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God, why did you create so many idiots? Tell us

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My problem with entering in such a debate is that the thread will just disintegrate, it means normal discussion becomes a dogfight: there are literally hundreds of 'conspiracy' theories about Evolution (all refuted on talkorigins.org), and homosexuality (by a vipers' nest of fundies, see boxturtlebulletin.com).

So here's the ultimatum: either PN removes spam / fanatical postings IMMEDIATELY – or I and others answer them, head on.

Hank wasn't speaking to me in his postings – it was a cynical attempt to sow guilt and fear, and self doubt into the minds of gay people. The deleted postings represented exactly the kind of brainwashing that teenagers probably get at 'Love In Action' ex-gay bootcamps (see the Zach Stark story). Yes, we should give recipients of such verbal abuse hope and strength, in the form of reasoned arguments. Fight your corner. I'm thinking, maybe we should organise a website dedicated to combatting ex-gay / anti-gay arguments from a philosophical, scientific and anti-religious perspective.

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As long as he thinks he can win or hold his own he is going to keep on doing it here and everywhere else. Whilst there are a number of people on here who can clearly spew as much, if not more, bile back in his direction, and walk away from any confrontation with him thinking he’s a twat to be pitied, there are others who may be genuinely intimidated and affected by what he has to say. You only have to look at gay teenager suicide rates to see that not everyone is so at ease with their sexuality as, dare I say it, some of us, who are just that little bit older.

If you are at a delicate stage, when you are feeling that you are wrong and haven’t found your way in life, getting hanked could fatal and seriously dent any self-confidence you have beyond repair.

I strongly believe that those who can should do whatever they can to ensure that those who treat us with contempt do not get away with it scot free. On this occasion Adrian was done a fantastic job of seeing off Hank – and a really hope his postings are retained on here for posterity.

On other occasions the likes of Will and others have shown that we are not some down trodden underclass for every in-breed religious weirdo to off load their shit onto, and I think as long as we turn the other cheek or ignore this type of think, we will suffer endlessly.

Credit where credit is due, Adrian absolutely cleaned this twat and rather than talk about ignoring him next time, the minute he rears his ugly head it should be “Hello Hank meet my friend Adrian”

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I read these threads to comment and respond to comments from other LGBTT people whose views I can appreciate if not agree with. I don't like to wade through the santimony of Xian bloggers who "hate the sin, not the sinner!" (bulls–t!!)

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And to Sister Mary, good to see your comments here again, as insightful and witty as ever!

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Hank is a fundamental Xian. He believes that every word of the bible is "god-breathed", ie god dictated it. He overlooks the council of Nicae picking and choosing its may through the fables, and various translators mucking it around. If he's a King James' Versionist he believes that to be the only valid version.

He also knows that be engaging us in debate he can win some points – for his own satisfaction.

All you can do with these fundies is ignore them. They'll spam endlesly, but if youi ignore them it reduces the stresses of living in te same world as them.

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+++ APPEAL TO THE READER +++
Conspiracy theories (UFO's, that 9/11 was staged by a jewish conspiracy, the flat earth, the holocaust never happened… David Icke's Illuminati…) are easy to make – they thrive on lack of evidence, and appeal to our worst prejudices. But remember the adage: absence of evidence = absence of evidence. We have, after all, evolved to find answers where there are none. Natural selection would have weeded out those ancestors who were 100% rational all the time, about e.g. earthquakes by the sea, shadows at night…

As mentioned, Hank just copies what he's read on creationist websites. These websites quote-mine (selectively use quotes out of context), make false assumptions, non-sequiturs, to prove their point: that the world is 6000 years old. A website dedicated to exposing this is talkorigins.org , a 13-year project aimed at debunking the myths.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So when a creationist is humiliated and seen to have nothing whatsoever to support his views, he says 'we can't prove or disprove either one scientifically'. What sportsmanship!!

Hank, I gave you a whole list of questions – I see you evade them all by running off!!!! My comment about hijacking the thread – fine by me, but you haven't got a debate in the first place.

By the way, I need have made no reference to H Matthews earlier – because science is cumulative. In the last 38 years, thanks to the work of people like Craig Venter, Francis Collins, we opened the genome; we've found millions more fossils, we've discovered the asteroid impact site in the Gulf of Mexico, we've discovered that mass extinction events occur with frequency – this earth was not designed for us at all. Our survival as a species required accepting this hard fact, and walking away from superstition.

Yet again – please explain the relevance of Julius Caesar to the veracity of the legend of Jesus of Nazareth. I just haven't got time to become an expert in Ancient history for the sake of proving some point on a website like this. If it were found we didn't know after all (fine), it wouldn't change the fact there is scant evidence for the events described in the gospel. I am willing to change my opinion based on the evidence but, like I said, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. Over to you….

**Any further cut-paste plagiarisms that may follow this message, can be answered by JD's excellent response earlier:
"No one scientist will have exclusive rights to the truth. They will research their area of expertise, publish results in journals and have their work peer reviewed, debated and re-examined to determine whether or not their results should be added to a body of knowledge or dismissed. Now, show me where ANY creationist "scientist" has done proper research using established scientific methodologies and then published and had it peer reviewed. Oops, you can't can you – because none of those nutcases [HAS] ever proposed any hypothesis that supports their outrageous claims. They just scream "Gawd did it" and slag off everyone elses work."

