You’ve now completely lost the point of the initial discussion. Eliezer proposed having creationists debate students rather than credentialed scientists so as to maintain the institutions that sustain the marketplace of ideas while simultaneously making it clear that one should not consider creationists and scientists equally credible. Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers. You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting. You seem bothered by the fact that the people you listed spend so much time dealing with creationism. But even if they were engaged in work on creationism for significant periods of time that doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t willing to engage creationists on an equal footing. Thus, the rationale for Eliezer’s proposal remains.
It strikes me that you may have just wished to complain about public intellectuals spending time on creationism and that you comment as such on this post because it was related. But if thats the case you really need to clarify that because as it stands you comments make very little sense in the context of Eliezer’s initial post. Look at the karma, its time to update.
Of course if this was you intent it still doesn’t change the fact that your list of public intellectuals at fault is really strange. Most of them aren’t biologists. Most of them work on issues unrelated to creationism. A few do more work on interpretations of evolution, but in that case the work is related to important questions in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. The only person you named that seems to spend a preponderance of his time explaining basic science is Dawkins. And I don’t really see any reason to think Dawkins would be doing better than average work in research biology.
Re: You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting.
This guy was formally debated last month—he’s an evangelical Christian who believes in the virgin birth, immaculate conception, resurrection, the holy trinity, god’s covenant with the jews, a designed universe—and is from the Discovery Institute. A big enough nitwit for you?
Re: Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers.
No it wasn’t. What I actually said was:
“Creationists don’t have to debate college students—they have Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christoper Hitchens, Sam Harris, P Z Myers, Robert Wright—who all seem quite prepared to stoop down to their level as part of some kind of “gutter outreach” program.”
I didn’t say the “stooping” was done via formal debates. That was an inference on your part. My list was of people who had recently bothered to write whole books on the subject—plus P Z Myers—who also apparently spends an enormous amount of time on the issue.
The topic under discussion is debates with creationists. You’ve claimed that the term debate should include books, blog posts and disagreeable interviews. But that definition is over broad for purposes of this discussion because it includes mediums that don’t come with the ‘giving credibility’ issues which brought about this post. The whole post was about why it would be best to pair creationists with students- all of the examples were like this. You don’t get pairing like that with people writing books. The whole back drop of all of this is several people leaving bloggingheads.tv because creationists were debated there. The people who left bh.tv have probably blogged about creationist issues before- but if that counted as debating in our context then it would be weird for them to quit blogging heads over someone else doing the debating.
Btw, of the people you listed only one has written a book on the subject of creationism. That book was published in 1986.
(I think I’m done with this thread as I’ve done my due diligence correcting errors.)
I don’t really see why you don’t get it: EY says creationists can debate college students. TT points out that they are already getting plenty of attention—as a result of all the TLC lavished on them by the “new atheists”. They appear on atheist documentaries, interview atheists on their documentaries, and generally bathe in the resulting media circus. There are many books written by learned men explaining why traditional religion is nonsense. Observers might be forgiven for thinking that there was some kind of real controversy here—instead of just a plague of ignorance and superstition.
You don’t get it. Different forms of engagement cause different amounts of prestige to flow. Writing a book mocking UFO cults doesn’t transfer prestige to UFO cults, but debating their leader in business suits does.
I am not clear on where I am supposed to have claimed equal effects on prestige.
People writing serious books about how there are no UFOs would probably have much the same effect as if they wrote serious books about how there is no God—it would make people think that there was a real issue there that was worth discussing and spending time on.
Ridicule is a bit different. Books by comedians taking the piss out of religious idiocy would not induce the same type of comments from me. For example, note that Pat Condell [http://www.patcondell.net/] was not in my list—even though he evidently spends a lot of time on religious issues.
