Proposed Rules for Debates

I started that debate, and RAZD finished it.The debate started out with Mindspawn not even understanding what he was debating. He was complaining about "calibration" in radiocarbon dating when he meant "corroboration." The only thing he knew about radiocarbon dating was that he was against it because of the results it produced.What logical fallacy is it when one side refuses to accept any evidence that counters their religious beliefs? [Answer = creationism]

Some of the posts above reminded me of a short essay I saw on another website some years ago. I managed to track it down.It doesn't describe the situation here exactly, but I submit the overall flavor is remarkably fitting.

In the history of the world, only a tiny fraction of all the people who ever lived have had the opportunity to ask highly qualified scientists direct questions, and learn from their wisdom. Happily, because of the internet..., it is now possible for people from all walks of life to converse directly with all sorts of scientific experts; we have physicists, microbiologists, mathematicians, astronomers, and chemists, to specify but a few, roaming these threads, and eager to explain what they know and how they know it to virtually anyone willing to ask an intelligent question.

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But there is another segment of people on these threads who, instead of asking these learned folks intelligent questions and thus expanding their knowledge and understanding, insist instead upon bludgeoning them with their ignorance, and questioning the patriotism, honesty, and intellect of people who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

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I submit that such people are not here to learn anything, but are in fact interested in quite the opposite. I submit they are here to interfere with the dissemination of scientific knowledge that they find offensive. They don't want other people to ask the experts questions and learn from them; no, they are here to attack the experts and cast doubt upon their wisdom, in the desperate hope that others will turn away and not listen to them.

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IMHO that is why the same people show up over and over again parroting the same refuted diatribes and misinformation, and spewing the same bogus out-of-context quotes designed specifically to disrupt the dissemination of scientific knowledge. That's why the same people show up over and over again misrepresenting what scientific theories and laws are, despite having had it explained to them 1^720th time; they are here to instill confusion and spread their ignorance, not to disseminate knowledge.

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The experts here on these threads ought to be revered and thanked for sharing with us their insights and explanations of the natural world around us; instead scorn is heaped upon them and their knowledge by the belligerently ignorant. I submit that these purveyors of unknowledge should be treated for the intellectual disruptors that they are. They stare the best opportunity any of us will ever have to gain more insight and understanding in the eye, and spit in the faces of those who offer and have the knowledge to help make that a reality.

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Behold, I give you the belligerently ignorant, the intellectual Luddites of our time. Know them for the anti-knowledge disruptors they are.

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Longshadow

Yes. Exactly!On that other website we were informed by a creationist that those were the exact odds against evolution being possible.That illustrates very clearly why those who know nothing about science should not seek to lecture those who do as to how science should be done.

Nobody gets paid for that. There's no need.For over 200 years that's just where all the evidence has been pointing!Why should anyone get paid for doing what's happening anyway!!???But you can see why creationists are so paranoid. The worm turned a couple of hundred years ago and they've been on the wrong side of the evidence ever since.But they can't accept the evidence; they just have to make up increasingly futile excuses for why it is all against them.