WE CHALLENGE DAWKINS TO A DISCUSSION BEFORE THE PUBLIC

Thomas_S_Hunterson

O'Morris wrote: »

I think Richard Dawkins is wrong not to debate with Darwinism skeptics. I've been reading up on intelligent design and creationism lately, and although I don't entirely agree with them, I am starting to find some of their arguments plausible. I'd really like to hear him respond to some of them. He has been referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler after all and so maybe he should be doing more to live up to that reputation.




There clearly is a debate going on about the validity of evolution. Just because it isn't going on in the scientific community doesn't mean there isn't a debate. By refusing to engage in that debate evolutionists are leaving it up to Darwinist supporters who are far less capable of arguing the case for evolution than people like Richard Dawkins are. I watched a debate on youtube recently between Michael Shermer and the creationist Kent Hovind. The smug evolutionist was hammered by the well prepared and articulate creationist.

If Richard Dawkins took up the cause of defending Darwinism with as much commitment as he has taken up the cause of attacking religion maybe he might make more of an impact. He's a scientist and so his energies would be better spent engaging in scientific debates rather than in philosophical or theological ones.

Dawkins is an academic. He should be above getting into petty argumants about fairy tales.

marco_polo

O'Morris wrote: »

I think Richard Dawkins is wrong not to debate with Darwinism skeptics. I've been reading up on intelligent design and creationism lately, and although I don't entirely agree with them, I am starting to find some of their arguments plausible. I'd really like to hear him respond to some of them. He has been referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler after all and so maybe he should be doing more to live up to that reputation.




There clearly is a debate going on about the validity of evolution. Just because it isn't going on in the scientific community doesn't mean there isn't a debate. By refusing to engage in that debate evolutionists are leaving it up to Darwinist supporters who are far less capable of arguing the case for evolution than people like Richard Dawkins are. I watched a debate on youtube recently between Michael Shermer and the creationist Kent Hovind. The smug evolutionist was hammered by the well prepared and articulate creationist.

If Richard Dawkins took up the cause of defending Darwinism with as much commitment as he has taken up the cause of attacking religion maybe he might make more of an impact. He's a scientist and so his energies would be better spent engaging in scientific debates rather than in philosophical or theological ones.

So which is it then, should he engage in scientific debate or debate with creationists?

The two are mutually exclusive.

Zombrex

O'Morris wrote: »

I think Richard Dawkins is wrong not to debate with Darwinism skeptics. I've been reading up on intelligent design and creationism lately, and although I don't entirely agree with them, I am starting to find some of their arguments plausible. I'd really like to hear him respond to some of them. He has been referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler after all and so maybe he should be doing more to live up to that reputation.

Have you read any of his books? In them he pretty much dismantles any arguments, Creationist or otherwise, that Darwinian evolution cannot account for biological life on Earth.

The point though is that all of this was properly debated over the last 100 years. Darwinian evolution emerged as the most plausible and workable explanation for how life develops.

The Creationists are late to the party. And their objections are not based on actual problems with Darwinian evolution (those problems were debated decades ago), they are based on theological objections.

O'Morris wrote: »

There clearly is a debate going on about the validity of evolution.

There really isn't.

Darwinian evolution is one of the most supported scientific theories ever developed. Hundreds of thousands of scientists used evolutionary models every day in a wide range of biological fields, from medicine to genetic research.

If evolution was an invalid, grossly inaccurate model then the only way to explain how any of these people could be doing any work using these models would be simple random chance. That being the scientific models they are using are incorrect but they just happen to give an accurate answer, over and over and over hundreds of thousands of times a day, 7 days a way, 52 weeks a year etc etc.

Creationists like to go on about odds, I would be interested in their take on the odds of that

It is simple ridiculous to even suggest that evolution is wrong but all these people keep getting the correct answers from their models by some fluke. The much more plausible explanation is that the models are in fact correct, and that is why they are giving the correct answers.

O'Morris wrote: »

Just because it isn't going on in the scientific community doesn't mean there isn't a debate.

If the Internet has thought us nothing it is that anyone can start a "debate" if they want to. Because something is debated on the Internet really doesn't mean a whole lot. Look at something like the JFK assassination, or the 9/11 attacks, or the Holocaust. There will always be someone, some where, who objects to almost anything. The Internet simply allows them to be more vocal than they once were before.

O'Morris wrote: »

If Richard Dawkins took up the cause of defending Darwinism with as much commitment as he has taken up the cause of attacking religion maybe he might make more of an impact.

