Fallacious pro-evolution arguments

Aggie · #61 19th February 2008, 01:19 AM

Originally Posted by eri

I thought non-Christians weren't supposed to post in the Origins section. I lurk there once in a while, and that's the impression I got - I haven't seen any atheists post there. Am I wrong?

It used to be that way, but they changed it last summer. I see atheists post there occasionally, although the majority of the posters are still Christians.

Creationists also make up a much higher percentage of the posters there than they do in this section, which I consider beneficial for a few reasons. One is that it means the evolution side isn’t able to smother their opponents through sheer numbers the way they can in this section, so winning arguments there has to rely on factual information and logic, kind of like the way this section used to be in 2004 and 2005. Possibly because of this, there also isn’t quite as high a concentration of creationists there who tend to ignore whatever flaws are pointed out in their beliefs. Together with the higher concentration of creationists in general, these two things give me the impression that I have a greater chance at accomplishing something there in terms of educating these people than I would have in this section.

TheBear · #62 19th February 2008, 01:31 AM

Aggie, you have every right to go where you feel comfortable. But there's no need for these drawn-out and dramatic goodbyes.

Go already!

Bye now!

#63 19th February 2008, 05:19 AM

The problem with Creationism Versus Evolution; boils down to the threat the Creationists pose on erudition. Creationists vie for the right to teach creationism in schools as science. The last time religion was held above science was in the dark ages. I fear the day creationism will be taught as the true origin of everything. They build creation museums, they harangue education boards into accepting creationism as a viable alternative to evolution. This is the main reason why there is so much animosity. The rest of the planet has no such problems. This is inherently an American problem and becomes a problem to the rest of the world because the US is a superpower and influences global politics.
Personally The threat creationism poses to mankind is far greater in the long run than any threat from any terrorist.

Nitron · #64 19th February 2008, 08:09 AM

Nitron, you haven’t been as bad as most of the people who contribute to this problem, but you employ a very strange tactic when someone refutes one of your posts. Even if someone specifically asks you a question in their rebuttal, or if you’ve promised to make an additional point after they’ve answered your first post, you never acknowledge their reply at all. I’ve seen you do the same thing at Gondolend, when other people argue with something you say there. I had been hoping that when you disappear from a thread after having one of your points refuted, you were at least listening to what had been pointed out there, but when you disappeared from my thread about AiG’s Gould quote (even though you’d told me in this post that you had more questions to ask me after I replied), you posted second thread less than a week later repeating the same points that Naraoia and I had already refuted. I asked you in post #9 of this thread why you were refusing to acknowledge our rebuttals, but you never replied to my question about that, either.

I've realized that a long time ago. The fact is that when someone refutes one of my points or sends me scrambling I always want to have a good enough reply. It then gets stretched out over days until I just forget it. And yes, I do listen- I just posted the comic because I came across it on Pharyngula and found it hilariously relevant.

I’ve seen you do the same thing at Gondolend, when other people argue with something you say there.

Now I'm curious. Care to point out specific threads?

Aggie · #65 19th February 2008, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Nitron

I've realized that a long time ago. The fact is that when someone refutes one of my points or sends me scrambling I always want to have a good enough reply. It then gets stretched out over days until I just forget it. And yes, I do listen- I just posted the comic because I came across it on Pharyngula and found it hilariously relevant.

What you said in your OP where you posted it, “It delivers the point better than I can”, suggested pretty strongly that you were trying to prove something with it. I think you should have at least acknowledged the fact that all of the points made in it had already been addressed by me and Naraoia.

Originally Posted by Nitron

Now I'm curious. Care to point out specific threads?

I can think of two examples offhand, although there are probably more than that. But I guess I’ll just keep it at two, since nobody who isn’t registered there will be able to see what I’m linking to.

The first one was in this thread, when you said you thought Tengu had stopped posting at Gondolend because of me. I asked:

How it that possible anyway, though? I know that her last post was in September of last year [2006], around four months before I showed up. How could she have been talking about leaving because of me when I wasn’t even a member yet?

