I'm thinking of writing an article on creationism, but I realised as I contemplated it that I don't really have a clue how to respond to one. Every time I see a creationist online, they're always making some improbable claim without any citation, and it seems, looking over alt.origins, that the claims and counterclaims could fill an encyclopedia. So, let's say I was setting down for an interview with a creationist. What rhetorts should I expect?

__________________
There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Well practiced debating techniques and a twist of semantics. Peter Ward went head to head one time and he says that he failed dramatically because of this.

__________________
(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"

A good place to start research is the Talk.Origins Archive, an extensive library of counter creationist material. Of course, much of it has to do with biology and the like. Still, there are sections which have quite a bit of astronomy related material. The Age of the Earth section includes several relavent entries, including:

• The Solar FAQ: Solar Neutrinos and Other Solar Oddities
• Debunking Robert Gentry's "New Redshift Interpretation" Cosmology
• Supernovae, Supernova Remnants and Young Earth Creationism FAQ
• Evidence for the Big Bang
• Determining Distances to Astronomical Objects

There are more, but you get the idea.

Creationists come in all varieties. Most of those we encounter on the web are quite ignorant of science, but utterly convinced they must be right. It is important to understand the depth of that conviction. Even if you prove conclusively to a creationist that they must be wrong, they will usually not change their mind. They will simply retreat into the conclusion that your proof is irrelevant, because they already know that you must be wrong. They have to believe that you must be wrong, because otherwise the entire edifice of their faith is shattered, and they will suffer anything before they give up on their faith. Debating creationists is certainly useless if your real goal is to change their mind. Debating creationists only makes sense if you are talking to the audience, or the lurkers who hang around here but don't post. And actually debating a creationist face to face requires refined debating skills, or you will look silly no matter how right you are.

__________________
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. -- Bertrand Russell

This is the crux of the problem.

__________________
(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"

I sometimes wonder if the lie of creationism gives them strength. The bigger the lie the more faith they feel they have.
Truth might set you free but maybe they don't want to be free; they like their rusty chains of illogic and paranoia.

I would question your reason? As the other comments suggest, logic and fact are irrelevant to creationalism. It is part of a belief system. Who are your target audience?

I think this view is uncharitable. It is not the size of the lie that is important to them, because, to them it is not a lie. It is a deeper truth, that non-believers cannot perceive. It is only by believing that you can see the truth, and with that comes a feeling of joy and contentment. All is right with the world. It is as HE wishes it to be.

The fact that it is untrue is only apparent to non-believers.

It is a bit difficult to talk about religion and science on a forum without pointing out opinions or even blaring flaws.

However, it is best to try to avoid pointing out the errors in an argument that is based on "faith."


Where a person stands today is not necessarily where they will stand tomorrow.
I have never seen a person change their mind on a big issue in a moment.
It is a slow and gradual process that happens through learning and increasing your understanding.

In regards to discussing any big issue:
Some will never change their minds and will reject any "information" that might give cause to them too. They simply don't want to.
Some will love to debate thinking it somehow builds their own righteousness.
Others will avoid the topic and prefer not to have confrontation.
A few will listen and honestly pursue the truth.

It is like that with most topics. But you can never change a persons mind. Only they can do that. They need to want to first and people rarely want to change their mind.

There is a failure here to distinguish between two kinds of creationist. One is the preachers and book-writers, the people who tell "their flock" what to think. The other is the audience.

The latter kind isn't necessairly as invested and dedicated as the former; they just pick up creationism by doing what any student does: "learning" from the people who tell them stuff. These are the ones that make debating creationsim non-hopeless; they can be taught real science just as they could be taught the flim-flam in the first place.

When discussing the issue for them (and the audience for a general-public article will include some of them), I think it's best to go after logic first and foremost, rather than the background facts, when given a creationist claim that involves both kind of problem (bad facts and bad logic). And that doesn't need to leave the fact unaddressed, either; for example: "That's not right, but even if it were, it wouldn't mean what they say it means, and here's why...". So every time you hear a creationist sentence, even if the wrong facts are what stands out the most to you, listen for the steps of logic they're asking their audience to take; the question to as yourself while listening to them then is "Even if it's true, what difference would it make?"

For example, if someone says that nobody's ever seen a new species evolve, the natural response of a lot of people is to start listing the cases in which it has been seen, but it would be more effective to point out that evolution doesn't require new species to be formed so quickly right in front of our eyes, and for that matter it would be a serious challenge AGAINST evolution if it DID happen too easily. This not only corrects a misconception about evolution which creationist arguments rely on, but also takes advantage of the fact that human minds tend to find new logical arguments more convincing than factual claims which contradict prior factual claims; it makes the listener more personally involved in figuring things out for himself/herself instead of passively acting as an information receptacle.

