...some ground rules. We don't argue with cranks. Part of understanding denialism is knowing that it's futile to argue with them, and giving them yet another forum is unnecessary. They also have the advantage of just being able to make things up and it takes forever to knock down each argument as they're only limited by their imagination while we're limited by things like logic and data. Recognizing denialism also means recognizing that you don't need to, and probably shouldn't argue with it. Denialists are not honest brokers in the debate (you'll hear me harp on this a lot). They aren't interested in truth, data, or informative discussion, they're interested in their world view being the only one, and they'll say anything to try to bring this about. We feel that once you've shown that what they say is deceptive, or prima-facie absurd, you don't have to spend a graduate career dissecting it and taking it apart. It's more like a "rule-of-thumb" approach to bad scientific argument. That's not to say we won't discuss science or our posts with people who want to honestly be informed, we just don't want to argue with cranks. We have work to do.When you are honestly interested in the truth about scientific matters, you are forced to do serious leg work and research to unearth factual data to support your position and refute the other person's, whereas they can simply distort data at will, then fall back on pure faith and presuppositionalism if that fails. Perfect examples include creationists of all stripes.
Recently, I contacted a certain egnorant creationist MD whose challenge to produce quantitative measurement of genetic information I met. I dug up papers that specifically provided what he was asking for, and I sent him the links to them. This was painstaking, as was photocopying them then scanning them in as PDF files. I was very polite in my email, explaining that his question / argument from incredulity really made him look somewhat silly since this very topic was addressed 40-odd years ago in detail in a rigorous and formal fashion.
How did he repay me? By threatening me with a lawsuit if I contacted him again or if I mentioned his name on a public forum.
Fu@#ing cowardly lying puke. Not interested one iota in the truth of the matter, only in contributing to the lies and confusion put out by the Disco Institute in their endless quest to lie for Jebus.
Here are some of the papers, in particular, that address his bogus "refutation" of evolution (warning - #1, 7, 8 are very large files):
- Natural selection as the process of accumulating genetic information in adaptive evolution, M. Kimura (1961)
- Rate of Information Acquisition by a Species subjected to Natural Selection, D.J.C. MacKay
- Evolution of biological information, T.D. Schneider
- The fitness value of information, C.T. Bergstrom and M. Lachmann
- Review of W. Dembski’s No Free Lunch, J. Shallit
- The Evolution and Understanding of Hierarchical Complexity in Biology from an Algebraic Perspective, C.L. Nehaniv and J.L. Rhodes
- On the Increase in Complexity in Evolution, P.T. Saunders and M.W. Ho (1976)
- On the Increase in Complexity in Evolution II: The Relativity of Complexity and the Principle of Minimum Increase, P.T. Saunders and M.W. Ho (1981)
5 general tactics are used by denialists to sow confusion. They are conspiracy, selectivity (cherry-picking), fake experts, impossible expectations (also known as moving goalposts), and general fallacies of logic.Oh am I ever familiar with each of these. Unfortunately. And I learned this slowly, after argument upon argument in which I appealed to reason and evidence in the unflinching face of denial.
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Technorati tags: Religion, Politics, Philosophy, Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism
