See someone try to defend creationism honestly

[scalyblue]

Aronra, you need to take your own advice. Better yet, take your own advice WHILE being ganged up on by 20 people with 2-3 full time jobs. I have refuted some points. But, I simply do not have time to read everything that's pouring out here. Limit this to a one on one discussion and I'll be able to deal with EVERY POINT, refute it or accept it and correct any errors (I've already done that a couple times already, you have yet to correct a single one of your many straw man errors). You committed to a debate. It's in black and white in your own words. Now you have gone back on your words. You invited me to a place with a discussion between YOU AND ME, not a place to be ganged up on where I can barely find time to read all posts let alone go to all the links provided. YOUR integrity is at stake here, not mine. My time like yours is very limited...I read as much as I can and respond quickly to the ones that seem to be most important or quick to respond to. With all due respect, you so far are not willing to follow even the most fundamental ethics of any formal debate and have gone back on your word to have a debate AND a discussion between you and me about the evidence.

Skimmer, eh?

N o, h e d i d n ' t c o m m i t t o a d e b a t e.

Reading comprehension fail.

It will take somebody smarter than you to blemish aronra's integrity.

Aronra hasn't raised any straw men

You have, though.

Stop complaining about your personal life.

You are not on a leash tied to this thread.

You have not provided refutation to any points.

At least nothing that any person with a central nervous system would consider refutation.

You are not obligated to respond to everybody.

The only people you respond to are people who have made textual "sound bites" that don't intimidate you.

You are wrong.

How does someone have 2-3 full time jobs.

It's either 2, or 3.

I didn't know one could have an optional full time job

When someone says "with all due respect" they usually mean "go fuck yourself"

This is what happens to scientists whenever they posit an idea.

If the idea is good, it stands on its own merit wtihout defense.

Your idea isn't good.

You are wrong.

 

[scalyblue]

Still waiting on that case statement, by the way.

One sentence.

 

[vasquez]

Aronra, you need to take your own advice. Better yet, take your own advice WHILE being ganged up on by 20 people with 2-3 full time jobs. I have refuted some points. But, I simply do not have time to read everything that's pouring out here. Limit this to a one on one discussion and I'll be able to deal with EVERY POINT, refute it or accept it and correct any errors (I've already done that a couple times already, you have yet to correct a single one of your many straw man errors). You committed to a debate. It's in black and white in your own words. Now you have gone back on your words. You invited me to a place with a discussion between YOU AND ME, not a place to be ganged up on where I can barely find time to read all posts let alone go to all the links provided. YOUR integrity is at stake here, not mine. My time like yours is very limited...I read as much as I can and respond quickly to the ones that seem to be most important or quick to respond to. With all due respect, you so far are not willing to follow even the most fundamental ethics of any formal debate and have gone back on your word to have a debate AND a discussion between you and me about the evidence.

Bryan

Exactly what did you refute?

Now, I'll admit, I didn't take the time to read through every single post on all 29+ pages, but nowhere did I take notice of you refuting anything.

So far, as I can tell you've:

-Fallen back to debating about the meaning of words; you seem more content with arguing over what Atheism is or is not (as well as creationism)
-Attack Aronra for not "Debating" you, as you believe he promised
-Resorted to cut and pasting paragraphs of information that really isn't relevant to proving creationism (posting biographies about creationist scientist isn't evidence for creationism)
-Refuse to provide evidence (or elaborate on what you believe is evidence) because we can't seem to agree on the "definitions" of words.

Now, as an English teacher, if someone handed you a paper and the paper consisted of paragraph on top of paragraph of cut and pastes, with little to no relevance to the actual paper, what kind of grade do you think they should expect?

 

[borrofburi]

-Refuse to ... elaborate on what you believe is evidence

Err, you're the second person to say this... And while I disagree with dotoree on so many levels, I seem to think both of you have missed this post: http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=89033#p89033

EDIT: course I responded to that, dotoree responded to me, I responded, and then that was the end of that whole discussion...
EDIT2: our discussion was apparently slightly longer than that, but with the same ending... On the one hand it's disappointing he never responded, on the other I understand being ganged up on (having been to christian forums simply to ask a few questions... though I do have to note that not only did I get ganged up on, I always invariable got banned for usually quite weak reasons (my favorite was that the questions I asked were too disruptive), so at least we do better on that front (until you start with posts filled with insults)).
EDIT3: actually it didn't even end that way, I ignored dotoree's last response (something I'll remedy shortly) in hopes he'd read and respond to a post I felt was more important and relevant... which lead to an exchange in which I tried to communicate that dictionaries are not authoritative... So yah... I was wrong a lot in this post.

