My first real debate with a YEC

[Superboy]

I went to a baptist high school that taught ID, where everyone believed evolution to be false and unscientific and that the earth was only 6000 years old. It was a very small school with a very close group of people, so when I became an atheist, gossip about it spread.

Long story short, a fews years after graduation I'm still thought of as the black sheep of the group (my father is a teacher there, which means I'm always connected with the school), and recently my old physics teacher publically challenged me to a debate.

If I turned the debate down everyone would view it as a surrender and another point for ID, and I really don't want that. I'm trying to brush up on a lot of the science and common arguments that IDers use, but there's a LOT of info out there and I only have until tomorrow.

So here's where I need your help. What are the best sources for arguments that counter-ID and young earth theories? I'm already reading through Wong's site and many of the sites listed on this forum, but I'm hoping you guys could narrow it down a little for me since I only have a day to prep.

Also, what arguments should I expect? I have debated with YECs before, but never in an official way and never in front of an audience, so I'd really like to be ready.

What you guys recommend?

[General Zod]

You could always turn it down telling him if he's so sure of his own arguments against evolution, why doesn't he take it to accredited science boards and get it disproven right there instead of being a cowardly fucktard and challenging a student.

[Ariphaos]

Honestly, I prefer discussion with a group of Creationists over a debate. This puts you more into the role of 'teacher', rather than having cards stacked against you with a hostile audience. If it's small enough, I'd go for that instead.

Explain, don't defend. You can't 'defend' science, you have to explain the hows and whys, in order to preempt further rebuttals on a subject. This means being able to (and having the time to) explain the mechanisms behind things, which can get hard in a 'debating' format. You pretty much have to pick a solid piece of ground that you know extremely well, and get the audience to understand and accept it.

You're not going to win the entire debate, unless it lasts days and you have a firm grasp of every scientific subject out there. And by win, I mean convert people. I find it far more productive to squash entire arguments out of people for good, because if enough people do that to a creationist enough times, the creationist -will- convert.

That's why I prefer a 'group discussion' provided you have at least a decent rep with the people you are talking with. You will be given more time on an argument for argument basis, and can explain a great deal more.

[wolveraptor]

Zod, you know he'll just whine about evil atheistic scientists not allowing new ideas in. And everyone will agree with him. There's no point in refusing the debate.

Try to make the debate about biology. As a physics teacher, he might be disadvantaged.

[Wyrm]

Know this shit cold!

For some specifics: Genetics

And, as Xerier says but it bears repeating, Focus, focus, focus! Absoultely do not let yourself get distracted. If you do, you're dogmeat.

[Ariphaos]

If you're going to use biology (I sometimes prefer attacking a Creationist's strength, myself, but anyway)

Begin with facts. Evolution, like other words, has multiple meanings, even in terms of biology. If you are going to be discussing them, you will need to make the definitions clear.

The basic definition of evolution is the change in allele frequencies of a species over time. That is the core of it, and all further definitions can be boiled down to this one. You might want to explicitely note that the origin of all species from a single ancestor is the theory - the evidence for which you will be discussing - and that the mechanism - evolution as defined above - is fact.

You will have to explain what an allele is (I prefer to use melonin alleles as an example), and explain the basics of how frequencies change.

When discussing mutations, it is important to mention that 70% of pregnancies end in miscarriage - don't forget that fact - people will bring up the 'most mutations are harmful' bit, and it is in fact true. It is also why so many couples have to work at making a child.

Also, be sure to explain 'mutations' that duplicate, join, and split chromosomes. Down's syndrome is an example of genes erroniously splitting, though it is more survivable in plants than mammals - mammals get different numbers of chromosomes by having them split and/or join instead.

Feroe Island Mouse Rats are an example of speciation of mammals within the last 250 years.

Avoid the fossil record until the end of the debate, and pick a species who has a solid record - horses for example. It can also be fun to mention that horses and donkeys have greater genetic variance than humans and chimps do (including mismatched chromosomes).

[mr friendly guy]

You might want to first be able to get rid of various misconceptions about evolution.

1) evolution is random chance (insert an appeal to authority to Hoyle about probabilities)

False. Its driven by two processes mutation and natural selection. Mutations are random in that they don't aim for specific end product. Natural selection is not, it will favour those more suited to survive in a given environement.

To use an analogy, if 100 people were asked to pick random letters from a scrabble list to spell the word encyclopedia (in the exact order) one would expect a long time for this to happen. This is a caricature of evolution and an inaccurate one at that.