You’ve now completely lost the point of the initial discussion. Eliezer proposed having creationists debate students rather than credentialed scientists so as to maintain the institutions that sustain the marketplace of ideas while simultaneously making it clear that one should not consider creationists and scientists equally credible. Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers. You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting. You seem bothered by the fact that the people you listed spend so much time dealing with creationism. But even if they were engaged in work on creationism for significant periods of time that doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t willing to engage creationists on an equal footing. Thus, the rationale for Eliezer’s proposal remains.
It strikes me that you may have just wished to complain about public intellectuals spending time on creationism and that you comment as such on this post because it was related. But if thats the case you really need to clarify that because as it stands you comments make very little sense in the context of Eliezer’s initial post. Look at the karma, its time to update.
Of course if this was you intent it still doesn’t change the fact that your list of public intellectuals at fault is really strange. Most of them aren’t biologists. Most of them work on issues unrelated to creationism. A few do more work on interpretations of evolution, but in that case the work is related to important questions in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology. The only person you named that seems to spend a preponderance of his time explaining basic science is Dawkins. And I don’t really see any reason to think Dawkins would be doing better than average work in research biology.
Re: You haven’t been able to provide any recent (read: in the last two decades) examples of any of the people you named debating evolution with creationists in a formal setting.
Your claim about my actions is inaccurate—and I expect it is because you need to familiarize yourself with the top of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism
If you want more evidence, try this:
“Creationism vs. Humanism: Christopher Hitchens vs. Jay Richards”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2rp_VB7MCE
This guy was formally debated last month—he’s an evangelical Christian who believes in the virgin birth, immaculate conception, resurrection, the holy trinity, god’s covenant with the jews, a designed universe—and is from the Discovery Institute. A big enough nitwit for you?
Re: Your initial comment was that creationists don’t need to debate students since they can debate all these famous atheist science writers.
No it wasn’t. What I actually said was:
“Creationists don’t have to debate college students—they have Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christoper Hitchens, Sam Harris, P Z Myers, Robert Wright—who all seem quite prepared to stoop down to their level as part of some kind of “gutter outreach” program.”
I didn’t say the “stooping” was done via formal debates. That was an inference on your part. My list was of people who had recently bothered to write whole books on the subject—plus P Z Myers—who also apparently spends an enormous amount of time on the issue.
I think my paraphrase was more than satisfactory.
The topic under discussion is debates with creationists. You’ve claimed that the term debate should include books, blog posts and disagreeable interviews. But that definition is over broad for purposes of this discussion because it includes mediums that don’t come with the ‘giving credibility’ issues which brought about this post. The whole post was about why it would be best to pair creationists with students- all of the examples were like this. You don’t get pairing like that with people writing books. The whole back drop of all of this is several people leaving bloggingheads.tv because creationists were debated there. The people who left bh.tv have probably blogged about creationist issues before- but if that counted as debating in our context then it would be weird for them to quit blogging heads over someone else doing the debating.
Btw, of the people you listed only one has written a book on the subject of creationism. That book was published in 1986.
(I think I’m done with this thread as I’ve done my due diligence correcting errors.)
I don’t really see why you don’t get it: EY says creationists can debate college students. TT points out that they are already getting plenty of attention—as a result of all the TLC lavished on them by the “new atheists”. They appear on atheist documentaries, interview atheists on their documentaries, and generally bathe in the resulting media circus. There are many books written by learned men explaining why traditional religion is nonsense. Observers might be forgiven for thinking that there was some kind of real controversy here—instead of just a plague of ignorance and superstition.
You don’t get it. Different forms of engagement cause different amounts of prestige to flow. Writing a book mocking UFO cults doesn’t transfer prestige to UFO cults, but debating their leader in business suits does.
I am not clear on where I am supposed to have claimed equal effects on prestige.
People writing serious books about how there are no UFOs would probably have much the same effect as if they wrote serious books about how there is no God—it would make people think that there was a real issue there that was worth discussing and spending time on.
Ridicule is a bit different. Books by comedians taking the piss out of religious idiocy would not induce the same type of comments from me. For example, note that Pat Condell [http://www.patcondell.net/] was not in my list—even though he evidently spends a lot of time on religious issues.