In large part, “creationist thought” is an oxymoron. Creationists are guilty of everything from falsifying evidence to deliberately misusing scientific terms to confuse the public.
Bay of Fundy. That’s rich.
To provide a bit more nuance than ultrafilter has (without denying ultrafilter’s points).
A number of Creationists, notably Duane Gish and Kent Hovind, have been explicitly dishonest in their attempts to portray the Theory of Evolution in a negative light. They have even repeated lies after being forced to publicly recant them.
Creationism is not science (and is a bit anti-scientific). Despite this, numerous attempts have been made to introduce Creationism into science classes. The current favored attempt is trying to insert “Intelligent Design” into the curriculum, despite the fact that there is no scientific evidence for it and that it proponents in the science community have been routinely shot down.
If Creationists simply lived their lives and stopped inserting their beliefs into science curricula, there would be less friction. If their chief proponents were more honest, there would be less disdain.
Well, as I said before, Jack Chick doesn’t speak for all creationists (no matter how hard he may try to convince you that he does). Claiming all creationists are “guilty of falsifying evidence” is like saying that all pro-lifers are murderers when one of us blows up a clinic, killing several doctors. There are extremists in every group (I’m sure there’s at least a few in the evolutionist camp as well). Don’t blame us all for the small minority who go about things the wrong way.
It’s kind of a kneejerk reaction, and is definately going to be seen when the subject is Jack Chick. The problem is that too much of “creationist thought” is backwards and intellectually dishonest. The data is bent to fit a predetermined conclusion rather than the theory being adapted to fit the observed data.
If creationist stuck to a kind of “last-thursdayism” (God created the universe last thursday complete with you, your memories, starlight in transit, dinosaur fossils, etc.) they would probably get more respect. The logic is at least internally consistent. However, too many walk the road of Jack Chick and try to disprove science with things such as “man couldn’t have evolved from apes because apes still exist”. This kind of willful misinterpretation can be agravating to biologists such as myself.
Faith and science need not be mutually exclusive, so this faction of creationists should stop trying to disprove science with horribly inept pseudo-science. Their faith should be enough for them.
You’re right; I did use too broad a brush there. However, I have yet to see a creationist resource that doesn’t do these things.
Just for the record, I am using language imprecisely here. I’m talking about young earth creationists who deny that any form of evolution can take place at the species level or above.
I’d like to take ultrafilter’s comments a step further. Can you find an honest creationist resource for us? Even one?
Wow, skeptical much? I’d be more than happy to try, but I’d like you to define your request a little further, as “honest creationist resource” is rather vague. I assume you’d like a website. What would make it honest? Will I end up having to defend what I find because you will disagree with the statements on it, thereby calling it dishonest? Please advise.
I can’t speak for Ben, but I’ll be more than happy if you can find a creationist resource which admits that creationism might be wrong.
Oh, and it has to be a site that’s advocating young earth, anti-macroevolution creationism. No critical comparisons.
I would also like to add that creationists can at times seem very arrogant. Remember, the vast majority of scientists who study these things consider evolution to be as well proven as the atomic theory, and the vanishingly small minority of life scientists who don’t (such as Gish or Behe) have proven themselves to be very dishonest and ignorant.
Creationists, then, are generally saying one of two things: either the evidence doesn’t matter to them, or they claim to understand the evidence far better than the experts- even though they generally have such a poor grasp of the science involved that they misunderstand even basic scientific concepts like “theory” or “entropy” or even “evolution.” My experience has been that this arrogance is very apparent in my online conversations with creationists. When I present my faq to creationists, only a few rare exceptions say, “This is very interesting, and I’ll have to study this matter further.” I get a lot of remarks like, “Sure, I can’t disprove your arguments, but that doesn’t prove anything.” And you’ll always get a creationist who feels like he personally has to be the showoff who shoots down the stumper questions, even when they know nothing whatsoever about the subject matter.
A case in point is the stumper question which concerns the physical arrangement of hemoglobin genes and pseudogenes along the length of the chromosome. The question makes it clear that I’m asking about the physical arrangement of human genes along the length of a human chromosome, and the FAQ explains in detail why this is significant. But without fail, creationists who try to answer that question- even ones who claim to have read the FAQ- will regurgitate the same completely irrelevant “rebuttal” about comparing human eta hemoglobin to ape eta hemoglobin. It’s clear that they don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, and, if you ask me, they’re just regurgitating the only argument they can find which has to do with the keywords “hemoglobin” and “pseudogene.” Is it too much to ask that they respond with, “Could you explain the question further?” Or- heaven forbid- “I can’t find anything wrong with your argument, and I’ll have to think about your point further.”
You’re darn right I’m skeptical. When I look at creationist “theories”, all I see are a bunch logically flawed attempts at debunking rigorous, documentable research.
honest: free from fraud or deception
I would like to see a creationist resource that actually tried to come up with some answers instead of hurling around logical fallacies with the intent of clouding (what I consider to be) legitimate scientific research.
I find comparing creationist arguments with O.J. Simpson’s defense to an apt analogy. In both cases, highly biased people grasp at straws to find alternative explanations for each piece of a mountain of evidence, however unlikely. And each piece of evidence is dealt with in isolation from the others, as if it were the only piece, when in fact they all reinforce each other and fit together to form a clear picture, even if a few pieces of the puzzle are still missing. We’re supposed to believe it’s just a coincidence that all the pieces fit together and match the picture on the box.
