Why Not Vote Republican?

While some of those claims need fact checking, there are excellent lines in there! Feel free to quote any favorites in the comments below.

Embryonic Stem Cell Injunction (Part II)

More of my thoughts (part I is here) on the recent ruling by judge Royce Lamberth halting embryonic stem cell research in the U.S. Here are my thoughts on the judges decision to go forward with the injunction.  In his ruling he lays out the criteria for the decision and why he thinks the plaintiffs case was sufficient to pull federal research funding.   

Part II: Did the judge meet the criteria for an injunction?

In his ruling, the judge lays out criteria for issuing an injunction by quoting from another case which asserts that (emphasis mine)...

Bishop Goes After Gay Marriage on CNN

There's a somewhat bigoted opinion piece up on CNN.com, by Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. entitled Same-sex marriage will hurt families, society.  In it, he tries to justify this claim but - not surprisingly - he fails miserably.  While I have not doubts that the Bishop is operating under good intentions, I can't help but think he might be doing little more here than rationalizing his disapproval of same-sex couples under the false impression that he's looking out for the public good.  Below is my take on his arguments.

More on what Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini Got Wrong

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini have received quite a bit of criticism since the publication of their book What Darwin Got Wrong, which attempts to argue that evolution by natural selection is basically nonsense.  The consensus seems to be that Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini don't understand modern evolutionary theory, and that they're plainly wrong. However, in case you think they might be onto something you should check out this July 2010 critique of their book, which also takes them to task for getting it wrong.  The review is written by Harvard philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith. You should of course click over to the review and give it a good read, but I thought I'd comment here on a few highlights.

Peter begins by recalling a young Noam Chomsky's scathing book review of B. F. Skinner's 1957 book Verbal Behavior, which seems to have rightfully blown those ideas right off the map.  He suggests there is a parallel here, to what Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini seem to have attempted with their book... except this time it's they who have it wrong.

... A young linguist, Noam Chomsky, published a review of Verbal Behaviour... It was perhaps the most devastating book review ever written.

Chomsky argued that Skinner’s theoretical vocabulary could be applied to human linguistic behaviour only in an empty, post hoc way. He also thought that Skinner’s behaviourism had a simple architectural flaw: it held that external factors – especially experiences of reinforcement – were of ‘overwhelming importance’ in the explanation of behaviour. Hardly any role was given to what Chomsky referred to simply as ‘the internal structure of the organism’. It is unusual to do serious damage to a scientific research programme with a set of general arguments – not by citing experimental or mathematical results, but by looking at the basic ideas and revealing a crack in the foundations. Though the impact of the review itself is sometimes exaggerated, this is the effect Chomsky had on the behaviourist study of humans.

Jerry Fodor now hopes to do something similar to Darwinism in biology. Fodor has been making sceptical remarks about Darwinian ideas for decades. Three years ago he wrote a direct attack on Darwinian evolutionary theory in the LRB, and he has now published What Darwin Got Wrong, along with Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini believe that they can replicate Chomsky’s demolition job on Skinner because ‘Skinner’s account of learning and Darwin’s account of evolution are identical in all but name.’ As we shall see, ‘identical’ is quite a stretch, but there is a real analogy.

Peter then recounts the criticism others have made of Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini, specifically the argument that natural selection needs to be an 'intensional process' that can distinguish between 'co-extensive' properties of organisms (translation: natural selection allows correlated traits to piggy back advantageous traits, and this somehow implies natural selection doesn't work...)  Now, while there's a more to the book than that (again, see the review for details) this argument sounds so blatantly wrong that I wonder if I'm even understanding it correctly!  I mean really?  Correlated neutral traits are the big showstopper for natural selection? Sadly, I don't think I'm wrong. This really appears to be part of their argument!  If that's true, then the book What Darwin Got Wrong should be given the more appropriate title, What Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini Got Wrong.

