I have a hard time seeing where my argument is, or ever was, unclear. I don't wish to single out particular posters, since it will only serve to fan the flames, and my apologies to those who argue responsibly, but to those that dont; You need to learn to recognize categorical rejection and the fears which cause it, unless you want to be accused of hypocrisy and arguing from an obviously subjective viewpoint, the same accusations you make against creationists, no? There was a time when anyone who defended a known heretic was assumed a heretic and punished accordingly. This same fear is the demon behind ad hominem arguments. Lets get rid of it and maybe the creationists will follow suit.

Doubting Didymus

Longwindedfool:

I DO categorically reject creationism, but I have good reason. To give it any credence, I would need it to fulfill certain basic criteria, which I asked you for earlier. I aksed you quite kindly to:

Demonstrate some evolutionist mistakes. Demonstrate some evolutionist lies. AND show that fellow scientists do not immediately disapprove of and publicly attack said mistakes and lies. - You have not done so. All "mistakes" you have pointed out are either not mistakes at all, or were rejected as mistakes in the normal course of scientific process.

Hackel may have been mistaken, but his mistake did not perpetuate. Embryonic recapitulation, as it is used today is NOT a mistake, despite your consistant claims to the contrary. It is quite accurate and widely accepted. Puntuated equilibrium is equally not a mistake. Nor is it incompatible with gradualism. Case in point: I accept both gradualim and punctuated equilibrium.

Demonstrate any creationist doing scientific research into relevant feilds of biology or geology.

In place of which you give me a list of people who are both creationists and scientists with qualifications. Forgive me, I should have been more specific. When I said RELEVANT feilds of biology, I meant relevant to either evolution or creation. Simply being a biologist, working in areas that do not specifically relate to evolution/creation, does not satisfy the criteria, as my contention is that creationists (that is, evolution denyers) would not be capable of doing research in said feilds.

I should also clarify my terms as I use them. To me, "creationist" is not just anyone who believes in gods involvement. A creationist as the term is generally used is synonomous with 'evolution denyer'. A theistic individual who accepts evolution is a theistic evolutionist. We have a few of them here.

Demonstrate an instance where a creationist error was quickly and HONESTLY corrected.

Well?

Demonstrate a single thing that a creation scientist was ever positively right about (positively in the sense that they predicted something would be true, and then discovered it to be true, as opposed to the refutation of another idea)

I suppose I should clarify this as well. I dont mean simply "person with scientific credentials and who is a creationist discovers something" I specifically mean something said person was right about in the feild of creation or evolution

Yes, I read all your posts. I am a moderator and have no choice. I also did NOT intend to offend you with the suggestion that your knowledge of evolution was lacking. That was a simple suggestion, not an insult or name calling.

P.S. Did I mention that modern embryonic recapitulation and punctuated equilibrium are not mistakes? This is important, and you don't seem to be picking it up.

Daggah

LWF, why have you been ignoring my posts?

RufusAtticus

Not true. The way "creationist" is used in American English is to refer to those people who believe that special creation by over evolution. IOW, the default meaning of "creationist" is "special creationists." This is similar to how the default meaning of "pickle" is "pickled cucumber." I would argue that an appropriate term for your above definintion would be "metaphysical creationist" or "theological creationist."

Albion

Well, if you say so. There may be systems out there where people have gods for one thing and another but not for creating anything; I suppose it's at least possible. I can't recall any off-hand, but that probably doesn't mean anything much. Any experts on comparative religions around here?

Now??? The fact that scientists make mistakes and that a few of them engage in outright fraud has been well known for years. If scientists didn't make mistakes, the scientific method wouldn't ned all the safegurads it's got.

I don't think the situations are entirely parallel. From the scientist's point of view, people are at work in the field of evolutionary biology for pretty much the same reason that scientists are at work anywhere - to find out more about the way the universe works and to create applications of that knowledge. There may be a few who are motivated by trying to discredit scripture, but honestly I think that they're so few as to be negligible - you have fringe nutters in most fields, after all. Most scientists understand that the scientific method is basically agnostic as far as deities are concerned, and scientists who are atheists usually understand that although their atheism might be reinforced by their scientific knowledge, it isn't proved by it. Most of the time, scientists going about their work are not giving a lot of thought, if any, to the theological implications of what they're doing. They're motivated in their work by curiosity about the part of the universe they study.

