I don’t know how old you are or how long you’ve been watching this stuff, but I have been here seeing it pass my window for decades. It doesn’t change. It doesn’t get better. And any explanation that tries to account for it by anything other than rank dishonesty and a desire to grub cash out of the gullible ultimately fails. Parsimony will serve a person well here. Remember, too: the “con” in “con man” stands for “confidence,” and the whole thing is founded on building the mark’s confidence; the principal skill of the con man, to which even those who don’t fall for the scheme itself are susceptible, is building confidence in others. False sincerity is the essence of their game; don’t let them get you.
I think we all can reject your attempt to equate two positions, one supported by a great corpus of data and the other supported by nothing but belief.
Perhaps, but you don’t seem to understand that the rest of us try to avoid it. Nor do you understand that the magnitude of such bias varies among the people here, and yours pegs the meter.
You don’t really read it. You just search it for bits that can be misinterpreted to favor you.
But that’s what GAE means. No genealogical AE is compatible with your claims about only two original people.
Ah, yes. I’ve read (part of) that thread. As I said, I’m not trying to defend them. I personally wouldn’t be comfortable making some of the same accusations in terms of assessing their motivations but I would agree with the scientific analysis that folks like John have made.
And to circle back to our previous conversation, thank you for all your thoughtful posts here. I think I better understand what you’ve been meaning concerning the term “worldview”. I have lots to chew on here so I think I’m going to bow out of the bulk of this discussion for now but I’d like to thank you @Puck_Mendelssohn , @Faizal_Ali and all the others I’ve interacted with in this thread. It has been very informative.
For me, the big takeaway is what creationists spend their time and money on. On the standard science side of things, money is spent on doing actual science. On the YEC side, they rarely do any science, and if they do it is done very poorly. YEC’s don’t spend any time presenting findings to the scientific community. Instead, they spend their time trying to convince non-scientists.
I have no doubt that I’m speaking for Faizal when I say that we believe in directly witnessing the evidence for ourselves.
You may say you do, but you obviously don’t, because you invariably filter evidence through hearsay, primarily by focusing on text: discussion sections of papers instead of the results (figures and tables), university publicist hype, even to the absurdity of citing misrepresentations of virology and genetics, calling it a “source,” from someone with a BS in geology from UCSD (Casey Luskin) to someone with a PhD in virology from UCSD and who did postdoctoral work in both virology and genetics at the National Cancer Institute (me).
And again, as an expert, I don’t say that you should believe hearsay from me; I say that you should witness the actual evidence.
But you don’t try to overcome it. Our scientific worldview not only acknowledges it, but it has a rigorous system that we follow to overcome it.
Okay, but it’s hard to resists the inference that you nevertheless agree with it as it is stated then, even if you would not put it that way yourself. And I can’t help but suspect you’d merely want to state it differently to try to suppress how obviously it presents a closed-minded, conclusion-first attitude that flat out begs the question.
Okay, but if it’s unfulfilled one has to wonder why you nevertheless believe it. And for how long will you persist in doing that? This thing with “just keep believing no matter what” seems to be nothing but a recipe for a dogmatic closed-mindedness.
Why is it that the idea of changing one’s mind in light of the best current evidence is viewed with such suspicion and hostility? Just assume it’s true no matter what. And if the evidence disagrees? Well then just assume the evidence is wrong and assume it will eventually change in the future, even if you never get to see that happen yourself.
The weird thing is everyone can see how wrong-headed that kind of presuppositionalism is when it is adopted by the opposition. Imagine if someone were to say that:
Although there are scientific reasons for accepting evolution, I am an evolutionist because that is my understanding of Darwin. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against evolution, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be an evolution because that is what Darwins writings seem to indicate.
Biblical presuppositionalism is no less irrational and indefensible than that.
Sorry for not being clear. I was referring to “worldviews” there.
Why wouldn’t you state it that way?
Not significantly. They are still textbook pseudoscientists.
Slowly allowing the evidence to sink in is not a scientific worldview. I don’t find 0.5% credibility to be worth distinguishing from 0.2% credibility. It does, however, show that the views of evolution denialists ironically evolve.