Now, I'm not just making this interpretation up... and neither is Peter Godfrey-Smith.  Here's what F&P-P had to say in their response to an earlier criticism by Block and Kitcher (links below, emphasis mine):

For example, suppose random variation produces a trait that tends to make its bearers invisible to their predators. Then, all else equal, the predators gobble up the creatures that don’t have it, and the relative frequency of the trait in the population increases from generation to generation. To repeat, we haven’t the slightest doubt that this is the process that Darwin called natural selection and that Darwinists have always believed in some or other version. In fact, it sounds pretty good. It sounds like it ought to work.

But it doesn’t. A way to see that it doesn’t (not by any means the only way) is to consider confounded (linked) phenotypic traits, one but not the other of which is fitness-enhancing. Both traits are then correlated with fitness, so both should count as adaptations according to the formulation of natural selection given above. But only one of them is a cause of selection, so only one of them is an adaptation, and, though both are selected, only one is selected-for. Thus the free-rider problem. Prima facie, free riding is a counterexample to natural selection.

Massive sadness... They botched it.  Prima facie, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini are simply confused about modern evolutionary biology (which is forgivable) and publicly wielding some philosophical sledge hammers at it, creating some confusion in their wake (this fact is way less forgivable, in my opinion).

Peter I think sums it up nicely when he writes...

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini criticise the tendency to talk of selection as if it were an agent. They are right that this is often misleading, but they seem to be making a similar mistake when they treat it as something over and above the ordinary facts of life, death and reproduction.

After all, recalling how natural selection works in a population, there really isn't much more to it that "life, death and reproduction." Just combine (1) some variation that is (2) heritable with (3) those variants achieving differential reproductive success.  Let that process run for a few generations, and blammo - evolution happens. The distribution of variation in the population changes and the rest is (natural) history. Darwin nailed it, over a century worth of scientific progress has confirmed it, yet unfortunately it appears Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini simply got it wrong.

But... perhaps one day they'll recognize their mistake, do the right thing, and admit they were wrong?  After all, they themselves say in their reply to Block and Kitcher (again, emphasis mine)...

Everybody makes mistakes. Even biologists do; even lots of biologists assembled together do; even great biologists like Darwin do...

Yes, gentlemen, so do very respectable cognitive scientists and philosophers, even those not unlike yourselves.

Related Links

1. Misunderstanding Darwin: Darwin's Secular Critics Get It Wrong | Great critique by Block and Kitcher.
2. "Misunderstanding Darwin" An Exchange. | Dialogue where Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini Respond

Evangelist Kem Ham Embraces Bad Science Journalism

In my previous post I mentioned a recent example of bad science journalism. Despite the fact that those news articles are a clear misinterpretation of the (freely available) original journal article at PLoS Pathogens, and that various bloggers have pointed out their mistakes, there are those who apparently really liked that incorrect interpretation and embraced it readily.  So who might have such an interest in the chicken coming before the egg?  None other than Creation "Museum" director and Answers in Genesis CEO, Ken Ham.

Remember, Answers in Genesis and it's Creation "Museum" exist to spread a particular, literalist version of Christianity - and they do so by denying basic science and working to cripple public science literacy. 

So what did Ham say about the (erroneous) news that chickens came before eggs? It can be summed up in a single phrase: non sequitur.

Which came first: the chicken or the egg?

I smiled yesterday as I read this news story from MSNBC:

It is an age-old riddle that has perplexed generations: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Now British scientists claim to have finally come up with the definitive answer: The chicken. The scientific and philosophical mystery was purportedly unraveled by researchers at Sheffield and Warwick universities, according to the Daily Mail newspaper.  The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken’s ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg, according to the paper Wednesday. The egg can therefore only exist if it has been created inside a chicken.  The protein speeds up the development of the hard shell, which is essential in protecting the delicate yolk and fluids while the chick grows inside the egg, the report said.
“It had long been suspected that the egg came first but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first,” said Dr. Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University’s Department of Engineering Materials, according to the Mail.

