Has a creationist ever won a CvE debate?

[WingsOfTheNeophyte]

\Has a creationist ever won a CvE debate?

I'm quite interested if that has ever happened in the history of the debate

 

[cerad]

\Has a creationist ever won a CvE debate?

I'm quite interested if that has ever happened in the history of the debate

Sure. Dad used to win all the time. In fact he got so tired of winning the he finally went away just so the rest of us wouldn't feel so depressed over losing.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

\Has a creationist ever won a CvE debate?

I'm quite interested if that has ever happened in the history of the debate

Not in the scientific community. to be more precise, Darwin's time was the end of when legitimate scientists accepted creationism. but even then scientists knew of the fossil record so they knew that geologic time and fossil history was neither recent nor sudden.

 

[Grengor]

Define "win".

 

[MoonLancer]

Define "win".

events similar to dover?

 

[consol]

\Has a creationist ever won a CvE debate?

I'm quite interested if that has ever happened in the history of the debate

Considering what they have to work with, I give them 10 out of 10 for trying.

 

[Dannager]

events similar to dover?

Creationism has never had a victory even approaching the magnitude of the Dover decision in recent memory.

 

[Phred]

Antonin Scalia.

 

[IzzyPop]

And it seems that they are so irritated at losing all the time that they are now trying to pull down all anti-Hovind videos off of youTube. There seems to be one single account that has flagged hundreds of videos for copyright violations in the past 2 days.

 

[LittleNipper]

\Has a creationist ever won a CvE debate?

I'm quite interested if that has ever happened in the history of the debate

Actually, there have been public debates where the evolutionist has been left with egg on his face. Most evolutions will no longer debate the topic n lecture halls anymore because like Nixon vs, Kennedy, they come off looking worse for wear. It is far more productive to exclude creationists and ignore them. That way, they do not acquire any notoriety at the expense of evolution.

 

[JeremyHopkins]

I actually used to win arguments all the time when I was a creationist. But I was a teenager armed only with Creationist propaganda debating other teens armed with nothing except for a very inadequate understand of ToE and science in general. I live in an area highly saturated with fundamentalists and science education around here is poor.

 

[IzzyPop]

Actually, there have been public debates where the evolutionist has been left with egg on his face. Most evolutions will no longer debate the topic n lecture halls anymore because like Nixon vs, Kennedy, they come off looking worse for wear. It is far more productive to exclude creationists and ignore them. That way, they do not acquire any notoriety at the expense of evolution.

I really has more to do with the creationists do not stick to the format of the debate and the scientists no longer wish to give the creationists the semblance of a reasonable scientific theory.

Nice try, though.

 

[Phred]

It's easy to win a debate as a creationist...

"Are you saying something came from nothing?!?"

Game over.

 

[JeremyHopkins]

Actually, there have been public debates where the evolutionist has been left with egg on his face. Most evolutions will no longer debate the topic n lecture halls anymore because like Nixon vs, Kennedy, they come off looking worse for wear. It is far more productive to exclude creationists and ignore them. That way, they do not acquire any notoriety at the expense of evolution.

There are two main reasons why many evolutionists will not publically debate creationists. One reason is that public debate is a very poor forum to use to educate people on the Theory of Evolution. That is because many of the topics involved are kind of complex and getting the point accross to a public that has already been preconditioned to not accept evolution as fact is difficult enough without a creationist in the way offerring simplistic and wrong explainations for everything to further confuse the audience. Creationist arguments are built to look very pragmatic and sensical on the surface but when further examined, are grossly flawed. But the general public might not know why they are flawed if they lack the knowledge to see the fallacies. And public debate often does not afford scientists the time needed to explain in enough detail why a particular argument is fallacious.

The other reason is because there is simply no reason to give them the press. The press gives more weight to legimate scientists than to Creationists because, regardless of religious idealogies, at the end of the day, it's the scientists and not the Creationists that are producing. (To my knowledge, Creationists do not actually produce anything except for propaganda). The scientists have earned their press. The creationists have not earned the scientists press. So why should the scientist give Creationists their press?

 

[Loudmouth]

\Has a creationist ever won a CvE debate?

I'm quite interested if that has ever happened in the history of the debate

It is all in the eye of the beholder. Has a creationist ever won a written scientific debate where both parties are well informed? Not that I have ever seen. The problem is that for many creationists it isn't about science, it's about theology. Once you wander off the religious reservation the debate is over for many creationists. If your beliefs or theology disagree with their theology or beliefs then you are automatically wrong. No ifs, ands, or buts. Until creationists come forward with a list of 1) reasonable evidence they would accept as evidence for evolution, and 2) potential evidence that, if found, would falsify creationism then there can never be an honest and forthright debate.

 

[corvus_corax]

Actually, there have been public debates where the evolutionist has been left with egg on his face. Most evolutions will no longer debate the topic n lecture halls anymore because like Nixon vs, Kennedy, they come off looking worse for wear. It is far more productive to exclude creationists and ignore them. That way, they do not acquire any notoriety at the expense of evolution.

Actually there have been several debates where the Creationist side "won". Heck even Gould said he wouldn't debate them. More to the point, he quite confidently stated that he probably couldn't beat any of them at debate.

However (and here's where the truth of the situation comes out), put creationists and biological scientists that accept evolutionary theory in a courtroom and things turn out much much differently.

One might wonder why there is such a discrepancy between public debate results and courtroom results. The answer is simple- in a courtroom, actual evidence is demanded (and "the bible is the word of God therefore creationism is true" is not evidence). The very things that Creationist debaters depend on (rhetoric, chipping away at the oponent, strawman arguments and quite a few outright lies) are stripped away from them in a courtroom. The court demands actual evidence, and the Creationists walk away with egg on their face, looking much worse for the wear.
It is far more productive for creationists to spout their empty dogma in a lecture hall than it is in a courtroom, simply because (as we've seen ad nauseum on this forum) they have not a whit of empirical evidence backing up their Idol.

 

[CACTUSJACKmankin]

Actually, there have been public debates where the evolutionist has been left with egg on his face. Most evolutions will no longer debate the topic n lecture halls anymore because like Nixon vs, Kennedy, they come off looking worse for wear. It is far more productive to exclude creationists and ignore them. That way, they do not acquire any notoriety at the expense of evolution.

Creationists win public debates because they dont have the burden of having to know what they are talking about. They can throw out a hundred distortions in a minute each of which requires several minutes of corrective explanation. This is very common in denialism, loose change uses this very tactic. Also to be quite honest it is impossible to know everything about a subject so a botanist may not be able to answer distortions that require molecular biology to correct.

 

[dukeofhazzard]

I actually used to win arguments all the time when I was a creationist. But I was a teenager armed only with Creationist propaganda debating other teens armed with nothing except for a very inadequate understand of ToE and science in general. I live in an area highly saturated with fundamentalists and science education around here is poor.

Oh my gosh, you must live near me

 

[JeremyHopkins]

Oh my gosh, you must live near me

I live in Amarillo, Texas. And yourself?

 

[dukeofhazzard]

I live in Amarillo, Texas. And yourself?

Not Amarillo, but in Texas,

must be a Texas thing then!