 

[borrofburi]

Scientific observation doesn't refer to a scientist telling you his or her memories of the results of doing something, it refers to the recorded data of a well defined experiment; a well defined experiment is so defined that (if I have the resources) I can go do it myself and get my own data (and if it differs wildly from the original scientist's then either (s)he was lying and is about to have a ruined career or I screwed something up). It's true that for those of us who don't have the ability to replicate the experiments or the mathematical and scientific training to properly understand the experiments and data we have to rely upon the witness testimony of scientists (IN THAT FIELD), but the strength of scientific evidence is that the evidence itself is an objective and verifiable recording of the data of a well defined experiment, not the memory based witness of a scientist.

The reasons we trust video footage over eye witness testimoney is that video footage is recorded data whereas eye witness testimony is based *at best* on the human memory of human perceptions (both of which are not always accurate) and rely on the hope that the eye witness isn't lying. Now you'll say "well we check if the eye witness isn't lying", but we do that by having OTHER EVIDENCE, so what that amounts to is saying that eye witness testimony can corroborate other evidence and other evidence can corroborate the testimony and that they can both make the other stronger, and I fully agree; but the point is that on its own eye witness testimony is far less valuable and reliable than recorded data.

---
Independent confirmation whether by scientists or historians is very high quality evidence. But even independent confirmations can be wrong in BOTH areas if people are educated wrongly and have wrong definitions, etc.

Video evidence can be monkeyed with and it's getting harder and harder to tell when as you probably know. It can also be shot in different ways that can misrepresent things at times. Not much video evidence in crimes is as good as the example you listed. But, it's one of the best evidences I'll agree.
--

And scientific evidence is even better than recorded data because along with the recorded data comes the instructions on how to get your own similar recorded data, as well as the peer review process in which, ideally, other people trained in the field will do their best to provide valid criticisms of the conclusions based on that data (and watch for potentially anomalous data).

The whole point is that witnesses on their own are far weaker than recorded data and scientific evidence, and that things we accept from witnesses alone should be accepted with lesser certainty.

--
Again..the training can be the problem. Communists in many different countries did all sorts of publishing in academic journals about communism. Plenty of independent confirmation about how wonderful communism was, tests, experiments and all the rest. But, they were all trained under the same ideology and limited information and all info about democracy banned from those journals.

Both scientific and historical evidence have varying levels of credibility. It depends a lot on the situation which one is better and which cases you cite. Again, EVERY scientist is a witness too. Without observation, you can't do the historic method or the scientific method. I have already cited cases where the historical method got it right LONG before science figured it out. And if that is affecting life, death, health, etc. that's crucial information.

I said in my most recent post I'd respond to this, but (1) I'm kind of curious how (if) the community will respond and (2) I'm actually kind of tired and don't feel like it right now, so if I respond to the above it'll have to be later.

 

[masterjedijared]

One would think that if an account of the creation of the universe that's 3000ish years old were true and has been seen as such then it would be super easy to back it up.

Evidence would be clear and self-evident. The clarity of evidence should be independent of any specific language if dealing with an almighty creator. Dotoree, present your evidence. It will be abundantly obvious that someone is loosely using the language to discredit evidence and similarly so if trying to assert inconclusive evidence.

If your case is as solid and honest as you assert then you should be able to present it on nearly any term and have a discussion about it.

Please, let's just get on with this.

 

[dotoree]

Wow I never thought it would be possible to fill a thread of 30 pages with essentially nothing. If definitions are so much of a problem, then why not just use very stripped down definitions instead of minutely detailed ones:

Creationism: A position advocating the creation of the universe by one or more intelligent entities.
(This allows doctoree to freely define his understanding of this "intelligent entity", itself a convenient inbuilt definition of a god and sidesteps contentious issues like how people choose to define belief)

Atheism: A lack of belief in gods.