Well, the secular world is catching up to what the Bible has taught all along.  At our student assemblies over the years, I have often taught children the answer to this chicken and egg problem this way:

“What came first: the chicken or the egg?  Well the Bible teaches us that God made the flying creatures on day five of creation, and God told the animals to be fruitful and multiply.  So obviously the chicken (a bird) came first, and then they laid eggs.”  So the kids would learn it this way, “The chicken came first because God made the birds on day five of the creation week!”

Poor Ken Ham, if that blog post were a video, it would no doubt star in one of the "Why Do People Laugh At Creationists?" series on YouTube.

Ken goes on to ignore everything we know about eggs from fossils to the various kinds of living reptiles (the closest living relatives of birds), monotremes (egg laying mammals) and other egg-laying organisms.  He rattles off this bit of unfounded nonsense...

Of course there is also the design issue, which is also alluded to in the article.  All the parts/chemicals etc. have to be there for the egg-laying system to work in the first place—it certainly couldn’t evolve.

You can read the entire article at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38238685/ns/technology_and_science-science/?Gt1=43001

Oh, gee, right - the egg couldn't have evolved without a hard shell, because... wait, why?  Hasn't Ken ever seen soft, leathery reptile eggs before, or gooey fish eggs?  Is he intentionally ignoring all that evidence - which suggests how chicken eggs could have evolved - or is he just ignorant of those facts?

Listen, Ken, you shouldn't bullshit the people you're trying to convert - it makes you look dumb, and come off as an untrustworthy source of information.  Also, you should direct your readers to the actual, primary sources of information (e.g. in this case, a link to the article at PLoS Pathogens).  If it's available, quote the primary source - not a secondary source of information like a news article... well, unless you're more concerned with being persuasive than correct. 

Anyway, this part of Ken's blog post made me smile...

By the way, even the evening TV news programs on Wednesday covered this story, including The NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.  The CBS Evening News program ended its segment on the chicken/egg study with the follow-up question, “And the chicken came from... ?” Well, the anchor did not offer an answer but maybe that’s good—he might have given an evolutionary answer.

Fortunately, everyone in central Ohio watching the news last night did hear the science-based answer: that birds almost certainly evolved from dinosaurs.

Ken then tries to poison the well to ward off any criticism:

I wouldn’t be surprised if atheist scientists will loudly complain that this study actually supports the creation account in Genesis and then try to attack the research.

Well I would be surprised, actually, and here's why: the study in no way supports the creation account in Genesis, so there's no need for even the most unscrupulous scientist to "attack the research" based on his or her religious beliefs.  They need only point out the non sequitur, and they're done.  Ken apparently didn't even read the abstract of original article, otherwise he'd know this.

American Evangelical Christians Fomenting Hatred Abroad?

Some stunningly bad arguments used to rationalize legislation (further) criminalizing homosexuality in Uganda.

All that bad logic aside, I find pastor Scott Lively's actions repulsive and negligent. Should he be blamed for fueling the fires of hate in Uganda?  I think so, and here's why.

Suppose I entered a crowded theater with one small exit, first yelling "Fire! The building is burning! We're all going to die!" but then saying calmly "But, please, remain seated and stay calm" once the crowd began to panic.  If someone was then trampled to death - should I be held accountable for having helped rouse the mob? I think so.

Scott Lively's relatively benign suggestions about what to do with homosexuals in no way absolves him of fueling the hatred of homosexuals in Uganda.

Creation "Museum" Part 5: Natural Selection vs. Evolution

~ Happy Darwin Day! ~

In honor of Chuck's 201st birthday (and the recent fuss over natural selection) I thought it appropriate to share some photos from a "Natural Selection is not Evolution" display from the Creation "Museum" in Kentucky.  During my visit in 2009, I managed to take photos of pretty much the whole display (which is a laughably transparent attempt to misrepresent the basic ideas of evolution and natural selection to promote AiG's particular brand of religious belief), which you can see below. This post is verbose, so feel free to just browse through the pictures (click on the images for a closer look).

