Difference between revisions of "Talk:Origins debate"

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Putting on blinders, having a blind spot, it all means the same thing. I just don't see what you're saying. I won't give your ideas or hearing. I don't like the sound of it. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 18:20, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
 
Putting on blinders, having a blind spot, it all means the same thing. I just don't see what you're saying. I won't give your ideas or hearing. I don't like the sound of it. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 18:20, 6 April 2007 (EDT)
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: Which group are you suggesting has the blind spot?  Or is it both?  The goal of natural sciences is to describe the universe as it appears in the best way possible without invoking "this is not understandable" or "this is caused by something super natural."  It does not deny the beauty of creation and often finds even more beauty (in the way a mathematician would describe beauty[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_beauty] "Mathematics is the language in which God wrote the universe." -- Galileo Galilei) in the subtleties of natural laws.  There is no attempt by science to disprove the existence of God; there are, however, scientists who argue that both attempts to prove God's existence (and thus rationalize one's faith) or attempt to disprove science by invoking God are flawed approaches.  The nature of God is a different realm of inquiry than what science as a whole is.
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: I am also dismayed at AiG claiming that Christians and evolutionists have incompatible views.  This is not what I believe, nor what I was taught (in a Catholic high school nonetheless).  There are Christians who have difficulty putting on the glasses that AiG attempts to claim.  I also wish to point people to http://www.answersincreation.org/ which addresses much of AiG and young earth ministries. --[[User:Mtur|Mtur]] 18:43, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Revision as of 22:43, April 6, 2007

Your requested feedback

Ed,

I took quite a bit of time to try to respond to your request for feeback. Unfortunately, it was all lost due to a computer snafu.

Here is the Reader's Digest version.

1. I suggest having User:Philip J. Rayment a Sysop so he can edit the page which will probably get protected as this page will likely be a edit war battlezone and the panel will decide its direction. He may know more about the history of the debate than I do.

2. I think you need more footnotes.

3. I don't think this page should become a Theory of evolution article. We already have one.

4. I am against a Aspects of evolution article as it seems by its title to assume that macroevolution occurred. Maybe its just a title problem.

5. I suggest reading these links and reading the WSJ article:


http://members.shaw.ca/mark.64/hcib/whowins.html

http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/science/SC0104W1E.htm


Here are some links which show that biblical creationism is growing around the world and gives some history of the debate:

http://www.biol.andrews.edu/issues/Hist.Creat.Lec

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/religion/revolution/1980.html

http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/BibleStudyAndTheology/Perspectives/colson020722.asp

Conservative 08:55, 2 April 2007 (EDT)conservative

I'm sorry for your lost typing. It happens to me every once in a while, and it's terribly frustrating.
Philip sounds like a good sysop choice.
Footnotes have always been my weak spot, ever since 8th grade. *sigh* I gotta work on that.
One ToE article is all we need. My suggestion is only to have a page where the debate itself is outlined. Or not. I'm an "easily led Christian". Just tell me what to do. By "aspects of evolution" I meant something else. I will explain at length later. I'm posting this before a computer glitch eats this long reply.
I have 5 links to read, and I still haven't finished entering the handwritten corrections I made on a printout of American Civil War. One thing about this project, is, there's no shortage of volunteer opportunities! :-) --Ed Poor 16:41, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

How can there be a debate?

How can there be a debate when each time an article is created, it is filled with selective, out of context quotes and then locked? A debate requires that each side be allowed to contribute. Anything else is simply a staged show. --Mtur 16:09, 2 April 2007 (EDT)

Well, Conservapedia is not neutral to all points of view (only to facts), and (to quote our Webmaster) "[t]here is no such thing as a 'consensus document' on Conservapedia", anyway. This is a debate where (Young Earth) Creationism is obviously right, so why waste space with giving a just account of what the other side has to say? Any screentime we give those atheist liberals might potentially corrupt good Christians into doubting their views. Surely you don't want that.
On a more serious note (I swear, I lost dozens of IQ points writing that), I agree. It's extremely disturbing that an article with THREE edits (incl. the creation) mentions locking and owning in the very first Talk page comment. Is that the official practice by now? How many locked-and-owned articles are there already? --Sid 3050 16:51, 2 April 2007 (EDT)
The origins debate article is not protected, and has no history of being protected. It is, however, a kind of joint project between me and user:Conservative. You might say I am writing it under C's editorial direction. I am comfortable with that.
This article is not intended to be a place to conduct a debate: there are 2 or more other places at Conservapedia for that. This article should only outline what the last two centuries of scholarly debate has been about.
I'm only going to put published views in here. I'm going to describe the sides so well that each side will say, "Yup, that's what we believe all right." (Scientists would probably word that as, "Yes, that is a factual representation of the current understanding of the modern synthesis . . . blah, blah, blah.) For me it all comes down to positions. X says Y about Z. --Ed Poor 11:17, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
We were talking about Conservative's musing up at the top of the page (point 1). And while this article doesn't have a history of being locked (yet), Conservative (among others) has a history of locking articles and editing them to reflect only his PoV. If this article somehow becomes an exception to this practice, that's awesome. --Sid 3050 13:03, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
Your continued efforts to address points and not personalities is a big help. (hint, hint :-) --Ed Poor 12:11, 4 April 2007 (EDT)
I try to focus on points, but they're often tied to personalities since the Conservapedia userbase is so small right now. So focusing on points often leads to a focus on a few users. So my focus sometimes slips, but I try to stay on course. On the other hand, I think I got to the pointy point more in... uh... where was it... Talk:Homosexuality#Spelling/Grammar? *checks* Yeah, that's the one. --Sid 3050 13:28, 4 April 2007 (EDT)


Why should there be a debate?

