Dinosaurs and Man

[Annik]

Funnily enough, it is a little manoeuvre I picked up from watching Captain Kirk talking alien computers into blowing a fuse.

Isn't that the Landru episode? Love it.

[Minimalist]

Shouldn't there be populations of these critters in other places?

Prepare for "goddidit" reply.

[Cyberman]

Funnily enough, it is a little manoeuvre I picked up from watching Captain Kirk talking alien computers into blowing a fuse.

Isn't that the Landru episode? Love it.

Absolutely. If memory serves, Landru was one of several to fall foul of the Kirk Manoeuvre. He even tried it on God once.

[Minimalist]

God is a putz.

[Thor]

Shouldn't there be populations of these critters in other places?

Prepare for "goddidit" reply.

That is pretty much the only ammo they have in the bag.

[Cyberman]

Otherwise known as dum-dums.

[Angrboda]

It's Don Patton...another of those creationist "phd's" of questionable value.

The only thing fossilized here is the bullshit.

The fact that many prominent creationists actually have legitimate PhD's, for example one Emil Silvestru has a PHD in Geology!. Has made myself not take into account the qualifications of anybody making an argument. Anybody who actually is arguing well for their position (like Richard Dawkins) don't resort to trying to point out they have a PhD (which he does) or Robert M Price for that matter (who has two PhD degrees).

Perhaps, but someone who claims an advanced degree which is illegitimate, or irrelevant, or from a diploma mill is basically lying about their qualifications, pretending they are something they are not, and willfully misleading people by listing them. Dishonesty of a source, any source, speaks directly to credibility.

[Cyberman]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html

Patton has claimed Ph.D. candidacy in geology from Queensland Christian University in Australia. According to Glen Kuban:

When I asked Patton for clarification on this during the [1989 Bible-Science] conference, he stated that he had no degrees, but was about to receive a Ph.D. degree in geology, pending accreditation of QCU, which he assured me was "three days away." Many days have since passed, and Patton still has no valid degree in geology. Nor is the accreditation of QCU imminent.

[Reforged]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html

Patton has claimed Ph.D. candidacy in geology from Queensland Christian University in Australia. According to Glen Kuban:

When I asked Patton for clarification on this during the [1989 Bible-Science] conference, he stated that he had no degrees, but was about to receive a Ph.D. degree in geology, pending accreditation of QCU, which he assured me was "three days away." Many days have since passed, and Patton still has no valid degree in geology. Nor is the accreditation of QCU imminent.

Wow, I'm glad I looked at this link before I pressed play.
I was about to waste a whole hour on someone who has no formal qualifications. I'm very relieved I didn't.
Thank you, really. :-)

[Angrboda]

Oddly enough, I can sympathize with GodsChild's view of the matter as a mere battle between truth and an unyielding scientific dogma. Many times these debates about these questions take on the appearance of a partisan political fight, rather than a rational debate. Politician A gives a speech, and darned if everything he says sounds reasonable. Then politician B takes the podium, and darned if he doesn't refute everything B said, and convincingly. And so it goes. Creationists exist in a river of social interaction that carries with it different epistemological standards, philosophies and values. Secular science does as well. The point to see here is that the disagreements are as much a consequence of uniquely different cultures, as they are about matters of fact. And religious people, and other cultural groups, valuing their lifestyle, seek to insulate it from corruption, by such things as home schooling, separate social activities and so on. We all tend to read and listen to people who we think we will agree with, and it doesn't matter whether you're an atheist, a fundamentalist Christian, or a Hindu. But that is also a weakness, which keeps you segregated within your own particular mental community.

There is a "meta-level" set of behaviors, which I refer to as discourses, which tends to develop socially and intellectually segregated bodies of knowledge. And "just looking at the facts" won't help you deal with this problem. (And people can belong to multiple discourses simultaneously, such as scientists, who look to Christianity for spiritual but not material truth, who say, are big into post-modernist literary theory, and so on.)

I've been now and again working on this question, but I don't have any real answers. Aside from cautioning people not to look at people like GodsChild and creationists as either lying, willfully ignorant, or stupid; they usually aren't. Like people born on different rivers, they actually see what they claim to be seeing (probably). They were just born floating down a river far removed from the one you are floating down, and it may perhaps be unreasonable to expect them to beach the canoe, and head overland toward a land they've never seen. Odds are, a month from now, they'll be on the same river, perhaps a few miles further downstream, but the same river. And so will you.