The display is built on the usual creationist nonsense: e.g. that natural selection can't introduce new "information" (at least in the bizarre sense of the word used by many creationists), "mutations = loss of information", and lots of the usual equivocation with words like "kind." Like so many other displays in the "museum", it consists of a dash of selected scientific facts mixed with heaping piles of biblical literalisms and twisted logic.  Not surprisingly, this is a great recipe for generating some pretty dumb sounding statements like:

... speciation has never resulted in one kind of organism evolving into another kind, such as a reptile evolving into a bird.

and one of my favorite concluding remarks of all time:

Natural selection cannot (despite the common perception) be the mechanism for molecules-to-man evolution since it does not have the ability to create new genetic information (mutations cannot do this either).

The setup for their inevitable "we're right, science is wrong" punchline starts with the sign hanging from the ceiling in the display room.     

If you're wondering why they chose that title, the display goes on to imply the theory of biological evolution must be wrong because natural selection and evolution aren't the same thing... err, what?  Yes, evolution is not the same thing as natural selection, just like your car isn't the same thing as your steering wheel or that the rules of algebra aren't the same thing as all of mathematics.  None of this, of course, has any bearing on mathematics, your car, or the biological theory of evolution.

Now, in a real museum (remember, the Creation "Museum" is officially a ministry, not a science museum!) one would expect a display with a sign like this to clear up the basic definitions of and distinctions between these two concepts.  Presumably drafted with ulterior motives in mind (that or it was just really poorly done?), the first sign hints at a definition:

Sounds like a reasonable distinction between evolution and natural selection, right?  Well, not really... give it another read after you consider the following two points.

First, it's hard to deny - even for creationists - that natural selection happens. To accommodate this fact, a common approach seems to be to drive a wedge between microevolution and macroevolution.  Then, simply scoff at the notion of anything being "millions of years" old and blindly claim all the evidence supports microevolution but not macroevolution. Having done that, natural selection is no longer a problem.

Second, a big assertion in the "museum" is that creationist pseudoscientists and real scientists are all working with the same facts... that they just have different world views that influence their interpretation of those facts, and that these "competing world views" lead to the discord between the claims of real science and creationist pseudoscience.  This, of course, is complete BS.  You simply can't put science and religion on a level playing field.  By definition, creationists start with a core religious belief they assume to be true, then work to dismiss or rationalize away any evidence to the contrary. Real science works quite differently.

So what do they say about evolution and natural selection? First [bold emphasis is mine]...

Natural selection is the name Charles Darwin gave to an observable process, which results in small changes in the plant and animal world, such as fur color or plant height.

Here and in the next sentence, they still aren't giving any real definitions. Instead, they frame the conceptual relationship between evolution and natural selection as belief, then follow up with a bona fide (though quite unrelated) quote from legitimate scientists, just for a little credibility:

A common perception popularized by many scientists is that natural selection is a primary mechanism for evolution.  According to the National Academy of Sciences, "Natural selection... can have radically different evolutionary effects over different time scales."

If you feel like this sign is saying a lot between the lines, or if your BS detector is going off, you're on the right track!

Continuing with this sign, they again leave the reader free to associate scientific knowledge with personal belief. They give a nod to Darwin for getting the ball rolling, drop the phrase "millions of years" which I presume they repeatedly mention just to make other young-earth creationists snicker? They finish up the sign by priming the reader for more on this non-existent conflict between evolution and natural selection.

Darwin believed that given enough time (millions of years) natural selection could lead to large changes (such as a dinosaur evolving into a bird) and was the underlying mechanism of unobservable molecules-to-man evolution.  However, natural selection and evolution are different concepts, though today many mistakenly interchange the two.

After that primer, they take a stab at defining natural selection and evolution using factually reasonable but still disingenuous definitions of the two concepts:

Notice they leave the reader free to view these as lay terms, not specific scientific concepts:

Evolution - as commonly defined today - is the idea that all life on earth has come about through descent with modification from a single-celled common ancestor. We refer to this as molecule-to-man evolution. Inherent in this process is the requirement for origination of new genetic information as organisms evolve from simple to complex.