Why does it matter what anyone's personal opinion is? Is it possible to remain one step above and removed from the fray? I seriously doubt than anything any of us write here will change anyone's mind about anything important. What we can do is provide a forum where ideas can be freely exchanged. The thing I most dislike about liberals is their fascistic tendencies to ram their POV down the throats of others. I think I'm a conservative, but maybe I'm a libretarian? If being conservative means proving or disproving Evolution (or Intelligent Design or insert word of choice), then I'm not a conservative.

I don't want to expend a lot of energy attempting to lecture people who are probably smarter than I am, but I also don't want to be so frugal with my words that my point is lost in vagueness or misunderstood as an attack of some kind. I'm in favor of fairness. So please allow me one more attempt to try to explain a fundamental principle I would like to see applied.

I don't like Wikipedia's Intelligent Design, because that article is a hit-job. That travesty of an article is an intellectually dishonest attack posing as "NPOV" information. The hypocracy of the article drives me nuts. Sadly, when I look at Conservapedia's Evolution page I see an article that is devolving into exactly what I don't like about Wikipedia's Intelligent Design. You can't learn about Evolution from Conservapedia's Evolution page. All you can learn is that lots of people don't "believe" in evolution and that evolution doesn't seem to explain some mysteries to the editor of the article.

On the other hand, I love the work that is on-going at Conservapedia's Intelligent Design. I'd like to see that turn into a template for similar controversial subjects. State the premise simply and clearly. State the case for the idea and then acknowledge dissent. Don't try even attempt to explain everything there is to know about the idea. It's a waste of time and energy and it's not what a site like this is for. This site should be your first stop and your launching point for research. It should not be a definitive resource with every pertinant fact.

Anyway ... that's just one humble editor's opinion. So long as I feel that Conservapedia is heading in the right direction, I'm going to continue to edit and augment articles such as Virginia (a work in progress) and Oriental. Please feel free to edit my work or remain similarly critical of what I've put together. Everwill 08:28, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

On first glance, this appears sound. Thanks for coming over.
We have a template somewhere on 'how to format a science article', and your suggestions could form a template on 'how to write on a controversial topic'.
Let's practice, however, on several topics other than Theory of evolution, and see if we can forge a good working relationship amongst the more prolific and thoughtful contributing editors here. Please give it time. Even six weeks would be a remarkably short time for this.
It takes the average person 72 hours to change their mind about something.{fact-science} ;-) --Ed Poor 09:23, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Ed, I'm happy to help with this. I know a lot more about editing and writing than I know about science so point me at a controversial topic and (to quote Al Bundy), "Let's rock ... " Everwill 09:46, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Origin of life

Some ham-handed hack wrote:

The prevailing views in modern science (i.e., astronomy, geology and biology) employ the Big Bang theory to explain cosmic origins and the Theory of Evolution to explain the emergence of plants, animals and people.

Oh, yeah? What about the origin of life then? What happened between the Big Bang and the first one-celled animal? --Ed Poor 15:53, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Are you serious about the question and want to learn various theories? or are you just trying to find an argument? The former I would be happy to help you on your way for researching the question. --Mtur 15:56, 5 April 2007 (EDT)

Presuppositions

  • I’ve found that a Christian who understands these things can actually put on the evolutionist’s glasses (without accepting the presuppositions as true) and understand how they look at evidence. However, for a number of reasons, including spiritual ones, a non-Christian usually can’t put on the Christian’s glasses—unless they recognize the presuppositional nature of the battle and are thus beginning to question their own presuppositions. [1]

I've noticed the same thing between (1) democrats and free trade advocates versus (2) Marxist and other socialists. Group #1 can see what group #2 is saying, and why. Group #2 doesn't dare put or group #1's glasses. I guess they're afraid they might get brainwashed.

Putting on blinders, having a blind spot, it all means the same thing. I just don't see what you're saying. I won't give your ideas or hearing. I don't like the sound of it. --Ed Poor 18:20, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Which group are you suggesting has the blind spot? Or is it both? The goal of natural sciences is to describe the universe as it appears in the best way possible without invoking "this is not understandable" or "this is caused by something super natural." It does not deny the beauty of creation and often finds even more beauty (in the way a mathematician would describe beauty[2] "Mathematics is the language in which God wrote the universe." -- Galileo Galilei) in the subtleties of natural laws. There is no attempt by science to disprove the existence of God; there are, however, scientists who argue that both attempts to prove God's existence (and thus rationalize one's faith) or attempt to disprove science by invoking God are flawed approaches. The nature of God is a different realm of inquiry than what science as a whole is.
I am also dismayed at AiG claiming that Christians and evolutionists have incompatible views. This is not what I believe, nor what I was taught (in a Catholic high school nonetheless). There are Christians who have difficulty putting on the glasses that AiG attempts to claim. I also wish to point people to http://www.answersincreation.org/ which addresses much of AiG and young earth ministries. --Mtur 18:43, 6 April 2007 (EDT)