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Author Topic:   Books By Creationists?
Tram law
Member (Idle past 4704 days)
Posts: 283
From: Weed, California, USA
Joined: 08-15-2010


Message 1 of 142 (613281)
04-24-2011 12:34 PM


Do you guys actually spend tiome to read books by creationists? The obvious reason, of course, would be to debunk them and to show people how they mislead people away from science and intentionally misinterpret the actual evidence science has. Here's one book I just started reading:
Amazon.com
Please do not take this to mean that I'm plugging this book for another sale. I am not. I'm simply curious to know if you guys actually read books like this.
Here's a couple of excerps from it to show you guys of the kinds of things they say:
Many today think that science is anti-God. Atheists encourage this
view by claiming that their way of thinking is ‘scientific’. In claiming
this, they are merely redefining science to exclude God. In fact, science began to flourish only when the biblical view of creation took root in Europe as the Reformation spread its influence. The presuppositions that enabled a scientific approach to investigating the worldthat the created universe is real, consistent, understandable, and possible to investigate, for examplecame from the Bible. Even non-Christian historians of science such as Loren Eiseley have acknowledged this. Consequently, almost every branch of science was either founded co-founded, or dramatically advanced, by scientists who believed in the Bible’s account of Creation and the Flood. And there are many scientists today who believe the Bible.
This passage is both true and misleading and dishonest. Because of its statements about atheists. First of all, it 's true that many believe that science is anti-god. But it's somewhat misleading because it is leaving out who exactly believes this, and which groups of people believe this.
Secondly the claim that atheists are anti God. Most of us are not anti God. For one thing, many religious people have persecution complex. Any time atheist speak out on their behalf so they can be represented in their American government, some Christians claim oppression and use that as a tactic to try to shut us up. For some reason, some theists believe that because they follow a higher power that they and only they have the right to speak out and be represented and atheists should just shut up.
Here's an example of this kind of attitude from Michelle Malkin and the hosts: for Fox News in this clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brBqkmzN4js
In which Michelle pretty much says that atheists should just shut up and not speak out for their own representation.
And I for one do not understand this.
But this is a tangent of this subject and my mind's wandering a little bit.
The question is do you read books by creationists and do what you can to debunk them to show how dishonest theists are?
Edited by Tram law, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 2 of 142 (613283)
04-24-2011 1:22 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tram law
04-24-2011 12:34 PM


Hi Tram law,
First off, your url link is messed up a bit.
Second, is it not, by itself, dishonest to read a book with the sole intention of ''debunking'' it; ie having come to a conclusion to what it is going to say even before reading it.
Third and last, and this is strictly on your tangent so if we don't want to derail the thread, other posters should abstain from replying to this part, and leave that to you if you have somethign to add.
The example you took does not show dishonesty, in my opinion. This is seems pretty clear from the very broad and far-ranging conclusions you made on two little sentences, which turn out to be true:
Many today think that science is anti-God.
This is a perfectly normal statement, and I can't see how you can claim it is dishonest to not identify who it is exactly. The reality is that there are people from all groups who believe this: some muslims believe this, some christians believe this, some agnostics believe this, some atheists, etc.
So I can't see why it isn't perfectly normal to say ''many'' in this case.
Atheists encourage this
view by claiming that their way of thinking is ‘scientific’.
They are not saying here that ''atheists are anti-God'', as you claim. They are only saying that whenever an atheist claims his way of thinking is scientific as opposed to a theist thinking being unscientific, he is encouraging the ''science is anti-God'' strawman.
And even if you say that this doesn't apply to all atheists, they would certainly agree, but the reality is that many of the new atheists, the most vocal atheist, think this way. CMI receives a ton of emails from atheists, and the majority of them fall into this category unfortunately, with claims of ''science disproved God'' and the likes. This has increased manifolds since ''the God delusion''.
However, they do receive and post emails from atheists who are not hostile, for example:
Genetics geographical distribution - creation.com
I don't want to derail your thread, but just to point out that going from the two small sentences, you extrapolated so much even linking all this to that Michelle Malkin youtube clip and the atheists have the right to represent themselves, which has nothing to do with what TAB is sayign here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Tram law, posted 04-24-2011 12:34 PM Tram law has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by jar, posted 04-24-2011 1:30 PM slevesque has replied
 Message 18 by cavediver, posted 04-24-2011 5:31 PM slevesque has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 3 of 142 (613285)
04-24-2011 1:30 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by slevesque
04-24-2011 1:22 PM


slevesque writes:
Second, is it not, by itself, dishonest to read a book with the sole intention of ''debunking'' it; ie having come to a conclusion to what it is going to say even before reading it.
Would that not depend on the subject?

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by slevesque, posted 04-24-2011 1:58 PM jar has replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 4 of 142 (613287)
04-24-2011 1:56 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tram law
04-24-2011 12:34 PM


Thomas Heinze has some online books.
(I take the credit for that June, 2004 revison - I talked him into taking out the claim about the "vertical whale".)

