You’re assuming here that if someone accepts allele change as a result of mutations and natural selection, then they will always accept common ancestry also. If this were true, then it would make sense to assume that if someone rejects the second they must reject the first also, but there are a lot of people who accept the first while rejecting the second. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense to accept one without the other, but creationist arguments aren’t always consistent, and it’s still a strawman if you misrepresent them.
This is the strongest argument in your O.P. I have seen evolution supporters do this over and over again here. When creationists use the term "evolution," they are usually referring to common ancestry, rather than "change in alleles over time." Responding by saying we have seen alleles change over time therefore does little good, unless a connection with common ancestry is made.
The way people treat Richard has been discussed before at this forum, and I have a thread about it
here. (The discussion about how Richard is treated starts around the end of the first page.) Specifically, this thread deals with an attempt that Richard made early this year to determine whether what he’d been taught as a creationist was false, which ended with him getting treated the way he currently is and losing interest in what he was trying to learn about as a result. I’ve been discussing this with him in private for several months, so I’m able to see fairly directly how it affects him.
Interesting. My perspective on Richard is that he originally came here asking good questions, was willing to learn, and was willing to face Professional Creationists with some healthy skepticism. Nowadays, however, I see little of this original attitude. Instead, he has dug his heels into Creationist dogma and shows much more respect for the lies told by Professional Creationists. I find it very hard to believe, however, that this change were due to the fact that evolution supporters here are not nice to him. I continue to hope that this change is due to a last-ditch backlash against the evidence falsifying the dogma he has come to depend on, and that it will not last. On the other hand, it may indicate instead that he is a lost cause.
The point is that if you’re going to say that the reason why people such as Newton were creationists is because the theory of evolution didn’t exist yet, you’re implicitly invoking the same false dichotomy that most people here agree is a faulty argument. If attacking evolution does nothing to support creationism, because there are so many possible alternatives to evolution apart from creationism, then it should also be significant that Newton chose creationism among all the other possible ideas that he could have believed before the theory of evolution existed. But no, whenever a famous scientist from the past is being discussed, the argument used here is that them having been a creationist doesn’t mean anything because there was nothing other than creationism for them to believe before Darwin’s time.
As far as the conclusion being right, if you just mean that creationism is unsupported, I’m not arguing with that. What I’m saying is that we intend to convince anyone else of this, we should not be using arguments that have such obvious flaws in them.
OK. Now I see the point you were trying to make in the O.P. However, you are not taking context into account. Usually when Creationists bring up the fact that Newton or Pasteur were Creationists, they are using this information as an argument from authority. Because these great scientists were Creationists, Creationism should be taken more seriously by scientists today. The flaw in this argument is indeed that none of these "creationist" scientists knew about Darwin's theory, so they accepted the predominate Western idea concerning origins of their time. I would be surprised if any of these scientists would be Creationists if they were around today.
Not really; I’ve explained before that I have a very specific set of criteria for when I consider making fun of people like this to be acceptable. There’s a certain type of creationist that sometimes posts here, who’s so arrogant that they care more about belittling and insulting the other members than they do about actually debating. The original inspiration for the Prattmaster was Cal, who was definitely an example of this, and a few other similar people I’ve made fun of were Orange, Durang0, and Colossians. Both the Prattmaster and Zedekiah are based on this type of creationist specifically, and “Dr. Hovind” is based on just one person.
One problem I see with this is that these so-called Creationists (Orange, Durang0, and Colossians)are all probably Trolls. If you want to make fun of Trolls, that is fine, but you are claiming they are creationists instead. Hovind, on the other hand, is a Professional Creationist liar and convicted felon.
My main requirement in order to make fun of creationists is that they have this attitude, and I also consider it necessary for them to have been active here for long enough to demonstrate that they never react to being refuted in any way other than this. In Richard’s case, by contrast, I think he’s made it pretty clear during the two years he’s been posting here that he’s willing to listen when someone proves him wrong about something, although it’ll take a lot of that before he’s ready to change his worldview.
I like your cartoons, but this is a very fine line you are trying to walk. On the one hand you claim we shouldn't make fun of Creationists, on the other you claim it is OK to do so, as long as they are intransigent. If one of the later is really a Troll, however, then you are just attacking a strawman. In addition, it is easy for a Creationist to view one of your cartoons and draw the conclusion that you are making fun of Creationists in general.
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