Any Creationists here?

wolfsbane wrote:

Now apply that to the Creation/Evolution debate. Admit that there is scientific dispute on the issue

Okay, watch. I will be as removed as possible.

Step 1. There appears to be some scientists who disagree on evolution, a very small fraction that falls outside acceptable p-values for a conclusion. I would hence rule out the disagreement based on this and the fact that actual peer review articles against evolution are incredibly rare. The global warming case is not similar because the disagreement is well within acceptable p-values.

On this same basis I would rule out light superpartners in physics, even though some claim they exist, they are extremely small in number.

However let's say I'm more lenient than usual and allow the disagreement because our (i.e., the human race's) origins are important, then I move to step 2.

Step 2. The majority of claims are written from a non-scientific perspective and involve an awful lot of "spin" and distortions of what the actual scientific theories say. If somebody criticises a caricature of a scientific theory, rather than the theory itself then they are not worth listening to.

However let's say I'm even more lenient and assume that these people are cranks that actually don't represent proper thought that's critical of evolution. I then move on to step 3.

Step 3. Now, I'm looking at the well written criticisms of evolution that actually deal with the theory itself. These divide into two broad classes.
The first class is those who think that evolution is only part of the history of biological organisms and that there is a second mechanism that is equally important that we haven't found yet. They form 95% of this group. I'll leave them for now because they aren't related to what we're talking about, but I can speak about them if anybody wishes.
The remaining 5% are Creationists. I'll turn to step 4 to deal with this group.

Step 4. Now we have the Creationists who write decent material against evolution. I've given criticisms of their writings in several places so I won't go into here. Instead I'll mention something else. This group also appears to have problems with the Big Bang and abiogenesis. All of which are from completely unrelated fields.
Big Bang is from Cosmology.
Abiogenesis is from Chemistry.
Finally Evolution itself is from Biology.

Now, these three separate theories which stand independently of each other. Any two could be proven wrong without effecting the third. However the seem to be lumped together in Creationist literature as one single entity. Particularly Abiogenesis and Evolution get put together as molecules-to-man.

Okay why does this group have a problem with three unrelated theories?
(The Big Bang is especially, in fact completely, unrelated to the last two.)
It turns out that this group consists entirely of fundamentalist Christians and all these theories go against their preferred reading of their holy book.

This extremely suspicious and remember I've already been overly lenient twice.


Let me give you a hypothetical example to demonstrate the above line of thought more clearly.
Imagine there was the possibility of making a drug from a plant I'll call the ABC plant. 99.95% of scientists are of the opinion that this drug can be manufactured from the plant, given enough R&D.
Upon reading the literature I find there is a small group, 0.05% of scientists (just on the p-value), who say this won't work. I read up on them and find out that they are all from culture X. In culture X this plant has always been considered harmful. I would suspect they are not being honest in their judgement. I then find out they also write papers criticising other areas which disagree with their culture. Not only that, but they lump all the areas together as if they are one consistent whole. It would then seem to me that the are simply reacting against what they consider to be "other" and their opinion is not worth listening to.


The fact that there is a dispute is not enough for the opposing opinion to be considered.
The opposing opinion must have:
1. A decent number of proponents.
2. A well founded literature
3. Not be based around a culture which requires the opposing opinion to be true.

I'd be willing to allow an opinion away with one of these, but not all three together.