Well considering he has wrote one book "attacking religion", and about eight books attempting to explain Darwinian evolution, along with countless articles and essays, I think it is safe to say he has played his part in trying to explain evolution to the ignorant masses. :rolleyes:

Have you read any of his books on evolution? Would you like him to write another book about evolution perhaps?

Zombrex

marco_polo wrote: »

So which is it then, should he engage in scientific debate or debate with creationists?

The two are mutually exclusive.

Good point

It is a bit silly to complain that Dawkins should stick to science and stop faffing around in the area of religion, while also saying he should start endless debates with every religious whack job that comes out of the wood work complaining that his particular religion's creation myth conflicts with modern scientific understanding (which would pretty much be all of them)

I mean should Dawkins be debating the guy in Scotland who thinks he is a Viking and believes in the Viking gods, or the guy in Peru who believes we all arrived here a few hundred years ago in space ships?

Or is it only the Biblical Creationists that one should engage?

robindch

O'Morris wrote: »

I think Richard Dawkins is wrong not to debate with Darwinism skeptics.

Not all that wrong -- most are too scared to go up against him and of the few that aren't, the most well-known is... well... let me get to that...

O'Morris wrote: »

I watched a debate on youtube recently between Michael Shermer and the creationist Kent Hovind. The smug evolutionist was hammered by the well prepared and articulate creationist.

If you enjoy Hovind, you should consider writing him a thank-you note. He's currently holed up in FCI Edgefield, South Carolina, where he goes by the name of prisoner number 06452-017. Due out in 2015.

Like above with the Whitened-One from Turkey who'll be studying the walls of Turkish prisons for years to come too, it's perhaps unrealistic to expect an Oxford academic to go to prison to debate his fulminating, hyperventilating opposite numbers from in front of the bars that they're behind.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I watched a debate on youtube recently between Michael Shermer and the creationist Kent Hovind. The smug evolutionist was hammered by the well prepared and articulate creationist.

I saw that debate. Michael shermer won hands down. No contest, no difficulty. In fact the video I watched was titled 'kent hovind schools michael shermer' which I thought was a god damn hilarious name considering the exact opposite happened.

Zombrex

Mordeth wrote: »

I saw that debate. Michael shermer won hands down. No contest, no difficulty. In fact the video I watched was titled 'kent hovind schools michael shermer' which I thought was a god damn hilarious name considering the exact opposite happened.

Heck Hovind is regularly attacked by other Creationists (Young Earth and Old Earth) for talking utter nonsense and giving Creationism a bad name. If other Creationists think you are a bull that means something!

But judging by his numerous run ins with the law I don't think anyone seriously believes Hovind had any motivation behind any of this beyond making himself money.

AtomicHorror

O'Morris wrote: »

I think Richard Dawkins is wrong not to debate with Darwinism skeptics. I've been reading up on intelligent design and creationism lately, and although I don't entirely agree with them, I am starting to find some of their arguments plausible. I'd really like to hear him respond to some of them. He has been referred to as Darwin's Rottweiler after all and so maybe he should be doing more to live up to that reputation.

Some shameless self-promotion here but this rather rambling essay pretty much pulls the rug out from under ID-style creationism. I posted the core argument to the infamous creationism thread about 2-3 weeks ago and it has yet to be refuted. Maybe it's crap, but it makes sense to me.

O'Morris wrote: »

There clearly is a debate going on about the validity of evolution.

The debate was conceived-of, and is entirely perpetuated by, the creationist movement. Were it not for their constant campaigning, even this vocal minority would barely register.

O'Morris wrote: »

Just because it isn't going on in the scientific community doesn't mean there isn't a debate.

If the topic were the validity of the theory of gravity, how much weight (ho ho) would you give to a non-scientific debate? I'm not advocating scientific elitism here, but let's call a spade a spade. This is a media circus, not a debate.

O'Morris wrote: »

By refusing to engage in that debate evolutionists are leaving it up to Darwinist supporters who are far less capable of arguing the case for evolution than people like Richard Dawkins are. I watched a debate on youtube recently between Michael Shermer and the creationist Kent Hovind. The smug evolutionist was hammered by the well prepared and articulate creationist.

If Richard Dawkins took up the cause of defending Darwinism with as much commitment as he has taken up the cause of attacking religion maybe he might make more of an impact. He's a scientist and so his energies would be better spent engaging in scientific debates rather than in philosophical or theological ones.

Take a look at the creationism thread on the Christianity board and you'll see why Dawkins can't be arsed. You could spend your life repeating yourself and never convince the creationists. In the process, your meaning will be deliberately or ignorantly misinterpreted, you will be quoted out of context and occasionally it will be suggested that you are motivated by a wicked soul and that damnation awaits you. These guys have decided what "right" is and now they want to prove it.