Here they mention a favorite flimsy and obvious straw man: the argument that mutation doesn't introduce "new genetic information" therefore the theory of evolution makes no sense (it turns out this requires you either ignore things like gene duplication and polyploidy, or make up your own very irrelevant definition of "information").

I laughed quietly to myself when I first read this next sign...

Despite the appearance that the sign may help clear up any lingering confusion about natural selection and evolution, it seems to instead dwell on the notion that natural selection is an insufficient mechanism for all of evolution. This, while true, is inconsequential and in this context quite misleading. 

On a side note, check out the rate of branching after the flood in that "Creation Orchard" figure (bottom right in the figure above), which some have called "super evolution" due to the wickedly high mutation rates needed for such rapid diversification:

The next few signs/dioramas illustrate a couple of cherry-picked examples presented as evidence that "mutation = loss of information" despite plenty of real evidence that various types of genetic mutation do indeed provide the extra genetic information needed evolution.  I'll leave it to you to ponder all the errors in the signs and read them without my interrupting.

(Closer look at the text in the above panel.)

Continuing on, there are more of these long-debunked creationist arguments against evolution. In particular, the infamously nebulous term "kind" which here seems to be something like the most recent common ancestors of (or all of?) a taxonomic family?  Again, having conceded that microevolution does happen, the belief that all of the "kinds" share no natural ancestry requires some effort to try and rationalize away all the evidence to the contrary.

If all this talk of evidence and arguments just doesn't appeal to you, fear not!  The ministry concludes wearing it's true colors: all you need to do is hang on to an unwavering belief in their particular version of Christianity, and the world will once again make complete sense.

PS:  If you're into knowing the source of your information (or just like sending thank you cards)...

Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron get spanked

[Hat tip to PZ Myers]

Math, Computers and Intelligent Design Pseudoscience

Here's a recently published paper (PDF reprint) by intelligent design (creationism) proponent William Dembski. Strong criticisms of the paper (and how it's being misused by other intelligent design creationism proponents) have already popped up on blogs in some posts like these, and even in Dembski's own blog - which he promptly put a stop to by disabling comments.

Instead of focusing on the paper itself, I wanted to illustrate how it (and other mathematical or computational results) can be misused in promoting ID. Before I begin, feel free to read through the blog posts and skim the paper.

After that, we can start in on this blurb from the Discovery Institute as an example of this sort of misuse by asking "So does this paper support intelligent design creationism??"

The paper itself specifies (in the abstract) what they did, and how they applied it (here and below, I have used a bold font for emphasis):

This paper develops a methodology based on these information measures to gauge the effectiveness with which problem-specific information facilitates successful search. It then applies this methodology to various search tools widely used in evolutionary search.

I happen to know a thing or two about using mathematical models in science, and this paper is a fantastic example of what I consider mathematical equivocation - using the power and complexities of mathematics as a logical tool to try and back a claim that really isn't backed by the math. It's significant because, unlike typical rhetorical arguments, the math obfuscates the assumptions and logical arguments being made, and can at times require graduate level background to decipher - so the equivocation is a bit harder (if not impossible, for some) to actually notice.

While the paper says nothing about intelligent design creationism, others (including Dembski himself) claim that it applies. Lets start with the title of the Discovery Institute piece. First, they claim this is a pro-ID publication. Second, we have our first logical fallacy: the appeal to authority. It seems that the holy grail of ID creationist efforts is to have some science-cred to wave around, and a "peer-reviewed scientific article" is exactly that. So what about the pro-ID claim?

In this blog post we get the Discovery Institute's take on what the paper is really about:

A new article titled "Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success," in the journal IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A: Systems & Humans by William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II uses computer simulations and information theory to challenge the ability of Darwinian processes to create new functional genetic information.

To understand why the paper has absolutely nothing to do with real functional genetic information (despite this claim), requires knowing about information theory (an unknown topic to the vast majority of people, scientists included) and that the kind of "information" discussed in the paper is very different from genetic information in a biological context. Indeed, the word genetic only appears on the first page of the article when mentioning "genetic algorithms", and there's no mention of "functional genetic" anything in the paper.

