| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"Steamboat" |
| Date: |
24 Sep 2006 04:54:25 PM |
| Object: |
Denial |
Stolen from Pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/)...
The 'Give Up' Blog has a post outlining a general problem: denialists.
The author is putting together a list of common tactics used by
denialists of all stripes, whether they're trying to pretend global
warming isn't happening, Hitler didn't kill all those Jews, or evolution
is a hoax, and they represent a snapshot of the hallmarks of crank
anti-science. Most of the examples he's using are from climate change,
but they also fit quite well with the creation-evolution debates.
Here are the key features:
Conspiracy. Accuse the mainstream scientists of all being in it to
defraud the government of grant money, or fame and glory, or because
they hate Christianity. There must be some underhanded reason the vast
majority of scientists support evolution, after all it couldn't possibly
because that's where the evidence leads them.
Selectivity. The scientific literature is full of failed hypotheses'
that's the way science works, throwing out ideas and testing them, and
testing always implies a possibility of failure. Creationists love to
cherry pick the ideas that didn't work out and pretend they stand for
the field as a whole; Haeckel's ideas about evolution and development
are largely ignored now, but from people like Wells you'd think all of
biology was founded on a faked diagram in a 19th century book.
The fake expert. That's the Discovery Institute's whole schtick. Bring
in a menagerie of Ph.D.s in philosophy and theology and mathematics, and
pretend they're experts in biology. Take on people like Jonathan Wells
who explicitly sought out biology credentials at the behest of Reverend
Moon so that he could more effectively discredit evolution.
Impossible expectations. We also call this shifting the goalposts. One
good example: the incredible proliferating gaps, in which every fossil
discovery means we now have two new gaps in place of one; creationists
love to make the impossible demand that the pedigree of every lineage
must be traced down to the last individual, or there is no evidence of
descent. The metaphor. Yeah, mousetraps and little trucks and outboard
motors inside the cell. One of the funniest phenomena going on right
now, though, is that the creationists seem to believe their metaphors
are literally true Michael Behe is fond of throwing that word,
"literally", into his excessive paeans to the machinery of the cell.
There is one that isn't on the list, but that we see all the time: the
quote mine. If you don't have an expert of your own, and if the
experiments and observations of the other guys all oppose your ideas,
start plucking sentence from the other side's experts, and pretend they
support your denialism. Creationists made a little industry of doing
this to Colin Patterson (who protested strongly when he was alive), I
documented a case of this being done to Bill Ballard, it was just done
to Nick Matzke, and even Stephen Jay Gould had his words hijacked to
pretend he was supporting creationist assertions (Answers in Genesis, in
wrenching irony, notes his protests while going on to plunder his
writings for more out-of-context quotes). It's a cute trick to
simultaneously pretend that the entire field is conspiring to hide the
truth, while claiming that all the leaders of the field were publishing
disproofs of evolution but consistency isn't essential when you're a
denialist kook.
Another that might be important is the appeal to consequences. We hear
all the time that if evolution were true, there'd be no reason for
people to be lawful, because they're just animals, after all. Or that it
would cost too much money to reduce CO2 emissions, so let's not hurt our
industry with this global warming talk (or conversely, it would be
better for us all if it were warmer, so keep pumping out the greenhouse
gases). Ultimately, the reason people are in denial is that they have
some concern other than the honest evaluation of the data that drives
them to avoid looking at that data. I don't think most people like to
invent conspiracy theories or lie and distort, but must have some other
agenda that they consider important enough to justify avoiding the
truth. In creationism, it's an honest fear of social change and
apostasy/heresy, while with something like climate change it's clearly
short-term thinking about profit.
.....
"Get your facts first, and then you can distort
them as much as you please." (Mark Twain)
.....
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| User: "David Canzi -- non-mailable" |
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| Title: Re: Denial |
28 Sep 2006 06:38:57 PM |
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In article <c4vdh2th3nnkp539l3k5h6c91qv8vfjo49@4ax.com>,
Steamboat <RTully@detroitlive.net> wrote:
Stolen from Pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/)...
It would have been better to post URLs for the specific
articles, eg. at Pharyngula:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/09/the_denialists.php
And at "Give Up":
http://www.giveupblog.com/2006/09/denialists.html
--
David Canzi "Do not let superstition inhibit your actions."
-- Jeane Dixon, horoscope for Virgo, May 17, 1990.
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