Edit: just realized that the above comment by wedrifid gives pretty much a summary of mine.
Scientists are handicapped in these debates, whatever their status. Their goal is to convince the debate’s audience using scientific facts and logic. The goal of the creationists, however, is to convince the audience by whatever means work best.
So they will lie, invent and suppress facts, avoid or ignore questions, use ad hominem attacks, and generally use every kind of psychological or rhetorical tactic they can. And they’re quite good at this, so that only trained rationalists might be completely immune. The only way to combat this is to use similar Black Arts. Scientists don’t do this because they fear it would subvert the honesty of their science or that people who notice their behavior won’t trust them in the future.
Science is a rational process. The fight against creationism (as against some other things) is fundamentally a fight against explicit and deliberate antirationality. When some creationists see a debate where the scientist clearly wins, it only serves to strengthen their creationist faith. Others are clear-thinking enough to be swayed by argument and we should do everything we can to expose them to it. In between are those who will abandon creationism once enough of their peers (or auth. figures, media persons...) do so. Do we have an estimate of how many are in each category?
I took this belief to be implied by the OP and all the anti-creationist activity out there. If they weren’t good at what they did, we wouldn’t need to debate them, they would fall apart on their own (or at least not pose a danger of converting anyone who wasn’t already a creationist).
Of course that’s no proof. Maybe they are no good at what they do, but no-one has bothered to really check this, and (some) scientists pay them attention because they perceive them as a (social) challenge. I agree that we should look for evidence first.
(some) scientists pay them attention because they perceive them as a (social) challenge
I think that this is enough to explain everything that we see. This is not evidence against their effectiveness, but that’s my null hypothesis.
I think that it’s telling that when the ACLU wanted to challenge the TN law against teaching evolution, they chose Scopes, whose school district had assigned him a book containing evolution. The creationists, and perhaps their opponents, cared more about the nominal law than the facts on the ground. But when Scopes challenged them by asking his students to turn him, they had to prosecute.
(I certainly agree that they lie; I’m just skeptical that they’re particularly effective lies. I think it’s better modeled as selecting people who are better at lying to themselves than people who think about what lies are effective.)
Most people simply don’t have beliefs about God, creation, etc, just loyalty signals. You could call rhetoric framing the argument as loyalty signals “deliberate antirationality,” but it’s quite different from lying. It’s not at all clear to me that it’s deliberate; I suspect it’s more along the lines of asking themselves “what can I say here to reassure myself?” and it being well-tuned to the audience...if it even is well-tuned, a claim for which I don’t see much evidence (either for or against).
I guess “so that only trained rationalists might be completely immune” does pin down “quite good” in absolute terms. But I think it’s false. I think most people who profess belief in evolution do so for completely irrational loyalty reasons, yet are immune to creationists.
I agree. But that describes the average creationist-follower. I was talking about the kind of high-profile creationists who work full-time at promoting their ideas that tend to be mentioned on Pharyngula. From the descriptions there of what they say and do, I have gained the impression that they often lie; e.g., by presenting an argument while ignoring and never answering the objections given at previous debates; or by saying unsupported things like “evolution is the subject of a controversy in science”.
I don’t live in or near the US, and all I know about US-specific creationists I learned from anti-creationist sources like Pharyngula, Dawkins’ books, etc. So taking them as examples, I’m disproportionately aware of the highest-profile creationists. But they at least do certainly lie.
Yes, in the sense used (or implied) by creationists. It is not the case that there is significant disagreement among scientists (or among facts) about the proposition that the diversity of life on earth developed entirely by a process of evolution involving (mostly random) variation and (at least some) fitness selection.
Edit: just realized that the above comment by wedrifid gives pretty much a summary of mine.
Scientists are handicapped in these debates, whatever their status. Their goal is to convince the debate’s audience using scientific facts and logic. The goal of the creationists, however, is to convince the audience by whatever means work best.
So they will lie, invent and suppress facts, avoid or ignore questions, use ad hominem attacks, and generally use every kind of psychological or rhetorical tactic they can. And they’re quite good at this, so that only trained rationalists might be completely immune. The only way to combat this is to use similar Black Arts. Scientists don’t do this because they fear it would subvert the honesty of their science or that people who notice their behavior won’t trust them in the future.
Science is a rational process. The fight against creationism (as against some other things) is fundamentally a fight against explicit and deliberate antirationality. When some creationists see a debate where the scientist clearly wins, it only serves to strengthen their creationist faith. Others are clear-thinking enough to be swayed by argument and we should do everything we can to expose them to it. In between are those who will abandon creationism once enough of their peers (or auth. figures, media persons...) do so. Do we have an estimate of how many are in each category?
Are they quite good? where do you get this belief? quite good compared to what?
I took this belief to be implied by the OP and all the anti-creationist activity out there. If they weren’t good at what they did, we wouldn’t need to debate them, they would fall apart on their own (or at least not pose a danger of converting anyone who wasn’t already a creationist).
Of course that’s no proof. Maybe they are no good at what they do, but no-one has bothered to really check this, and (some) scientists pay them attention because they perceive them as a (social) challenge. I agree that we should look for evidence first.
I think that this is enough to explain everything that we see. This is not evidence against their effectiveness, but that’s my null hypothesis.
I think that it’s telling that when the ACLU wanted to challenge the TN law against teaching evolution, they chose Scopes, whose school district had assigned him a book containing evolution. The creationists, and perhaps their opponents, cared more about the nominal law than the facts on the ground. But when Scopes challenged them by asking his students to turn him, they had to prosecute.
(I certainly agree that they lie; I’m just skeptical that they’re particularly effective lies. I think it’s better modeled as selecting people who are better at lying to themselves than people who think about what lies are effective.)
Well, if you consider that most Americans still believe God created the universe, they seem to have done rather well so far.
Most people simply don’t have beliefs about God, creation, etc, just loyalty signals. You could call rhetoric framing the argument as loyalty signals “deliberate antirationality,” but it’s quite different from lying. It’s not at all clear to me that it’s deliberate; I suspect it’s more along the lines of asking themselves “what can I say here to reassure myself?” and it being well-tuned to the audience...if it even is well-tuned, a claim for which I don’t see much evidence (either for or against).
I guess “so that only trained rationalists might be completely immune” does pin down “quite good” in absolute terms. But I think it’s false. I think most people who profess belief in evolution do so for completely irrational loyalty reasons, yet are immune to creationists.
I agree. But that describes the average creationist-follower. I was talking about the kind of high-profile creationists who work full-time at promoting their ideas that tend to be mentioned on Pharyngula. From the descriptions there of what they say and do, I have gained the impression that they often lie; e.g., by presenting an argument while ignoring and never answering the objections given at previous debates; or by saying unsupported things like “evolution is the subject of a controversy in science”.
I don’t live in or near the US, and all I know about US-specific creationists I learned from anti-creationist sources like Pharyngula, Dawkins’ books, etc. So taking them as examples, I’m disproportionately aware of the highest-profile creationists. But they at least do certainly lie.
Are you saying that it is not the case that “evolution is the subject of a controversy in science”?
Yes, in the sense used (or implied) by creationists. It is not the case that there is significant disagreement among scientists (or among facts) about the proposition that the diversity of life on earth developed entirely by a process of evolution involving (mostly random) variation and (at least some) fitness selection.