Summations Only

I am providing this link to my page, Creation / Evolution Debates, because I link to several other pages and articles on the topic -- they all said it so well that I couldn't see how I could refer to and summarize them properly except to present those links.When really spread "creation science" in the 1970's was their "creation/evolution debates". Basically, they would come into town sponsored by a local church who would recruit a local teacher or scientist as the professional debater's opponent. For a number of well-known wrong reasons, the creationist with his highly polished and practiced routine would run circles around his amateurish and inexperienced opponent who wasn't even aware of what "creation science" was, thus building a reputation for being unbeatable thus also building up the reputation for "creation science". Even when the opponent did well, that news remained local (the ICR, a major source of debaters, would report on these debates in their newsletter and they always reported a creationist victory even when the creationist got whopped (eg, the 1981/82 Tampa debates which resulted in the local school board shelving its plans for implementing a creationist curriculum). Instead, the creationist would just take his snake-oil show down the road to the next town that didn't know what had happened. The tide finally turned around 1980 after past victims teamed together and started to beat the creationists in debates.Anyone interested in that story can read the articles linked to through the above link. During all that, there was an internal debate about engaging in a "creation/evolution debate." Some of the points of that debate were (from the NCSE article, Creation-Evolution Debates: Who's Winning Them Now? linked to through my page):

• Con:
  
  1. A debate implies a win-or-lose situation, which is not scientific.
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  2. A debate misleads people into thinking that creation and evolution are somehow equal in standing, that the scientific community is equally divided on the issue, and that the whole matter is far from being resolved scientifically.
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  3. Creationists wish to debate scientists, particularly well-known ones, in order to legitimize themselves and creationism in the eyes of the public. Thus the mere occurrence of such an event, regardless of the outcome, tends to make creationism seem more respectable.
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  4. When creationists claim that a given debate is about science and not religion, they imply that creationism is science and not religion. For a scientist to debate them on those terms is to concede a major part of the creationist case before the debate has even begun.
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  5. A debate suggests that the matter can easily be decided by the public within a couple of hours.
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  6. Debating is a creationist idea, and scientists play by the creationists' standards and on their terms when they cooperate with this activity, thereby allowing themselves to be manipulated toward creationist ends. The very fact that creationists, campus fundamentalist groups, and, recently, Jerry Falwell have collectively committed millions of dollars to promoting such debates should sound a warning that they understand that they will benefit regardless of the debate's outcome.
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  7. Public debates are actually political moves by creationists, not sincere efforts to argue or teach science. For, if creationists were really trying to be scientific, they would be stating their case before the scientific community instead of adopting a method common to charlatans, namely that of going to the public with claims of conspiracy and discrimination by the scientific community.
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  8. Debates are often publicity stunts for the benefit of the sponsoring fundamentalist campus groups or for the purpose of spreading creationist ideas. Debates, therefore, have been major vehicles for the growth of the creationist movement.
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  9. Debates are spectacles—not reasoned and fair examinations of both sides of the public controversy.
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  10. Debates accomplish little for science, since the issue is largely a matter of faith for many, no matter how much science is discussed.
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  11. Creationists often distort evidence in their debates and present persuasive but actually illogical and fallacious arguments. However, they do so in a manner that makes creationism appear plausible to a public poorly trained in the sciences. Yet, if the scientist points this out, the creationist charges him or her with insulting the audience and being patronizing. If creationists use distortions or falsehoods in their arguments, it is difficult to call them down for it without seeming discourteous or appearing to be engaging in ad hominem attacks on them. Yet, if one does not risk this, then such distortions or falsehoods will appear to be legitimate scientific arguments.
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  12. Doing well in a debate often requires that one "beat creationists at their own game," which often means compromising either science or one's integrity.
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  13. Preparation for such debates is time consuming and distracts greatly from more important scientific work.
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• Pro:
  