However imagine if of those 100 people who did not pick E as their first letter, were "selected out" by a process called natural selection. Now those people who were selected out reproduced to another 100 people. And now they are asked to pick again. Of this next batch of 100 people (who start off having picked E), those that didn't pick N are selected out again. Repeat this process and you can see that you will reach the word Encyclopedia faster than if you just "reset" and pick again from scratch if you failed to spell encyclopedia the first time.

2. Evolution can't explain how life came about from non life

So what. Its not suppose to. That theory is called abiogenesis. Evolution deals with the origin of species from early life. This is like saying because Newton's laws can't explain nuclear physics, therefore they are useless, or a ruler is useless because it can't measure the circumference of a circle.

3. Evolution says things came from nothing

Sorry, that's Genesis.

4. Its not evolution, its natural selection / adaptation.

This is usually in response to examples of pesticide resistant cockcroaches and antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Evolution however is the end product (change in population of a species over time), natural selection (in this case)is the process which leads to this change (in the case of the bacteria, mutation is also involved). There is no reason why something cannot be an example of natural selection and evolution at the same time.

This is like me saying that a man who drives at 200 mph and dies in a car crash is an example of a road fatality, and a creationist stubbornly saying its not a road fatality, its an example of speeding. Substitute evolution for road fatality and natural selection for speeding, and you can see where this logical flaw lies.

5. We have never seen one species change into another.

False. Talkorigins lists numerous examples of speciation. We have documented one species change to another since the early 1900s. The next step such people do is to redefine species. Don't let them. Force them to stick with the biological definition of species (ie different species cannot produce fertile offspring but can produce them with other members of the species).

6. Why doesn't an ape turn into a man right now?

Maybe because evolution occurs in POPULATIONS not individuals. Population evolves because offspring become different from their ancestors. Not because the ancestor magically change their DNA to pass it onto offspring ala Pokemon.

As for arguments for ID, check http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=80229

where I discuss some ID arguments. Just be careful they are arguing ID, and not older style Creationist, since they might also want to argue things like Noah's flood (which ID doesn't care about).

[mr friendly guy]

However imagine if of those 100 people who did not pick E as their first letter, were "selected out" by a process called natural selection. Now those people who were selected out reproduced to another 100 people.
).

Typo, my bad. It should read now those people who were NOT selected out reproduced to another 100 people.

[Cyborg Stan]

Hmmmm...... yeah, I'd agree with the others that you probably cannot explain your position fully. What I suggest is to attack the other side - force them to explain themselves.

Ask why they think the Earth is only 6000 years old. Not 'Younger than what EVILUTION says'. Not 'Younger than 4.5 Billion Years'. Ask 'Why 6000? Why not 1 Billion? 100 Million? A Hundred Thousand? How did you come to an answer that's a MILLION times different from modern science?'

Ask what kind of evidence would be needed to convince them. Point out that if none would suffice, then they're just wasting your time, and that it was never a scientific question to begin with.

Point out that mechanisms/supporting hypothesis have consequences. Thus, when someone predicts a global flood, there should be major things predicted and alot going on. (See any global flood thread.) If more stuff is brought in simply to protect it from any possible factual consequences without gaining the ability to make different ones, it gets supicious.

[Zero]

You could also point out that if the universe is only 6000 years old, then light from distant stars would not have had time to get to earth, and if you claim that these things existed before earth, you have to ignore the creation story in the bible, but I'd stick with biology, if that's what you've been researching, because creationists tend to just make up lies about how the speed of light may have been different in the past, or about how God created the light before the object.

[Cyborg Stan]

*Hums*

On thinking further, perhaps I'll add a few more things.

Personally, when doing the attacks be sure that you can at least survive a similar counter-attack.

For instance, on the Age of the Earth - point out that we can get hard numbers due to isotope dating. (And any meterites would be easy to spot, thus we can tell if a rock is from Earth and thus can help date the Earth.) Point out that it's based in nuclear physics and chemistry, two fields we know very well. All the while, insist on asking why they think the Earth is specifically 6000 years old - not just 'younger than what scientists say' or 'young'.

When pointing out the need for convincing evidence, show that there are possible things that could go against evolution - for instance, if a young Earth was shown or if there wasn't a nested heirarchy of species. (For the latter, it's just a result of common descent. A Pegasus would be a counter-example to this, if it existed. If someone tries to counter that more than one type of animal has wings (Say, bats vs birds vs insects) point out that all of them are done vastly differently.

