Civilization, in every generation, must be defended from barbarians.
The barbarians outside the gate, the barbarians inside the gate, and the barbarian in the mirror...
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Desperate Explaining Away
The latest ad-hominem foolishness from the would-be Darwinist vigilantes at Panda's Thumb (see in particular Mike Gene's comment).
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I tried to find any ad-hominem attack into the PT post about that course (or its comments, although I stopped reading after 50 or 60) and was unable to do so. Where do you see that?
What I do see is a lively debate over whether or not it is useful to debate the failings of ID any further. Some argue that the evidence is there and it is counterproductive to expound on it further; others argue that as long as ID advocates use misrepresentation, false assumptions, and poor logic, it is appropriate to point out how they are wrong. The man so many IDers love to hate, Pim van Meurs, takes a consistent stand in favor of _politely_ explaining the errors rather than name-calling.
I do find it ironic that the course's required textbookss are so heavily tilted towards ID -- four ID books versus one lonely book by Dawkins -- yet no ID advocates have complained about this unbalanced representation of the two ideas.
I like the analogy suggested in one comment between "biology looks designed" and "the earth looks flat" -- I shall have to remember that one.
That last seems to be one of few details of science remembered by darwiny apologists. The whole flat earth mythology they peddle, and constant attempts at making false analogies between what can be observed through operational science and what must be infered indirectly from evidence (on both sides of the debate), muddling up good science, serves as a good measure of the actual credibility regarding logic, reasoning, and science in general, such apologists actually have.
I'm a software engineer myself, so I'm used to dealing with systems and have had a continued interest in this subject. I've debated many adament evolutionists, only to come to the end, where they invariably admit that currently, their beliefs are not actually well supported, but forwarding the hope that someday they will.
My experience is that these tired old claims about what creationists as well as ID'rs do and say don't actually apply, and in fact do in the reverse. For example, the evolutionist apologist's continuing misrep. of creationists as believing in species fixity, the actual beliefs regarding diversification having been well spelled out by every such major group on the face of the globe for years.
2 comments:
I tried to find any ad-hominem attack into the PT post about that course (or its comments, although I stopped reading after 50 or 60) and was unable to do so. Where do you see that?
What I do see is a lively debate over whether or not it is useful to debate the failings of ID any further. Some argue that the evidence is there and it is counterproductive to expound on it further; others argue that as long as ID advocates use misrepresentation, false assumptions, and poor logic, it is appropriate to point out how they are wrong. The man so many IDers love to hate, Pim van Meurs, takes a consistent stand in favor of _politely_ explaining the errors rather than name-calling.
I do find it ironic that the course's required textbookss are so heavily tilted towards ID -- four ID books versus one lonely book by Dawkins -- yet no ID advocates have complained about this unbalanced representation of the two ideas.
I like the analogy suggested in one comment between "biology looks designed" and "the earth looks flat" -- I shall have to remember that one.
That last seems to be one of few details of science remembered by darwiny apologists. The whole flat earth mythology they peddle, and constant attempts at making false analogies between what can be observed through operational science and what must be infered indirectly from evidence (on both sides of the debate), muddling up good science, serves as a good measure of the actual credibility regarding logic, reasoning, and science in general, such apologists actually have.
I'm a software engineer myself, so I'm used to dealing with systems and have had a continued interest in this subject.
I've debated many adament evolutionists, only to come to the end, where they invariably admit that currently, their beliefs are not actually well supported, but forwarding the hope that someday they will.
My experience is that these tired old claims about what creationists as well as ID'rs do and say don't actually apply, and in fact do in the reverse. For example, the evolutionist apologist's continuing misrep. of creationists as believing in species fixity, the actual beliefs regarding diversification having been well spelled out by every such major group on the face of the globe for years.
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