Index of evidence?

[Aggie]

I mentioned a few days ago that I thought the science forum should have an index of links to the arguments that support evolution, and another index of links to the arguments that support creationism. Although it turned out that the debate here is not completely futile in its current form, I still think that this added degree of organization would make it easier for people to see which side is better-supported by the evidence, as well as make it easier to see what's already been said on certain topics and whether a given argument has already been refuted.

This was discussed here: http://www.christianforums.com/t93410&page=1

I would like to see now how many people think this is a good idea, and also decide on the specifics of these index threads if they are to be made. I'm hoping I can post a poll properly; I haven't tried this here before so I'm not sure I'll be able to do a good job with it.

There are certain rules that I am suggesting for these threads. If you think they can be improved upon please let me know how.

First rule: These threads are only for LINKS to other threads and brief descriptions of the evidence in them. If either of them turns into an in-depth discussion of one particular topic, it will become difficult to find other arguments in this thread and its purpose will be defeated. Likewise, the sort of social banter that is popular in the other threads should be avoided in the index, since it will quickly clutter it make it harder for people to find the links to any particular topic.

Second rule: A piece of evidence for a point of view should involve more than just an article at a website like TalkOrigins or AnswersInGenesis. An article at one of these sites may be incorporated into the piece of evidence, but it should be part of a thread here where this article can be discussed along with responses to it from the opposite viewpoint.

Third rule: Each thread should be supporting its OWN viewpoint rather than attacking the opposing one. Flaws in the arguments used by both points of view should be pointed out by members of the opposing viewpoint by responding to the post linking to an argument with a link to its rebuttal. For example, evolutionists would attempt to refute an argument for a worldwide flood linked to in the creationist index by posting a response to it linking to a thread (or threads) about evidence against such a flood. But they should not post the evidence against a worldwide flood in the evolution index.

There are a few reasons I think this is the best way to do this. One is that for the sake of organization, I think it's best for each argument to only have one place where it can go, since this will prevent the threads from becoming unnecessarily long with redundant links. Also, there are enough different viewpoints about this topic that falsifying one viewpoint does not prove any of the others; all it does is reduce the possibilities by one. So even if evolutionists are able to disprove young-earth creationism, they still would not have disproven old-earth creationism, gap theory, or intelligent design theory. Likewise, disproving evolution would not prove young-earth creationism. People will have to evaluate each point of view separately, and I think the thread about that viewpoint is a better place for the evidence against it than any of the threads about the opposing viewpoints.

It's possible that there should be more than two index threads. There are several different versions of creationism, and making just two of them also completely ignores the creation stories from other religions.

If you think that these rules can be improved upon or should be added to, please let me know how. I hope to find out soon whether or not the other people here think these indexes are a good idea.

 

[PhantomLlama]

I would agree mostly, but allow refutations to be placed in the thread. After all, refuting theories is the principal way of scientific progression.

 

[thomas the tank engine]

The problem is that both sides are unlikely to recognise the validity of any refutation, and that the whole thing will descend into another slanging match. Perhaps if we had an "arbitrator of refutation" (what a brilliant title, almost makes me want to be it)?

A pretty good idea nevertheless, as many of the threads I have been on seem to go in circles (but maybe that's just positive selection...maybe threads go circular as soon as I look at them...ooo-er). Hope you can figure out a way to make it work!

 

[PhantomLlama]

The problem is that both sides are unlikely to recognise the validity of any refutation, and that the whole thing will descend into another slanging match. Perhaps if we had an "arbitrator of refutation" (what a brilliant title, almost makes me want to be it)?

But then whichever side loses will scream 'bias!'

 

[Aggie]

I would agree mostly, but allow refutations to be placed in the thread. After all, refuting theories is the principal way of scientific progression.

I'm not sure if I was clear about this aspect of it: theories proposed by both sides can be refuted, but they should be refuted in the thread where they were made rather than the opposing thread.

So the evidence against a global flood would be a response to the evidence FOR it in the young-earth creationism thread, rather than being in the evolution thread.