When pointing out consequences, show that Evolution passed it's own tests long ago. For instance, one of the more serious objections to Evolution was made by Lord Kelvin, who calculated the age of the Earth based on temputure. From what was known at the time from the way things cooled, the Earth could have only been 10 million years old - too short for Evolution to occur. In order for Evolution to still occur something MAJOR must be different with the laws of physics. This something major was the presense of radioactivity, which greatly increased how long the Earth could keep warm without it simply being boiling by having a heat source within. Thus, it can be said that Evolutionary theory somehow managed to implicate a new law of physics. Point out that radioactivity isn't some band-aid to prop up evolution or to build evil nuclear Satan bombs - we know enough about it to use it as internal dyes for our bodies, batteries in pacemakers and nuclear reactors.

[Superboy]

I would normally have turned the debate down as Zod suggested, but in this case I think I might have a real chance of convincing some people. Most of the audience will be students, and since religion has been forced on them their entire lives, a lot of them are "rebelious" and if given some actual information will probably jump on the chance to prove their teachers and parents wrong.

Those links were great Wyrm. I remember one of the arguments this teacher made in high school was that the second law of thermodynamics says that no new information can ever be created (yeah, I know how screwed up that is) and so genes could never become more complicated. Those links will help me work my rebuttel better if he brings that up again.

As an example what kind of arguments I'll likely be up against, this teacher once took a full 10 of our physics classes to show all of Kent Hovinds videos and discuss them. Several of our tests were composed almost entirely of questions about these videos.

So far I've been trying to research rebuttels specifically to Kent Hovind arguments, as well as the genetics mentioned above, but great advice all around, guys. Keep it coming.

[Cyborg Stan]

Hmmmm..... Hovind? Well, this comes to a different suggestion that I was debating to give - if you have the inclination/money/resources, you might want to make some handouts for people to read. (Problem being, with the more you want to explain (and from what it seems, you would need to quite alto) and the more people that there are there, the more cost to you in time and money.)

With Hovind, you may be able to come up with 50 Answers to his 50 Questions thing. While you may be able to come up with all of them on your own (Something I'd recommend if one has the time, although I suspect you wouldn't at this moment.) there is a thread on top of this forum for that. (Personally, I'd be wary of just copying answers from it, although admittedly it does seem to be there for other people to use. Possibly want to get permission before using someone's response, although I just may be paranoid.)

You may be able to get some traction on other creationist organizations disagreeing with Hovind.

It may also help to figure out where the 'first objection' to Evolution is. For instance, if one believes that they will burn in Eternity if they ever ponder the implications of a non-literal Genesis, they will not listen to anything else you would say. You may get some headway if you try to convince them that it's not a threat, but to be honest I believe that has more to do with how they view things and may not actually be true. Otherwise, I'd concentrate on how Evolution is the change in populations over time, and give mechanisms of Natural Selection and Random Genetic Drift. Furthermore, give examples of adaption, speciation, and useful predictions of Evolutionary theory.

If not, at least give a link to talkorigins.org.

[Darth Wong]

It's difficult to give advice without knowing this specific asshole's arguments. There are so many different brands of creationism and tactics, because there is no coherent creationism theory. Indeed, the entire creationism/ID movement can be summed up as "anything but evolution", and most of their arguments are constructed that way. They don't care about formulating a self-consistent theory, never mind a physically rational one. They only care about attacking and discrediting evolution theory. That's why it helps to know what angle they'll be using before you go in, because a verbal debate isn't like a written one: you don't have time to go look up the bullshit he spouts, and a LOT of creationist arguments are based on outright lies.

That's why I always say that written debates are better than verbal ones. In a verbal debate, he can snowjob you with countless "did you know that ..." facts and "win" even if those "facts" turn out to be totally untrue.

[spikenigma]

*snip

pretty much agree with what most people are saying

my own advice would be to pre-agree specific points of contention and centre the debate around them.

It's also important to make sure the debate is actually structured and not ad-hoc, otherwise he will leap from subject to subject like tarzan, and then after each empassioned fire-in-the-belly rebuttle he makes (which is fully of shit but sounds good), he will switch the subject before you can respond - so it looks like he has proven his point and you are floundering

Also, with a structured debate you can prepare guidance notes (though don't rely on them) and specific information on your chosen topics

good luck

[Yogi]

Make sure you know the format of the debate beforehand so you an plan your argument accordingly. Make sure they stick to that format.

[Alferd Packer]

Like others have said, I would suggest that you attack creationism nonstop, especially if they audience is stacked against you, as it sounds like it might be. Similar to what DW said about creationism being "anything but evolution," you should use that mindset to your advantage and make anything but evolution sound so absolutely absurd that only evolution is plausible.

Also, in a verbal debate, it's much more important to be on the offensive, because you can direct your opponents' responses. It's tempting to try to rebutt every single attack on evolution, but you can't expect to be able to to that in a verbal debate. Either you'll forget something, or he'll interrupt you and fuck up your train of thought. It's probably better to let his attacks stand or give minimalist responses that lead into your attacks. It's quite tempting to simply take arguments as they come, but eventually, he'll paint you into a corner.

