Why creationists won't listen to rational arguments

[PureX]

Speak for yourself, please.

As humans, we all share this characteristic. And I am human, so ...

 

[wellwisher]

Sirona's two cents on: Why creationists won't listen to rational arguments

I followed a debate with hardened fronts about evolutionary theory versus creationism. The supporters of the theory of evolution overtexted the creationists with rational arguments, as if they believed that the latter would actually be convinced by such arguments. In my opinion, some evolutionists and some creationists communicate on different levels. In my eyes, some creationists communicate emotionally because secretly they are afraid inside that they don't have a heavenly daddy after all, and that they are really on their own in this cold, evil, hostile world. For those of you who have been religiously indoctrinated, accepting the theory of evolution may have been a real act of liberation, but keep in mind that this may not automatically apply to everyone.

And now on with the debates....

The theory of evolution is not a good theory, since it cannot make predictions. The philosophy of science requires making predictions, so others can confirm or deny a theory. The predictions of a good theory need to be reproducible by other teams.

The theory of evolution should be called the correlation of evolution, since it is based on drawing the best curve through lots of observable data. It falls short of a good theory, because that best curve, has statistical fudge factors and does not extrapolate well enough to make accurate predictions for the future. The theory of evolution places itself higher up the food chain, then it desires, based on it functionality according to the philosophy of science. This is due to emotional needs.

Evolution is not a rational theory, but a statistical correlation. Statistics is the same math used by gambling addicts, who try to predict the next jackpot at the casino. They will convince themselves, emotionally of the viability of their system of prediction; hunches, and lose their money. However, they will see another win the jackpot, after the fact, to know jackpots can be won. I was trained as a scientist and that is not how a good rational theory works. A good theory, to be rational, can make prediction using only logical premises and assumptions. it does not need the god of odds to make it work using fudge factors where reason lacks.

Evolutionists are the people who find it necessary to censor the other side. This is not how science works, but rather that is how politics work. Evolution might be a political science theory. In science, you can learn from mistakes. A poor political theory needs to be exclusive, without competition, to be blindly accepted. If it was rational, there would have no need to censor, since it would follow logically and naturally and therefore would be hard to refute.

For example, religion does not get defensive because of Einstein's theory of relativity since that theory can make accurate predictions. To deny the truth of those accurate predictions would irrational. Religion will accept it bit it does not blindly accept weak theory and peer and political pressure censorship.

How about we settle the by having those who believe in the infallibility of evolutionary theory make a prediction to show it is a good theory. This will not confirm creation but it will create a rational perspective for the correlation of evolution.

 

[wellwisher]

The main reason for the debate between evolution and creation is not knowing how these two systems of perception differ in a conceptual sense.

Birds evolved. The I-phone, was created by Apple Computer. The I-phone did not evolve through natural selection. Creation is a force of change that exists side-by-side with evolution, with the results occurring by means that differ from natural.

Creation of the I-phone required conscious participation. It did not evolve from DNA and gambling math. Human DNA has no historical record of the I-phone. It was not a casino jackpot based on a mutation within a preexisting system of human DNA that included historical i-phone genes. It was developed by human consciousness, using imagination, logic and reason. It was predicted to become real, many years before it appeared on the market. It was a manifestation of thought that would become part of physical reality. It is not natural in the sense that it would have evolved by itself as an evolutionary jackpot. It was created. Creation is interwoven with evolution. Humans create faster than they evolve.

All the knock off phones that then appeared were also designed with logic and reason. There are patents and copyrights that prevent copying. Knockoffs had to build from the ground up but has something to base this on. The i-phone was not like the first cell or first replicator, which used a stable platform to randomly metamorphosis. Creation is more about applied science, whereas evolution is more about pure science. Applied science can extrapolate pure science beyond its natural limits, It can thereby create, instead of just evolve. GMO or genetically modified food is not natural science, but applied science; creation instead of evolution.

The bible claim of creation implies that an applied science addendum appeared within the pure science of evolution. Adam formed from the dust is like the i-phone, since this is not natural birth. The creation came from nothing that was similar. Eve formed from Adam's rib was like cloning a plant by taking a cutting and making it root. This is applied science that an engineer would do.

Science can show that the invention of written language appeared about 6000 years ago; applied science creation. It was the i-phone of its day and it changed things in a profound way. It allowed civilization to become stable. In the beginning was the word and the word was God. The first written word would have been magical; awe inspiring and scary, since it forever remained the same carved in stone. Humans would be born and die over many generation but the stone tablet would remain.

