Evolutionists: What have you studied re: creationism/ID? What resources have you specifically used?

[pitabread]

Basically, the inverse of my other thread here: Creationists: What have you studied re: evolution? What resources have you specifically used?

For the 'evolutionists' (e.g. those who accept evolution as an explanation for diversity of life on Earth) and you've studied creationism and/or Intelligent Design, what have you specifically studied? Have you read any books on creationism/ID? Which ones? Do you use online publications? Courses? Journal papers? Etc.

In short, as a evolutionist, what resources have you used to learn about creationism and/or Intelligent Design?

 

[pitabread]

And to answer my own question on sources I've used to learn about creationism and Intelligent design:

• More articles than I can count from Answers in Genesis, Creation Ministries International and the Institute for Creation Research. This even includes chunks of ICR's RATE project, among other published literature.
• Various books on Intelligent Design including Darwin on Trial, Darwin's Black Box, No Free Lunch, and Darwin's Doubt.
• Various published papers by proponents of Intelligent Design (primarily Meyer, Dembski, and Axe). This includes papers specifically promoted by the Discovery Institute on their main site, as well as a handful of papers published through Bio-Complexity (an ID journal).
• Various videos including Kent Hovind's entire video lecture series on creationism, a few Ray Comfort videos, and handfuls of others on ID/creationism. (I even read through a bunch of Hovind's 'thesis paper' that was leaked on the internet.)
• I also specifically studied the Dover trial when it was underway and wrote a paper on it for a law class in university.
• And probably a bunch more sources that I can't think of right now...

 

[Subduction Zone]

Basically, the inverse of my other thread here: Creationists: What have you studied re: evolution? What resources have you specifically used?

For the 'evolutionists' (e.g. those who accept evolution as an explanation for diversity of life on Earth) and you've studied creationism and/or Intelligent Design, what have you specifically studied? Have you read any books on creationism/ID? Which ones? Do you use online publications? Courses? Journal papers? Etc.

In short, as a evolutionist, what resources have you used to learn about creationism and/or Intelligent Design?

I remember many years ago when I saw an evolution debate between Duane Gish and Philip Kitcher at the University of Minnesota (Go Gophers!) Unfortunately Kitcher was a philosopher of science and I do not think he was prepared for Duane's signature dishonest Gish Gallop. I could see that Gish was misrepresenting the science and I bought the book he was hawking there. I cannot remember which specific book of his that it was. But if I saw the cover and title I might remember. I know, that helped him. But I needed to see exactly where he was wrong. Since then it has all been various internet sources, such as ICR and others where one has to swear not to follow the scientific method. I have read the odd article here and there by such as Behe and others. And of course I remember rather well the attempt of Steven Austin to refute radiometric dating by running tests on recent basalts using errors than an undergrad would not make. It was rather conclusive evidence that he was lying since I don't know of any other PhD that would have made those errors.

 

[Shemjaza]

I started on Creationism from ICR and AIG, but I've read through a lot of articles published on Uncommon Descent and other DI individuals.

I've never read through an entire Intelligent design book, but I'm happy to consume articles reportedly by their proponents to actually present evidence, mechanisms and metrics for ID. (So far disappointed).

It's all so disappointing because while I'm certainly an atheist, but emotionally I would truly love to live in a more marvelous supernatural world.

 

[sesquiterpene]

Basically, the inverse of my other thread here: Creationists: What have you studied re: evolution? What resources have you specifically used?

For the 'evolutionists' (e.g. those who accept evolution as an explanation for diversity of life on Earth) and you've studied creationism and/or Intelligent Design, what have you specifically studied? Have you read any books on creationism/ID? Which ones? Do you use online publications? Courses? Journal papers? Etc.

In short, as a evolutionist, what resources have you used to learn about creationism and/or Intelligent Design?

I think that the only creationist book I've bought was Darwin on Trial; after that I decided not to give any more of my money to creationists. Nevertheless I've followed creation/evolution debates online for quite some time, while rarely participating: talk.origins on Usenet from a little bit after the Great Renaming until I lost my newsfeed to Google Groups; here since ~2005; ARN, Panda's Thumb, EvC forums and The Skeptical Zone since their inception. I probably have heard every single creationist argument many many times. I've never had the enthusiasm to actually construct a list of references to really argue effectively.

