Joe Meert

One of the best propaganda tools developed by young earth creationists (and pretty much all of pseudoscience) is the notion that scientists are, in some fashion, mindless drones who accept previous knowledge without questioning that knowledge. How many times have you seen that sentiment either explicitly or implicitly stated on crevo boards? I grow weary of pointing out that science works because it is questioned and challenged at every turn and that some ideas have become so inpenetrable to the challenges that they become the paradigm. So, here's my question. Do scientists adequately question the reigning paradigm while working within the umbrella of that paradigm? How do you answer this very effective propaganda tool put forth by creationists? To give an example from my own field, I do not question the age of the earth during the course of my research. I've read and understood the evidence for the age of the earth, I've seen evidence for the great age of the earth in the rock record and so I tacitly assume a great age during the course of my research. Does that mean I've never questioned it or that I am looking at the earth solely through propaganda tainted glasses? Does it mean I cannot recognize evidence for events in the geologic record that occurrred quickly? I argue that my experience in observing and reading the literature on the subject, I have challenged the age of the earth and accepted its antiquity. I was specifically trained to question everything I read and look for flaws in the logic and the presentation. In spite of that, the creationist propaganda described above still works. Why, and have any of you found a way to effectively deal with that criticism?

Cheers

Joe Meert

Jimmy Higgins

Well the reason for the success of that creationist ploy is that it can be used by any arm-chair creationist. They put the "victim" (scientific method/record) on trial instead of trying to prove their innocence (disproving evolution or proving ID).

It works because you, a scientist, can only "claim" that the system works. That we have nuclear weapons, high definition televisions, satelite receivers is proof that the system does work. But what happens, and my aunt [i](who has a PhD) mentioned this, that there is so much information coming out these days, that its nearly impossible to keep up with it. Your specialty gets smaller and smaller. Not less significant, but smaller.

So if you ask an honest scientist about the whole system, they really can only comment on one specific part that they are a member of. So no scientist can explicitly claim the entirely system works because they know they haven't be apart of it to make such a judgment.

So we, engineers and scientists are caught in this "paradox" that creationists have no problem exploiting without any sort of authority. So thats why we need to work outside the lab in argument. Say all you want about lab, its whats in the field that proves the theory. Such as with geology. I've worked on numerous undergroud water tunnel jobs. This requires an extensive knowledge of geology in order to make a proper design. Why? Because an improper design means millions more for the contractor! If we weren't able to properly predict geologic conditions, design contracts would always be wrong for these projects! How can mainstream geology be wrong when it has been proven in the field.

The best way to argue against creationists it to use outside of lab proof.

villainess

With normal people whose main problem is that they don't understand science very well, usually because of weakness in the education system, I just point out that someone with good evidence to overturn just one part of the theory of evolution would win the Nobel Prize. They usually understand that.

With YEC Christians (who can easily imagine obeying and not questioning authority in the face of the evidence, because they have practice) and conspiracy theorists (who can readily belive that numerous people and vast swathes of evidence could easily be covered up by the evolution 'authorities', whoever those are) I've never been able to find a solution.

the.villainess

manderguy

I think there is some subtle testing of the paradigms, whether age of the earth or common descent. And I think Jimmy is on the right track. Any time the science is applied, the paradigm is tested.

If relativity didn't work, neither would nuclear reactors.

I geology didn't work, we couldn't find oil or coal or diamonds. Jimmy's example of predicting conditions for tunnel construction is excellent.

If evolution didn't work, the algorithms that programmers and engineers use wouldn't work. The genetic engineering for crops wouldn't work. DNA finger printing wouldn't work. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I brought up the broken urate oxidase gene to a YEC on another board. Her response was some BS hand waving about "alleged" non-functional. I pointed out the non-function came from a STOP codon, and that we damn well do know it's nonfunctional because if STOP codons didn't stop replication, then much of the genetics research being done simply wouldn't work. I think that sort of thing helps with rational people. When you point out the applications that work, it adds credibility to the idea that scientists know what they're talking about.

A basic science version would be the idea that we're testing common descent on every fossil dig. If we found a mammal fossil in the Burgess Shale, our paradigm would be in trouble. We're not actually testing evolution when doing evolutionary biology, but the research is constructed in such a way that evolution has to work for the research to work.