Creationist offers $10,000...

46AND2

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46AND2

Forty six and two are just ahead of me...
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From what I've read, it's a suckers bet (like Hovind's $250 bazillion challenge) and the guy that's offering it has been pulling this stunt for quite a while.

Yeah, I'm sure you're right.
 
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And-U-Say

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Bungle_Bear

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So here are the rules:

  1. The non-literal Genesis advocate puts $10,000 in escrow with the judge.
  2. The literal Genesis advocate and contributing writer for the Creation Science Hall of Fame, Joseph Mastropaolo, puts $10,000 in escrow with the judge.
  3. If the non-literal Genesis advocate proves that science contradicts the literal reading of Genesis, then the non-literal Genesis advocate is awarded the $20,000.
  4. If the literal Genesis advocate proves that science indicates the literal reading of Genesis, then the literal Genesis advocate is awarded the $20,000.
  5. Evidence must be scientific, that is, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated.
  6. The preponderance of evidence prevails.
  7. At the end of the trial, the judge hands the prevailing party both checks.
  8. The judge is a superior court judge.
  9. The venue is a courthouse.
  10. Court costs will be paid by the prevailing party.

The challenge doesn't define:
a) which particular "literal" interpretation
b) how much of Genesis is in scope
c) how much of the literal interpretation has to be "contradicted"
d) who decides what is "objective, valid, reliable and calibrated" - these are notions we all know creationists like to define their own way

Also note that for the non-literal side science has to contradict the literal interpretation, for the literal side it only has to indicate i.e. one has to be definite, the other only a possibility.

As usual it is a case of "I make a vague statement. It's down to you to prove 100% that the statement is entirely false. Failure to do so will mean I must be 100% correct."
 
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a post by Alan Smithee
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I found this quote from a HuffPo article on anothe forum.

When I proposed that we agree on definitions of evolution and creationism as a starting point, things went awry pretty quickly. In response to my suggestion that we use the classic textbook definition for evolution (a change in allele frequencies in a population over time), Mastropaolo's second argued that "change in allele frequency is about as meaningless a definition of evolution as can be offered." Mastropaolo himself countered with the following: "evolution is the development of an organism from its chemicals to its primitive state to its present state." My Ph.D. in evolutionary biology didn't help me make any sense out of that definition. Mastropaolo went further and said that I "may not be competent to contend for the Life Science Prize."​
 
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