 

[Strathos]

Never read any books, but I have read many articles online, and read through (and participated) in hundreds of online debates on the subject. I've found that the 'best' creationist arguments are the Last-Thursday-ism ones that can't be scientifically falsified, but I reject those for theological reasons.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And I need to add, I may be wrong about the debate that I saw with Gish at the University of Minnesota. It seems a bit too recent to me. Thinking back I might have moved out of the state by then. Also reading up on the debate that I referred to it appears that the opponent was more well versed on Gish's techniques.

 

[Speedwell]

Started with the very first creationist book as an Anglican undergraduate at Catholic University: The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb & Morris. I was not impressed. Followed up with In the Beginning by Walt Brown, which updated The Genesis Flood to account for plate tectonics, which was just coming to popular attention in the '60s. Even worse--does anybody really believe that the Fountains of the Great Deep described in the Noah story erupted with such force as to blast chunks of the Earth into space to form the Asteroid Belt? Also follow the principle YEC websites which have sprung up since--ICR, AiG, CRI. Have also done some reading of the major 19th century Evangelical theologians--Hodge, Warfield, etc.--to discover the roots of this nonsense. Not there.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

I'm very disappointed to note that nobody, so far, has mentioned reading..... the Bible. We complain that Creationists don't read source material, so surely that's where we should all start to avoid accusations of hypocrisy. I've read the entire Bible in various English versions, as well as certain books in other languages. Since I don't understand Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic I've read commentaries to try to understand what the original words actually mean.

As well as that I've been through AiG, ICR, Uncommon Descent etc. I normally take time to read whatever links are provided in a post (as well as the ones my dad, who is a Creationist, emails me) although I tend to skip the overly long YouTube videos. This has taken me all over the internets and down some fascinatingly scary rabbit holes.

 

[Speedwell]

I'm very disappointed to note that nobody, so far, has mentioned reading..... the Bible. We complain that Creationists don't read source material, so surely that's where we should all start to avoid accusations of hypocrisy. I've read the entire Bible in various English versions, as well as certain books in other languages. Since I don't understand Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic I've read commentaries to try to understand what the original words actually mean.

As well as that I've been through AiG, ICR, Uncommon Descent etc. I normally take time to read whatever links are provided in a post (as well as the ones my dad, who is a Creationist, emails me) although I tend to skip the overly long YouTube videos. This has taken me all over the internets and down some fascinatingly scary rabbit holes.

Of course, the Bible--although I really don't think of it as a creationist book.

 

[Strathos]

I'm very disappointed to note that nobody, so far, has mentioned reading..... the Bible. We complain that Creationists don't read source material, so surely that's where we should all start to avoid accusations of hypocrisy. I've read the entire Bible in various English versions, as well as certain books in other languages. Since I don't understand Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic I've read commentaries to try to understand what the original words actually mean.

The Bible is not the sole property of literalist creationists.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

The Bible is not the sole property of literalist creationists.

That doesn't matter, and it's not a claim I made. If you want to understand Creationism you need to understand the text they consider to be foundational. By the same token, biology is not the sole property of evolutionary scientists but you need to understand it to understand ToE. If we want to complain about Creationists not understanding biology they have every right to complain if we do not understand the relevant texts in the Bible.

 

[Strathos]

That doesn't matter, and it's not a claim I made. If you want to understand Creationism you need to understand the text they consider to be foundational. By the same token, biology is not the sole property of evolutionary scientists but you need to understand it to understand ToE. If we want to complain about Creationists not understanding biology they have every right to complain if we do not understand the relevant texts in the Bible.

Often times they don't understand them all that well either.

 

[Astrophile]

Basically, the inverse of my other thread here: Creationists: What have you studied re: evolution? What resources have you specifically used?