I've found that a great many of the arguments that creationists use are not evidence for THEIR theory, but potential problems with the opposing theory. It's been pointed out several times that any attempt to disprove evolution does not prove creationism, since it's also possible that both theories are incorrect.

The method I suggested would be able to distinguish more clearly between evidence for one theory and problems with a different theory.

I'd like to know more specifically what you have in mind here. Do you think that each theory's index of claims should include problems with all of the opposing theories as well as evidence for the theory it is supporting?

The problem is that both sides are unlikely to recognise the validity of any refutation, and that the whole thing will descend into another slanging match. Perhaps if we had an "arbitrator of refutation" (what a brilliant title, almost makes me want to be it)?

I know that's a potential problem, which is why I included leaving out the social banter as one of my rules. People still might not choose to follow the thread's rules, though. I wonder whether we'd be able to get one of the moderators to help with this?

The obvious choice for someone to run the evolution thread would be Jet Black--he seems to be the most reasonable and knowledgeable of any of us, and he takes his responsibility to this board pretty seriously already. The creationists might complain that he would be biased though, since he evidently has a fairly low opinion of creationism. Perhaps the arbitrators need to be people who don't have especially strong opinions about this topic.

What do the rest of you think about arbitrators for the indexes?

 

[PhantomLlama]

I'd like to know more specifically what you have in mind here. Do you think that each theory's index of claims should include problems with all of the opposing theories as well as evidence for the theory it is supporting?

That was my intent, but I now think perhaps a seperate index for refutations should be made.

 

[Word of Peace]

That was my intent, but I now think perhaps a seperate index for refutations should be made.

Yeah, me too - otherwise it almost assuredly will get out of hand.

 

[Word of Peace]

I'm all for the idea - it will make the debate much more organized in many ways.

I propose:

• A list of fundamental tenets should be included in each view's index thread - eliminates confusion and/or deliberate skewing of the other side.
• There should be a short guide to what is considered a proper source and what is not (might be hard to define well, though!), and what's proper research and what's not.
• A glossary of basic scientific terms (or a link to one) should probably be provided.

I might volunteer to be an arbitrator for the YEC thread, but time limits may preclude that.

 

[adam149]

First of all, I love this idea.

A list of fundamental tenets should be included in each view's index thread - eliminates confusion and/or deliberate skewing of the other side.

Seconded.

There should be a short guide to what is considered a proper source and what is not (might be hard to define well, though!), and what's proper research and what's not.

Seconded. I am willing to contribute to this.

A glossary of basic scientific terms (or a link to one) should probably be provided.

Seconded. I am willing to assist here as well.

Also, we might want to include an updatable list of current materials available for either side (since there is so much more evolutionist material and it would be a lot to comb through and list, they might consider listing an abridged bibliography of the best material) so that people have an easy place to go for recommened research sources (these would include books, videos, magazines, internet sources, etc)

We might also see about having the threads stickied to the top of the page for easy access.

 

[ThePhoenix]

How about we just use the index to post links to the threads. Discussion can go on in the threads.

 

[Aggie]

I propose:

• A list of fundamental tenets should be included in each view's index thread - eliminates confusion and/or deliberate skewing of the other side.
• There should be a short guide to what is considered a proper source and what is not (might be hard to define well, though!), and what's proper research and what's not.
• A glossary of basic scientific terms (or a link to one) should probably be provided.

The first and third of these are good ideas, but the second may be near-impossible. There are SO MANY different places that have articles about this topic, with new ones appearing constantly, that I don't think anyone will be able to do this.

Plus, the two sides may disagree about what sources are reliable. I consider the information on TalkOrigins to be accurate, but a lot of creationists don't. How do I prove that it is? And on the other hand, the only creationists website that I consider to be even REMOTELY accurate is AnswersInGenesis, and even that site has an awful lot of misstatements and selective omissions.

If you insist that the sources be proven to be reliable, I think that will elimitate pretty much all the creationists' possibilities.

It may be more practical just to refute each claim as it comes up. If the creationists start claiming that the Archaeopteryx fossils are fake, that claim can be disproven regardless of what website it's from.

How about we just use the index to post links to the threads. Discussion can go on in the threads.

