Arguing with Creationists...

[bonalste]

simple way to make them uncomfortable (but never to win, there is no winning) is to point out how far away some other stars are, ask them if they agree, then point out that the light from them couldn't have reached us if everything was six thousand years old.

Like I said, you won't win, but it'll be slightly satisfying watching them backtrack if they fall for it.

That said, I lost an argument with a creationist while showing him a fossil when I was a teenager. He just said it was a rock, insisted in fact, so I just walked away. You can't fix stupid.

God said, "Let there be light", not "let there be stars and for the light from those stars eventually reach us after thousands, millions, billions of years". Obviously, being all-powerful as he is, when he created the stars he also created the stream/wave of photons from those stars to the Earth, so that we could gaze upon their beauty. Let me ask you this: why do we find stars beautiful? That has no purpose with "evolution". God created the stars so that we would find comfort in them at night.

Seriously that's a very easy one for the creationist to dismiss. You'll need to think of something stronger to get him riled. Ask him about the necessity of evil, pain and suffering being out of line with Gods supposed all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving nature.

[bonalste]

Said that after 200 years it is still only a theory

Strictly speaking this is true. That's how science works.

I could wish I had a theory. The most I've had are hypothesis, and one of those I disproved myself (slightly worrying at the time, since it was the reason for my Ph.D funding )

Their issue is mistaking theory for hypothesis. They don't even have those, since I hypothesis must be falsifiable.

Nonone has seen evolution.

No longer true. It has definatelly been observed in Moths in the last century, and I beleive there was a more recent observation too, not sure what it was, because it's early and I want porridge more than net research.

It was guppies, I believe.

[mrbadger]

Seriously that's a very easy one for the creationist to dismiss. You'll need to think of something stronger to get him riled. Ask him about the necessity of evil, pain and suffering being out of line with Gods supposed all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving nature.

Dismissing that would make me walk away anyway.

your point wouldn't work either, because god only does that to bad people, or only people he selected to suffer as a test, or some such other garbage reason. Tried it, doesn't work, because 'love' doesn't mean the same thing as always keep from harm.

[bonalste]

Seriously that's a very easy one for the creationist to dismiss. You'll need to think of something stronger to get him riled. Ask him about the necessity of evil, pain and suffering being out of line with Gods supposed all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving nature.

Dismissing that would make me walk away anyway.

your point wouldn't work either, because god only does that to bad people, or only people he selected to suffer as a test, or some such other garbage reason. Tried it, doesn't work, because 'love' doesn't mean the same thing as always keep from harm.

I could never understand how people didn't find that a winning argument. I used to be religious, believe in God, but it was that argument, plus a (false) terminal diagnosis from an incompetent doctor, that steered me to actually engage my brain. And when I say argument, it wasn't someone argued to me, it wasn't something I'd even heard of before. It occurred to me of my own accord and none of the arguments against it hold weight when you're talking about a God that is omniscient and omnipotent.

God doesn't want to stop pain? He isn't all loving
God can't stop pain while still allowing free will and punishment and tests? He isn't all powerful
God doesn't know how to do the above? He isn't all-knowing.

Whatever the excuses they put forward for God's apparent indifference to suffering, what they believe in is most assuredly not an omniscient, omnipotent and all-loving God, which means they don't believe in the God of the bible. In fact, the bible appears to have multiple Gods who fulfil multiple roles. May as well be the Roman or Greek gods for all the multiple personalities he seems to have.

It seems some people do genuinely struggle using their heads when it comes to religion.

[X2-Illuminatus]

I think this rather shows that people don't understand the concept of religion.

You cannot disprove the faith in God! You can disprove a theory, you can disprove an illogical line of thought and you may be able to convince someone that what he thought is God or is a result of God's actions or decisions actually follows scientific rules or can (easily) be explained by other means than faith. However, you will never be able to disprove something, which cannot be (dis)proved, and that is what religion is.

[Bishop149]

Ok, just for fun let's answer these in turn.

Violates a scientific principle because no none was there to see supposed evolution

No idea what they are on about, the most basic principle of science is "Ideas are tested by experiment" so I assume they are implying that no experiment was / can be done (see point 2). There is no "principle" restricting on where the ideas to be tested can come from, observations of the present to reconstruct the past is fine, so is a drug fueled hallucination . . . . the science is in the testing.

Nonone has seen evolution.

- Patently not true, experimental evolution is totes a thing. All you need is an organism with a rapid generation time, if its sexual all the better. . . . . yeast basically.
There is an interesting question here: "Given the exact same start conditions if we could re-run evolution, would the outcome be the same?"
Causes big arguments that one, people come down strongly on both sides

Wings could not have evolved.

- Of course they could. . . . . they are modified limbs so to argue this you'd have to also argue that limbs "could not have evolved". Its also not hard to come up with hypothetical intermediate stages prior to powered flight, gliding as escape mechanism, stabilisation / balance etc etc

The eye is another favorite here. . . . too complex etc etc
Unless they mean could not have evolved in 8000 years (which is how old the universe is according to them) . . . . in that they'd probably be correct.