For the 'evolutionists' (e.g. those who accept evolution as an explanation for diversity of life on Earth) and you've studied creationism and/or Intelligent Design, what have you specifically studied? Have you read any books on creationism/ID? Which ones? Do you use online publications? Courses? Journal papers? Etc.

In short, as a evolutionist, what resources have you used to learn about creationism and/or Intelligent Design?

I have read, or tried to read, Evolution or Creation (first published 1966) by Professor H. Enoch, Scientific Creationism (1974) and The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth (1972) by Henry Morris, The Earth, the Stars, and the Bible (1978) by Paul M. Steidl, and Creation (1996) by John Metcalfe. A long time ago, a colleague of mine lent me The Twilight of Evolution by Henry Morris.

Of these, Creation by John Metcalfe is mostly an exposition of the first chapters of Genesis, and does not deal with scientific questions; I bought it second-hand, mostly for the picture of zeta Orionis and the Flame Nebula on the front cover. The Twilight of Evolution seemed to me to be mostly theological, although I was amused by the author's fantasies about Satan, Nimrod and the Tower of Babel. The Earth, the Stars, and the Bible is the best of these books, since the author actually knows something about his subject, but by now it is badly out of date. The other three books have little to recommend them: they are full of errors of fact, misunderstandings of the evidence, and logical fallacies, and their authors rely on quote-mining, fail to address the evidence, and use quotations from the Bible as if they were relevant to the issue.

My conclusion from reading these books and creationist websites is that young-Earth creationism is on the same intellectual level as astrology, flying saucers, UFOs and ancient astronauts, the Bermuda Triangle, fortune telling, the occult, and all the other stuff that goes under the name of the paranormal, and that it is a waste of time studying it.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Often times they don't understand them all that well either.

You say this because....... you have studied them. If you had not, how would you know? You're making my point very well. Thank you.

 

[SigurdReginson]

Hmmm... Well, I was actually raised with creationism in my home schooling southern baptist curriculum. The senerio taught in my curriculum was that the earth is 6000 years old, and that the events described in the bible happened exactly as the bible stated. The reasoning for their scientific approach was to make their findings fit within that framing.

For instance, the reason why certain fossils were found in certain layers of the earth world wide were not because certain creatures existed in different phases of earth's history, but because the creatures weighed different amounts and settled on the ground during the flood according to that weight.

Also, it was taught that before the flood it never rained, and the reason why was that there was a giant ice shell covering the earth in it's upper atmosphere, and when the flood happened, it came crashing down and melted into the water that would flood the earth.

Since finishing my homeschool curriculum, I haven't really looked into creationism at all. No interest. I did look at a few theories proposed via Ken Ham a few years ago, and it's amazing how none of the old theories I learned in the past stuck around to this day.

They just didn't hold up to scrutiny, it seems. The new theories proposed probably won't either.

 

[loveofourlord]

Mostly videos debunking creationists arguments, about as much as I'm willing to hear. It's the same old same old arguments, lack of understanding.

Frankly only so many times I can listen to a creationist spend 2 hours debunking evolution without ever actually attacking anything we actually understand.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Mostly videos debunking creationists arguments, about as much as I'm willing to hear. It's the same old same old arguments, lack of understanding.

Frankly only so many times I can listen to a creationist spend 2 hours debunking evolution without ever actually attacking anything we actually understand.

Do you really understand it? I doubt it. If you understand it and disagree with it why can't you refute it?

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Mostly videos debunking creationists arguments, about as much as I'm willing to hear. It's the same old same old arguments, lack of understanding.

Frankly only so many times I can listen to a creationist spend 2 hours debunking evolution without ever actually attacking anything we actually understand.

It appears you're claiming your research into creationism has been watching videos of creationism being debunked.

You have nicely demonstrated the creationist propensity for ignoring the question that was asked and answering, instead, a question nobody is interested in. Your research also makes perfect sense of your posts in these forums - you don't understand the science that is used to debunk the creationist argument you similarly don't understand.

 

[Tinker Grey]

@Subduction Zone and @Bungle_Bear, I don't believe @loveofourlord is a creationist. Perhaps you thought this was the other thread for creationists?