Anti-Creationists and Faulty Worldviews Part 1
by Cowboy Bob Sorensen
Things were surprisingly quiet at The Question Evolution Project over Christmas. But New Year's Day and afterward, some owlhoots from the Darwin Ranch rode over, full of beans and ready to slap leather. (From the quality of their comments, they had too much firewater during their celebrations and weren't ready to deal with polite society yet.) Fortunately, their comments were helpful resources for writing this article, and I saved a heap of screenshots.
One of these troublemakers had a wagon load of assertions based on his presuppositions, but was jawing about nothing rooted in fact. I'll omit his insistence on using the irrational, disingenuous redefinition of atheism as "lack of belief" and stick with the evolutionism comments:
"To state otherwise is illogical". An attempt at intimidation for people who would disagree with him.
Peer review? Yeah, sure. I told him, "Peer review has been shown to be a massive failure in the "good ol' boys club", with numerous recalled papers (including some that have passed that were entirely computer generated). You'd better start examining the actual evidence instead of arguing from your fundamentally flawed presuppositions." Secular peer review is agenda driven, and has serious problems, see "Sacred Cows and Herd Mentality".
After another comment containing a link to the real definition of atheism, he came back with another series of erroneous assertions:
He came back later with some other fool's gold, including this:
Moving on to another:
Here is someone else unclear on the concept:
Interestingly, none of those in the Darwin Ranch troll invasion resorted to reflexively saying, "You're a liar!" whenever someone disagreed with them, or showed when it was stated that Bill Nye the Propaganda Guy is deceptive. Some people resort to emotional manipulations (such as calling someone a liar) instead of realizing that people have differing interpretations of evidence. But I digress.
What we have here is far too common among anti-creationists. They want to challenge us, but disunderstand the philosophy and methodology of science, have blind faith that evolution is true (but do not understand it), have no grasp of logic, plus lots of emotion and enthusiasm to disseminate their propaganda.
They also show not only ignorance of what creationists believe, but unwillingness to learn what it is. Dr. James White recently commented on The Dividing Line that when people want to enter into debates, they should do their research and understand the other side's position. Interestingly enough, vehement misotheist Bill Maher did his homework on differences between Christianity and Islam, and wouldn't let Charlie Rose get away with prejudicial conjecture. That's a notable exception to the way other misotheists and anti-creationists act.
Although some of these people claim that we are "debating" which is inaccurate, having a serious discussion and disagreement with someone else should entail learning how to accurately understand and present their position, and show respect for them as people. Creationists need to remember that anti-creationists and atheists are lost sinners in need of repentance, but are still created in the image of God.
This is fun, but we've all got other things to do. However, if you've a mind to read it, Part 2 is here.
Things were surprisingly quiet at The Question Evolution Project over Christmas. But New Year's Day and afterward, some owlhoots from the Darwin Ranch rode over, full of beans and ready to slap leather. (From the quality of their comments, they had too much firewater during their celebrations and weren't ready to deal with polite society yet.) Fortunately, their comments were helpful resources for writing this article, and I saved a heap of screenshots.
One of these troublemakers had a wagon load of assertions based on his presuppositions, but was jawing about nothing rooted in fact. I'll omit his insistence on using the irrational, disingenuous redefinition of atheism as "lack of belief" and stick with the evolutionism comments:
Evolution is directly predicated on the scientific method. To state otherwise is illogical. It requires peer review and falsifiable evidence, like all scientific disciplines.It's directly predicated on the scientific method? No, evolutionism is an ancient religion, and people who believe in philosophical and methodological naturalism latch onto it as an explanation of origins for people who want to justify their rejection of God the Creator. Also, the "scientific method" is a process or tool for interpreting evidence — depending on which "scientific method" is chosen.
"To state otherwise is illogical". An attempt at intimidation for people who would disagree with him.
Peer review? Yeah, sure. I told him, "Peer review has been shown to be a massive failure in the "good ol' boys club", with numerous recalled papers (including some that have passed that were entirely computer generated). You'd better start examining the actual evidence instead of arguing from your fundamentally flawed presuppositions." Secular peer review is agenda driven, and has serious problems, see "Sacred Cows and Herd Mentality".
After another comment containing a link to the real definition of atheism, he came back with another series of erroneous assertions:
Conspiracy theory is irrelevant. Evolution is directly predicated on the scientific method. It isn't a belief system. That's like stating that gravity is a belief a system. No belief in deities is not a redefinition. Atheism is inherently that, no belief in deities. Evolution has nothing to do with belief. Belief is irrelevant to the evolutionary theory. Being religious or nonreligious doesn't affect evolution whatsoever.I don't recollect why he was talking about conspiracy theories. His insistence that evolution has nothing to do with belief is absurd, since everyone has a worldview by which they interpret evidence (see "Who is REALLY at War with Science, Creationists or Darwinists?") Richard Lewontin and George Wald are two of several scientists who admit that they have a commitment to naturalism, which means that they will not consider that the evidence points to God.