It’s been enjoyable, and I am always available if you think there’s anything I can help with. A closing note on one small point:
I’d like to assure you that I don’t say those things lightly. In most cases when we are dealing with creationists who have familiarized themselves with some of the scientific evidence and have written an account of their views, there are only two possible conclusions: rank dishonesty or breathtaking stupidity. But the latter is usually foreclosed by their skill at argumentation and their ability to figure out ways to look like they are dealing with the evidence when they’re not.
But I always begin, when confronted with a new author, with the presumption of honesty. And I get burned there, sometimes. Take, for example, Robert Shedinger, whose frankly horrid book I gave two stars on Amazon and took pains to say that I thought he was honest, but just delusional. That judgment now looks foolish to me, in the light of later things he’s written. The Rarest Thing in Anti-Evolution Literature: an Honest Mistake
So by all means presume honesty, but be prepared to ask in each case: is this consistent with mere stupidity? The answer causes me probably as much discomfort as it does you, but the data usually point in only one direction.
Well, in the sense that I seek to be charitable. I realize that this is a longstanding debate and I’m a newcomer here. I am sad that your comment is accurate.
Sure. I understand that. I’m not trying to offer legitimacy where there ought not to be any. I seek to be gracious. I’ve heard Ross speak and I’ve listened to Fazale in a debate with @NLENTS . I understand the difficult position they find themselves in. That doesn’t justify their position, but it helps me consider them as people.
Thank you for your input. I don’t want to compromise what we know but I also want to understand the human element and be a peacemaker. As I said earlier, I’m a newcomer so please forgive me if I’ve dug up old dirt and am unaware of the details of a longstanding conflict.
There is of course a third possibility, that the creationists are fooling themselves rather than trying to fool you. Never underestimate the power of wishful thinking to distort reality. Never underestimate the ability of a creationist not to see what he doesn’t want to see.
That’s true, of course, and one sees that in people who are merely enthusiastic readers of creationist nonsense. But in most cases where the person in question is a published author, I simply see far too much craftwork in the lie-construction to really think that they don’t know full well what they’re doing. A Stephen Meyer book, for example, is really a carefully assembled bit of dishonesty. Somebody who actually believed what Meyer claims to believe couldn’t write anything that good because his own blind spots would make it very hard for him to understand what distinctions he needed to blur, what papers he needed to mischaracterize, and so on. He’d make more mistakes. Advocating a lie takes a certain appreciation of the art of advocacy, and these guys show that, cover to cover.
Stephen Meyer, sure. But Kurt Wise? Hugh Ross? One must consider individual cases. I will maintain that self-deception is a better explanation for RTB and many creationists who mimic real science. Meyer and other DI folks need to lie constantly to maintain their big tent.
I was referring to religious positions, not scientific ones.
I’m glad that now I know you can’t read minds. You’re assuming that the sampling of what I post is comparable to what I read. It’s not.
Point me to an example.
I wasn’t clear enough. I merely meant that I’m alsoYEC because of the Bible, not science. But I would NOT say that if all the evidence in the universe said otherwise, then I wouldn’t change my position or beliefs. I would.
Have I given that impression? Whenever I have changed my mind on a topic, I feel I’m the better for it.
On a clear night, take a small telescope outside and gaze at the Andromeda Galaxy.
The photons that are striking your eye started their journey to your retina 2 million years ago.
The distance to the Andromeda Galaxy has been measured by methods that are not going to be affected by any discoveries that might emerge from the Webb Telescope. Are you interested in understanding that further?
Don’t get me wrong, the Webb Telescope is fantastic! We will learn lots of new and interesting things about our universe from it. The distance to the Andromeda Galaxy will not change as a result, however.
That appears to me to be a combination of Puck’s two conclusions.
How many IDcreationists will solemnly pronounce something similar to ‘both sides are looking at the same evidence, just coming to different conclusions,’ based entirely on rhetoric, when making such a claim literally requires significant familiarity with a lot of the actual evidence that one is claiming to know that others have examined?
Have you ever encountered one who is honest enough to say, ‘Well, I can’t be bothered to look for myself, but I’ve heard some claim that both sides are looking at the same evidence, just coming to different conclusions’?