Creationists, on the other hand (using the term in its common usage), are motivated by their faith and their religion. You won't find much creationist literature where that isn't stated or implied. Creationists are not primarily interested in science, they're interested in using some version or other of the scientific method or Enlightenment rational thought (or whatever) to back up their religious faith with some sort of "proof." And if the scientific method as presently formulated isn't sufficient to do that, then they want to see it changed until it can do what they require. I assume you don't have any problem with the assertion that whereas evolutionary biologists (and "evolutionists" in general) are concerned about science, creationists are not.

This leads to a situation where evolutionary biologists (and researchers in many other branches of science on a collision course with creationists) are producing work for their own scientific reasons and creationists are attacking it for their own nonscientific reasons. Creationists have very little original research of their own; most of what they do is to try and refute or discredit mainstream research. They also make no secret of the fact that scripture overrides everything else where they're concerned; their main aim is to get science to agree with scripture, not to do science and see what the result says. And they see themselves as working for a much higher cause (this includes the ID creationits even if scripture isn't such a big deal for them) - replacing secular society with Christ-centred (or Allah-centred, if they're Moslem) society and reclaiming the souls of the nation's young for Jesus (or Allah). They see scientists as the major group that gives legitimacy to secular society. So they attack science, scientists, and the scientific method - NOT as a way to improve science (despite the hand-wringing that evolution is bad science and that they're only trying to point that out) but as a way to get people to distrust it.

Now, given that creationism is basically a religious and political movement, not a scientific one, what do you suggest that scientists do? You've seen all the scientific misinformation on the creationist sites and in the books; I assume you've come across the attitude that whatever it says it must be right because Christians don't lie. Yet there is no question that these sources are full of lies. In several cases, someone like Duane Gish has been challenged about something he said, agreed it was wrong and said he'd stop, and then gone right on saying it. There is no other word for that sort of thing than that it's a lie. One of the biggest pieces of ammunition they have is in telling the faithful, "see, look at these quotes from evolutionists; it proves that they know very well there's no evidence for evolution but they're hanging onto it because the alternative would be to accept Jesus blah blah." And since evolutionists know nothing of the sort, the quotes have to be very carefully removed from their context so that they appear to mean something different from what they actually mean. That is a good example of lying. There isn't anything else to call it. The people preparing those quotes must have read them in context and know what the authors were really saying. Now, are you saying that they can do things like that but we can't call them on it? What do you suggest we do, then? When a person quotes Carl Sagan out of context in order to make it appear that Dr Sagan said something quite different from what he did say, it's a lie. When a person rigs an experiment to give a wrong result and then claims on the basis of that experiment to have discredited a widely used technique, he's lying. What else should we be calling it? These things are happening too consistently for them to just be a few unfortunate mistakes and misunderstandings. Creationists are deliberately attacking several branches of science and they aren't being too choosy about their tactics, and they don't care how badly science is damaged in the process.

I doubt it. Creationists don't have a lot of options where arguments are concerned, on account of they aren't doing their own research, and ad hominem arguments are very useful. It's sort of like the communist party going after the church - they don't want an alternative authority to their own that might attract people, so they need to make it appear that scientists have some sort of sinister agenda and are using their science to fool the faithful.

Jobar

lwf, I have read this entire thread, too, and I have come to the conclusion that you need more exposure to the realities of the social/political/religious (NOT scientific!) phenomenon which is "creation science". You do not know what you are saying, when you try to defend their intellectual integrity. (I understand you're not trying to defend their *theory*.)

In my experience- and I'm probably one of the least qualified, scientifically speaking, in this particular forum- the *only* really honest statement I have ever heard a self-described creation scientist make, about creationism and evolution, was the one from Kurt Wise which Daggah quoted earlier-

" I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand."

-and that's not a scientific statement, but a religious one.

In short, lwf- you know not whereof you speak.

