Essay talk:Debating creationists

I'm surprised this title wasn't taken a long time ago. 04:04, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, me too. It's amazing how much Philip can just write crap that makes you wonder.  Sterile 01:13, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have always found the ad hoc nature of their arguments the hardest to deal with. Take for example the speed of light. Now to anyone how has studied thermodynamics in depth would know that the second law of thermodynamics is reliant on the speed of light remaining constant. They would also know that certain corrections are needed when dealing with chemicals, that is they are not perfect elastic collisions between ideal gases, but rather collisions that can damage the molecule along with a chemical potential for these collisions occurring. Creationist will insist that ideal gas version of the 2nd LOT holds and quote some ungodly small probability of large molecules forming, all the while saying that the speed of light is changing and that is why the universe is only 6,000 years old. However both can't be true simultaneously. 01:28, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Some other things: The overuse of analogies. I mean, they can be useful, but there are clearly limits.  Yet it seems that Philip can't go for 2 minutes without using one. And then it's the "is it relevant?" game.  And, the utter lack of data.  Like real data.  I mean, it's there.  Sterile 23:47, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You all know that despite his polite exterior, his only real argument is GODDITIT and he's probably ecstatic that we will all end up at my place for drinks in Hell. Phallus of Satan 23:57, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sterile, good point about the analogies, I got so sick of them I forgot to really cover them. By the way, although the only "concrete" examples naming names are about PJR, this is about more than just Phil.  There's our resident IDist, too.  00:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps part of the problem is that debates tend to be too broad, and the arguments on both sides too long. It's easy for a creationist to only answer part of an extended argument, or change the focus, or some such deflecting technique. If someone started a debate about some single important detail, it would be interesting to see if that could be cleared up in a few pithy responses. Or maybe I'm just naive. --seventhrib 12:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but of course the underlying truth is that science is not decided by "debate". Debates are more like verbal sport, where the person/side best prepared to throw the other side off or make them look briefly silly "wins".  Doesn't mean they are right.  The clearest way to see this is that debate teams at schools argue whichever side of a question they are assigned, and winning is a purely rhetorical exercise, not a matter of determining the correct answer.  Now, it does appear that at times "debate" is used to get to the root of a matter, but it only works if all information available is unearthed and considered, and the process is necessarily open-ended.  In reality it is less a "debate" than an open discussion between the experts in a field as they narrow the possibilities (and come up with new ones).  18:53, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Certainly that's true of public debates, where the debaters are speaking more to the audience than to each other. But in general, they should of course be open-ended and ideally one or both parties should go away with a different opinion than the one they had going in. If that's rarely the reality (which it is) that's because of human failings rather than the nature of debate. It would be depressing if all the discussion at aSK and over here was ultimately just pointless dick-waving. --seventhrib 09:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI Sagan's chapter "The Wind Makes Dust" seems relavent here, part of which is in Google books (chapter 18). Although this seems to be one of his more meandering chapters.  Sterile 03:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "Debates" are structured events. I prefer to use the word "discussion" for ongoing work on figuring stuff out.  01:35, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

philo...
which is a hard slog, since it is philosophy, the most notoriously hard to read material ever produced by humankind Rolls on the floor laughing and laughing and laughing till a tear fell from my eye, hit the floor, sunk dramatically into the carpet, only to be sipped by silly carpet mites. You've had your share of Hume, Spinoza and Sarte, i see. -- 01:09, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Hehe, more than enough sometimes... 01:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)