tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post6246518715975922970..comments2023-05-02T11:34:45.330-04:00Comments on Thinking for Free: Creationist Forum -- Eamon's ViewKizhe the Couch Czarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04046357500651886319noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-62031403970030959552007-04-18T04:22:00.000-04:002007-04-18T04:22:00.000-04:00Oh, and regarding the "many kinds of crack-pottery...Oh, and regarding the "many kinds of crack-pottery" - have you noticed how many of them fall for more 'scientific' crackpottery? One example - engines that run on water and are being repressed by the big oil corporations, that could run forever on a single cup of water... <BR/><BR/>I've also noticed (although perhaps it's just something that happens in the region where I grew up) that MLM schemes tend to appeal to the same kind of people. I think John got it right: it's the attitude toward evidence, the willingness to seize on the smallest bit of evidence that can be twisted to support what one wants, while ignoring all the rest of the evidence as being irrelevant.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01213305601817005797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-71448322870058878602007-04-18T04:19:00.000-04:002007-04-18T04:19:00.000-04:00I used to be a fundy too. I still have problems re...I used to be a fundy too. I still have problems reading <A HREF="http://www.fstdt.com/" REL="nofollow">fstdt</A> - about 1/3 of the time, I don't realise immediately what's meant to be 'darndest' about one particular quote or another, until I remember that the world at large considers that Catholics *are* Christians, or some other detail like that.<BR/><BR/>I agree with you, Eamon - very few, if any, of these people are conciously lying. Some of them may be aware that the scientific evidence is stacked against them - but there are plenty of good reasons to not think that that's important. Well, good reasons for a believer, anyway.<BR/><BR/>This is one reason why I find PZ so frustrating sometimes: he genuinely doesn't understand the way the people he's lambasting think. He constantly accuses people like Egnor of lying, simply because he can't comprehend the way Egnor is thinking.<BR/><BR/>I grew up as a YECcer (my mum met Ken Ham as a young adult, and we subscribed to Creation Ex Nihilo for.. well, I think my grandparents still do). I've broken out of those thought-patterns, but I can still see where the thoughts of people like Egnor are going - round and round in circles, starting and ending from the 'fact' that the Bible is infallible. PZ, by contrast, has a totally different way of thinking, and seems to assume that everyone thinks the way he does, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying..<BR/><BR/>I'm going away now before this rant gets rantier.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01213305601817005797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-34404854204782252532007-04-16T11:36:00.000-04:002007-04-16T11:36:00.000-04:00What's your take on the idea that by engaging in t...<I>What's your take on the idea that by engaging in these forums you are granting a modicum of legitimacy to these Creationists?</I><BR/>I think it's a legitimate concern, but it depends on the details of the venue. The context in which I've usually heard that argument expressed is that of a staged debate between a Creationist and a professional scientist or prominent skeptic (eg. Shermer). The event derives some prestige from that of the evolutionist debater (who of course gets Gish-Galloped in front of a crowd largely friendly to his opponent, and once again creationist David is seen to slay the evolutionist Goliath).<BR/><BR/>This was a different case in that none of us present had any scientific prestige to lend out in the first place ;-). I doubt they derived any "legitimacy" from us, and some of the post-meeting interaction with the other audience members suggests to me that we did manage to obstruct the strict-YEC message to some extent (which is about all you can hope for in an evening's interaction).Eamon Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-76223412091689810272007-04-16T09:11:00.000-04:002007-04-16T09:11:00.000-04:00What's your take on the idea that by engaging in t...What's your take on the idea that by engaging in these forums you are granting a modicum of legitimacy to these Creationists? Is it just not as much a hazard in Canada as it is in the United States?<BR/><BR/>It seems to me that you could argue back and forth with Creationists on this and still not get past their "I can't hear you! I can't hear you! I <I>know</I> you are wrong so I can't hear you!"Mike Haubrich, FCDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07220070898785894481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-74840714569201704612007-04-15T13:11:00.000-04:002007-04-15T13:11:00.000-04:00Dave,Thanks for the background (pun!) re diamonds ...Dave,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the background (pun!) re diamonds & C14. I must say, Humphreys seems a most versatile fellow. One week, he's re-writing relativistic cosmology to solve the star-light problem. The next week, he picks up a few rocks and overturns the entire field of geochronology. Either he's the most brilliant and talented physicist ever to walk the earth, or.......Eamon Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-6692820773344206002007-04-13T19:26:00.000-04:002007-04-13T19:26:00.000-04:00Re