Evidence: Data gathered supporting a specific position. Such data must be verifiable and free from personal bias, it must also come with a source detailing how it was gathered.
(Slightly woolly but gives the essentials, personal testimony is NOT evidence from a scientific viewpoint unless it can be backed up by experiment)

Sorted, now please post the damn evidence.

--
Faja,
I have agreed to the athiest definition above and know that's the neo-atheist view. They can't bring themselves to accept a definition of creation science without pejoratives and slander in it or one that straw mans creation science.

Everyone, AGAIN, Aronra DID commit to a debate here:

Hey mods, if my opponent still dares to engage me, move us to private debate forum -where the option to edit our comments will be disabled twenty minutes after each post. But please don't hold us to the rule of having to post every day, because we simply can't do that..

http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6201&p=89462&hilit=+hey+mods+&sid=11bd21d4b6ff196c375c658fa12a3bc2#p89462

Your word is your bond. This IS a commitment clear and simple and no one can dispute that. Aronra is going back on his word.
Bryan

 

[scalyblue]

Dotoree is claiming that anything that has ever been documented is fact, even if there is no supporting evidence, even if there was refuting evidence.

Again, I raise the question of the Joshua account of the sun standing still in the sky. The only way to accomplish this would be for the earth to stop rotating, which would surely have been noticed by anybody who didn't die in the ensuing wave of fiery death. Surely somebody else, somewhere, documented this strange occurrence, where the sun stopped in the sky for a long period of time. Why didn't anybody else write it down? Why is it only in the bible? Will you admit that it is possible that the people who wrote the bible, copied, it, passed it on orally, and the such, may have embellished things a little? If the bible is your only source for something, how do you know that it is accurate?

Let's assume for a moment that creationism is correct.
What predictions can creationism make for the geologic column, the phylogenetic and molecular trees, morphological and genetic similarities and dissimilarities?
What predictions can creationism make about red shift and microwave background radiation? What predictions can be rendered about the LHC experiments?

What data points from the bible do you measure to determine the constant by which trilateration can be based on to enable the GPS system to function?

What form of evidence is necessary to falsify creation?

 

[scalyblue]

They can't bring themselves to accept a definition of creation science without pejoratives and slander in it or one that straw mans creation science.

"Creation science" is a contradictory phrase. There is no science in creation. At best it's an attempt to bring scientific support for an account of a creation event, but the trouble is whose account of creation?

Genesis 1's?
Genesis 2's?
Hindus?
Muslims?
Zoroastrians?
The Greek Pantheon?
Bob's interpretation of Genisis 1 and 2?
Shalom's interpreation of Genesis 1, without the firmament (that is, metal dome)
Scientology?
The Silmarillion?
The Wheel of Time?

How do you, objectively mind you ( that means your opinion doesn't matter ) determine which account of creation is accurate, which is allegorical, and which is fictional?

You can't.

You have to assume that it didn't happen, and then prove which one did. That's a null posit.

Since there is no verifiable, empircal evidence for any account of creation except the big bang, I will have a tendency to believe that the big bang is what brought the universe into form.

Evolution is a different story altogether, aside from the creation of the universe. The only reason that evolution disproves the bible is because it uses facts that contradict the bible. What about all of the other facts that contradict the bible that aren't involved in evolution? You neglect to mention those. I guess evolution is an easy target then.

Again.

 

[scalyblue]

Ah, I found it
A very concise definition of science that I knew was out there.

We can thank the text of the judgment of McLean v. Arkansas 1982

Science is defined by the following characteristics

• It is guided by natural law;
• It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law;
• It is testable against the empirical world;
• Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and
• It is falsifiable.

How exactly does "creation science" fit into that definition?

 

[dotoree]

If your case is as solid and honest as you assert then you should be able to present it on nearly any term and have a discussion about it.

This is naive in the extreme. NO FORMAL DEBATE in the world would accept this nonsense. I could set up terms like comparing gravity to evolution for example...and say if gravity is more observab le, then evolution is falsified. This is the kind of thing that Aronra and others are doing as will become clear if anyone can accept very basic and common terms of debate that are commonly accepted all over the world in any real debate setting. To start with straw men and fixed playing fields makes following the weight of evidence nearly impossible.