This new applied science invention/creation had a profound impact on the natural human brain, that caused a repression of instinct. Carved in stone type instruction of good and evil ; law, makes it hard to forget, especially if there is social enforcement. This was not natural for a human brain that had depended on instinct. it caused a gradual change in the operating system of the human brain away from natural and DNA driven; creation.

Religious books are often very old and like DNA, are very conservative to change. One is not allowed to add new created things. The language may change to make to clear for the times. These perpetual sources of consistent instruction can cause one to remain stuck in time, which is not natural. This can have an impact on worldly perception; a created affect different from instinct. It we had no religious books, carved in stone, but only other books that perpetuate in time, we would have a different created affect on behavior and perception.

For example, the new gender fad is created. This is not evolution. The social engineering purpose is a type of self induced sterilization, since most of the genders cannot reproduce. Lack of reproduction minimizes evolution, since transfer of genes is how evolution works. It is part of an artificial creation being sold as natural.

 

[Kooky]

As humans, we all share this characteristic.

Just like universal human love for kimchi and lutefisk.

 

[PureX]

Just like universal human love for kimchi and lutefisk.

EXACTLY!

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The theory of evolution is not a good theory, since it cannot make predictions.

You've already posted this earlier, it was rebutted, you answered none of the objections, and here you are again repeating your trop unchanged. What this tells the rational skeptic, who places a premium on holding only correct beliefs insofar as that is possible, that you don't care if you're wrong. You're happy to repeat yourself error even if you are wrong.

It's already been explained that it is pointless for the creationist to attack evolution. Even if the theory is falsified some day, we still have all of the evidence that came before to explain in the light of the falsifying finding. The existing evidence excludes the possibility of the biblical creation story whether evolution is ever falsified or not. The god of that narrative didn't seed the earth with deceptive findings to create the illusion of undirected, naturalistic, biological evolution, including a stratified fossil layer showing ancestral forms at deeper strata with older radiometric dates, and younger, more modern forms above it that look more like modern forms, as well as nested hierarchies present in the tree of life. If evolution didn't do that, then an intelligent designer did, and that intelligent designer is not the god that is reported to want to be known, understood, believed, loved, obeyed, and worshiped.

But don't worry. The theory will not be falsified any more than the germ theory of infectious diseases or the heliocentric theory of the solar system can ever be overturned. Sometimes, the evidence is simply too robust for there to be any alternative to it possible.

The predictions of a good theory need to be reproducible by other teams

Nope. Just observations and outcomes need to be reproducible, not predictions. Predictions are derived from the inductions drawn from multiple data points. It's enough that only Einstein predicted that Eddington would confirm that the sun bent the path of starlight grazing past it.

The theory of evolution places itself higher up the food chain, then it desires, based on it functionality according to the philosophy of science. This is due to emotional needs.

No, this is due to the efficacy of the theory. The theory of biological evolution unifies mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately makes predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition in areas like medicine and agriculture.

By contrast, its only alternative, creationism, can do none of that. It is a useless and sterile idea. Even if it were true, it remains a useless idea.

Why would anybody trade an idea that does so much for one that does so little? That's a rhetorical question. I already know that you have no good answer, and will likely not answer responsively if at all. This is a rational preference. Preferring creationism is the emotional choice given these differences.

Evolution is not a rational theory, but a statistical correlation.

Statistics is rational. It's not an either/or as you suggest. All of mathematics is.

Statistics is the same math used by gambling addicts, who try to predict the next jackpot at the casino.

Statistics is not used to determine the next outcome in a casino, but to determine the likely outcome of multiple trials.

Evolutionists are the people who find it necessary to censor the other side.

Nobody is censoring the creationists. Their input is not permitted in scientific journals or science classes in public schools because its not scientific and belongs in neither. Otherwise, creationists are free to promote their beliefs unimpeded to any interested audience using any other platform. Write a book. Get a permit and give a public speech in the park. Start a website or a blog. Nobody is censoring them or even interested in what they are doing unless they attempt to inject it into the skeptics' world.

When you bring creationist arguments to a mixed forum like this one, expect some dissent. That, too, is not censoring, but the point is, the skeptics won't come looking for the creationists to argue with them or try to censor them because their beliefs aren't relevant or interesting to empiricists, and therefore there is no reason to comment on them, much less try to censor them.