the diamonds, here's a relevant letter from som...Re the diamonds, here's a relevant letter from someone who actually tries to measure C14 in diamonds for his job. From <A HREF="http://www.nmsr.org/humphrey.htm" REL="nofollow"><B>NMSR's Humphreys Page</B></A>:<BR/><BR/>Humphreys also discussed how he and his fellow creation scientists have been finding radiocarbon in diamonds, regarded as far too old (billions of years) to have any amount of fast-decaying radiocarbon left in them. In this regard, I had contacted Dr. R. E. Taylor, of the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Riverside, and the Keck Laboratory for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry at University of California, Irvine. Taylor is a serious radiometrics scientist. Like Humphreys, he also looks for radiocarbon in diamonds, but Taylor does so as a way to monitor instrument background and noise. Diamonds are so old, they shouldn't have any residual radiocarbon (C14 decays with a half-life of under 6,000 years), and indeed, they don't. So diamonds are as close to a carbon-containing C14 "blank" as scientifically possible.<BR/><BR/>The abstract that got me talking to Taylor is called "Use of Natural Diamonds to Monitor Radiocarbon AMS Instrument Backgrounds." I contacted Dr. Taylor late last year, and inquired about the creationist group's misuse of radiocarbon methods.<BR/><BR/>On October 18th, 2005, Dr. Taylor replied (with his permission to cite) that<BR/><BR/> My take on their problem is that they [RATE creationists] apparently have little or no understanding of operational details involved in AMS technology and the nature of how ion sources and AMS spectrometers work since, as far as I know, none of these people have any direct research experience in this field. They are thus not aware of the many potential sources of trace amounts of radiocarbon in the blanks and how a detector can register the presence of a few mass 14 events that are not radiocarbon.<BR/><BR/> Regards, Ervin Taylor<BR/><BR/>When creationists crow about radiocarbon in diamonds proving that the diamonds are only thousands of years old, you can remind them that they're just measuring noise in an atomic mass spectrometer!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-34864680403409236022007-04-04T17:53:00.000-04:002007-04-04T17:53:00.000-04:00Anonymous responds to me:Interesting. What's it li...Anonymous responds to me:<BR/><I>Interesting. What's it like [to be a fundamentalist]?</I><BR/><BR/>Gosh, it was 20+ years ago, and I probably wasn't a "typical" fundy (in that relatively few argue themselves out of it), and that's a pretty broad question (though I guess the rest of your comment narrows down the domain of interest).<BR/><BR/><I>I always wondered if these people sense at all when they're being dishonest. When fundies produce transparent and silly lies about something, do they feel the same things as normal people feel when lying? Are they just better at hiding shame?</I><BR/><BR/>I think that very few people, in any movement, are conciously lying -- certainly not among the rank and file, and not that much even among the leadership. We humans have an enormous capacity for rationalization; to assign weight to the kinds of evidence and reasoning that support what we find convenient. And what we find convenient is frequently what we already believe and/or the common opinions of our community. It is a lesson worth keeping in mind, even (read: especially) by those of us who consider ourselves skeptics.<BR/><BR/>So I think that at all times, I had arguments that I found subjectively convincing (while being aware that there were arguments to be made against them, too). Mind you, I regularly see arguments that even I would have found embarassing, back in the day.Eamon Knighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04262012749524758120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-47440928852884523992007-04-04T06:23:00.000-04:002007-04-04T06:23:00.000-04:00Fascinating how pseudo-scientists often manage to ...<EM>Fascinating how pseudo-scientists often manage to go in for several kinds of crackpottery, simultaneously.</EM><BR/><BR/>It is the attitude towards evidence, I think. The common link is the attitude that: anything that I would <EM>like</EM> to be true is confirmed completely if a single "fact" exists that can, in one way or another, be interpreted to support it; sonething that I don't want to be true is false, no matter how many facts support it, as long as I can find a single "fact" that can, in one way or another, be interpreted to refute it.<BR/><BR/>Or, another way to explain is by way of Morton's Demon, where the Demon, once he gets on a roll, starts to work on things other than religion.John Pierethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17336244849636477317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-674192606176078067.post-49443635855544945172007-04-04T03:15:00.000-04:002007-04-04T03:15:00.000-04:00I used to be a fundamentalistInteresting. What's i...<I>I used to be a fundamentalist</I><BR/><BR/>Interesting. What's it like? I always wondered if these people sense at all when they're being dishonest. When fundies produce transparent and silly lies about something, do they feel the same things as normal people feel when lying? Are they just better at hiding shame?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com