In that light, I would suggest the following key points:

For YEC, focus on the physical absurdities that arise from literal 6-day creation, like where did all the GPE go when the earth formed? Or where all the water came from the flood, and so on. Have about a dozen examples ready to go.

For ID, focus on the flaws in our design. Ask why we breathe and eat through the same tube, even though that's a huge choking hazard. Ask why our eyes are wired backwards and why squid eyes are wired correctly. Ask why if even a single chromosome or enzyme is missing from our bodies, we die. In general, you want to paint the Intelligent Designer as a complete and utter moron, incapable of anything other than jury-rigging a barely-functional hodge-podge of organisms who exist solely to kill each other for their own survival. If you can get him angry enough to say something like "SPEAK NOT ILL OF YOUR LORD GOD!" he'll have admitted that ID is a load of religious nonsense.

That's probably the only way you'll come close to claiming victory in a verbal debate: expose the lies and idiocy of creationism rather than extoll the correctness of evolution.

[NecronLord]

If possible, try to make him explain how this design worked, and why it produced such terrible designs. Try to demand that he produce a mechanism beyond 'I don't know - must be God.'

How was the design done?

Where?

When?

What objective evidence is there backing up these claims?

[Darth Wong]

The sad thing about verbal debates is that they favour superficial arguments. An in-depth argument tends to utterly fail in a verbal debate because the audience just doesn't have the attention span for it. So it becomes a war of one-liners. Having said that, there are some pretty good one-liners out there for creationism (against 6-day creationism, point out that the Bible contains talking shrubbery and that the word-for-word literal scientific accuracy of the Bible is therefore obviously shit, and against ID, ask why the fuck an intelligent designer would make sea animals that can drown), but make no mistake: a superficial debating venue tends to give the weaker side an advantage, by nullifying many of the stronger side's inherent advantages and essentially giving the debate to whoever can come up with the most compelling one-liners even if they grossly oversimplify the issue.

[Kamakazie Sith]

It sounds like you're going to be fighting on their terms. This is really bad for you. My suggestion is know your material well enough that you'll be able to catch him on his lies, and explain how they are lies and then not let him live it down.

If he shows an ignorance of evolution then rub it in his nose and make sure the audience doesn't forget. Basically, if he lies don't call him a liar but you can bring into question whether he should be debating against evolution.

In order to debate against something you should be very familiar with it.

Other than that you're at a disadvantage, and I know he'll lie so your only hope is to ram those lies up his ass.

[Darth Wong]

It probably also helps to have a catch-all rebuttal when he blind-sides you. For example, when he raises some question about science which you can't answer, ask him whether he has ever asked a real qualified specialist in that field for an answer on that question. If he says yes, ask him what the guy's name was. Rinse and repeat every time he makes one of these "science cannot explain" or "can you explain how" arguments unless you already know the argument and have a ready response. If you're lucky you'll be able to make him look dishonest for declaring that science has no real answers just because you don't have one ready off the top of your head, even though he's never tried asking the experts.

[wilfulton]

It's difficult to give advice without knowing this specific asshole's arguments. There are so many different brands of creationism and tactics, because there is no coherent creationism theory. Indeed, the entire creationism/ID movement can be summed up as "anything but evolution", and most of their arguments are constructed that way. They don't care about formulating a self-consistent theory, never mind a physically rational one. They only care about attacking and discrediting evolution theory. That's why it helps to know what angle they'll be using before you go in, because a verbal debate isn't like a written one: you don't have time to go look up the bullshit he spouts, and a LOT of creationist arguments are based on outright lies.

That's why I always say that written debates are better than verbal ones. In a verbal debate, he can snowjob you with countless "did you know that ..." facts and "win" even if those "facts" turn out to be totally untrue.

The problem with debating an asshole is that nothing but shit comes out of an asshole.

Battles are won decisively, be they harmless debates with words where the only thing that risks injury is someone's ego, or with bullets, where people actually die. They are won by decisive action, and the fundies have the upper hand here, because if at a loss for words, they can simply pull something out of their ass and somehow use it to prove that God created the world in six days.

In being decisive, it doesn't work to sit back and defend your arguments, because there are simply too many avenues that a creationist can attack down, little nitpick arguments he can make that are in all actuality a mute point (this is especially true if you're debating him face to face, vs. email or some such, as Mike here points out) but can still use to snowball you, thus putting you on the defensive.

