Hey, what did you think of the RW article? I was most cheered that commenters on Jerry Coyne’s post about the article said that it would actually have helped them. Which is quite a good motivation to spend a week of my holiday working on it. If you can put yourself back into your way of thinking back then: how do you think you would have reacted? Would any of the responses just stopped you reading? It’s consciously written for a target audience of people who’ve been miseducated but who will think if you lead them to ideas.
I just finished it. It’s very thorough while still relatively brief. Really good.
As best as I can recall the YEC mindset, when I saw “X theory can explain Y” I read it as “they are excusing Y.” But of course you can’t do anything other than provide current scientific consensus on debated questions, so there’s not much you can do there.
I know you have no control over the order of the list, but it’s unfortunate that so many “X could be young therefore the earth could be young!” arguments are at the beginning. The standard response, that “could be” doesn’t mean “is,” will be brushed off by some YECs. They think along the lines, “You can’t prove it’s old for certain; therefore it’s possible it’s young; therefore I am willing to believe it’s young.” I think the analysis at the end about affirming the consequent should be moved to the top. That might keep a few more people reading when they get to those arguments.
The most convincing rebuttals are the ones point out demonstrably false claims, and these should be hammered home for all they’re worth. The more often they show up, the more likely YEC readers are to think creationist authors are actively lying or terrible researchers than occasionally mistaken. That is, you want to trade their perception of creationists with their perception of scientists. For instance, on the question of how old major mountain ranges are, I would also throw in the age of the rockies, the himalayans, and the alps, all indisputably “major” and all of which are dated (at least in origin if not when they finished forming) much older than 5 million years.
That’s all I’ve got. I don’t know enough about most of the subjects discussed to offer any other advice.
That’s absolutely fantastic and very helpful. (I’ll just go do the mountains one now.) Thank you!
The greatest slam dunks, IMO, are the human history ones. CMI, AiG and ICR all accept the Ussher chronology, which has the Great Flood happening after the Great Pyramid was built and after the first Chinese emperor. But they had to put that stuff last in the list.
Hey, what did you think of the RW article? I was most cheered that commenters on Jerry Coyne’s post about the article said that it would actually have helped them. Which is quite a good motivation to spend a week of my holiday working on it. If you can put yourself back into your way of thinking back then: how do you think you would have reacted? Would any of the responses just stopped you reading? It’s consciously written for a target audience of people who’ve been miseducated but who will think if you lead them to ideas.
I just finished it. It’s very thorough while still relatively brief. Really good.
As best as I can recall the YEC mindset, when I saw “X theory can explain Y” I read it as “they are excusing Y.” But of course you can’t do anything other than provide current scientific consensus on debated questions, so there’s not much you can do there.
I know you have no control over the order of the list, but it’s unfortunate that so many “X could be young therefore the earth could be young!” arguments are at the beginning. The standard response, that “could be” doesn’t mean “is,” will be brushed off by some YECs. They think along the lines, “You can’t prove it’s old for certain; therefore it’s possible it’s young; therefore I am willing to believe it’s young.” I think the analysis at the end about affirming the consequent should be moved to the top. That might keep a few more people reading when they get to those arguments.
The most convincing rebuttals are the ones point out demonstrably false claims, and these should be hammered home for all they’re worth. The more often they show up, the more likely YEC readers are to think creationist authors are actively lying or terrible researchers than occasionally mistaken. That is, you want to trade their perception of creationists with their perception of scientists. For instance, on the question of how old major mountain ranges are, I would also throw in the age of the rockies, the himalayans, and the alps, all indisputably “major” and all of which are dated (at least in origin if not when they finished forming) much older than 5 million years.
That’s all I’ve got. I don’t know enough about most of the subjects discussed to offer any other advice.
That’s absolutely fantastic and very helpful. (I’ll just go do the mountains one now.) Thank you!
The greatest slam dunks, IMO, are the human history ones. CMI, AiG and ICR all accept the Ussher chronology, which has the Great Flood happening after the Great Pyramid was built and after the first Chinese emperor. But they had to put that stuff last in the list.