excreationist

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp" target="_blank">Answers in Genesis - Arguments we think creationists should NOT use</a>

Well I thought it was pretty interesting anyway, since AiG has used some of those arguments in the past.

Some quotes:
[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

Grumpy

Behold the evolution of Creationism! Nice to see Ham & friends are learning. Slowly.

Pantera

A shame Kent hovind doesn't have a page like that. It would be interesting to see if any argument could be so bad that even he wouldn't use it.

CodeMason

Hovind would use an argument that was just a random sequence of letters and numbers if he thought it would sell books.

tgamble

Well, at least he doesn't use the myth of Lucy's kneejoing anymore. Does he? I wouldn't put it past him. What publisher would sink low enough to publish the kind of trash Hovind writes?

BTW, AIG lists the misquote of Darwin on the eye as one not to use. The Revised quote book uses that doesn't it? Has AIG made any attempt (aside from the list) to alert readings of that trash that the quote is out of context? Do they feel any shame over using it?/

Mendeh

I don't really think they're learning anything good - just how to misrepresent evolution in a more subtle fashion. The word is 'spindoctoring,' ladies and gentlemen:

For example:
"Evolution is just a theory" is now getting a bit tired, and it does lack some scientific jargon to give it extra credence, so replace it with:
"It would be better to say that particles-to-people evolution is an unsubstantiated hypothesis or conjecture."
Now, how many people could give the scientific definition of "(unsubstantiated) hypothesis" without looking it up in a dictionary? On top of that, how many people know enough about evolution to realise that it is not an unsubstantiated hypothesis?
Just on a side note, does anyone else get an itchy feeling in the front of their mind when they hear "particles to people", or is it just me being insane again?


Something particularly insidious:
‘Creationists believe in microevolution but not macroevolution.’ is discouraged. Why? Is it perhaps because in order to make the micro/macro argument sound intelligable to an audience, you actually have to explain the factors that cause evolution (i.e. replication, mutation, natural selection)? So the audience actually goes away knowing the processes by which evolution occurs, rather than thinking that evolution 'is just magically supposed to happen' as a lot of other Creationist literature seems to suggest. (As well as, of course, the micro/macro distinction is made by Creationists only, and, as the article says, it don't always work!)

And of course, talking about theories which require liberal sprinkling of pseudo-scientific jargon is discouraged, because if you can't remember enough jargon to bamboozle your audience, you'll end up looking a tad silly.


No, I don't think they're improving - quite the reverse. Give them a few more years, and they could be better at spin than politicians!

Undercurrent

The vapour canopy is a classic example of a vestigial feature. In an environment of scientists pointing out that there wasn't enough water on earth to create a global flood, the creation model evolved a vapour canopy to supply it. In the later environment of scientists pointing out that no sensible vapour canopy could exist without noticable and deadly side-effects, this task was largely taken over by the "fountains of the deep", i.e. ground water.

The vapour canopy became like a veriform appendix on the creation model. Still there, (because it had been popular and couldn't just vanish without people looking foolish) but no longer serving its original purpose of supplying significant water for the flood. Ironic, isn't it.

I think it's really telling that AiG doesn't say, "these arguments are faulty". Instead, it says "do not use" them. It screams that AiG is more interested in not being shown to be wrong, rather than just not being wrong.

m.

Coragyps

Mendeh said:
Just on a side note, does anyone else get an itchy feeling in the front of their mind when they hear "particles to people", or is it just me being insane again?

Yes, I do. It's an itch to ask someone at AiG if dust isn't composed of particles, and if Adam wasn't a person.

Mendeh

I don't think that many of its members consciously do this. AiG has far more in keeping with a political party with a determined policy to which they must adhere, than a scientific outfit. They need at all costs to ensure that the policy which they truly believe is right is supported by the public at large. That is the function of a political party, and that is also the function of AiG. And just like supporters of a political party, I reckon that most supporters of AiG are not consciously intellectually dishonest. Rather, they are so convinced by the truth of their beliefs that arguments supporting their belief are easily accepted, no matter how valid those arguments actually are.

(Edited because my original post wasn't clear enough about the point I wanted to make.)

[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: Mendeh ]</p>

Undercurrent

I don't think their conciously intellectually dishonest, either. I imagine it as more of a psychological defence mechanism -- a way to protect an ideology they hold from criticism by grandfathering the most rediculous and easy-to-refute arguments in their arsenal.

To be completely intellectually honest, AiG would have to look at the reasons why creationists used such arguments in the first place, and figure out what's changed to make them invalid.

Of course, they won't, because the only reason they used these arguments in the first place is because they allowed them to live comfortably in their delusion, and the only thing that's changed is that scientists have well and publicly refuted them, making them much less effective givers of comfort.

m.

[ January 01, 2002: Message edited by: Michael ]</p>