He came back later with some other fool's gold, including this:
Let's try this slowly. Evolution has nil to do with a belief system. Unless you disregard peer-review as a necessity of the scientific method, then you're not concerned with scientific evidence, you're concerned with your belief system being "true", to the exclusion of evidence otherwise.Can'tcha just hear the sneer? He stays with his affirmations, and elevates peer review to a magisterial level, demonstrating his blind faith in secular science and his ignorance of the problems that scientists admit exist in the peer review process. Then we see a straw man argument and an appeal to motive fallacy, wrapped up in a subtle ad hominem attack.
Moving on to another:
I won't be goaded into a debate with a brick wall. I'll leave with this: if there are 100 scientists in a room and 99 of them agree on something then that is a scientific consensus. If you then take the one scientist who disagrees on the subject and put him in a debate against another single scientist then you create the appearance of a "controversy". To the ignorant observer it would appear as though both arguments where equally validated 50/50. This is why a serious scientist debating a creationist is dangerous. By taking on the debate it adds credibility to baseless claims and furthers the myth of controversy. I'll not respond to this any further for the same reasons. You seem slightly desperate and unhinged. Also possibly very young although I can't be certain. Good luck to you and your mission here. While you may gets some pats on the back from your immediate community, over time you will be increasingly marginalized by society at large as a fool. Perhaps you can then play it off as being a martyr for your beliefs? Who knows. In the meantime keep up the good work on this and your Bigfoot websites. Good day to you.Amazing. He beings with the insult that someone commenting is a "brick wall", and then proceeds to make a lengthy comment anyway. Makes perfect sense. Actually, none of it make sense. He appeals to consensus, which is ridiculous because scientific truth is not decided by majority rule; asserting consensus is a faulty appeal to authority as well. Scientific consensus has been wrong before, and will be wrong again. He is very sneaky, using loaded terminology, ad hominems (by the way, those are required in the Atheist Handbook™), bifurcation ("to the ignorant observer", implying that intelligent observers will agree with him), appeal to motive, appeal to ridicule, genetic fallacy, prejudicial conjecture, and more. Good thing he is not in a position of authority in a scientific institution, as science needs challenge, not protection through misrepresentation and ridicule of contrary viewpoints.
Here is someone else unclear on the concept:
Excellent thesis and data collection but lousy application ( attempting to apply it to evolution) small scale evolution has been observed and repeated, for an example: go out for a box of kfc. A typical chicken takes 6 months to reach full size. In 1900 there was little variation from that. Broiler chickens have been specifically bred to mature in only 9 weeks. Yes we humans were the motivation for this change but this is still a massive and observable change in the chickens biology. Another example is the aquarium trade. Many if not most of the fish at your petstore come from a wild version that is much more plainly colored. We have directed their evolution aka selective breeding, to produce what we want. Anyone who can look at all of the mounting evidence and just blow it off in favor of an invisible man IS in fact a science denier.Analyzing this one is actually trickier than it looks. He decided to throw down and start shooting, but at the wrong target. He's talking about variations and a little about speciation (creationists agree that speciation happens), and then committing equivocation; we see variations, so fungus-to-fishmonger evolution must be true. Not hardly! The stuff he's carping about is really a red herring stuffed in equivocation and mounted on the wall as incontrovertible fact.
Interestingly, none of those in the Darwin Ranch troll invasion resorted to reflexively saying, "You're a liar!" whenever someone disagreed with them, or showed when it was stated that Bill Nye the Propaganda Guy is deceptive. Some people resort to emotional manipulations (such as calling someone a liar) instead of realizing that people have differing interpretations of evidence. But I digress.
What we have here is far too common among anti-creationists. They want to challenge us, but disunderstand the philosophy and methodology of science, have blind faith that evolution is true (but do not understand it), have no grasp of logic, plus lots of emotion and enthusiasm to disseminate their propaganda.
They also show not only ignorance of what creationists believe, but unwillingness to learn what it is. Dr. James White recently commented on The Dividing Line that when people want to enter into debates, they should do their research and understand the other side's position. Interestingly enough, vehement misotheist Bill Maher did his homework on differences between Christianity and Islam, and wouldn't let Charlie Rose get away with prejudicial conjecture. That's a notable exception to the way other misotheists and anti-creationists act.
Although some of these people claim that we are "debating" which is inaccurate, having a serious discussion and disagreement with someone else should entail learning how to accurately understand and present their position, and show respect for them as people. Creationists need to remember that anti-creationists and atheists are lost sinners in need of repentance, but are still created in the image of God.