Yeah, that's the whole point of it being an index. If the discussion ITSELF was in the index, the index would quickly get so long that it would be impossible to find anything in it.

If this is going to happen, we need to figure out who should be the arbitrator of each index. As I said before, I nominate Jet Black for the evolution one. Does anyone else have any other nominations?

 

[USincognito]

I think before assigning value (or the lack thereof) for arguments presented in this forum a formal PRATT list documenting why said argument has been PRATT. After this list is formalized, a lot of wasted time can be eliminated and concentrated on assigning value to other aguments that actually have legs.

And therein lies the problem. PRATTs continue to live on due to two factors - newbies and intransigents. The newbies don't know that PRATTs are such, and intransigents just blind themselves to facts and trot them out continually. For those actually open to an honest discussion of the topic, the relative value of arguments will be inherently obvious. For newbies and instransigents, I'm sure a value assignment will be meaningless.

 

[Aggie]

The problem with making a PRATT list is that it often takes a lot of doing to explain to someone in what way an argument has been refuted--often they claim that we're just pretending it's been disproven but it really hasn't. Likewise, creationists claim to have refuted evolutionists arguments that there isn't really anything wrong with. For example, creationists' thermodynamics argument is always metamorphosing into new forms, and they often claim that in its new form it doesn't have the flaws that enabled it to be refuted before. I don't think a static PRATT list would be sufficient for this--when I refute it, I have to do it in a slightly different way each time.

I think the indexes themselves would be more useful for showing which claims have already been refuted. Wherever it is that we decide to put the refutations to each side's claims, these would be links to the threads where these claims have been refuted before. If either side has a problem with this refutation, it can be discussed in the thread being linked to.

A link to AIG's "do not use" list would be useful, however. Creationists would be unlikely to want to use an argument if their main authority was telling them that it was unfounded.

 

[USincognito]

For years I've been using links to anti-Hovind, etc. Christian sites to let people who post that garbage to know that even their fellow Christians think it's hokum and looks bad. The AiG suggestion is great, but again, a lot of the traffic on this thread is from newbies and instransigents. How effective will links like that be for them?

Aggie, I think your idea is great, I'm just playing devil's advocate so that we temper it out.

As anyone who reads my responses her knows, I feel that Dr. Douglas Theobald's 29 Evidences for Macroevolution is one of the best presentations of evidence for evolution I have seen on the web. The usual out of hand rejection I get is that it's from that EVILutionist propaganda site Talk.Origins. Of course the fact that Theobald's a Christian, raised Pentecostal, and will powerfully defend his position scientifically and scripturally is ignored because his essay is hosted on Talk Origins.

For the YECers convinced that science is a conspiracy against their beliefs, how can we expect them to accept NIH, USGS or anything ending in .edu links if they think it's all part of the EAC?

 

[Aggie]

I'm bumping this because it seems like no one else is motivated enough to work on it without me.

For the YECers convinced that science is a conspiracy against their beliefs, how can we expect them to accept NIH, USGS or anything ending in .edu links if they think it's all part of the EAC?

I think the only way to deal with that is address each issue as it comes up. It shouldn't be especially hard--TalkOrigins.org always lists the sources used for its articles, and these can be challenged individually if anyone here has a problem with one of them. When creationists are asked to point out the specific misstatements used by sites such as these, they invariably fail to come up with anything.

Likewise, demanding reliability from any source used will eliminate all of the choices available to creationists. Creationists would never be willing to admit the unreliability of something like AnswersInGenesis, so it's probably better to refute each claim as it comes up, since then we'd have a current example of one of its mistakes. Once the refuatation of an argument is linked to in one of the indexes, it will be harder for the side using this argument to convince others that it supports them.

One of the two main things we need to know for this is where claims should be refuted: in the index where they were made, in the indexes of opposing theories, or in a special index just for refutation. I should probably post another poll for this, but first I'd like to hear if there are any other suggestions.

And the other thing that I need to know is how these threads should be moderated/managed, and by whom. From the fact that I'm the only one who's actively pursuing this idea, it's starting to seem like I'm the only one who would be willing to do this, but I'm not sure I have the time for it. Does anyone have any nominations other than Jet Black?