++ So where's your evidence for God, and how can we know you have personal intimate access to the mind of god, on whom we should sleep with, Hank? come back when you can give a coherent answer to that, before you pursue this or any other dialogue any further. You still there Hank……Hank? HANNNNK?

Look, I've got work to do. It's been nice x A.

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Ha! Yes. Because you lost. Another example of how reason is the light in the darkness of religion. Nicely done Adrian.

I quite liked the bit when you said "the theory of evolution is outside of empirical science". Talk about grasping at straws! This is utter nonsense, who said this? NO scientist would ever say this, because its wrong. Simple as that. Just plane old wrong. You made it up, didn't you, you silly twit? Evolution is a theory in name only, its acceptd now as fact due to the overwhelming evidence to support it. To even state what you just said in a public forum only shows you clearly lack any understanding in science and the blatantly obvious.

Lets be honest, you're only here to promote your failed ex-gay lifestyle, and you think that demonstrating an ignorance in science is the way prove you're right? I think Adrian was been overly kind to even try to educate you.

Hank, you fell through the cracks of humanity, and what's worse is that underneath all your bluster and ranting, you know it.

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Unfortunately, the common definitions of evolution outside of the scientific community are different. For example, in the Oxford Concise Science Dictionary we find the following definition:

"evolution: The gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is believed to have been continuing for the past 3000 million years."

This is inexcusable for a dictionary of science. Not only does this definition exclude prokaryotes, protozoa, and fungi, but it specifically includes a term "gradual process" which should not be part of the definition. More importantly the definition seems to refer more to the history of evolution than to evolution itself. Using this definition it is possible to debate whether evolution is still occurring, but the definition provides no easy way of distinguishing evolution from other processes. For example, is the increase in height among Caucasians over the past several hundred years an example of evolution? Are the color changes in the peppered moth population examples of evolution? This is not a scientific definition.
Standard dictionaries are even worse.

"evolution: …the doctrine according to which higher forms of life have gradually arisen out of lower.." – Chambers
"evolution: …the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state; phylogeny or ontogeny" – Webster's

These definitions are simply wrong. Unfortunately it is common for non-scientists to enter into a discussion about evolution with such a definition in mind. This often leads to fruitless debate since the experts are thinking about evolution from a different perspective. When someone claims that they don't believe in evolution they cannot be referring to an acceptable scientific definition of evolution because that would be denying something which is easy to demonstrate. It would be like saying that they don't believe in gravity!

Recently I [L Moran] read a statement from a creationist who claimed that scientists are being dishonest when they talk about evolution. This person believed that evolution was being misrepresented to the public. The real problem is that the public, and creationists, do not understand what evolution is all about. This person's definition of evolution was very different from the common scientific definition and as a consequence he was unable to understand what evolutionary biology really meant. This is the same person who claimed that one could not "believe" in evolution and still be religious! But once we realize that evolution is simply "a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations" it seems a little silly to pretend that this excludes religion!

Scientists such as myself must share the blame for the lack of public understanding of science. We need to work harder to convey the correct information. Sometimes we don't succeed very well but that does not mean that we are dishonest. On the other hand, the general public, and creationists in particular, need to also work a little harder in order to understand science. Reading a textbook would help.

Reading a textbook would indeed help!!

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Glad to see, you at last ADMIT to posting lies about gay people.
Like I said, you cut and paste without knowing the context, the methodology, how reliable the figures are.

Everything you have posted here has failed to hold up to scrutiny by professionals, so I ask you AGAIN, who has peer reviewed any of the findings you post?

You haven't got a clue have you – you just post other people's opinions. You didn't even know that, for instance, Michael Behe, whose book was used for Mathematics of evolution,com – has NO PROBLEM with evolution of humans from other apes. (you did read his book, right…?) WHY ARE YOU ARGUING FOR CREATIONISM BY REFERING TO WEBSITES THAT BASE THEIR ARGUMENTS ON 'THEISTIC EVOLUTION', WHICH YOU REJECT COMPLETELY? Once again – your blind cut and paste spamming has led you to put your foot in it. You don't know what you're talking about really do you Hank?

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"Most non-scientists seem to be quite confused about precise definitions of biological evolution. Such confusion is due in large part to the inability of scientists to communicate effectively to the general public and also to confusion among scientists themselves about how to define such an important term. When discussing evolution it is important to distinguish between the existence of evolution and various theories about the mechanism of evolution. And when referring to the existence of evolution it is important to have a clear definition in mind. What exactly do biologists mean when they say that they have observed evolution or that humans and chimps have evolved from a common ancestor?

One of the most respected evolutionary biologists has defined biological evolution as follows:

"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution … is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."
- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986

It is important to note that biological evolution refers to populations and not to individuals and that the changes must be passed on to the next generation. In practice this means that,

Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations.
This is a good working scientific definition of evolution; one that can be used to distinguish between evolution and similar changes that are not evolution. Another common short definition of evolution can be found in many textbooks:

"In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."
- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974

One can quibble about the accuracy of such a definition (and we have often quibbled on these newsgroups) but it also conveys the essence of what evolution really is. When biologists say that they have observed evolution, they mean that they have detected a change in the frequency of genes in a population. (Often the genetic change is inferred from phenotypic changes that are heritable.) When biologists say that humans and chimps have evolved from a common ancestor they mean that there have been successive heritable changes in the two separated populations since they became isolated.
Unfortunately the common definitions of evolution outside of the scientific community are different. For example, in the Oxford Concise Science Dictionary we find the following definition:
(to continue)

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