Unfortunately, intelligent design creationists frequently misuse or improperly apply the concept of "information" (which can be defined in a number of ways). Demanding a clear definition is always a good way to keep on track with what's actually being said.

Here's the closest we come to definitions for interpreting information in this paper:

1. endogenous information, which measures the difficulty of finding a target using random search;
2. exogenous information, which measures the difficulty that remains in finding a target once a search takes advantage of problem specific information; and
3. active information, which, as the difference between endogenous and exogenous information, measures the contribution of problem-specific information for successfully finding a target.

Getting back to the Disco Institutes blog post, besides the equivocation this blurb is also largely fueled by another common logical no-no found in many pro-ID arguments - the combined false dichotomy and straw man arguments fallacies whereby (in a debate context) you misrepresent your opponents position with something you can refute, then pretend you refuted your opponent's true position, and then assert that their being wrong makes your position correct.

Here's the Discovery Institute spinning the article against evolution "unguided" by an intelligent designer:

Darwinian evolution is, at [it's] heart, a search algorithm that uses a trial and error process of random mutation and unguided natural selection to find genotypes (i.e. DNA sequences) that lead to phenotypes (i.e. biomolecules and body plans) that have high fitness (i.e. foster survival and reproduction). Dembski and Marks' article explains that unless you start off with some information indicating where peaks in a fitness landscape may lie, any search — including a Darwinian one — is on average no better than a random search.

Note that the implication (at least to me) is that evolution requires "some information" (e.g. an intelligent designer?) if it's going to work "better than a random search." Also note the false dichotomy at play here, as the blog post seems to imply that it's a "pro-ID" publication because it allegedly refutes evolution.

Just to clarify the staw man, evolution by natural selection is equated with evolutionary algorithms, which are then criticized and it's all put forth as being "pro-ID".

So far, I don't see how any of this supports intelligent design creationism or refutes evolution by natural selection. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here!

So what's really the take home message from this paper?

Returning to the matter of equivocation, MarkCC's blog post helps to clarify the meaning of "information" in the paper, although only implicitly:

In terms of information theory, you can look at a search algorithm and how it's shaped for its search space, and describe how much information is contained in the search algorithm about the structure of the space it's going to search.
What D&M do in this paper is work out a formalism for doing that - for quantifying the amount of information encoded in a search algorithm, and then show how it applies to a series of different kinds of search algorithms.

In terms of evolution, it's really just asking how much of the information about the space (i.e. the fitness landscape) is tied up in the algorithm (i.e. natural selection), which given that natural selection is all about the relative number of offspring contributed to the next generation, these results really don't seem surprising or problematic.

The conclusions of the paper seem to be awkwardly stated and kind of amusing:

CONCLUSION

Endogenous information represents the inherent difficulty of a search problem in relation to a random-search baseline. If any search algorithm is to perform better than random search, active information must be resident. If the active information is inaccurate (negative), the search can perform worse than random...

Hmm... So in order for evolution by natural selection (as an algorithm) to work better than random, it needs to include correct information from genetics, developmental biology, ecology, and so on? Got it. If we get it wrong, it'll perform worse than some other random hypotheses? Got it.

This section also has some either very ironic or very well chosen wording...

... Accordingly, attempts to characterize evolutionary algorithms as creators of
novel information are inappropriate. To have integrity, search algorithms, particularly computer simulations of evolutionary search, should explicitly state as follows: 1) a numerical measure of the difficulty of the problem to be solved, i.e., the endogenous information, and 2) a numerical measure of the amount of problem-specific information resident in the search algorithm, i.e., the active information.

Nice - "attempts to characterize" are inappropriate because we're not using your particular definition of information? Gee, now THAT sounds familiar.

To be honest, I have no real expertise in algorithms, but from what I could dig up I don't think this use of "integrity" means anything out of the ordinary. I'll run this by some computer science friends of mine and any insights will appear below.