  1. Many valid arguments against debating are now invalid, because so many debates have already taken place. If debating was ill advised, it never should have been done in the first place. But to stop debating now is to imply to the public that the creationists have the better case. Therefore the only solution is to debate the creationists and consistently do well in such encounters.
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  2. When creationists fail to find an opponent, this does not prevent the event from taking place. It merely means that the creationist will speak unopposed. In addition, the creationist will make much of the fact that his offers to debate were declined. This can have a negative effect on the public's view of science and scientists and can serve to validate creationist claims.
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  3. Debates give science a free public platform, albeit diluted with the pseudoscience of creationism. As Milne declared after his first debate, "My audience was profoundly interested in the debate and more concerned and attentive throughout the entire three hours than was any fifty-minute class in all of my twelve years of teaching experience." Such debates, then, can become a valuable public-instruction tool when properly handled.
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  4. The public is entitled to feedback from the scientific community on this issue. Often it is only something such as a debate that can get scientists to deal directly with the general public. It would be better if this were not so, but, so long as this is the case, debates will have positive value.
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  5. Creationism will not go away by itself. It is a serious threat. Since winning debates has actually proved effective in slowing the creationist movement in some communities (examples will be provided later), it should be regarded as an effective tool for maintaining the integrity of science in the public schools.
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  6. To object to debates, while favoring lobbying and testifying at public hearings before politicians, is inconsistent. Such lobbying, testifying, witnessing in court cases, and the like is nothing other than engaging in debate. Often television and radio programs won't feature just one side of the issue. Therefore, in order to get broadcast media exposure for the scientific side, one must consent to a debate situation as well. So, clearly, debate is a regular part of this controversy.
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  7. With the overwhelming evidence in favor of evolution, scientists have little excuse for losing a debate. Furthermore, since the creationist "model" is so weak in so many places, a debate can be an excellent opportunity for exposing creationism for the pseudoscience it is. Much preparation is needed, of course, including a "renaissance" knowledge of science and a thorough understanding of creationism. Debates are not for the faint-hearted or ill-prepared. But those who debate well are providing a valuable service to the public and to science.
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  8. Though many in attendance at debates have their minds already made up, many do not. If these individuals "on the fence" are not reached with point-by-point answers to the creationist's arguments, they could easily by swayed into accepting at least a portion of the creationist errors. Furthermore, many who now accept creationism do so because they think their religion requires it. If they can be shown that creationism is not good science and not necessarily good religion, they might find it possible to accept evolution without denying their faith. But if all they hear is that accepting evolution is denying God, they may come to think that is the actual choice before them.
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  9. With so little evolution actually being taught in the public schools, and with the present diluting of textbooks, National Geographic television specials and creation-evolution debates are becoming major sources of public information on evolution. This is obviously deplorable, and something should be done about it. Meanwhile, those good at debate do their part to support evolution.

Another problem, a "con", is that creationists will use your "defeat" to bolster their side. Creationists would taut their "victories", reporting each one in their newsletters. Even when they clearly lost (much as we saw in this Lennox-Dawkins "debate"). Basically, their "debates" are little more than traveling snake-oil salesman operations that, after having been exposed as frauds in one town, will simply go down the road to defraud the next town who doesn't know what had just happened.That same article that the cons&pros list came from describes the debate situation as of Spring 1982. For example, in the two Tampa debates (Dr. Ken Miller v. D. Henry Morris, 19 Sep 1981, and again v. Dr. Duane Gish, 21 Mar 1982), Dr. Miller soundly defeated both creationists. After the first debate, the ICR claimed victory in its newsletter and that the outcome"seemed to materially strengthen the creationist position in the Tampa area." In fact, the school board had decided to shelve its planned creationist curriculum because of Morris' defeat. Plus when the second debate came around, the public had lost interest and there was almost no news coverage.In another debate in Redlands, Calif, a few years later before a large audience, the "evolutionist" side surveyed the parking lot to get a feel for the composition of that audience. With all the school buses from churches and Christian schools and ΙΧΘΥΣ and other religious stickers on cars, they estimated that 90% of the audience walked into that debate on the creationist side. The creationist organizers had obviously advertised heavily at churches and Christian schools in order to pack the audience. At the end of the debate, they had the audience vote on which side had won the debate. Only two-thirds of the audience, 67%, voted for creationism. Despite having lost nearly a quarter of their original audience (90%-67%=23%), they still declared a creationist victory.In his description of these debates, Fred Edwords advised that in order to debate creationism you not only need to know your science very well, but you must also know your creationism much better. When you first encounter a creationist claim, you can tell immediately that it's wrong, but within a debate format how do you explain to the audience why it's wrong. The first "evolutionists" caught in the creationist debate trap lost, not because of any fault in science, but rather because they had no idea where those creationists claims were coming from.Now they know. Since creationists polish their debates so well, they rarely wander off-script. That means that by studying their past debates, you can know what they will hit you with. Part of Edwords' prep work was to write each creationist claim on loose-leaf notebook paper, one sheet per claim, along with his response to that claim. Then as the creationist did his thing, Edwords would take out that claim's sheet and add it to his rebuttal pile. That proved to be so effective that the creationist demanded to be given extra time in order to respond to Edwords' rebuttal.Finally, it should be pointed out that the NCSE has put more effort into talking people out of engaging in debates. Effective debating requires special skills and experience and lots of preparation. And the potential danger to local education that is posed by a poor performance is rarely worth it.