It's the religious who feel threatened by science that want to push its impact back, but are unable to do so. If the creationists weren't critics of the science, those accepting it would have nothing to say to them.

religion does not get defensive because of Einstein's theory of relativity since that theory can make accurate predictions.

And you already made this claim, had it rebutted, ignored that as well, and are here repeating yourself without modification or any evidence that you even read the rebuttal, a practice considered bad faith disputation in academic circles. Religions fighting science don't do so because the science doesn't make accurate predictions, but because it contradicts the beliefs of the fundamentalist community. I'm sure that only a handful of the creationist community has any idea what the predictive power of any scientific theory is, and most of those work for the Discovery Institute.

How about we settle the by having those who believe in the infallibility of evolutionary theory make a prediction to show it is a good theory.

We don't say that the theory is infallible, just correct.

This is another creationist two-step - trying to give the impression that evidence and reason matter to him. If you had any interest in the science, unless you're under 20 years old, you'd already know it. You'd have Googled the question and gotten your answer there. Nobody believes that the creationist cares about facts or came to his present position using them. There is nothing that the faith-based thinker can be shown that will modify his thinking. He simply is not interested in evidence, or in being correct.

Somebody said that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. What is meant by hypocrisy here is pretending to care about evidence and reason when one doesn't. In this case, the vice is thinking by faith, the virtue is using empirical methods, and the hypocrisy is extoling the virtues of the one while relying on the other, a tacit acknowledgement that reason and evidence (or its absence) matters despite ignoring it.

Where I live, a ukelele class is starting back up post-pandemic, and only those that can demonstrate that they have been vaccinated are welcome to participate. You can imagine the objections to this policy. The reason I bring it up is one local unvaccinated guy wrote this: "This is divisional and prejudiced, using hand sanitizer is 99%. effective." Here's a guy citing the science he likes as part of an argument to ignore the science he doesn't like, another example of vice paying homage to virtue even as it eschews the latter.

We also see this when the creationist points to science to support his beliefs, as when he says that science has confirmed the biblical implication that the universe had a first instant, while ignoring the science that he doesn't like.

 

[Heyo]

The theory of evolution is not a good theory, since it cannot make predictions.

Well, that is wrong but even if the ToE were not a good theory, it would still be the best theory since there is no other.
Agree?

 

[Yazata]

Let's face it, believers in general and YEC specifically are intellectually inferior. It's just a result of the fact that you can't always win. Believers have faith, a trait non believers are completely lacking. 0 - non believers : 1 - believers. (And one should assume that the believers value their faith.) In exchange for their lack of faith, the non believers have intellect. And I don't say that believers completely lack in that category, they just have less. Now it's 1 : 1. (And the non believers value their intellect.)

ALL human beings are "believers" and we all do whatever we do on the basis of "faith". We couldn't live our lives if that wasn't so. We just differ (probably less than many of us would like to think) about what it is that we believe and what we place our confidence in.

Atheists believe that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. Every time they take a step, they are expressing their faith that the "law" of gravity hasn't suddenly been repealed. Scientists have faith in the various principles of their particular fields. They believe in the uniformity of nature and in the principles of induction. They believe in the mathematics that they apply to their problems and in the applicability of that mathematics to reality. They believe not only that there is such a thing as "rational arguments" but also that they can recognize and properly employ them.

We all, every one of us, have a whole host of beliefs. The deepest and most fundamental of those beliefs form the basis of how we conduct the rest of our lives. And just by the nature of the thing, those beliefs can't themselves be justified without circular reasoning or infinite regress.

I happily agree that some beliefs seem to me to be better justified and evidenced than other beliefs. But the fact remains that when we inquire into the most fundamental principles of what any of us takes to be an established body if knowledge, we find that the foundations of that knowledge and of the principles that seemingly justify it are a lot fuzzier than we initially thought and consequently that the whole edifice is based to some large degree on faith.

It's the human condition.

 

[Heyo]

ALL human beings are "believers" and we all do whatever we do on the basis of "faith".

I think I need a new categorization. One that has the religionists, the "spiritual but not religious", the conspiracy theorists on one side and all those who's beliefs rest only on solid experience, the atheists, Agnostics, sceptics on the other and, at the same time, can't be misinterpretated by people like you.
Any suggestion?