If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

This message is a reply to:
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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 5 of 142 (613288)
04-24-2011 1:58 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by jar
04-24-2011 1:30 PM


Would that not depend on the subject?
I would not think so.
I understand that you can't read a book without bias, and I can understand an evolutionist reading a book with a bias against what it is going to say. This is normal and not dishonest, especially if the intention is simply to better understand those with whom you disagree
However, reading it specifically to debunk it and show where it is wrong, even before opening a single page, and certainly NOT to just understand what creationist actually think, comes by as dishonest to me. (just think of how you would view a creationist reading an evolutionists book with this attitude)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by jar, posted 04-24-2011 1:30 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 6 of 142 (613290)
04-24-2011 2:05 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by slevesque
04-24-2011 1:58 PM


slevesque writes:
Would that not depend on the subject?
I would not think so.
I understand that you can't read a book without bias, and I can understand an evolutionist reading a book with a bias against what it is going to say. This is normal and not dishonest, especially if the intention is simply to better understand those with whom you disagree
However, reading it specifically to debunk it and show where it is wrong, even before opening a single page, and certainly NOT to just understand what creationist actually think, comes by as dishonest to me. (just think of how you would view a creationist reading an evolutionists book with this attitude)
But some assertions are simply factually wrong. A good example is any and all Creationist books.
I can see reading it to try to understand how the people could be so wrong but what reasons beyond that and just plain giggles could there be?
I would encourage a Creationist to read an Evolution book with the hope of debunking it because that is how people leave Creationism. They find that they simply cannot debunk Evolution, or Old Earth.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 7 of 142 (613292)
04-24-2011 2:23 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by slevesque
04-24-2011 1:58 PM


quote:
However, reading it specifically to debunk it and show where it is wrong, even before opening a single page, and certainly NOT to just understand what creationist actually think, comes by as dishonest to me. (just think of how you would view a creationist reading an evolutionists book with this attitude)
I don't see why that would be dishonest in itself. Misrepresenting the book to debunk it would be dishonest, but I can't see anything wrong in the intent to debunk the book. And if I would think differently of a creationist it is only through long experience with creationists and their habit of misrepresentation, not because it is inherently wrong to be hostile to the work being read.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by slevesque, posted 04-24-2011 1:58 PM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by slevesque, posted 04-24-2011 2:42 PM PaulK has replied

  
slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 8 of 142 (613294)
04-24-2011 2:42 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by PaulK
04-24-2011 2:23 PM


I don't see why that would be dishonest in itself. Misrepresenting the book to debunk it would be dishonest, but I can't see anything wrong in the intent to debunk the book. And if I would think differently of a creationist it is only through long experience with creationists and their habit of misrepresentation, not because it is inherently wrong to be hostile to the work being read.
Well what is honest/dishonest is a relative measure, of course, and if you don't see it as dishonest I guess it is your position. I may have a higher threshold of what is honest, because I would certainly view it as a dishonest thing to do.
But, even then, I would think (personnal speculation here) that the probability of misrepresenting a book is much higher when you have already intended to debunk it even before reading the first page. And so, even if it would not be dishonest in itself, if it does lead to a higher probability of being dishonest about it afterwards, then you could as well consider the act of juding the book by it,s cover a dishonest thing itself.
You talk about the creationist bad habit of misrepresentation. Would this be caused, at least in part, by this same habit of wanting to 'debunk' evolution, even before starting reading ?
And once again, if we take an example from another context, if I, as a scientists, would review scientific papers with the intention of debunking it even before reading it ? Why would it be dishonest in that case, but not in the other ?

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Replies to this message:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 9 of 142 (613298)
04-24-2011 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by slevesque
04-24-2011 2:42 PM


slevesque writes:
And once again, if we take an example from another context, if I, as a scientists, would review scientific papers with the intention of debunking it even before reading it ? Why would it be dishonest in that case, but not in the other ?
"Dishonest" is the wrong word in both cases. Every book or paper you read, you should approach critically. It may be unwise to prejudge whether it's right or wrong but it isn't dishonest. You can only be dishonest about your conclusions after you've read it.

If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by slevesque, posted 04-24-2011 2:42 PM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by slevesque, posted 04-24-2011 3:30 PM ringo has replied

  
slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 10 of 142 (613299)
04-24-2011 3:30 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by ringo
04-24-2011 3:10 PM


"Dishonest" is the wrong word in both cases. Every book or paper you read, you should approach critically. It may be unwise to prejudge whether it's right or wrong but it isn't dishonest. You can only be dishonest about your conclusions after you've read it.
Maybe my comprehension of the word dishonest is different then, but one of the definitions of it is ''lack of honesty or fairness'' (Dishonesty - definition of dishonesty by The Free Dictionary), and if I, as a scientist, would review a paper with the conscious intention of debunking it even before reading it, I would certainly consider it to be a lack of fairness, and therefore dishonest.

