Arthur Hunt and Stephen Meyer here

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@theman8469

Ummm. I post a genuine video of a dialogue between a evolutionary biologist and an ID advocate and ‘Peaceful Science’ goes crazy. Some of my posts are hidden; Patrick watches a 65 minute video in a little over 40 minutes; Curtis demands what is so ‘compelling’ as to why he should watch it when I care less if he watches it or not;

One post was flagged as inappropriate for incivility and was hidden.

The only communication from me has been to say this is a silly argument. And right now I am the only one who comminicates on behalf of “Peaceful Science”. So in what sense did Peaceful Science “go crazy”?

@theman8469

As for Josh “So why would any intelligent person care who won the debate between @art and Meyer?” Well, clearly a lot of unintelligent people do seen to care.

Politics drives a lot of people to absurd priorities. This is just another example of this. I do not care who won the debate. @art’s post confirmed that Meyer is much stronger rhetorically. He is arguing archane (and important) technical details that went over the heads of the audience entirely. It is hard to imagine these arguments “winning” a debate, whether or not they are correct or important.

@theman8469

Hunt links to his recollections (with plenty of ad homs) of the event and not to the video itself.

You’ve linked to a video and he has linked to his take on the video. So what?

It is clear that your priorities are merely on scoring points…

@theman8469

Hunt was not reduced to a laughing stock (like Stephen Matheson who became an atheist after this meeting) but was completely out matched by Meyer.

I would agree with this entirely. The reason why is that this encounter was at Biola University (home turf for Meyers), and it was not a fairly organized debate, but a followup Q&A. This was designed to put the questioners at a disadvantage. Meyers also is making a populist appeal to a sympathetic audience. It is a performance in a public space designed to accomplish a purpose. @Art and Matheson are props in that public theatre. Of he got the best of them. It has nothing to do with evidence, and that for which the event was defined. They were the “heels”.

In the same way, Ken Ham go the best of Bill Nye, and Nathaniel Jeanson got the best of Dennis Venema. Ken Hovind, in his day, ran circles around most the people he debated too. This is one reason I write…

@swamidass

Arguments on the internet between non-professionals rarely (if ever) have bearing on how mainstream science progresses. This is just not how science works.

Science is not intuitive. It is very mathematical and technical. Science requires very careful adherence to specific logical rules and standards. There are a multitude of rhetorically strong points (that convince the crowds) that are totally false scientifically. The rules and conclusions of mainstream science, for this reason, are not going to be altered by public debate or consensus.

This is why most scientists will not publicly engage with YEC advocates. It is the same reason they usually do not engage with ID advocates. They are much better at populist appeals, sometimes entirely abandoning scientific coherence and evidence as they do so.

So seriously @theman8469, what is this about really? Fine, in an imbalanced exchange, Meyer got the better of @Art on rhetoric in a crowd already convinced of ID. The crowd had no ability or desire to follow his scientific point. Neither do you @theman8469. I’d like to see a fair exchange.