You are headed down a very tough road. Some creationists will go ATM and throw all kinds of wrenches into your "scientific" arguments.

One of my favorites is that Carbon dating is all wrong, and also circular reasoning for the age of Dinos and the layers they were found in. (They say that both work off each other.... This dino is this old because it was found in this layer, but they say that the layer is that old because they found this fossil in it.)

Creationism is wrong because God says so.

__________________
All moderations in purple.

You ain't nobody 'til you've been banned.

In reply to parallaxicality
From what I have read there are different flavours of creationism. From a religious standpoint there are “Young Earth Creationists” who from some ones literal reading of the bible have determined the world is approximately 8000 years old. It is interesting to note from a religious standpoint, that the bible was edited and has changed over time. Karen Armstrong’s series of books such as History of God provide a respectful history of the development of god and the different religions.

As there is no scientific evidence to support the young earth position those arguing that position use philosophical techniques such as introducing scepticism, how do you know what you know? There are a couple of scientific sounding arguments that I have seen to discount radioactive dating techniques.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism

I believe most of “creationism” is more concerned with specific issues such as did life including humans evolve? The second level of ‘creationism” seems to allow an older earth in which all life was simultaneously created. Humans living contemporary with dinosaurs.

The most advanced form of the “creationist” argument is intelligent design. In that case as there isn’t a complete scientific explanation as to how life began the intelligent design arguments are difficult to disprove. Also as there are many unanswered questions in fundamental physics, the intelligent design has been applied by both scientists and others.

Just to think of the depth of the problem, suppose for a moment that I make the following argument. The universe did not exist until a moment ago. It was just created out of thin air by some deity, with all the evidence planted. You can argue as much as you want, but there is really no way that you can prove that this conjecture is wrong.

The problem of course is that accepting that conjecture would mean that you could never look at the world as having any rules. The sun might go out tomorrow. So it is an utterly useless way of looking at the world. So I wonder if an good argument against a creationist is not that they are wrong, but rather that for our purposes, i.e. learning about the world to discover rules or principles, it is not a useful way of thinking about things. If some god can stop the earth in its tracks, then there is no need to study orbital mechanics or to try to figure out how gravity works.

__________________
As above, so below

Very good. Good working definition of maturing.

Depending upon the forum, I will sometimes point out to the creationist that either the devil or god was hard at work creating a false evolutionary & geological trail that is quite easy to follow, and asking them to surmise which host had it in for us.

__________________
jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

You can't reason someone out of having an irrational belief.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

The task of dialogue with creationists should be left to non-creationist believers (of whom there used to be many).

Writing of that might be a nice article in itself.

The "non-Creationsists" are still the majority, if you mean believers that believe in a Creator but accept mainstream science, including evolution. However, they typically consider themselves Creationists, in lieu of "non-creationists", but suffer the collateral damage from the rock throwers poorly aimed at YEC and other smaller anti-science sects.

Your statement nicely demonstrates that the definition for creationist, and creationism, is very muddy. Tim Thompson's reference of Talk Origins helps delineate most of the categories, but there are others, including believers who see a literal interpretation of Genesis concordant with science. These are the ones that need help from scientists regarding the plausibility of their views. For example, could a proto-planet be described as appearing "without form and void" to a 15th century BC, or earlier, observer?

The plausibility of a belief is critical to its health. Wisdom and knowledge can sometimes grow to allow for the removal of fog for specific elements of faith. If believers find any of these elements residing in the Land of Silly, these elements will inevitably be rejected. The direct observation of the phases of Venus put Geocentrism in downtown Silly. It took little time for Church scholars, and subsequently the Church leaders, to reject Ptolemy's Geocentrism once this objective evidence was discovered. It was clear that the theologan's interpretations of only a few minor verses were erroneous. Yet, considering the amount of fog involved prior to Galileo, it is understandable. [They adopted the Tychonian model instead, but when more fog lifted that changed, too. ]

We all tend to believe what we want to believe. We won't change until, somehow, the fog lifts and we find ourselves in Sillyville, or if we are very thirsty for spiritual drink. In the latter case, the fog in Sillyville [can be] controlled by a lunatic(s) for horribly selfish reasons. These are the wolves in lamb's clothing.

Ideas such as the idea that we were all made last Thursday make for effective hyperbole to illustrate the power of subjective views, which are often immune from scrutiny from the objective realm, but most people will see these ideas as not plausible to their reality -- views from Sillyville.

