rules for devil's advocate thread

One of the moderator responsibilities is to maintain orderly on-topic discussions in the threads. If you can compose some straightforward rules of engagement that will prevent anarchy then you may be able to have what you want. If no one can figure out what you want except as you slowly reveal it in post-OP meta-discussions then moderators will step in to maintain order.Why don't you try to think through exactly what it is you want, and then figure out how to describe it clearly. We're not going to have a thread where the rules are, "Whatever Randman said in his last post."I might add that what you appear to want is precisely what Creationists are most often criticized for. You want evolutionists to pretend they're Creationists and to construct criticisms of the TOE. In other words, you want evolutionists to make precisely the same mistake Creationists make, which is to criticize evolution instead of developing theories of their own.Creationists challenge evolution for one of the worst possible reasons. It isn't that they want to solve the puzzle of life's amazing diversity, but that they don't like evolution because it contradicts their religious beliefs. And so instead of doing research to figure out how life's diversity actually happened, they instead put all their effort into criticizing the TOE. This leaves them spectacularly mute, at least in any scientific sense, when someone asks, "So what do you propose as an alternative?" And it makes it very clear that they're not doing science.I'll add a post to your thread as Percy and see if we can get things going on the track you want.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Once again you don't quote what portion of my post you're replying to, but if you mean you don't agree with the criticism that Creationists focus all their attention on criticizing evolution, then why did you ask evolutionists to do precisely that?And if you agree that it is important to develop alternative theories when challenging existing theories, then why did you rail on about not caring about what Kuhn said about this a while back?Anyway, I again encourage you to quote what you're replying to. I think you would also do well to focus more on quality than quantity. Threads in which you participate are notable for the number of times people have to correct your misimpressions and misinterpretations of what they've said. I think you should slow down and take your time.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Then why do you want to focus the attention of your thread on what's wrong with evolution instead of on the new and better models being proposed by Creationists?You see, the problem with Creationism isn't just that they criticize evolution, but that they fail to propose a better model, or more often, they fail to propose any competing model at all. However good or bad you think the TOE is as a model for understanding life's diversity, in order to replace it you have to come up with a better model. When a Creationist says, for example, that he doesn't accept evolution's explanation for the eye, he needs to propose a better explanation. If we were to allow Creationism representation in science classrooms when they have no effective model, it would mean that after the teacher presented evolution's hypothesis for the eye, Creationism would have no more to say than, "We don't know, but evolution didn't do it."If Creationists are actually doing all this research and model development then they need to show this by using these new principles to develop new medicines and crops and breeds and so forth, and they need to bring these discoveries to the halls of science where they can be examined and criticized and developed, just like all other science.A real science moves forward. That's how you know that ESP and alien visitations are very likely not real phenomena. Creationists were leveling the same criticisms at the scientific establishment 20 years ago for rejecting Creation Science as they are today for rejecting ID. But now after all the ugly aspersions tossed at evolutionists over the years Creation Science is being abandoned as the theory being marketed. Now it's ID, and all the same ugly names are being tossed about. If Creationists could just toss science instead of names, if they could play science instead of politics, they'd fair much better.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director