We’ve posted several times before about what we regard as the supremely silly activity of debating creationists. Our favorites are listed in the sidebar under the heading “Debating Creationists.” Here we shall briefly return to that topic.
First, even if you’re inclined to engage in such debates, it’s important to know, generally speaking, what you’re dealing with. We’re not opposed to answering questions and explaining things to students who are open to learning. On the other hand, we always advise against debating a charlatan — a professional creationist — who has heard it all before and who doesn’t care what you say. Debating a professional creationist is a guaranteed waste of time, because it can only enhance his reputation by giving him respect and recognition he does not deserve. It won’t impress the audience either, because the audiences for such events are mostly mindless fans of the charlatan.
But aside from students and charlatans, there’s a third case — the simpleton — someone who is well beyond his student years and who firmly believes in creationism. Is there anything that can be accomplished by debating him? To decide that, it’s necessary to understand that for the true believer to accept creationism, he must first believe a few things that boggle the rational mind. Some of those are:
1. There is a transcendental realm beyond space and time, which is not only invisible to us, but is also undetectable by any instruments we may ever devise.
2. Dwelling within that transcendental realm are entities (usually one, but maybe more) unbound by the laws of nature, who probably created those laws, and who can and do influence the limited universe known to us.
3. Such entities affect the universe by means of what we call miracles — things that are incomprehensible and inexplicable to us because they are literally impossible according to the laws of nature, and which are thus called supernatural events.
4. The Earth and its species were miraculously created by supernatural means. Anything you offer to explain such things by natural means is dismissed as inadequate.
5. The existence of the transcendental realm, the beings who dwell there, and their supernatural activities were revealed to some people, who passed that knowledge on to us. Lacking evidence for such communications and the contents thereof, such revelations must be accepted on faith.
6. No evidence supports any of the foregoing beliefs, but as the simpleton will gleefully point out, no evidence disproves them.
Okay, dear reader. That’s what you’re dealing with. Now then, if you want to debate such a person, go ahead, but don’t expect to accomplish anything.
Copyright © 2016. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
I think Galileo made this point in his “Dialogue of the Three World Systems” when as Sagredo he was trying to explain the Copernic theory to Salviatti and Simplicio. while Salviatti was an eager student who caught on to Galileo’s arguments against geocentrisim, Simplicio was just too burdened by his superstitious beliefs and inadequate reasoning ability to understand and accept Galileo’s explanation of how the Universe operates.
This is an old link, but it comes to mind. MSU faculty were powerless to stop a creationist debate, but didn’t comment on it or give it any publicity. As a consequence the badly needed attention the creationist sought was denied.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/11/michigan_state_origin_summit_the_university_s_perfect_response_to_the_creationist.html
As for Bill Nye, I’d have to say the 50 grand appearance fee to debate Hambo seems like a no brainer, except it was actually money well spent by Hambo since the publicity was probably worth it (I don’t think it was make or break for the Ark Park though).
The Nye debate didn’t change any minds, but it was so well executed on Nye’s part (he was coached by the Planetary Society of which he is/was president) it might have planted the seed of rationality in at least a few.
You didn’t mention the problem of evil
But the issues that you raise have nothing to do with the science of evolutionary biology. Of course you’re not going to inform anyone about evolution if you’re going to talk about something else.
TomS says: “But the issues that you raise have nothing to do with the science of evolutionary biology.”
I’m not suggesting that theological issues be debated. But they stand in the way of even trying to understand the evidence. It’s important to know what’s causing the creationist to think the way he does.
Debating evolution with an adult creationist is like debating the heliocentric model vs. the geocentric model with a four-year old child.
It is like solving for x in algebra and accepting another unknown y as an answer…
SC said:
Were you, perhaps, thinking of this guy?
“(usually one, but maybe more)”
Satan and angels are quite common in the USA, so I heard.
It’s always interesting to me how creationists often desire natural evidence to back up their belief in supernatural events – the contorted efforts to create a kind of flood geology is an obvious example. Ham does this all the time, claiming evidence, properly understood, supports the bible.
Do these people not have faith?
It seems to me that the only way to debate a creationist is to agree in advance as to whether the debate will be about creationism or science. If it is creationism, then the debate is a theological one, involving which flavor of creationism is the correct one. Evidence plays no part in such a debate.
If it about scientific explanations of some topic, then the debate must exclude any reference to the bible or other religious teaching and be based exclusively on the science in question.
It is like requiring a Discoveroid to debate only ID – with no reference to evolution. It isn’t going to happen. But it is the only way debating creationists would make sense. IMHO.
When I was in grad school one of our anthropological geneticist profs debated a creationist on the proposition that “The Evidence for Human Origins Supports Evolution.” The negative was argued by the pastor of The First Christian Church of Hole In The Wall Colorado (or something like that). The venue was the campus chapel, the year was 1978. The pastor came equipped with dual (or would that be dueling) Carosel slide projectors and dozens of articles from respectable, refereed journals which he misinterpreted masterfully. If a discriminate function grouped an Australopithecine femur as closest to H. sapiens that meant that “the computer proved that A. afarensis is human.” We were awe-struck and apalled – simultaneously.
Creationists always pull such stunts. If a fossil appears intermediate between man and ape, they say it’s a deformed human, or, if that won’t sell, just another kind of extinct ape (presumably drowned in the flood). At least the more sophisticated ones do; crabgrass-roots creationists simply say the fossil is a fake, created either be evil communistic evolutionists or by Satan.
When I was first learning about creationism, I was surprised to hear that they mostly accepted that fossils were the remains of living things. It still puzzles me how or why they accept some science when they are rejecting other. They are strikingly unconcerned with consistency, the sophisticated ones.