Chick’s redaction of atomic theory in his Big Daddy tract is nothing short of crackpot. First of all, he conflates “atom” with nucleus, despite offering an explanation for both. Gluons are not what hold the atom together, true. Electromagnetism is what keeps electrons and nuclei together. Gluons are tecnically not even what causes the positive nucleus to stick, as the force carriers for the strong force are pions. Gluons are the exchange particles that hold quarks together (sometimes called the color force.
Gluons are part of the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics. This theory is a formalized explanation for how quarks add up to make the baryons and mesons. To some extent it can be said that gluons are responsible for the strong nuclear force, but they also explain a lot more. They are force carriers for a force that is far stronger than the electromagnetic force. I am not surprised that Chick is uncomfortable with this theory as it isn’t as easy to see the effects of the strong and color forces as it is to see the effects of larger scale forces. Gravity, electromagnetism, and even, to some extent, the weak force are all easier to observe than the strong force. That doesn’t mean the strong force or gluons have never been observed or are a “made up dream”. In fact, it’s observed every time we look at nuclear material and quark interactions. Take this article, for example, which discusses the first observational evidence of quark/gluon plasma.
Chick then goes on to have his holy student insinuate by citing John that the thing that holds nuclei together is Jesus Christ. If Chick wants to call gluons “Jesus Christ”, I guess that’s okay with me. It’s kind of weird to think of Jesus Christ being a neutral force carrier that carries both color and anti-color, but if that’s what floats your theological boat, it is okay by me.
nitpick on my own post… while the strong force is a small-scale force, the color force does not tecnically drop off with distance.
Please understand my position. I have a PhD in a field which is very relevant to the CvE debate, and I’ve done a fair amount of studying of creationism. And, if you ask me, creation “science” is simply a fraud. No one who knows the real science involved could possibly say, in all honesty, that creation “science” is presenting anything resembling a scientific theory that can even remotely be reconciled with the evidence. So yes, I’m skeptical. I can’t help but be skeptical when I see that the pundits who create creation science (such as Hovind, Gish, Behe, etc.) are telling lies in order to further their cause.
A website would be good for purposes of this discussion, since it would probably be of a semi-manageable size, and would be accessible to all. By “honest” I mean what anyone means by honest: that it must make valid arguments based on true facts, rather than presenting fallacies or arguments based on untruths. (And again, by “valid” or “fallacy” I mean the formal definition, not “I don’t agree with their conclusion, so the argument is fallacious.”) Let me put it like this: find a YEC website which fits your definition of “honest.” Present it here, and we’ll start by finding five examples from your website of fallacious argumentation or false or misleading information. You and any other creationists who will join you can go to www.talkorigins.org and find five examples from there. Then we’ll compare. Does anyone here object to such a challenge?
Incidentally, I’d like to address your comments from the other thread, which is being hijacked by CvE issues. You’ve defended your belief in creationism by attacking, not evolution, but the issue of abiogenesis. Can you present any sound, rational reason for not believing in common descent?
Ben Could you give us a summary of your experiences at pizza palor? Did anyone give you good intelligent arguments?
I like the idea of a five-point challenge Ben (although I’m hardly qualified to take part in it myself); I think it would be advisable to take steps to prevent the debate being ruined by a pile-on; do you agree? and if so, what do you think can be done?
(I was thinking along the lines of the debate being chaired somehow, but that doesn’t seem terribly workable).
The fair thing to do would be to set up a separate website for the debate.
I’m afraid I can’t. If I understand the rules of the SDMB correctly, I’m not allowed to criticise the PP here, because that (understandably) might lead to a board war.
As it turns out, though, I recently took the creationists at the Parlor to task for their behavior, so rather than open that kind of discussion here, I can just direct you to the relevant discussion on the Parlor. I guess that thread is as good a summary as anything else, although bear in mind that it was shut down long before I could present my entire case:
http://thebruces.stormbirds.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=10463
Ultrafilter: I agree with the idea that a potential pile-on is a problem. But the problem is that we all know full well that creationist websites are a crock of pseudoscience, and Lord Ashtar isn’t convinced, and thinks we’re just slamming creationism because of people like Jack Chick. I’d be willing to let Lord Ashtar present a creationist website which he feels is honest, and then we can find five problems with it, and see if he’s convinced. I only brought up the idea of having him critique an evolutionist website because creationists tend to retreat into, “well, evolutionist websites are just as bad!”
Part of the problem is that Lord Ashtar is guaranteed to be outnumbered and outmatched. There are some creationists on the SDMB, but they generally only attack evolution when they first show up. After they realize that The Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter isn’t an invincible weapon after all, they decide that it’s no fun to discuss evolution anymore. Plus, evolutionists are in general more knowledgeable about CvE than creationists are. I challenged the folks on the PP to provide me with a “creationist talk.origins”: i.e. a discussion forum stocked with creationists with degrees in the relevant fields. They were resolutely unable to do so. So yes, there’s a chance of a pile-on, because Lord Ashtar won’t be able to go anywhere online and find creationists who know as much about evolution as the evolutionists here do- but that’s just the nature of the discussion. Lord Ashtar, I realize that you’re going to disagree with my analysis- but if you want to prove me wrong, go ahead and do so.