Until then, my best response to the question "So does this paper support intelligent design creationism??" is decidedly, No.

How NOT to argue with creationists

I'm a big fan of Thunderf00t's work, but I'm going to bet that (like myself) he wasn't on the debate team when he was a kid. When I heard he was going to debate Ray Comfort, I had high hopes that he'd smash some of Comfort's claims regarding science and - for lack of a better term - reality. Instead, I must admit I was a bit disappointed, though it's not like there any resources available for taking religious fundamentalist to task (well, except here, here, here, here, here and probably a few other places).

While some of this is pretty painful to watch, the end has some good moments - Thunderf00t makes Ray Comfort squirm a little over evolution in parts 6 and 7, and I was a bit surprised to hear Ray says some pretty wacky things in part 8, but overall it was pretty non-productive. Anyway, on to the advice section...

So, how shouldn't you argue with creationists??

1. Rely heavily on the assumptions that (1) a deplorable understanding of science = they can't possibly score points during debate; and (2) debating them will go a long way towards educating the public about science, logic, and critical thinking.
2. Don't bring notes, or paper on which to take notes.
   
3. Let them ask all the questions and choose all the topics, or at least most of them.
   
4. If they confuse fact-based knowledge with unfounded belief, just let it go.
5. Don't mention bananas.
6. Don't mentioning any baseless beliefs or flawed logic that might arise, and instead explain a more general logical error in great, technical detail. This works way better than asking probing questions to point out their dubious arguments.
   
7. If you're an atheist/agnostic/whatever, and they ask you why you don't believe in God, by no means turn the question around and ask them to justify why they do.
8. Don't ask them to define terms and phrases like "moral being", "create", "soul", etc. Such details won't cause any problems later on in the debate.
   
9. If they repeatedly refer to the Bible for all their knowledge, don't question it at all, and don't bring up any internal conflicts or conflicts with solid empirical evidence. Wait until the very end of the debate. This is when the audience is of course most alert, and most capable of understanding those conflicts, and how they apply to the many arguments made by your opponents over the past hour.
   
10. There's no need to study up on their style of debate and favorite assertions. They'll never repeat the same dumb arguments over, and over, and over, and over again. For example, they'd never use the old watch-maker argument, false dichotomy, etc., so just don't bother.
11. If they say "DNA is a language" agree with them (it's basically Quechua, with a hint of Dutch) since it in no way represents a large molecule that encodes information that guides the production of RNA inside the cell.
    
12. When they make remarks like "So you're just electricity?" answer "Pretty much, yeah." This totally wins over their supporters in the audience, politely ignores the fact that he or she is missing your point, and it doesn't at all make you look you're not running the show.
13. Practice by reading the Bible (preferably the version they believe in), and not resources on ways to debate creationists, or debate in general. After all, t's a pretty easy book to read, and will give you deep, deep insights into exactly how Christian fundamentalists think.
    
14. Don't compare techniques used by Scientologists "to propagate their religion" to similar evangelical Christian practices... unless you do so by first offering a distracting discussion about anthropomorphizing animals, and then making up some parody of God named Todd to illustrate your point.
15. When they ask if adultery is wrong, pause for a while before answering - it's great way to win over their supporters. By no means ignore them and continue on making your point. If that's what they wanted you to do, they would stop interrupting you.
    
16. In general, let them draw you away from making a good point by asking a handful of irrelevant questions based on tricky concepts like "morality". This will ensure you don't make your point, which always puts you ahead in the debate.
    
17. When you ask them to describe a basic scientific concept, like, say speciation, and they change the subject without doing so, don't bother asking them again.
18. When they deny that man makes camcorders, let it go... After all, we can't even make sand.
    
19. Don't correct them when they confuse salamanders and frogs... repeatedly. It's tricky for some people.
    
20. Don't wear garments made of both wool and cotton, as it might make you sweat during the debate (oh, and because God said so).
21. Don't make fun of them for believing in witches and wizards, it's just a common courtesy.
22. Most important of all? Afterward, let them pay for lunch.
    