There has been no intelligent and informed discussion here at all? There have been a lot of religious people who have come and gone here, making the very few who stay around for long periods greatly outnumbered. And that's 100% the fault of the religious?I thought the Climate Change Denier comes in from the cold: SCIENCE!!! thread was an okay discussion, you didn't? Here are examples of the non-religious reaction to it; Message 524Message 651Message 703Message 706You'll notice that most of those messages, and most of those types of messages all over the place here, get approval dots from other members, and aren't flagged or moderated in any way. I hope you understand that intelligent, informed, religious people often have better things to do than engage with this kind of childish, atheist behavior. A huge percentage of the general public would agree with me that global warming atheists didn't do too well in that thread, particularly in dealing with my messages at the very beginning, and the very end.I understand that this forum is a gathering place for atheists with far left political views, and there's not a thing wrong with that. But it's simply wrong to claim a worldview superiority just because religious people don't post here much. These things equally go both ways, the religious attempts to introduce things into public school curriculums are often only an attempt to counteract militant atheists attempts to introduce their propaganda into school curriculums. It's true that 'religious science' has a lot of gaps. Equally, atheist science has a lot of gaps.From your earlier message; Atheists can be like that too, they worship the earth, they believe in the power of bigger and bigger government. The problem is, considering the structure of the current U.S. society, their big government views are more intrusive to the liberties and lifestyles of others, than are the views of small government religious people.Edited by Admin, : Fix link in 2nd para.

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I thought the Climate change thread was an okay discussion, you didn't?

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I thought that the lack of intelligent points from your side was a big issue.

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I understand that this forum is a gathering place for atheists with far left political views...

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I don’t think there is anybody from the far left here at all.

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These things equally go both ways, the religious attempts to introduce things into public school curriculums are often only an attempt to counteract militant atheists attempts to introduce their propaganda into school curriculums.

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That’s untrue. As you know. Some religious people want to get their propaganda into science lessons because they disagree with the science. Meanwhile other religious people are even writing the textbooks for the science courses.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

And there are still devout Christians here that have posted now for a considerable period.It's just the Christian Cult of Ignorance that runs away.

The creation/evolution debate is nowhere near as active and visible as it once was. I think the reasons are varied. Ones I can think of: There was Dover. Behe was exposed in the ruling and is repudiated by his own university. Intelligent design lost considerable momentum after Dover. Dembski is officially retired from intelligent design. Henry Morris is dead. Duane Gish is dead. CRS became moribund after its move to Texas. Strategically creationism decided they could be more effective working at the teacher and school board level than by creating their own faux science.--Percy

Is this a drive-by, or can I depend upon a response?--Percy

I wonder whether that's the trend now or that they're too busy supporting the overthrow of the government (since the Beast and AntiChrist are supposed to take power and keep it, the fact that the Beast (AKA Trump) was voted out poses enormous problems for biblical inerrancy that they must not allow).Even though the current creationists may realize defeat, undoubtedly the next generation of creationists, not knowing about that defeat since nobody will tell them about it, will try to pick up the fight again.We'll just have to wait and see. 
So Dembski has retired. Like Dr. Michael Denton he thought he knew a lot more than he actually did. When he was still talking, Glenn R. Morton reported on a 2000 ID conference in Waco, TX. In Dembski's presentation he made his typical pronouncement that genetic algorithms don't work, whereupon many hands went up and members of the audience informed him that they routinely used genetic algorithms and that they work, and then they started schooling him on genetic algorithms. Morton described Dembski as looking like a deer caught in headlights.

If you have anything of substance, you can depend on it!

A big enough issue so that you think it was not an okay discussion? Would it have been better if my posts had been censored?Free speech is one of the most basic staples of U.S. society, both when it was founded, and what has led up to what it is today. Now, beginning only in the past few decades, and ramping up drastically in only the past few years, we're seeing an increasing hostility and intolerance towards conservative free speech. For months now, Donald Trump has been banned from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Snapchat. This forum's longtime poster Faith, was permanently banned, not for breaking forum rules or vulgar language, but for having an opinion on something that administration deemed "dangerous". Rush Limbaugh was widely labeled "the most dangerous man in America" for a long time, and there were several attempts to censure him. Examples like this from recent years go on and on.But those examples are only liberal attempts against conservative free speech, not the other way around. Most conservatives for example, are more than happy to let Maxine Waters and AOC babble all they want, it exposes who they really are. There were attempts to censure Waters for her obvious incitements of violence, and her racism towards white people, but most would agree that was justified.You'll notice in Message 24 that it didn't take long for the vulgar language to get going in this thread, in response to a new, non-atheist poster.The list of liberals who are included on Fox News Channel discussions is long, while the list of conservatives on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, etc. is practically non-existent. I see Rick Santorum is included at CNN, that's about all I can find. None of those networks get anywhere near the way Fox News allows Chris Wallace, a registered Democrat, to have their own one-hour show to do anything they want. Yes I know, these kinds of obviously dishonest statements are another of the many reasons why there aren't a wider variety of posters here. They don't disagree with the science, they disagree with the atheism. Everyone is religious, atheists have been writing the textbooks for science courses for a long time, because atheism controls science.

