MrDarwin

Unfortunately, I have seen theists in general, and creationists in particular, treated extremely rudely (even abusively) here. It's no wonder so many of them flee, never to return. Granted, some of them really ask for it, but nothing weakens your own arguments as much as insults and expletives. Stay polite, stick to the facts, make it clear when you're speculating, admit when you're wrong or have made a mistake, and always, always, always be prepared to back up your claims.

Perhaps it's time for us to go out and start evangelizing some of the creationist BBs, and use this as a home base to come back to, compare notes, and ask for backup? Two BBs where I used to post were theologyonline (with good ol' bob b) and another with a 3-letter acronym (not ICR) that I can't recall--discussions were very active, and had a good mix of creationists and "evolutionists" (I still can't use that word without putting it in quotes).

(Edited to add that carm.org was where I used to go (I was off by one letter)--but it looks like they don't host discussion forums anymore.)

pseudobug

That's a pretty good imitation of a creationist retort Peter, but it doesn't have enough misspelled words

monkenstick

there are a few creationists left at christianforums but the standard seems much lower these days, at least npeterly trawled the internet for a few new arguments to regurgitate every now and then

these guys just seem to stick with DrDino and AIG

oh well, I think i'm probably going to get banned soon anyway

Paul

you see the problem with the internet is that just about anyone can say just about anything they what. So you would think that alot of half truths have been spreading about. There are many examples of creationist authors being abused by so called know it alls on the internet without being able to refute the arguements (sometimes valid, sometimes not) if you want a little taste just go and look at the reviews of anti-evolutionist books on Amazon where it is completly impossible to get a accurate unbiased review especialy when half the critics hav'nt even see the book.
or look at Humfreys reply to Meert (http://www.icr.org/headlines/replytojoemeert.html)
who thought he had got it all sorted out and could prove in a little paragraph what a team that had been researching for years
had got wrong.

RufusAtticus

How dare scientists rigorously debuck pseudoscience?

Earlier thread on Amazon reviews.

LOL @ "researching for years" Creationist "research" amounts to quotemining actual scientific literature and other sources. Humphreys article was no different. He claims to have done experiments, but not suprisingly his paper lacks a "materials and methods" section and a "results" section. It is simply a news release--"look at what we claim"--not a paper--"this is what we did; this is what we got; this is how we expliain it."

I might also add that Meert has a response to Humphreys response. However, the RATE issue is being worked into a new website, and it is not available right now.

Paul

And of course all pro-evolution writings have sound emperical evidence in the form of experiments?? no mention of microevolution or fruit fly experiments please

If you were to back that little paragraph up with experimental
evidence that proves RATE completly wrong then I will listen.

Simple stating that the growing number of creationists books are all a complete load of rubbish is claim I find hard to believe.

RufusAtticus

Pick up any scientific journal that deals with biology and you will find a ton of papers that deal with evolution analytically, experimentially, empirically, and theoretical. Many journals are freely available on the web. For example,

Evolution
PNAS
Genetics

Read some of those articles then try to claim that evolution is not supported by experiments.

All it takes is to read Humphreys sources to tell that he misquoted and misapplied them. That is what Meert and others have pointed out.

That is exactly the problems. Creationists don't do scientific research and publish scientific papers. They write popular books. Until they make efforts to actually do science, creationism will be pseudoscience rubbish.

MrDarwin

Quite right; rather than painting creationists and creationism with a broad brush, we have to discuss specific creationist claims and arguments. Tell me Paul, do you find any of them particularly compelling or convincing? If so, which ones?

Principia

LOL. Ask and ye shall receive.

Paul

that i would love to do but since no anti-evolution book has any
prove in it at all which is valid to a pro-evolutionist I have little to work on. But If you would give me a example of the kind of proof I would need to persuade you It would me my job a little easier.
How about for example I said the brain is far to complex to of evolved by tiny mutations.