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The mean of five measures each of which is not worth a dang (sinc), has a maximum value of only five dangs (sinc)". Heber Curtis

"(sinc)" - spelling is not correct (in its orginal form) :)

Looks like George wrote the forward for you Para!

Sometimes you can. I used to be a young-earth creationist, but I'm not any longer, not by a long shot.

My transition came in several steps. First, I was shown that my belief in a young earth was incorrect due to reason and the scientific method while I was in college. I finally admitted that I was opposed to evolution for no other reason than because my teachers and parents had told me so. At that point I became an Old-earth creationist, believing that God created all life and that he used evolution as his primary tool.

That settled the issue for me for a while, although when I thought too much about it, it seemed disquieting. I couldn't understand why God would create a world that appears not to have been created. But I continued to have faith in the matter and looked forward to the day when I would "get smart enough" to understand it.

A decade later, I lost my faith in faith. I no longer see faith as a valid means of obtaining information. I only believe that which my reason tells me so, and I leave my mind open for new data.

So it's possible to reason someone out of an irrational belief, but in my case it took nearly fifteen years.

Note, if the religious tone of this post violates forum rules, pull it at once. I have no objection.

There is one critical factor you have to keep in mind:

Creationists, by and large, do not give a rat's *** in hell about scientific inquiry, evidence, or even objective reality.

They simply do not care.

They have a predetermined conclusion, and there are no depths of outright dishonesty that they will not sink to in order to continue undermining anything that runs contradictory to said conclusion.

In short, creationists lie often, they lie consistently, and they lie 10 times more fervently when you call them on it.

It's just the nature of the beast. You can cite the mountains of clear, direct, and compelling evidence until the cows come home. They simply do not care. For the most part, they are pathologically incapable of perceiving a world in which life, the universe, and everything is not the special creation of whichever omnipotent supernatural entity they subscribe to.

This is because they know their audience. Creationism is appealing to people because it's an easy answer. You don't have to tackle loads of complicated scientific data from numerous disciplines in order to understand creationism. It's an appeal to magic, and that's all most people require.

To put it lightly, people normally aren't swayed by evidence. If you make something sound scientific enough, the layman typically isn't going to give it a second thought. The ideological lost causes at the Discovery Institute know this, and they exploit it well.

The key is to establish the inherent beauty in nature as it is. If you can portray the innate complexity of our surroundings by highlighting the actual mechanisms behind them (i.e. not magic), then some people eventually see that just because something doesn't have a grandiose, ego-driven, supernatural explanation, that doesn't mean it isn't special or wondrous.

People need to recognize that nature in and of itself is incredibly fascinating and humbling without spurious and superficial references to cultural deities. That's the key to making them respect science.

This is why I said you have to lob the ball into their court: If you really want to argue, find out why they think there is so much bogus and evil evidence: Who is missleading the world's scientists? Whatever their reasoning, it is easy to point out that their private conclusion that the genetic, evolutionary, geological and astrophysical evidence is contrived; is based upon their personal theory about the nature of god.

Professor Mayhem is correct: If they will not make this concession, and only pontificate when you ask them to rationalize their belief structure; there is no point in further argument. But I suspect many of us have similar experiences to those of jamesabrown - way to go!

__________________
jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

I just don't associate with them

__________________
Joe Bartoszek

__________________
jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamesabrown My transition came in several steps. First, I was shown that my belief in a young earth was incorrect due to reason and the scientific method while I was in college. I finally admitted that I was opposed to evolution for no other reason than because my teachers and parents had told me so. At that point I became an Old-earth creationist, believing that God created all life and that he used evolution as his primary tool.

Yes, your willingness to learn allowed college to educate you and "lift the fog".

Thanks for sharing and I see no rule violation by doing so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prof Mayhem Creationists, by and large, do not give a rat's *** in hell about scientific inquiry, evidence, or even objective reality. They simply do not care.

Yes, as long as they don't look silly from their point of view. AIG and others present superficial and misleading explanations that allow the fog to remain.

Quote:

They have a predetermined conclusion, and their are no depths of outright dishonesty that they will not sink to in order to continue undermining anything that runs contradictory to said conclusion. In short, creationists lie often, they lie consistently, and they lie 10 times more fervently when you call them on it.

I suspect this is true for a few of them, but the YEC friends I have believe they honestly have a truthful view of creation and, therefore, are not spreading lies, but errors. A lie requires an intent to deceive, [but] most "creationists" do not have this intent; they believe they are telling you the truth. Most scientists know the definition of a lie and it troubles me when they ignore it for apparent vilification purposes.

The heart of the problem is the interpretation of scripture. Creationists believe that the Bible is the "word of God". This is a belief that is unshakeable and science can not trump it. It never will. However, science can produce enough evidence to allow enlightenment as to the true context necessary for a proper interpretation. The Galileo example is a famous one, of course. Eventually, this is what will happen. I'd gladly bet an ice cream on it, if I live so long.