That is simply not true marc. There is nothing in science that is atheistic. And that too is simply not true marc. Reality controls science.

You're confused. No one has to tolerate another's speech. Banning people from private platforms for breaking the rules of the owners of those platforms is not an attack on free speech.Within the law, Trump can go into the park and shout whatever lies he likes, he can make his own communications platform and post what he likes. He has no right to be on Twitter or Facebook and break their T&Cs.

True, but there appears to be nothing theistic either. You yourself have used science to justify describing the Creator of all seen and unseen as unknowable,which is to me a clear bias against Christianity. You and ringo also assert scientifically that Jesus likely never existed and that the Virgin Birth is simply a marketing tool. You can say that your argument is unbiased and is simply logic, reason, and reality in action, but the fact that you market the notion that evidence based logic is the cornerstone of your religion and belief while literally showing bias towards organized Christianity and intolerance towards its believers
is more than adequate proof that you are biased and that you hide behind science nearly as if it has replaced religion and belief in the modern world. Don't try and con marc9000 by palming the pea with your slick definitions and Socratic masters porch based arguments. marc000 may be a bit conservative and a bit clueless on some of the particulars but I know (as does everyone else) that your arguments are designed to expose and demonize CCoI believers. Which is biased. Sorry, Charlie.

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A big enough issue so that you think it was not an okay discussion? Would it have been better if my posts had been censored?

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It should be obvious that if the problem is a lack of intelligent posts from one side, the solution is for that side to provide intelligent posts. A good discussion requires worthwhile posts from both sides.

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Now, beginning only in the past few decades, and ramping up drastically in only the past few years, we're seeing an increasing hostility and intolerance towards conservative free speech.

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That’s really a consequence of the increasing hostility, intolerance and mendacity of Conservative speech. For instance confusing the right to speak with the right to be given a soapbox on other people’s property.

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For months now, Donald Trump has been banned from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Snapchat

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Because he was disseminating misinformation that lead to a coup attempt. They tried lesser remedies but even fact checks were attacked as restricting “free speech”. Ridiculous, but that’s where Conservatism is,

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This forum's longtime poster Faith, was permanently banned, not for breaking forum rules or vulgar language, but for having an opinion on something that administration deemed "dangerous".

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Again, for posting dangerous disinformation. And again this is a privately-owened forum. There is no “free speech” right to use it against the owner’s wishes,

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Yes I know, these kinds of obviously dishonest statements are another of the many reasons why there aren't a wider variety of posters here.

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There is nothing “dishonest” in telling the obvious truth, there aren’t any Marxists here, for instance. At least not as far as I know.

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They don't disagree with the science, they disagree with the atheism.

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So they are prepared to accept that the Earth is billions of years old, that there never was a global Flood and that evolution explains the diversity of life we see ? Those are all science, accepted by many Christians.

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Everyone is religious, atheists have been writing the textbooks for science courses for a long time, because atheism controls science.

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No, I’m not religious. And I specifically linked to a textbook with a Christian author.But thanks for demonstrating the problem again.

Flipping the script, I agree with your points, Tangle. Nobody was forced to tolerate Trump, but many populist conservatives thought that he was shut down by a liberally leaning media. Personally, I disagree. Free speech is alive and well in America. Now it could be argued that Trump himself attempted to shut down liberally leaning free speech and demand that his speech be allowed to be heard. Agreed. marc9000 needs to provide an argument as to why the conservative speeches (of the past 5 years) need to be heard...particularly those of Donald Trump.

We should add that to the Forum Guidelines Ringo is darn close! Yet he cloaks it with "what Jesus said to do." And Jesus was far far from Marxism. This whole idea that the world should be some secular Kum Ba Yah brother and sisterhood is never gonna fly on my watch! Edited by Phat, : No reason given.