If Aronra doesn't accept in a short time, he forfeits, but I'll go with Inferno or someone else.

Creation science is every bit as testable as Darwinian levels of evolution are and some parts far more so.
Gotta run,
Bryan

 

[scalyblue]

If your case is as solid and honest as you assert then you should be able to present it on nearly any term and have a discussion about it.

This is naive in the extreme. NO FORMAL DEBATE in the world would accept this nonsense. I could set up terms like comparing gravity to evolution for example...and say if gravity is more observab le, then evolution is falsified. This is the kind of thing that Aronra and others are doing as will become clear if anyone can accept very basic and common terms of debate that are commonly accepted all over the world in any real debate setting. To start with straw men and fixed playing fields makes following the weight of evidence nearly impossible.

If Aronra doesn't accept in a short time, he forfeits, but I'll go with Inferno or someone else.

Creation science is every bit as testable as Darwinian levels of evolution are and some parts far more so.
Gotta run,
Bryan

Actually, if you want to be pedantic about it, evolution has more empirical proofs than gravity does.

And creation science isn't testable unless you deny uniformitarianism and accept supernatural explanations for things, which doesn't fall into the purview of science, but instead would be metaphysical. Metaphysical concepts aren't falsifiable either.

You cannot enter a debate defining words in whatever way you choose. Aronra's definitions were cogent, accurate, and not pejorative, which I can't say about yours.

Aronra didn't request a debate from you. He alluded to your discussion being moved to the debate forum, and then reconsidered because, quite frankly, you're acting like a giant douche. I agree with him. You don't need a debate, you need an education.

Again, the only straw men raised in this entire train wreck were raised by you, dotoree.

Still waiting on that case statement
One sentence.

 

[monitoradiation]

Aronra, you need to take your own advice. Better yet, take your own advice WHILE being ganged up on by 20 people with 2-3 full time jobs. I have refuted some points. But, I simply do not have time to read everything that's pouring out here. Limit this to a one on one discussion and I'll be able to deal with EVERY POINT, refute it or accept it and correct any errors (I've already done that a couple times already, you have yet to correct a single one of your many straw man errors). You committed to a debate. It's in black and white in your own words. Now you have gone back on your words. You invited me to a place with a discussion between YOU AND ME, not a place to be ganged up on where I can barely find time to read all posts let alone go to all the links provided. YOUR integrity is at stake here, not mine. My time like yours is very limited...I read as much as I can and respond quickly to the ones that seem to be most important or quick to respond to. With all due respect, you so far are not willing to follow even the most fundamental ethics of any formal debate and have gone back on your word to have a debate AND a discussion between you and me about the evidence.

Bryan

Still complaining, I see.

Let me correct you on a few things, not that it'd matter to you since you barely know how to read.

1) The thread is entitled "see someone try to defend creationism honestly". The integrity on the line is yours, or whichever creationist tries to. So far, it seems like you're failing.
2) How can AronRa "follow even the most fundamental ethics of any formal debate" when this isn't a formal debate? You even admit this later on in the sentence when you say that he refused to have a debate. Which way is it?
3) Stop crying.

 

[dotoree]

In my estimation, AronRa's integrity hasn't suffered one whit from this exchange. If anything, I respect him even more for his patience at dealing with such an inveterate liar as yourself dotoree.

When I stumbled upon the topic, my first reaction was 'well, this will be a whole lot of the same', and indeed you did not disappoint. You have covered nearly every fallacy, stereotype, error, misunderstanding, plain obstinence and outright mendacity I have come to expect in dealing with your kind for over 10 years. Even more impressive, despite the fact of the stated goals of the discussion, you managed to do all that in about 3 posts. Bravo sir.

If it had been your goal to intentionally provide an example of all the things that are wrong with creationists and creationists arguments, you could not have done better.

And as AronRa has stated that it was his goal to provide an example of just that, I can safely say that he his without a doubt the victor in this 30 page fracas, in my own humble opinion.