My recommendation is to disrupt what we in the military call his OPTEMPO. That is, he is no doubt focusing on the attack, so instead of defending your argument, counterattack, snowball him over on his. If I understand your intro correctly, you were raised where the bible is the absolute truth, so you have some familiarity with it. USE IT, use this knowledge to your advantage, use it to fuel YOUR attack. You can I'm sure do better than me with a little preparation, so consider: "Why did God have to rest on the seventh day if he is all-powerful," "Why does he say thou shalt not kill and then promptly put all these people to death in the same day?"

Of course you may hear: "It's His world, he can wreck it if he wants."
Consider answering:
"Well if we are just pawns in His big game and He'll send us to hell for all eternity for the crime most heinous: that of dissidence if we don't unquestioningly go along with it, then how can we be sure God isn't evil? How do we know he isn't the real satan and that we shouldn't fight Him instead of bow down and kiss this tyran't ass?"

My advice is that if you debate him, and try to stand your ground, you're just going to get covered in shit (sound familiar?) Attack, attack, attack, attack! Smash his optempo, take to the offensive. Don't answer his questions, FORCE him to answer yours, since after all, he is the teacher and you the student. FORCE him to answer your question. If he looks shaky, or gives a bullshit answer, drive into it. Don't give him any wiggle room.

And if this is to be a verbal debate, consider putting a time limit on it. Figure out how much ammunition you can carry into it and how long will it last. Make that the time limit because you don't want this thing to go to the point where the both of you are completely braindead and everyone else watching is too tired to care and can't think about anything at the moment besides going home and producing more little fundies.

And the little golden gem: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Remember the 7 P's when you go into this argument. Be prepared.

[Darth Wong]

Wilfulton makes some very good points. Find avenues of attack and hammer on them.

1) Has he ever asked real biologists for answers to these questions and verifications of these claims rather than theatrically asking a high school kid for effect? It's pretty easy to beat up on a high school kid, after all. Why hasn't he gone and dueled with the experts?

2) What is his definition of "science?"

3) If dealing with Biblical literalism, can anyone in the audience explain talking shrubbery without resorting to miracles?

4) If creationism relies on miracles which can't be reproduced, how can it be tested? Evolution can and has been tested in the laboratory. If it can't be tested, how can we call it a science?

5) If he falls back to "intelligent design", point out that if it were a scientific theory, it would be able to explain how this designer created the species, rather than just pointing a finger at him and mumbling "I dunno" when asked how he did it. Science is all about mechanisms, not finger-pointing. And an "intelligent designer" who makes sea animals which can drown is not too intelligent.

6) Why, if all of the species on Earth were "designed", are more than 99% of the species in the fossil record extinct? Did God really screw up that many times before making good species? Why was the Earth virtually covered in trilobytes at one time, only to lose them by the time recorded history came along? Did God decide to make a crappy species, fill up the world with it, and then kill it off for no reason? Or was God not directly handling species design at all?

7) If he rejects the scientific method itself, does he also feel that it should not be applied in his own field, which is physics? Does he feel that the confusing concept of light being both a particle and a wave is clearly a contradiction which disprove the entire concept of photons? Maybe photons act like both a wave and a particle because of an "intelligent oscillator".

And then, instead of answering his points directly, just try to find excuses to segue from his points onto yours. This is quite frankly a lousy debate tactic in front of an intelligent audience, but it's how political debates are done 100% of the time, and for good reason: it doesn't work in front of an intelligent audience but intelligent audiences are rare.

[Darth Wong]

One phrase which is commonly used when you employ this tactic: "I'm glad you brought that up, because it reminds me of another problem with creationism ..." That's how politicians do it.

[Rye]

Be sure to demand a quote and surrounding context from Origin of the species or subsequent neo-darwinian books, like from Dawkins, whenever he says "evolution claims strawman x". Then add on "or did you just copy that from someone else's work without actually getting the source quote and context yourself?"

Also, whenever he starts misbehaving in the debate (which WILL happen sooner or later, since creationism ALWAYS has an unstable emotional basis) ask if he is a christian, when he answers yes, ask him why he is disobeying the Bible's teachings; when a christian doesn't explain something, they violate 1 Peter 3:15 "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:" for starters.

When a christian is misbehaving in a debate, they violate Titus 2:7 "showing yourself to be an example of good works in every way. In your teaching show integrity, dignity, 2:8 and a sound message that cannot be criticized, so that any opponent will be at a loss, because he has nothing evil to say about us."

But to make SURE he abides by the burden of proof, always crack out 1 Thessalonians 5:21 "But prove all things; hold fast to what is good.".

After showing all that, you can plainly show that not only is his "scientific" argument a shambles, but his faith is poor.