Zillah

After watching the Shermer debate I've concluded something: The debate format is not suited to the pro-science side of it. Scientific theories are complicated and difficult to understand and draw from innumerable sources, whereas creationist arguments are very easy to convert into snappy one liners.

pH

Zillah wrote: »

After watching the Shermer debate I've concluded something: The debate format is not suited to the pro-science side of it. Scientific theories are complicated and difficult to understand and draw from innumerable sources, whereas creationist arguments are very easy to convert into snappy one liners.

Exactly, this happens in many debates of this type, Creationists throw out their snappy one liners and the scientist has no real good option to reply.

So in a debate setting, he throws out "Piltdown man", what to do? Ignore it ... "OMG he can't answer!", Be dismissive ... "Arrogant scientist etc. etc." or a long dry explanation ... crowd falls asleep and creationist ignores it anyway and moves on to say "Dinosaur and human footprints" or "T-Rex tissue found in 'fossil'. Ad infinitum.

Which brings me to a question, in a live debate setting, in front of say a crowd receptive to ID/Creationism and faced with a creationist debater willing to throw around "footprints", "Piltdown man", "T-Rex tissues" and "This 'scientist' I had this chunk of rock 'carbon' dated and it said it was created last Tuesday", what's the best way of countering them and staying on the offensive?

AtomicHorror

pH wrote: »

Which brings me to a question, in a live debate setting, in front of say a crowd receptive to ID/Creationism and faced with a creationist debater willing to throw around "footprints", "Piltdown man", "T-Rex tissues" and "This 'scientist' I had this chunk of rock 'carbon' dated and it said it was created last Tuesday", what's the best way of countering them and staying on the offensive?

To be honest, a non-mixed crowd is a no-win scenario any way you swing it. You want as random a crowd as is practical. You also want a chairperson to keep the debate in order. Otherwise the whole thing is just a shouting match.

Panda

cavedave wrote: »

If you are on to the intelligent designer can you ask him to explain the scrotum? I mean I can appreciate creationists talking about the wonder of the eye but why do they always ignore the obvious intelligence needed to hang a wrinkly bag off mammals?

Billy Connolly answered that one ages ago,

he forgot about the nuts until the last minute and he had some left over elbow skin.
simple as that.

he strikes me as just another crackpot by the looks of things.
take a look at the about the author page, there must be 20 photos of himself in various months.

the only thing that he achieves with it is that he looks like a pedo.

Zombrex

pH wrote: »

what's the best way of countering them and staying on the offensive?

The only weapon the scientist has is to say (repeat) that Creationism isn't science.

Most people believe a scientist when he says something isn't science. And it is relatively easy to explain what something has to be to be considered proper science (falsifiable, testable, modelable) in language a lay person can understand. It puts the Creationist on the back foot trying to explain why it is science and they simply don't have an explanation for that, because it isn't science.

Creationist try to change the definition of science, and all the scientist has to do to win the argument is point this out. The Creationists look like they are cheating, as they did in the Dover trial when they had to admit that astrology would fall under their definition of "science".

This does possible open up the charge of arrogance, but if the scientist handles it well, in a matter of fact way ("something either is or is not science", that sort of thing) then I think they will come out well. I would avoid mentioning evidence, Creationists just counter that they have the same evidence that everyone else does, instead I would focus on models and testability. Can you test ID? Can you test Biblical Creation? How do you determine it didn't happen?

The trick is to not let them go on this point. The charge that Creationism is not science comes up a lot on the Creationist thread bringing JC and Wolfsbane's rants to a screeching halt, but they simple ignore it and move on to something else. They have to, they don't have a response, no Creationist does, beyond trying to redefine what science actually is. Most don't bother, they simply try to debate something else.

So if I was ever debating a Creationist that would be my line of attack, probably my only one because anything else gets into a debate where the Creationist has the advantage of nonsense.

robindch

pH wrote: »

Which brings me to a question, in a live debate setting, in front of say a crowd receptive to ID/Creationism [...] what's the best way of countering them and staying on the offensive?

If one does have to debate with them in a public setting -- and I don't think that honest people should -- I've come around to the sad view that there's no alternative to being Christopher Hitchens.

Fire and brimstone is what they're used to, so give it to them.

pH

Wicknight wrote: »

Creationist try to change the definition of science, and all the scientist has to do to win the argument is point this out. The Creationists look like they are cheating, as they did in the Dover trial when they had to admit that astrology would fall under their definition of "science"
...

So if I was ever debating a Creationist that would be my line of attack, probably my only one because anything else gets into a debate where the Creationist has the advantage of nonsense.

