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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 11/08/2005 : 21:02:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
What exactly do you guys mean by nothing? Nothing other than what I have found?
All I can say is that when I went a-Googlin', using various forms of the guy's first and (very) last names, along with "evolution" or "creation" or other talking points, I found zilch unless I felt like trying to slog through thousands of results.
Since you also seem to have found nothing related to his creationism, Ricky, so I'm going to agree with astropin that he's pretty new to the scene. Doesn't mean he doesn't know how to "answer" questions from skeptics, but I think Siberia is right in that he could use a thorough trouncing, if possible.
Ask him why he's involved with the chemistry department if he's so anti-science that he thinks the majority of scientistists are wrong in their ideas about the universe? When he tells you that he's planning on being part of a scientific revolution from the "inside," ask him why he's handing over his (or his parents') money to people he knows are going to teach him the "wrong" things? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/18/2005 : 10:51:20 [Permalink]
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| So, Ricky, how'd it go? |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2005 : 17:32:44 [Permalink]
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The room was fairly large. It would probably seat around 100 people although there were only about 30 people there. I got there about 15 minutes early at 6:15. At this time, there was basically no one there, two or three people in the back rows, and then about 10 in the front left, which I assumed to be Josh Goodhart's family and friends. I also noticed my professor, the one who I got the email from about this, but I'm sure she didn't remember me. This may be because I dropped her class, History of Science, about 2 weeks into the semester.
Well, anyways, it started up about 10 minutes late because they had to switch rooms at the last minute and they wanted to allow time for people to show up. My best guess from Josh's expressions is that he expected a larger crowd, and was hoping for more people to come.
During this time, I was reading through, "Comparing Creation and Evolution," by Kevin Anderson, Ph.D, which was sitting at the entrace of the room in a large pile. The link I believe is a more up to date version. Most of it is the same, except there are only 16 points instead of 21 on mine, and it says, "by Kevin Anderson," instead of, "edited by Paul H. Humber." He is actually a Ph.D. of microbiology.
There was also a list titled, "Links to Creationist Resources," which of course had to have a section called, "How to Become a Christian." But this will come back later. The interesting thing to note is that the first two sites are AiG and drdino.com, Hovind's site. AiG published a list of arguments creationists shouldn't use, some of which Hovind has used.
By the time I was done reading through these, the presentation was ready to start. The first thing he addressed was that he believes in the literal truth of the Bible. He also said that he did not want to get Creationism in school, he just wanted the lies out of the books. He did this of course, so that he wouldn't have to answer any questions about Creationism later on. He wasn't trying to present Creationism, only criticize evolution. Of course, the title of the presentation was Scientific Creationism vs. Evolution.
He started off by listing Creationists and IDers who were fired for holding their values. I have roughly 1/2 of their names and I wanted to find more information about them to see if this was entirely accurate. The list I have:
Robert Dehart
William Demski
Forest Mills
Den Kenyon
Then he went into what I like to call "Hovind mode." Misquotes, false assumptions, modified definitions, horrible logic, false analogies, and the like. Not only this, but about 2/3rds of it I actually recognized as being Hovind's material. I'd be willing to bet that the other 1/3rd was from AiG, but I haven't spent too much time at that site. Evolution includes cosmic and chemical evolution, Haeckel's Embryos, no mutations are beneficial and add information, horse and dog "kind", scientific method was invented by a creationist, evolution fuels racism, evolution justifies abortion, whale pelvis, python hip bone, natural selection doesn't cause evolution, Darwin's eye quote, flagella are irreducibly complex, "What good is 5% of a wing," Urrey Miller experiment, ad infinitum.
There were some new things however, at least new to me. Talking about dog "kind", he said, "Wolves are big and strong so it has more genes, and the chiwawa is weak so it has less, and is therefore less complex." That one made me snicker. When talking about horse evolution, he said that the horse kinds had 18, 15, 19, and 18 ribs, in historical order, and this was to show that information was not increasing in a regular manner. I hope he doesn't expect horses, let alone humans, to have 100 ribs if evolution was true. He attempted to call evolution unfalsifiable, and introduced Karl Popper, which was the first time I ever heard a Creationist referencing him.