Oolon Colluphid

I’m glad you find it amusing. You’ll have a riot with this then.
... but it doesn’t make them look good either. If they wish to argue using real science, they better start doing so.
Why is that a problem, or even funny? When looked at with scientific scrutiny, it turns out that creationism is indeed nowt but falsehoods. This is not to prejudge it: the fact of the matter is that creationists do nothing except rehash arguments that have been refuted for a hundred years or more. Since they are refuted, if they want to make it sound scientific, they have to resort to distortions, misinformation, half-truths and outright lying. They are not really presenting science, they merely claim to, in order to snaffle the kudos of science.

If they should present some science, they will be listened to. There’s nothing scientists like more than to overturn some long-held idea -- if nothing else because it’s the surest way to the Nobel prizes, the fame, the money. But one overturns science with better science, not with anti-science.

Science is about scepticism. Another sure sign that creationism is not science is the total refusal of creationists to turn their scepticism on their own ideas.
Huh? If they had some facts at their disposal, they’d be welcome to use them.
Wrong. Newton, for instance, is not ‘no longer scientifically sound’ since Einstein. His stuff is still good enough to send space probes out past Saturn. It is merely that at some scales it does break down. What relativity (and QM) do is explain the stuff at the edges of Newtonian physics AND explain all of Newton in a different way. Newton is not wrong, just incomplete. A deepening of understanding, not a reversal.
Armholes. Then perhaps you should have defined them at the outset. The terms I have been using have been tried and tested for five years of these debates, and you are the first to query them.
Others have already covered your error here. Like I say, you aren’t using ‘creationist’ in the way that any self-proclaimed creationist I’ve encountered does.
Okay...
Sure, if you change the ground-rules.
Since you are incapable of using words in the customary way
... and assume that your definitions are the correct ones...
... and you assign him or her arguments that are not what he or she is saying...
... then you are here to attack straw men and are commiting a fallacy of ambiguity.

Just to be clear: I have no problem (as far as evolution is concerned) with theistic evolutionists. I find their inclusion of god in the equation superfluous, and would suggest they investigate a certain William of Ockham, but since they do not deny evolution, they may go in peace.
I can call your arguments straw men because you are attacking a position I do not hold. And I cannot be held responsible for you doing so just because of your (presumably accidental) fallacy of ambiguity over the term ‘creationist’.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on this for now. I’ve covered it above.
Wrong again, old chap. What you are saying is that this is a ‘fallacy of composition’, whereby an attribute of some individual member(s) of a group is inferred to be possessed by the entire group. Creationists arguing for the invalidity of evolution by reference to (some, or formerly held views of some) scientists’ acceptance of Haeckel would be using this fallacy. I however am not, for special creationists (for it is they I was referring to) do indeed believe what I have argued against. And the confusion is laid squarely at your door.
Horseshit, and covered above.
If I had, I would; since I didn’t, I don’t.
And you make the ‘legal profession’ look idiotic by defending the indefensible, then deciding that you weren’t really defending what you said you were.
So you ought to be careful if you truly are not a creationist.
Okay, that does it. Just how friggin stupid are you? The reasoning is not that creationism is false because creationists lie. It is that creationism is lies, as demonstrated by fucking great mountains (literally) of evidence against it. Creationism. Is. False.

If you want it formally: Creationism is false since all the evidence shows it to be so.

Wanna discuss the evidence? Thought not.

That the promoters of it are de facto disseminating lies is irrelevant -- and anyway, many of them honestly do believe it, through ignorance. They are committing (since you know about the law) the actus reus, but have not formed the mens rea.

We don’t accuse the average cretinist who comes here of lying; if we happen to accuse them of anything, it is of ignorance and gullibility. And they are usually found guilty.

Now, if Duane Gish were to turn up... the term ‘liar’ might be the least of it.
Fine. Fallacious inference, debatable and long-since irrelevant premise.

There is no parallel between the two lines of reasoning.

Why someone claiming not to be against evolution would need to argue this escapes me.

How someone claiming not to be against evolution could think that that really is the line of reasoning escapes me.

How someone so ignorant of a subject can have the arrogance to launch into an argument on it escapes me.
Yeah, that’s about the size of it...
Oh, it sometimes can do Though not blatant ad homs, personalities are very much involved. But that’s what makes it strong. If an idea can’t be pulled down despite all the attempts to do so, then it emerges that much stronger -- more likely to be the truth. Do a google for ‘Popper’.
I’ve yet to see a creationist offer anything for peer review.

TTFN, DT