Science & Evolution vs. Creation Debates

Introduction

Having debated creationists for some time it has become clear that all of them, unless restrained, act in a highly predictable manner which confers upon them an unfair competitive advantage (by which I refer to debating style and not to evidence). As such it has been necessary to derive a set of rules under which the evolutionist can debate and not be seen to be wasting his or her time.

Most adherents of evolution and science have no interest in religion per se except where it constitutes an abuse of science and in such situations a set of rules may be employed. Within a science-oriented debate these rules would be considered entirely fair and generally speaking I feel the evolutionist should make it clear that they are not interested in debating anything except from the point of view of science.

In my experience adherents of evolution & science (such as myself) do not typically need to concern themselves with fundamentalist religion except where those religions attempt to disguise themselves as science e.g. so-called "creationism", "creation research", "creation science" or "scientific creationism". These rules have been developed for the protection of all debate participants but particularly for adherents of evolution and science because creationists demand that evolutionists provide specific evidences whilst not expecting to act in the same manner ... by this I mean that most creationist arguments are critical of specific evidences for science and evolution but upon a successful challenge will simply move on to the next criticism.

Why Are Such Rules Necessary?

In most normal debating situations they wouldn't however creationists and fundamentalists are not normal opponents. They do not like to debate fairly and, more often than not, have a poor or non-existent knowledge of science and this forces a situation that the author has come to call "The Creationist Duck and Dive".

This description covers the following typical scenario.

1. The creationist asks a supposedly unanswerable question
2. The adherent of evolution & science responds with, more often than not, a well thought out, well constructed answer.
3. The creationist ignores the answer and follows up with a second supposedly unanswerable question.
4. The adherent of evolution & science may begin to get irritated and will either answer the new question or attempt to force (usually without success) the creationist to respond to his/her answer or to admit defeat on the issue.
5. Repeat 1 to 4 in various loops until ...
6. The creationist will begin to quote irrelevant pieces of scripture or responding with unsubstantiated answers indicating that they know "THE TRUTH" and the evolutionist will soon too or threats of what the evolutionist will experience in that particular creationist's version of hell etc. or ...
7. The creationist leaves.

Note that it is highly unlikely that any creationist/fundamentalist admit him or herself to be in error on any major point i.e. any point that contradicts their religion and, upon receiving an answer either responds with another question, "blows off" an answer with an irrelevant biblical or two-line reply that completely fails to deal with the question or runs away. Creationists rarely, if ever, have the guts to stand up and admit that they are (or might be) wrong or that their beliefs are a matter of faith, pure and simple.

With that in mind the following set of rules were derived (based on the work of Psycho Dave).

The Rules

1. The evolutionist agrees to dissect and discuss the creationists posts ONLY if the creationist agrees to participate in the discussion, and follow through until the issue under discussion is resolved or mutual agreement to agree to differ is reached.
2. In order to achieve this all points arising from questions asked by either party must be answered properly and, if evidence is cited, with reference to scientifically derived evidence or an admission of faith before new questions can be dealt with.
3. It is unacceptable to answer or "blow off" a multi-page, point-by-point refutation of a debaters post with a few short lines UNLESS those points actually destroy the argument in question.
4. Biblical or scriptural quotes are unacceptable in response to references to science papers unless those quotes are demonstrated to be valid in scientific terms i.e. scientifically verifiable.
5. As a general rule articles written by other's are not acceptable nor are references to URL's and each debater must answer each post themselves or the debate will be a non-starter. As in any review article it is acceptable to quote an author but those quotes should be referred.

The Debate Itself

1. That each debater asks one question and subsequently answers the question posed by the other or ...
2. Each debater posts an introductory post covering their current understanding of the debate, a sort of "state of the union" diatribe for want of a better description. In my case that would cover my understanding of evolution, abiogenesis and cosmology and I would expect my opposition to post something similar concerning their views (I balk at calling them theories as that involves science)!

References