To end everything, he had slides saying, "Where will you go when you die?" He announced that a friend of his would meet everyone in the back who wanted to be saved and repent (from evolution was implied, but not said). I smiled as I watched no one follow him. It was at this time that I noticed three people sitting behind me wearing head bands that said, "Evolution." There was a quick 5 minute break, and then the fun Q/A section began.
The first woman, who I later learned to be a professor at Virginia Tech, said that she believed he was idolizing the Bible. She said that it was men, not God, who wrote the Bible and by treating it as infallible, he was committing a sin. He responded by just stating that he believed in the literal truth of the Bible. She went to make her point again as it was obvious he didn't understand it, and after a while, he cut her off by saying "This isn't about religion, it's about evolution. If you want to debate religion, I can speak to you afterwards." and moved on to the next person.
The first question I asked was basically how do you falsify Creationism. He responded by saying that the burden of proof is on evolutionists. I tried to remind him the title of the presentation was "Scientific Creationism..." but he didn't seem to care about that.
Very quickly, it became an open debate where people were just inserting comments or questions in a very unstructured way. It was virtually impossible to take notes and be involved, so this is where my notes stopped. One highlight was where he named a geologic structure (I don't remember which) and said that it didn't have any faults in it. To this, a woman in the back shouted, "That's a blatant lie. I did my masters on that structure. It has faults all over the place." He took a second, and said, "Yes, but it doesn't have faults all the way... this is very hard to explain."
One question I asked him was "We have found over 100 major meteorite impacts (argument #4) in the earth. Considering that there have been none which occurred in written history, and you claim that the earth is only 6,000 years old, how is this possible?" He didn't seem to understand, as he looked at me with a puzzled face. I said that since there are over 100, and it is such a rare event, wouldn't the earth have to be older than 6,000 years for this to have happened. I believe he said something like, "Why do you think it's rare?" to which I said, "Have you ever seen one?" He responded, "No, but you are only talking about 100 years." Correcting him, I said, "No, I'm talking about human history, 5,000 years." He then said, "Well the flood was most likely caused by a comet." I responded, "That's 1. 1 down, 99 left to explain." Ok, so I didn't say "1 down, 99 left to explain," but I wish I did. He then moved on to another question.
It was shortly after this that I walked out, giving a big sigh while doing so. As I was walking, someone said, "Nice" to me, but I'm not quite sure referring to what. I'm guessing walking out while he was in the middle of talking. Anyways, there was a small gathering just beyond the doors. I recognized my History of Science professor, the three geologists with the headbands that said, "Evolution," and a TA for physical geology, another class I am currently taking. In the middle some small chit-chat about various arguments gave, the Dover trial, and other various topics, I heard a loud applause. Just then, a woman walked out, apparently she had said that if he wants to have a question and answer session, he needs to show some respect to the people in the audience. I'm not quite sure what provoked this, but I de |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2005 : 18:08:25 [Permalink]
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Spoke the creationist:...the flood was most likely caused by a comet That's a new one. Doesn't the Bible say God caused it to rain? Why would God use a comet to make it rain? Do we know of any other comet which has caused rain? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2005 : 19:15:33 [Permalink]
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Ricky-
I initially thought "It must have been a disappointment" because myself, I enter such events hoping to hear at least an attempt to construct a solid argument of a type which most intelligent, reasonable people might be able to accept after careful consideration... even if I consider the argument inadequate, I can appreciate an honest effort, or a rigorous attempt, anyway. But then I thought there's no justification for disappointment, because those who do present such honest and rigorous efforts (even if the arguments are ultimately determined to be flawed) seem to be rare "exceptions to the rule," or minimally very uncommon.