I agree with parts, but I'm not sure that turning the debate into a debate about science is necessarily the right thing to do. The internet is different, J C's points can be picked apart at leisure, and links and evidence can be provided.

Also you're hoping that the audience will appreciate science, the creationist may not be trying to win his debate using "ID is science" but may be on the "Materialist reductionist science can't tell us everything" path.

Also when the creationist is throwing around *specifics* in a live debate, ignoring those points and trying a Popperian debate about what is science may seem evasive and lose the audience in boring philosophical detail:

"I notice my esteemed opponent is so embarrassed about the evidence I've so far brought up they've ignored it and spent the last 5 minutes lecturing you on how to define 'science' so that they're always right."

AtomicHorror wrote:

To be honest, a non-mixed crowd is a no-win scenario any way you swing it. You want as random a crowd as is practical. You also want a chairperson to keep the debate in order. Otherwise the whole thing is just a shouting match.

I didn't mean a pro-creationism crowd, I meant a general non-academic audience who obviously are at the debate because they're interested in the subject, don't presume a room full of academic scientists here to watch a creationist lose a debate . I'm not sure how a chairperson can help, unless they would be willing to jump in and disallow the most common and blatant creationist claims.

AtomicHorror

pH wrote: »

I didn't mean a pro-creationism crowd, I meant a general non-academic audience who obviously are at the debate because they're interested in the subject, don't presume a room full of academic scientists here to watch a creationist lose a debate . I'm not sure how a chairperson can help, unless they would be willing to jump in and disallow the most common and blatant creationist claims.

Were they to do so, I imagine that this would be presented by the creationists as evidence of a bias on the part of the chair. I was more thinking in terms of fairly allocating time to speak, blocking attempts to interrupt etc.

pH

robindch wrote: »

If one does have to debate with them in a public setting -- and I don't think that honest people should -- I've come around to the sad view that there's no alternative to being Christopher Hitchens.

Fire and brimstone is what they're used to, so give it to them.

Interesting (if sad) point, and probably why Dawkins is the worst possible choice to debate a creationist. Hitchens could deflect any of the standard creationist nonsense by saying "T-Rex tissues - why ask me - do I look like a scientist?" and continue on his topics, Dawkins on the other hand (and there's examples of this on youtube) gets annoyed and seems to have to try and correct the 'errors' as he sees them, getting dragged into the scientific minutiae.

Probably the best person to debate a creationist would be one of the current crop of atheist comedians or pundits.

jill_valentine

I think Dara O'Briain could be a handy compromise...

Dades

No way - Ricky Gervais!

The Mad Hatter

Nice little rant on Ken Ham today on Pharyngula.

And the Lord said click here and your questions will be answered.

Soul Winner

I don't know about you but I'd love to see a debate about "Why I believe atheism to be true/false" with Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig, as Martin Scorsese so eloquently put it in Taxi Driver in the back of Travis Bickle's cab "Now that you gotta see" :pac:

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

I don't know about you but I'd love to see a debate about "Why I believe atheism to be true/false" with Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig, as Martin Scorsese so eloquently put it in Taxi Driver in the back of Travis Bickle's cab "Now that you gotta see" :pac:

Dawkins would wipe the floor with him if he could resist the temptation to smack Craig

Zillah

Wicknight wrote: »

if he could resist the temptation to smack Craig

He's just a man Wicknight, don't invest him with supernatural powers.

Zombrex

Zillah wrote: »

He's just a man Wicknight, don't invest him with supernatural powers.

TBH if I could smack any of them it would be Craig. I'd smack him even over Hovind

{edit}interesting visual image there{/edit}

Soul Winner

Wicknight wrote: »

if he could resist the temptation to smack Craig

Now now, no need to resort to violence. If you ask me Dawkins is afraid to debate with Craig.

CerebralCortex

William Lane Craig believes in Satan.





Dawkins would kick his ass.

djpbarry

Soul Winner wrote: »

If you ask me Dawkins is afraid to debate with Craig.

Probably, but probably not for the reasons you think.

Dades

djpbarry wrote: »

Probably, but probably not for the reasons you think.

Exactly - just look at this jumper!

AtomicHorror

Soul Winner wrote: »

If you ask me Dawkins is afraid to debate with Craig.

No... he's a scientist. Scientists don't resolve matters by public debate, they do it by full, open and rigorous publication of research. The debate format is a terrible way to make decisions on theories. It's a really good format for spin, which is pretty far from the philosophy of science.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Now now, no need to resort to violence. If you ask me Dawkins is afraid to debate with Craig.

possibly. I would certainly be afraid to debate with Craig, I would find it very difficult to not give him a little smack for using such incredibly, insultingly, dumb arguments.