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Replies to this message:
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 11 of 142 (613300)
04-24-2011 3:37 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by slevesque
04-24-2011 2:42 PM


quote:
Well what is honest/dishonest is a relative measure, of course, and if you don't see it as dishonest I guess it is your position. I may have a higher threshold of what is honest, because I would certainly view it as a dishonest thing to do.
But you've offered no reason to consider it dishonest. And without a valid reason, your claim of a "higher threshold" or even that your position is relative would be false (and arguably dishonest).
quote:
But, even then, I would think (personnal speculation here) that the probability of misrepresenting a book is much higher when you have already intended to debunk it even before reading the first page. And so, even if it would not be dishonest in itself, if it does lead to a higher probability of being dishonest about it afterwards, then you could as well consider the act of juding the book by it,s cover a dishonest thing itself.
I would agree with the first part but obviously not the second which is simply wrong. People who live in deprived urban areas are more likely to commit crimes, but that does not make living in a poor urban area criminal.
quote:
You talk about the creationist bad habit of misrepresentation. Would this be caused, at least in part, by this same habit of wanting to 'debunk' evolution, even before starting reading ?
I would say that a cavalier disregard for the truth is a more important factor even in that situation. And I wouldn't even call that dishonest per se, even though it is almost certain to lead to misrepresentation.
quote:
And once again, if we take an example from another context, if I, as a scientists, would
review scientific papers with the intention of debunking it even before reading it ? Why would it be dishonest in that case, but not in the other ?
Has anyone said that it is ? If not then what is the point in raising it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by slevesque, posted 04-24-2011 2:42 PM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 12 of 142 (613302)
04-24-2011 3:53 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by slevesque
04-24-2011 2:42 PM


debunk at will
slevesque writes:
And once again, if we take an example from another context, if I, as a scientists, would review scientific papers with the intention of debunking it even before reading it ? Why would it be dishonest in that case, but not in the other ?
Of course that would not be dishonest, and in fact it is the mandate to debunk every scientific paper.
The very basis of science is to debunk, to over turn, to falsify what is presented. It is on;y through that process that we determine what is most likely correct.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
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Tram law
Member (Idle past 4704 days)
Posts: 283
From: Weed, California, USA
Joined: 08-15-2010


Message 13 of 142 (613303)
04-24-2011 3:59 PM


Has anyone said that it is ? If not then what is the point in raising it ?
stevesque said:
And once again, if we take an example from another context, if I, as a scientists, would review scientific papers with the intention of debunking it even before reading it ? Why would it be dishonest in that case, but not in the other ?
In typical Theist fashion, he is trying to turn the argument around and claiming through insinuation that it is indeed the scientists who are being dishonest because they intend to debunk it.

Replies to this message:
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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 14 of 142 (613304)
04-24-2011 3:59 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by PaulK
04-24-2011 3:37 PM


But you've offered no reason to consider it dishonest. And without a valid reason, your claim of a "higher threshold" or even that your position is relative would be false (and arguably dishonest).
Well, I'll first note that you haven't really offered a whole lot of reasoning also, simply saying ''no I think it wouldn't be dishonest ... ''
But beyond that, you quoted my reason to view it as dishonest. If you adopt an attitude that makes it more likely for you to misrepresent it, then that attitude is dishonest, in the sense that it lacks fairness.
People who live in deprived urban areas are more likely to commit crimes, but that does not make living in a poor urban area criminal.
This is not analog since the matter is vis-a-vis the law, and not some personnal judgment, and because people don't have a choice in that case.
In the case we are discussing, people have a choice. And knowing that one attitude is more likely to lead to misrepresentations afterwards, the fair thing to do is to take the other attitude.
Has anyone said that it is ? If not then what is the point in raising it ?
Is someone, judging a competition, who has already decided who will finish last being honest ?
Is a scientist, reviewing a paper and deciding that he will be against the conclusion of the paper before reading it, being honest ?
Is a judge, who has already decided that the defendant is guilty even before the case begins, being honest ?
What I'm trying to point out in all of this is that, having a bias beforehand is not dishonest, and it is normal given human nature. But having come to a conclusion beforehand is.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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slevesque
Member (Idle past 4640 days)
Posts: 1456
Joined: 05-14-2009


Message 15 of 142 (613305)
04-24-2011 4:01 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Tram law
04-24-2011 3:59 PM


In typical Theist fashion, he is trying to turn the argument around and claiming through insinuation that it is indeed the scientists who are being dishonest because they intend to debunk it.
No, I'm saying, in typical 'future scientist' fashion (I study math and physics), that I would consider myself dishonest if I had this attitude when reviewing papers ...

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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