Most often they would be expected to turn out as you described this one... essentially, "spin festivals" where the idea appears not to inform listeners and convey what the presenter feels is a legitimate argument, but to "buffalo" anyone who'll buy into his personal brand of dogma, while realizing that logically it's no more valid than the personal dogma of anyone else (including you, and any or all of the rest of the audience.)
Most people on SNF have probably seen the well-known "25 Rules of Disinformation" obe place or another... worth a glance (you could probably have spotted at least 6 or 7, and maybe a dozen or more of them used by this guy)...
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a394fc1cf0ba9.htm
Most often applied to politics, but the spiritual/non-secular crowd has always found them handy, too.
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Ron White |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2005 : 19:26:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
Spoke the creationist:...the flood was most likely caused by a comet That's a new one. Doesn't the Bible say God caused it to rain? Why would God use a comet to make it rain? Do we know of any other comet which has caused rain?
quote:
The first thing he addressed was that he believes in the literal truth of the Bible.
So, the bible is the literal truth and yet he adlibs a different account of the flood story in genesis? Ha!!!
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/19/2005 : 19:48:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
One thing I left out:
He gave a definition of "kind." It went something along the lines of, "Organisms originated from the same created gene pool."
I didn't even realize this till now (and I'm still kicking myself in the head for it). If that is a definition of kind, then that statement that Creationists always use, "Kinds never change" is vacuous.
Not only that, but if there was a single original cell, back four billion years ago, then all life on Earth today is of the same "kind." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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ronnywhite
SFN Regular
501 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 00:17:12 [Permalink]
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Oh yea, I forgot to mention- RE Forest Mills (the third name on the "Fired Creationists" list) I suspected he might have been referring to Forrest Mims, "hired" to write a column in Scientific American, and "fired" when they found out about his Creationism beliefs-
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi526.htm
Having read a brief semi-biographical account of Mims years ago, and seen some of his writings, I thought the scientific Creationist issue was kind of interesting, in Mims case. Mims is clearly a very talented man with a "knack", or unusual ingeniousness for finding clever, imaginative, and practical approaches to solving problems, but his scientific background is very different than most other "super-achievers" in electronic design... he stated in a book that he's never had an aptitude for higher mathematics beyond algebra, and he's primarily "self taught" in the physical sciences.
A guy who can excel, as Mims has- despite lacking the benefit of a formal quantitative science background- obviously is gifted with a rare "genius" of sorts. But his scientific background and talents are of an atypical kind... exceptional- if not extraordinary- in some ways, while lacking or deficient in others... which likely (somehow) relates to his propensities for uncommon creativity and innovation... yet there can be detrimental aspects to such unusual, and creative breeds of genius.
I could be "a mile off" on that speculation, but I found Forrest's Creationist beliefs easier to fathom- considering that he's pretty unconventional, as far as scientists go. |
Ron White |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 04:21:32 [Permalink]
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One quoestion I would have liked to ask is this:
Given the false dichotomy that falsifying evolution automatically leaves only creationism... Arguments against evolution must be scientific, AiG clearly states why several of DrDino's arguments should not be used, then why are you using argumnets from both Answers-in-Genesis and DrDino? |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 05:16:24 [Permalink]
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I especally liked the metorite impact question. It's one I hadn't thought of, and effective and difficult for a YEC apologist to spin.
Sounds to me like this turkey's audience was pretty skeptical and he got a lot more than he gave. Excellent!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 09:34:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
Yes, it's the second time I've used it on a YEC and in both cases they haven't been able to spin it. The only thing they can do is change the topic.
Ricky, isn't the answer that they are not meteorite impacts at all, but rather the scars of the battle between Yahweh's forces and those of Satan?
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| Edited by - Cuneiformist on 11/20/2005 09:36:31 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 11/20/2005 : 13:19:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
Yes, it's the second time I've used it on a YEC and in both cases they haven't been able to spin it. The only thing they can do is change the topic.
Ricky, isn't the answer that they are not meteorite impacts at all, but rather the scars of the battle between Yahweh's forces and those of Satan?
Is that like the argument Satan made dinosaur fossils to trick us? |
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