You never answered my question about that. The second example was in my thread about what I think of the presidential candidates, when I was debating with Scott Hartman and Keesey about healthcare. You said “i see a flamewar right around the corner”, and Keesey replied:

Hmm, I thought the tone had been pretty civil so far.

I guess technically this wasn’t a question, but I was still expecting you to explain why were expecting a flamewar there. Is the reason why you generally don’t answer things like this just because you keep putting it off until you end up forgetting?

eri · #66 19th February 2008, 01:19 PM

OK, thanks for the clarification. I may post there once in a while now - I've seen some painful misunderstandings of astronomy going on, and it was all I could do not to contribute to the conversation earlier, but I didn't want to end up losing my account.

Nitron · #67 20th February 2008, 10:17 PM

I guess technically this wasn’t a question, but I was still expecting you to explain why were expecting a flamewar there. Is the reason why you generally don’t answer things like this just because you keep putting it off until you end up forgetting?

Yeah. But I really don't see why this specific comment matters- it was a generalization of internet discussions on politics.

As to the one on the waffles thread, I had responded but later deleted all my posts in the thread.

Now let this die.

Aggie · #68 21st February 2008, 05:18 AM

Originally Posted by Nitron

As to the one on the waffles thread, I had responded but later deleted all my posts in the thread.

No, that isn’t right. You got Will Svensen to delete all your posts in that thread (only the troll posts) before I asked you that, and I know he didn’t delete any of your normal posts after that point. All the rest of your posts from after he did that are still there, so you would have had to delete only your reply to me, and none of the other posts you made after you stopped trolling. You also would have had to delete it before I had the chance to see it, and I was looking at that thread several times a day. If this whole problem is just a matter of you having bad memory, it’s even worse than I realized.

EDIT: It looks like you’ve deleted the rest of your posts now, but you must’ve done that pretty recently because the previous time I looked at that thread, all your posts from after you stopped trolling were still there. But even before you deleted them, you were still ignoring my question.

I get the feeling you’re trying to evade me here, which makes me suspicious about whether all of this is really just a matter of forgetfulness. Can you please address what I said about your OP in the comic thread? I’m willing to forget about my problem with the rest of the posters at this section of CF, since they won’t affect me much anymore now that I’ve stopped participating in the debates here, but you and I interact with one another at enough other websites that I’m not content with letting my opinion of you be lowered so easily.

Loudmouth · #69 21st February 2008, 12:19 PM

Hey Aggie,

You mentioned earlier that no one is giving detailed responses to creationist claims. Are there any specific claims you want us to focus on? Perhaps you could summarize the creationist claim here and we could give a one post refutation with references to the scientific evidence.

Nitron · #70 21st February 2008, 07:42 PM

I get the feeling you’re trying to evade me here, which makes me suspicious about whether all of this is really just a matter of forgetfulness. Can you please address what I said about your OP in the comic thread? I’m willing to forget about my problem with the rest of the posters at this section of CF, since they won’t affect me much anymore now that I’ve stopped participating in the debates here, but you and I interact with one another at enough other websites that I’m not content with letting my opinion of you be lowered so easily.

The comic thread was a mistake. I wouldn't attribute it to forgetfulness as much as foolishness.

No, that isn’t right. You got Will Svensen to delete all your posts in that thread (only the troll posts) before I asked you that, and I know he didn’t delete any of your normal posts after that point. All the rest of your posts from after he did that are still there, so you would have had to delete only your reply to me, and none of the other posts you made after you stopped trolling. You also would have had to delete it before I had the chance to see it, and I was looking at that thread several times a day. If this whole problem is just a matter of you having bad memory, it’s even worse than I realized

Actually, I had said that I had gotten the idea from "the old Gondolend and Deviantart" (Paraphrasing.) Will replied that "I wouldn't take it to heart", so I took it as a case closed.

And in my mind there's a difference with this type of forgetfulness and a bad memory. I put things off until replying to a comment would be not worth the hassle. It's still on my mind, and I feel bad about it, but I don't reply to it.