Fri 26 Aug 2011
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.
Posted by anaglyph under Atheism, Australiana, Religion, Skeptical Thinking
[20] Comments
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I dunno. That pointy hat is pretty impressive.
Maybe the scientist should have a pointy hat. Would more people believe what he says?
I think it says something that religious people need to dress up in funny colourful clothes to attempt to get their message across, while scientists wear a plain unadorned white coat.
You haven’t seen my crown have you my sweet, I seem to have misplaced it and no-one wants to listen to me.
The King
I keep wondering when the ‘marketing’ guys are going to enter stage left. I can see it now:
JESUS SAVESâ„¢ WESTPAC
The King
HA!!
I have long wondered if there’s a market in secondhand pope hats. I mean, he can’t wear them forever, can he? They have to wear out. What happens to them then?
I want one.
But do they actually ‘wear out’? I mean, it’s not like they do much except sit on his head. Well, I guess they might get a bit sweaty or something, but do you really want that?
I think the stick he carries is recycled in the theatre – you know, those crooks that they use to yank people off stage.
They end up as cute little robots doing the usual trade fair rounds, here’s a pic:
http://biblelight.net/7tiaras.jpg
The King
You need a better graphic.
Looks like you’re suggesting Catholics are fundamentalists.
Surely, U know betternat.
They’re all cut from the same altar cloth. I could have used:
Scientist: “We’ve discovered the Earth moves around the sun”, but I felt the implication was clear in the previous post’s headline.
Heh …
I guess you don’t know betternat …
Putting aside out little tiff, and on the subject of Young-Earth Creationism (incidentally referenced here), HERE’S a link to the start of a YouTube debate on Evolution and Creationism that I think you’ll enjoy (if you haven’t already checked it out).
Of course, there’s no such thing as a GOOD debate between a Young-Earth Creation “Scientist” and an Evolutionary Scientist — if ‘good’ means a real CONTEST — since the only way you get a serious CONTEST on this subject is when the proponent of Evolution simply isn’t up for the event. (And there ARE some proponents of Evolution who are not really “cut out” for the task of public debate against the “slicker” of the Creationists. In my opinion — and you may disagree — Michael Shermer is one of them.) And the linked debate arguably involves one of the MORE outgunned fellows on the Creationist side — i.e., he doesn’t even have the attribute of “slickness” — but, if you’re anything like me, you have an appreciation for a quick mind in action (which — I’m sorry to say — Mr. Shermer simply doesn’t have); and that is exactly what is manifest in Massimo Pigliucci here.
Hope you enjoy!
I’ve read some of Michael Shermer’s written stuff but I’ve not seen him debate a creationist, so I don’t know how he fares. To tell the truth, I just find it painful to hear someone like Massimo Pigliucci trying to reason with someone who is so obviously as much of a dunce as Robert Allen. How do you have any kind of meaningful logical dialogue with a person who just doesn’t have a clue what logic is?
Even the points he scores off Allen seem a little cheap since Allen is such an idiot (mind you, it’s hard to know what kind of point wouldn’t be cheap arguing with a creationist). It’s about as satisfying as watching someone shoot fish in a barrel.
Richard Dawkins quite famously refuses to debate creationists because he says you can’t win and the fact that he even acknowledges them gives them credence.
Yeah, it IS interesting that the Creationists luuuuuuuuuuuuuv the prospect of an on-stage or on-the-radio) debate and that someone like Dawkins would decline the … ummm … “opportunity.” The format obviously favors the party who will need frequently to be “let off the hook” so that the “show” can move along, thus keeping the fidgety audience from getting restless. Stubbornly standing one’s ground when challenged, no matter what challenge has been leveled — which is exactly what should be expected from someone who’d probably adopted his / her position a priori — will unfortunately be seen by the less astute audience members as “having successfully fended off an attack” or having “met the challenge.” In short, “running out the clock” becomes a strategy.
For the same reason, it’s interesting that the Creationist types are never eager to engage in a more extensive and protracted Internet debate — i.e., a written back-and-forth before whatever audience of readers gives enough of a shit to read what gets posted. That format allows for long, detailed presentations with full and careful citations AND the opportunity to point out (repeatedly, if necessary) when a participant has neglected to respond satisfactorily to a particular challenge. In that sort of format, the only analogue to “running out the clock” is bailing out and running.
Yeah, I was probably too hard on ol’ Shermer too. I can only recall seeing him once do a live debate on Creationism vs. Evolution. It was against Kent Hovind … the famously stupid Kent Hovind … the certifiedly stupid Kent Hovind … and it was an on-stage debate rather than the sort of radio debate between Pigliucci and Allen. That’s the format, I suppose, that is most “friendly” to the party packing a lot of flash-powder but no shot. Longer presentations are made, less opportunity is available to point out when challenges leveled haven’t been satisfactorily addressed, etc. In any such debate on this subject, I suppose it’s invariably a contest between a puncher and a runner, so the puncher needs to “cut the ring off.” Shermer, on stage before seated audience, had to chase Hovind around a 24′ x 24′ ring, while Pigliucci, on the phone to a radio program, had to chase Allen around a 20′ x 20′ ring. Perhaps Dawkins is the smartest one, for simply refusing to engage in the spectacle.
Another thing the creationists do that makes it hard to endure their ‘arguments’ is the brainless changing the subject. Watch them work: the scientists introduces an idea then the creationist immediately fragments the debate into a dozen little sidetracks that have nothing to do with the main thrust of the argument. The scientist tries to round them up and put them back on track, but every one of those dozen sidetracks has the potential to be a dozen more sidetracks.
The debate between Allen and Pigliucci is no different – Allen just keeps on throwing in all these stupid and irrelevant sidetracks, and, as much a Pigliucci attempts to corral them, he just ends up with both hands full and more balls being thrown into the air…
Or, to use your boxing analogy, the creationist is using a lot of fancy footwork and the scientist is just getting tired through the effort of trying to land a punch.
And of course it doesn’t help matters any when the “referee” is not willing to call a combatant on his use of illicit moves.
These Creationists routinely insist that the whole debate is over “origins” — as if evolutionary biologists have taken some definite position either on the origin of the Cosmos or the origin of life — and they almost as often insist that the theory of common ancestry between any two present-day forms of life implies that at some time in the past something rather like one of those life-forms turned into something rather like the other. And even when an effort is made at the beginning of a debate / discussion to settle on acceptable and accurate definitions, it seems it’s always left to the combatants to call one another on any departures from those definitions. It’s as if the moderator / “referee” feels it’s somehow not his / her place to step in and point out the impropriety of someone’s move — especially if the same admonition is called for repeatedly.
I’m reminded of an article published a few years back by Michael Kinsley. It was about politics rather than science, but made a worthwhile point about how and why “critical thinking” goes by the board among members of the media in regard to certain subject-matters. Here’s a link to the article.
Oops! That shoulda been a reply to your latest.
As far as origins go, the creationists have another annoying tactic (as is evidenced also in the Pigliucci/Allen debate). They attempt to change the debate from one about evolutionary process to one about ‘how did life arise’. Of course, science hasn’t figured this out, so the creationist thinks that by crying ‘Aha!’ at this point, he has scored a significant win. But science is ALWAYS at this disadvantage purely because it is willing to admit that it doesn’t know everything.
This seems to me to be the ultimate act of humility, compared to the extraordinary hubris of religious people who DO know everything: ‘God made it, QED!’
The act of science is always appended by a question mark, and religion sees this as a weakness, not a strength.
I have an upcoming illustration of this situation :)