Religion is like life insurance, people just want to be reassured that it will all turn out well in the end. The Theory of Evolution is anything but reassuring so must people will content themselves with a comforting lie.
@Richard Staller
I don’t understand how the theory of evolution offers less in the reassurance department than genetics or developmental biology.
SC: :But aside from students and charlatans, there’s a third case — the simpleton — someone who is well beyond his student years and who firmly believes in creationism. Is there anything that can be accomplished by debating him?”
Certainly not if one-on-one, but if an audience of “students” is present, asking that committed creationist questions can be very informative. But not by dwelling on their apparent belief of “transcendental,” “miracles,” etc. If only because many people who accept 100% of evolution also technically believe that part. But unlike committed science-deniers, they admit that such “ultimate causes” are untestable, so to them “it’s still evolution.” What most people don’t understand is that a “theistic evolutionist” and ID advocate often personally believes the exact same account of the origin and evolution of life, yet are polar opposites in the “debate.” The TE supports science, while the IDer misrepresents science even more thoroughly than the Biblical literalist. Whereas, as you know, those on the anti-science side differ radically among themselves on “what happened when.” Take for example, your #4:
The Earth and its species were miraculously created by supernatural means. Anything you offer to explain such things by natural means is dismissed as inadequate.
While they all believe that in the general sense, the specifics show massive confusion: Some think “the designer” intervened at the Big Bang, and that planets, species, even life itself, are much later results of that designer’s initial action. Others think that designer intervened periodically over billions of years, maybe to create life anew, or tinkered with cells to create radically different offspring. Still others think it all happened (universe, stars, planets, all species on earth) in one busy week ~6000 years ago. As you also know, that latter group is less than half of committed creationists. And many of them backpedal to some form of old-earthism when encouraged to think a few minutes beyond “Goddidit.” But all will reveal a double standard (“evolutionists” need infinite evidence, I need none), and with a little more effort, will concede that it’s not about the evidence; that a book overrules evidence, and more importantly, that their objection to evolution is based solely on fear and emotion.
It still puzzles me how or why they accept some science when they are rejecting other.
As you know, unfortunately ~90% of nonscientists are like that, whether it’s about “origins,” astrology, “organic” food, etc. Snake oil buyers do it instinctively, while snake oil sellers can reasonably be suspected of doing it intentionally, and privately aware of the absurdity of it.
The model I thought of ~10 years ago is that of a scatter plot. And I must credit Pope John Paul II for the greatest inspiration, with his “convergence, neither sought nor fabricated” defense of evolution. Scientists collect the data points and find the “best fit line.” They reject outliers only if there’s good reason. When “scientific” creationism was concocted in the 20th century, to make Biblical literalism look “legitimate,” they pre-selected a “best fit line,” then selected only those data that appeared to fit when taken out of context. But they could not agree on which “line” was the correct one. And the data itself were not about to help. Heliocentric YEC was a popular compromise – and is still on “life support” thanks to the media – but the more sophisticated OEC “theories”, and the occasional geocentrist ones, were not going away.
To save the day, a (strategically) brilliant idea began to take hold: “No need to pre-select a ‘best fit line,’ just play favorites with the data points to discredit the ‘evolution’ line, and let the audience infer wharever ‘line’ they’re comfortable with. That of couse evolved into the ID strategy, and it’s highly effective “big tent” scam.
But physics can disprove the existence of god(s). See Victor Stenger’s book, the How Science Proves God Does Not Exist
Debating Creationists, Revisited by The Curmudgeon We’ve posted several times before about what we regard as the supremely silly activity of debating creationists. Our favorites are listed in the sidebar under the heading “Debating Creationists.” Here we shall briefly return to that topic. First, even if you’re inclined to engage in such debates, it’s important to know, generally speaking, what you’re dealing with. We’re not opposed to answering questions and explaining things to students who are open to learning. On the other hand, we always advise against debating a charlatan — a professional creationist — who has heard it all before and who doesn’t care what you say. Debating a professional creationist is a guaranteed waste of time, because it can only enhance his reputation by giving him respect and recognition he does not deserve. It won’t impress the audience either, because the audiences for such events are mostly mindless fans of the charlatan. But aside from students and charlatans, there’s a third case — the simpleton — someone who is well beyond his student years and who firmly believes in creationism. Is there anything that can be accomplished by debating him? To decide that, it’s necessary to understand what you’re dealing with. For the true believer to accept creationism, he must first believe a few things that boggle the rational mind. Some of those are: 1. There is a transcendental realm beyond space and time, which is not only invisible to us, but is also undetectable by any instruments we may ever devise. 2. Dwelling within that transcendental realm are entities (usually one, but maybe more) unbound by the laws of nature, who probably created those laws, and who can and do influence the limited universe known to us. 3. Such entities affect the universe by means of what we call miracles — things that are incomprehensible and inexplicable to us because they are literally impossible according to the laws of nature, and which are thus called supernatural events. 4. The Earth and its species were miraculously created by supernatural means. Anything you offer to explain such things by natural means is dismissed as inadequate. 5. The existence of the transcendental realm, the beings who dwell there, and their supernatural activities were revealed to some people, who passed that knowledge on to us. Lacking evidence for such communications and the contents thereof, such revelations must be accepted on faith. 6. No evidence supports any of the foregoing beliefs, but as the simpleton will gleefully point out, no evidence disproves them. Okay, dear reader. That’s what you’re dealing with. Now then, if you want to debate such a person, go ahead, but don’t expect to accomplish anything.