Claims that geneticists don't believe in evolution

- You can find examples within any subgroup that believes almost anything

Said that after 200 years it is still only a theory

- Basic misunderstanding of the word "theory"


I think most people who stuggle with the intellectual validity of evolution are essentially failing to grasp deep time, most people (including myself) find it extremely hard to grasp quite how LONG even 1 million years is.

[vukica]

I think this rather shows that people don't understand the concept of religion.

You cannot disprove the faith in God! You can disprove a theory, you can disprove an illogical line of thought and you may be able to convince someone that what he thought is God or is a result of God's actions or decisions actually follows scientific rules or can (easily) be explained by other means than faith. However, you will never be able to disprove something, which cannot be (dis)proved, and that is what religion is.

you can't disprove star wars either.
who says that didn't happen a long time ago i na galaxy far away?

i don't really know how i feel about religious people. i guess it's a sort of escapism.

but i do know how i feel about creationists. fear, disbelief and dread. a little sadness.

[Bishop149]

you can't disprove star wars either.
who says that didn't happen a long time ago i na galaxy far away?

i don't really know how i feel about religious people. i guess it's a sort of escapism.

You usually can't prove a negative fullstop.

Although in the case of some things (God among them) the evidence is overwhelmingly one sided that it's about as close as it's possible to get.

The only decent argument I've ever heard regarding the supposed "inability to disprove God" is that if God's existence had essentially had absolutely no measurable effect on anything ever. . . . . . in which case what would be the point in him/her/it.

Many things are claimed about God by the faithful, one almost universal is that there is some line of (2 or 1 way) communication between them and God . . . . . something that absolutely should be testable / detectable if it exists in any form.

[Rive]

Arguing with Creationists... is like ZuZu P. on steroids.

Never, ever seen any such debate which could be considered a worthy experiment

[linolafett]

Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory

[Graaf]

God said, "Let there be light"

Day 1

when he created the stars

Day 4

Some funky science there.

[RegisterMe]

http://www.economist.com/news/science-a ... tists-eyes

[Bishop149]

http://www.economist.com/news/science-a ... tists-eyes

To be strictly biological for a minute this is not a new species.

The most widely agreed upon definition of a species (at least for sexually reproducing creatures) is: A group of living organisms consisting of individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding to produce viable, fertile offspring.

Different species in general can not produce viable offspring with each other. Some closely related species such as Lions and tigers can interbreed but their offspring whilst viable are sterile.

Wolves, dogs and coyotes can all interbreed to produce viable, fertile offspring. By the biological definition they are therefore one species. This definition arose in the first place due to the habits of taxonomists to define species purely by differences in appearance . . . . . appearances can be very deceptive, it is not therefore a very good way of strictly defining things. The (much abused) term sub-species is usually now used to make such distinctions if they insist upon being made.

There are still arguments about this, one of which is that it doesn't matter if two sub-species are ABLE to produce fertile offspring if in the natural situation they just DON'T. There are relatively few examples of such 100% behavioral reproductive isolation however. In most cases whilst a sub-species might display a strong mate preference for it's own kind, in the absence of any other choice they will happily breed with other sub-species. This article is basically an example of that.

[LV]

AARDVARK to BASEBALL

[RegisterMe]

Stuff

Interesting, thanks Bishop.

[UniTrader]

just want to leave one story here:

Nonone has seen evolution.

- Patently not true, experimental evolution is totes a thing. All you need is an organism with a rapid generation time, if its sexual all the better. . . . . yeast basically.
There is an interesting question here: "Given the exact same start conditions if we could re-run evolution, would the outcome be the same?"
Causes big arguments that one, people come down strongly on both sides[/quote]
to see evolution at work you dont even need living things.. a FPGA and a Programm testing Circuits on it for certain criteria is enough, see this Story:
http://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-o ... -circuits/

and gone from here again - i dont like making lengthy comments ^^

[red assassin]

The usual "nobody has seen evolution" argument is that there is "micro" evolution, which is (depending on who you ask) minor adaptations through to diverging species, and which obviously exists because we can observe it in a lab, and "macro" evolution which is (again depending on who you ask) diverging species through to diverging classes. So they might say that, for example, God created birds, but the proliferation of species we see is micro evolution, and obviously birds couldn't have evolved from single-celled organisms, or whatever.

No, this doesn't make much sense.

[Timsup2nothin]

As usual, the conversation turns to self congratulatory explorations of the complexities of the currently most popular creation myth, as if it did not rely just as heavily upon acceptance of its basic axioms.

[Nanook]

As usual, the conversation turns to self congratulatory explorations of the complexities of the currently most popular creation myth...

Which is....?

[Timsup2nothin]

As usual, the conversation turns to self congratulatory explorations of the complexities of the currently most popular creation myth...

Which is....?

Big bang, natural selection through random events, objective universe is totality, etc. While it offers tremendous complexity it does track back to axioms that you either accept or you don't, and eventually it will almost certainly be mocked by believers in a newer and shinier creation myth.