Not to belittle your part in all this, as you have taken care of that well enough.

good day

--
Astounding. You side with someone who has consistently straw manned other positions and think he is honest when he won't even let me define what my own views are and has gone back on his explicit words to have a debate. There is no intelligence in the above post. And I haven't hardly even touched the evidence and you're jumping to conclusions already...the irrationality is stunning.
Bryan

 

[dotoree]

-Refuse to ... elaborate on what you believe is evidence

Err, you're the second person to say this... And while I disagree with dotoree on so many levels, I seem to think both of you have missed this post: http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?p=89033#p89033

EDIT: course I responded to that, dotoree responded to me, I responded, and then that was the end of that whole discussion...
--
Borrofburi and I came to fairly close agreement on what constitutes evidence. A couple small differences, but fairly close. So, I saw no need to discuss it further since we were fairly close. But, he's not my opponent in the debate...at least not yet. What we agreed on would be a fairly good ground to start with...with a couple small changes possibly. But, I might even be able to live with the last post that he wrote on evidence.

Borrofburi has been one of the few to actually be reasonable and fair minded here on much of what he's said. I commend him for that.
Bryan

 

[dotoree]

Let me correct you on a few things, not that it'd matter to you since you barely know how to read.
1) The thread is entitled "see someone try to defend creationism honestly". The integrity on the line is yours, or whichever creationist tries to. So far, it seems like you're failing.
2) How can AronRa "follow even the most fundamental ethics of any formal debate" when this isn't a formal debate? You even admit this later on in the sentence when you say that he refused to have a debate. Which way is it?

Monitor, I already dealt with this and proved with indisputable quotes that it was supposed to be about the practical benefits of Bible science for THESE days AND creation vs. science. That was what we agreed to on youtube.

Aronra requested a debate be set up and committed to join that debate here by asking the mods to set a debate up for us in THIS QUOTE in red. This is indisputable:

Hey mods, if my opponent still dares to engage me, move us to private debate forum -where the option to edit our comments will be disabled twenty minutes after each post. But please don't hold us to the rule of having to post every day, because we simply can't do that..

http://forums.leagueofreason.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6201&p=89462&hilit=+hey+mods+&sid=11bd21d4b6ff196c375c658fa12a3bc2#p89462

I have ALWAYS been willing to join a debate and dare to do so now...I have never rejected it once. That's what Aronra has done. He went back on his word above and refused to join the debate as borrofburi has said in posts previously. Aronra misrepresented the topic of the debate from the start and now has broken his word again.
Bryan

 

[scalyblue]

Nothing you have posted constitutes evidence, so I will agree with you that you have hardly touched evidence.

 

[borrofburi]

Borrofburi and I came to fairly close agreement on what constitutes evidence. A couple small differences, but fairly close.

I disagree very strongly with you on evidence, for you maintain that personal experience and testimony can challenge well documented scientific evidence despite my detailing to you the vast number of reasons why scientific evidence is by far the highest standard of evidence.

EDIT: as well as detailing why I am very skeptical of any 'historical" evidence or *any* evidence that relies heavily on human perception and human memory.

 

[borrofburi]

You cannot enter a debate defining words in whatever way you choose. Aronra's definitions were cogent, accurate, and not pejorative, which I can't say about yours.

I for one, and I know there is at least one other in this thread, understand dotoree's complaints against AronRa's definition of "creationism"; though I (as well as (I think) the other person (who's specific handle escapes me at the moment)) do not understand why dotoree chose to spend dozens of pages complaining about it rather than simply dodging it and defining dotoreeism or dotoreepositionism, or some other word to describe his views.

 

[masterjedijared]

Dotoree, you've missed the point completely and I'm sorry if I was unclear.

I'm not saying 'let's have a formal debate' at all and I think that harking on the 'let's have a formal debate' is wasting everyone's time at this juncture. If someone wants to have a formal debate with you and vice versa the friendly mods will most likely be willing to help set it up in a timely fashion.

I am saying that if you honestly feel that your evidence is sufficient to illustrate your particular creationist perspective then the evidence should be interesting to talk about in an open format. I, for one, would like to hear your evidence. I used to be a scholar of religion and so I have a particular interest in hearing claims and evidence that would suggest deities and supernatural events.

There's no need to worry about a formal debate format at the moment. You will get your debates soon enough