__________________
Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The mean of five measures each of which is not worth a dang (sinc), has a maximum value of only five dangs (sinc)". Heber Curtis

"(sinc)" - spelling is not correct (in its orginal form) :)

Faith alone is not a bad thing.

If it weren't for faith none of our good science would have been tested.

Who would have risked thier lives to fly the first planes without faith?

Who would have eaten the first mushroom without faith?

Faith has a place in science, but it is what forwards the science, not the other way around.

If you are interviewing/debating with them, you must use the hammer-and-anvil approach, similar to the Socratic Method. Bold is neccesary, all else is optional. First, slouch to appear small, make Bambi eyes, use a squeaky-soft voice and, above all, appear like an innocent little six-year-old. Act ignorant about their argument and have them explain. That's setting up the anvil.
When they're into the talking points, hit them with the hammer- return to your regular voice and behavior and slam down the facts.
Selectively playing dumb will get you everywhere.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

An issue here is a clash of values, resulting in communication failure. Scientists value truth, whereas for creationists, and all fundamentalists, the central value is the moral cohesion of their community. The key for them is that the Bible provides moral certainty, creating a world view in which children can be protected and raised with strong values. Creationists see their worldview as a tapestry for which the unravelling of one thread will rapidly unweave the whole. To them, science is just a stalking horse for a liberal value-free agenda which promotes critical thinking that subverts community standards. Hence the truth of scientific claims is irrelevant to them, because the creationist ideas are only designed as a defence for a moral community, a way of holding the moral framework together, with the main 'Bible-based' ideas being in the New Testament, not the Old. Genesis is therefore primarily a defence of Saint Paul, not a scientific theory. I personally reject all fundamentalism in favour of critical thought, but see that creationists are often loving, successful and rich, demonstrating that their beliefs are somehow adaptive. Rather than mocking them as stupid, I think it is important for scientists to recognise the social function of creationism instead of approaching it through an epistemic lens. Expecting them to care about scientific truth fails to see the moral agenda which drives their beliefs.

For money, I hope.
From a "serious" one - an encyclopaedia-full. You could rebut one false statement. You won't have time to rebut a hundred.

It's my impression that leading creationists know enough science to understand that all of these arguments are bunk, but that isn't the point. The point is to shout down by plurality the real science arguments, some of which are truly tentative anyway, the best of which still retain the name of "theory" (just in case). The justification:
(1) they "know" the truth even if they cannot find evidence to prove it and/or
(2) they make a nice living by doing this.

The rank-and-file believer probably has fewer rhetorical darts in their arsenal, and under pressure is likely to retreat. A fruitful meeting of minds may come of not making a fight of it, not setting out directly to attempt to overthrow their religious faith by argument.

There's also again the question of "why" take the trouble yourself. Socrates, already mentioned, and the subject of this podcast BBC radio programme > http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...20070927.shtml , argued that immorality is caused by ignorance, and this is ignorance. On the other hand, he wasn't very interested in cosmology. I suppose he was underwhelmed by state of the art.

One point I would make is to not make the mistake of assuming that all the creationists you're adressing believe in the Bible and are Christian - the majority of creationists I meet are of other faiths or none at all. The other day an atheist friend of mine told me she no longer believed in evolution, and that humans came about some other way. Why did she think this? She watched some online documentary full of misused facts and misconceptions about evolution. These are the sort of things keeping the argument going.
As other posters have said there are many different kinds of "creationist." Many will stick to "faith" no matter what they hear and others are more open. I'm a theist and seem to have more success talking about science to other theists, presumably because they know I'm not attempting to bash their entire belief system, just an unnecessary part of it.

__________________
"Do you consider your position so weak that it cannot withstand debate?" ~ Lieutenant Commander Data

"I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." ~ Galileo Galilei

I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery. ~ Huxley

The real problem is the word "Theory"

In science we use the word as a title for a group of tested facts and proven ideas.

A creationist will try to throw that word in your face bysaying that if it is only a "theory", then it is no more true than their ideas.

But Einstien's theory of general reletivity has been tested and proven over and over and over to be TRUE. It is a true theory.

Newton's theory of gravity proves to be true over and over again... you will never ever ...last year, tomorrow or a hundred thousand years from now....fall "up".

Semantics ....using the same word to mean different things seems to be the real crux of the problem.

Heck.. How long have we been using the term "Big BANG" instead of Big Expansion? And still we use it, which misleads non-science-minded people to think of it as an explosion rather than growing in EVERY direction.