"What Are Evolutionists So Afraid Of?"

[Esquilax]

But I am perplexed by some of my scientific colleagues who are reluctant to engage with young earth creationism.

Why are you privileging young earth creationism as something that must be engaged with, over... say, geocentrism? Or the flat earth belief? They have exactly the same level of evidence, and are facing a vast, some would say insurmountable wall of evidence contradicting them; why is young earth creationism so special?

And that's not even entertaining the idea that science already has engaged with young earth beliefs; they have been proven conclusively wrong, and science has moved on. Don't mistake a determination that's already been reached, with sufficient supporting evidence, with an unwillingness to further discuss the issue. It's not like the creationists are bothering to bring positive evidence for their claim to the table.

It does come across as wanting to wrap evolution in cotton wool and to protect it from other perspectives.

So, if you have a phenomena that has been confirmed through multiple lines of archaeological and experimental evidence, plus can literally be observed to happen, and someone just asserts that it isn't true... we have to take that seriously? Like, at all?

And when their best counter-argument is that we don't know everything about the phenomena- that, again, we can observe- that somehow makes them more credible?

This, for me, is so against good science which comes of of challenge stronger, if slightly altered. The IDists, in particular ask some good questions about development of complexity (and I am not an IDist).

And if they bothered to look for answers to those questions that confirm their claims, rather than taking the fact that there are unanswered questions as proof that they are correct and evolution is wrong, then that'd be okay. As it stands, the ID proponents go to no effort to research, nor to publish in a peer reviewed manner. Instead, they're lobbying for political power, they're skipping peer review altogether to write books, they're creating their own journals out of whole cloth to avoid having to face the scrutiny of anyone who might not already agree with them. Look at any given ID website and you'll see a statement of faith affirming a presupposition toward ID, and a dismissal of all evidence to the contrary.

Hell, even their hypothesis is an unfalsifiable mess that shifts the burden of proof! As a scientist, I'm surprised you can't see that.

It does look as if some scientists are reluctant to engage with those questions, because answers are frequently not yet known.

If the answer is not yet known, you wait until evidence is found before you engage with the question. What you don't do is enter into public debate with people who have a track record of taking the fact that the answer isn't known and spinning that into "evolutionist scientists can't even answer our hard hitting questions! Evolution must be wrong, and design must be right!"

But to close down discussion and debate, in schools even, is not the type of science that I know and love.

So what research is there that points to ID? What testable hypotheses are being generated by ID? What evidence does ID have; positive evidence, not merely holes in the alternative?

Isn't all that a part of the science you know and love too? A pretty big part, that's completely absent from ID?

An excuse if 'we don't want to give the enemy publicity' is far from the science of Galilieo or William Harvey, who willingly engaged with Ptolomists and Galenists. That closed-off form of science is scientisim, a form of science that seeks to protect itself where it appears weakest because it wants to present itself as a 'know all' philosophy (a science-stopper if there ever was one).

Ah, there's your mistake: rather than being the "weakest" point of science, evolution may just be the most well supported theory in all of biology, if not science itself. To question evolution on individual unanswered questions, in the face of the true weight of the evidence in favor of it, is like questioning the color of the sky because we don't know absolutely everything about light refraction.

When I see creationists more interested in engaging in debate than fans of science, or even eminent science communicators like Richard Dawkins, then I can't help but feeling that science is coming off second-best. When a school is reluctant to let creationism be discussed then I can't help but feel science looks weak.

Tell you what: when creationism and ID start behaving like sciences, when their proponents start playing by the same rules as real scientists and obeying a code of ethics and honesty like the real scientific community does, then they get a seat at the table. Until then, you're just unfairly privileging your favored brand of mysticism over any other.