God exists - Q.E.D.

Back in April, I made a post entitled "Can you recognize a flawed argument when you hear one?", and today, I came across yet another opportunity to ponder another bad argument (again, from the blog Sandwalk).

So here's the example that prompted this post (and another couple of essays to hopefully balance things out - whether you believe in God or not). First, check out Proof that God Exists and see if you can nail down where their argument gets shaky, what additional assumptions are implicitly made, etc.

At the other end of the spectrum, a good many atheists are pretty well convinced that "there is not God." So here's another line of arguments to try and pick apart. See what you come up with from the essays entitled "God Doesn’t Exist, Part II - Arguments against the Existence of Gods" and if you'd like, "God Doesn't Exist, Part I - Proofs of the Existence of a God."

Whatever your beliefs, keeping your B.S. detector sharp is a good idea. If someone comes up to you and says "I can prove that 2+3=4!" you might be inclined to entertain them (and yourself) and hear out their argument. Still, you're pretty sure they're about to utter some particular flavor of bad arithmetic, and no doubt you'll be extra alert just waiting to pounce on their seemingly inevitable mistake(s). As any good elementary school math teacher would agree - it isn't always important whether or not they get the right answer, but often it's whether or not they know how to get the right answer. Which is good enough reason for me to try and exercise my logic muscles a little bit from time to time. ;)

So imagine someone comes up to you and says "I can prove that 2+3=5!"? You might think, "well, yeah - me too!" and not even bother to hear their proof. After all, you're darn well sure that they're right! Even if you do give their argument a listen, are you as eagerly listening for mistakes or are you perhaps a bit tuned out and just going along for what you expect to be a straightforward argument? Maybe arguments for what we already believe to be true don't quite get the proper level of criticism they might deserve? (Gasp!)

This is presumably a pretty well known behavior (I'm almost certain that philosophers and/or psychologists have a name for it?). Still, it's worth remembering if we're going to try and keep from getting duped or from becoming overly certain of our own unfounded beliefs - be they on one side of the fence or the other.

Can you recognize a flawed argument when you hear one?

Most of us have surprisingly bad "bull-crap" detectors when it comes recognizing flawed arguments supporting our favorite beliefs and ideas. Would you like an example? If you have some time, here's a (long) video of a debate between outspoken atheist and author Christopher Hitchens and christian authors Douglas Wilson, William Lane Craig, Lee Strobel, and Jim Denison at the 2009 Christian Book Expo. I promise you won't have to watch the whole thing to get your fill of logical fallacies, bad reasoning, and plenty of other nonsensical banter!

The topic? "Does the god of Christianity exist, and what difference does it make?"

Christian Book Expo 2009

[Picked up from Sandwalk]

First, give some thought about some of the assertions and "logical" arguments put forth. First to speak, Lee Strobel makes this common blunder - can you see other problems with what he calls evidence (which one can easily distinguish as beliefs)? He and others go on to make numerous similar "bad arguments." For example, can you find cases of folks making an appeal to authority, speaking loosely with equivocation (using a word with multiple meanings in a series of logical steps with more than one meaning used variously along the way), making the fallacy of an appeal to ignorance and so on?

Second consider some of the problems of terminology here. How often are the panelists discussing "apples and oranges" (so to speak) in their different understanding and use of words like moral, immoral, morality (which Hitchen's touches on around 1:13:00), know, knowledge, true, fact, evidence, and so on.

I'll leave you to dwell on the many claims and arguments in the video (yes, christian and atheist panelists alike!) and see how many logical misteps are taken during their little "debate."

ADDENDUM:

I have always thought it unfortunate that "winning the debate" and "making a good point" weren't at all the same thing. In a later debate between W. L. Craig and C. Hitchens days after the panel discussion posted above, Hitchens seems to have lost the debate (according to his opponent's supporters, at least). So how could he have done better? Check out this advice for debating William Lane Craig (part I) from the blog Evaluating Christianity.