I am thinking of challenging YECs to a public debate about evolution and specifically human evolution. Has anyone ever tried this? Any suggestions? Do you think it is a waste of time?
My goal is not to “obliterate” their arguments. My goal is to point out teaching evolution is not a sinister conspiracy put together by local neighbors who are science professors trying to shove atheism down young throats. And that there are many Christians who put a supernatural faith together with mainstream science.
The goal would not be to crush my opponent, but to spark something new in Dallas….a conversation.
It could work. Know that they are going to google questions that we don’t have solid answers to, and they are going to ask like how did bones evolve, and if every answer is just, natural selection or I don’t know, they are going to all walk away thinking they won. So while it takes just a 8th grader to get the basics of
Evolution down and accept it, it’s much harder to start to argue how did the individual bones of the foot and leg evolve, along with the tendons. I don’t even know to be honest. I just know they did. I can explain something like “ overtime the different bones developed slowly allowing the tendons to develop to, and that it perhaps started from bones already evolved with the fins, and it begin by the same muscles used to swim around, then got used to push themselves around shallow sandy water, and eventually up on to ground. I definitely understand the process in big arcs. But if you start asking well what was the first four species in the fossil record to do this, what geological era and period, what bones started first…. Was it hips…. Was it feet and so on. I have no clue. When you are talking about this on the spot with someone, they don’t usually even think of that specific of questions. In debates though, with weeks to prepare, almost every argument the get is either a super technical one that you just don’t really learn without a college education or it’s some kind of gap so that at the end of the conversation you had a lot
Of “I don’t knows” and they have a lot of “ the Bible says “ it just seems to not work out.’not that they won, they are never able to prove their arguments scientifically, but they don’t have to win. They just have to make you look foolish or full of unknowns. So be prepare for that.
It’s never a discussion when two people are taking turns countering each other. You may have enough theological training and an expert level grasp of the technicalities not biology and geology to hold up. I did it once years ago. Really just made myself look stupid. Even though I presented all the scientific arguments .what I got hit with was about 30 different bones, organs and body parts like “how did the fingernail evolve “ and when did it show up and why do we have 5 digits per limb and what was the first organism to have just five in our so called lineage, and how did lungs evolve step by step and did they replace gills slowly, was it a different breathing system, how did lung fish and honey fish develop out of cartilaginous fish and what species was this and what species was that. Just don’t know the technical evolutionary process of these. I can do the basics to the steps of eyes from sun spots, and blah blah. But I said I don’t know about 400 times. They just had to say, god said he made them and he did. They were made fully formed. I brought up how we see different organism in the fossil record at different times, they launch back into another organ. So even though I was the one who presented all the scientific arguments, and they countered nothing, they left thinking they won and so did their congregation.
It’s easier to say…. God made us fully formed and so the veins were already made than to explain how water moves through the gut lining into the capillaries , becomes plasma and blood and how those evolved connecting to different organs over millions of years.
It’s probably easier to just see if the church or whatever you are doing will allow you to present a theological and scientific argument for what you believe. Then a few weeks later someone proposes their creationism. No debating or taking turns. It’s less mean spirited. More controlled. Those that are interested can then approach you. Others way think differently though.
Quite frankly, yes, because evolution is only the tip of the iceberg.
First you have to confront the view of Scripture and the reason for it.
“all or nothing” sums it up. Once you start deciding that any of Scripture might be inaccurate or not mean the obvious, you place doubt (in their minds) on the validity of the basic truths of the Gospel itself. They claim that we are “Picking and Choosing” what to believe…
The best illustration would be a table. If it has one leg it is very strong and sturdy and the whole thing stands or falls by it, but if you have more than one then you can juggle them about to keep things stable.(joints accepted). For YEC’s (and many others) Scripture is the be all and end all of their faith. Attack or weaken it and you destroy the whole thing. Therefore, no matter what yu say they cannot change their view.
People like that do not discuss or debate, they argue or contradict. The distinction is subtle but decisive.
The only people who might be helped are the observers. Those who do not have an invested interest in one idea or the other, or maybe have not made up their minds. Of course, they might decide that the YEC argument wins…
Sometimes it is better not to confront the elephant in the room. (Scripture, not Evolution)
You’d spend all your time trying to deal with lies or idiocies that can be spewed faster that you can possibly refute them.
If you want to “point out teaching evolution is not a sinister conspiracy put together by local neighbors who are science professors trying to shove atheism down young throats”, you can do without being distracted. Hold a lecture instead.
Suggestion 2: Ignore almost everything they say.
If you do decide to debate, take the biggest lies/idiocies they produce, deal with those quickly and decisively, tell the audience the rest of their guff is just as bad (but would take longer to deal with) and isn’t worth the effort. There’s always the Q&A session. Then make your points.
Suggestion 3: Know your opponent.
#2 is much easier if you know in advance what your opponent will say. If you can show on a slide the full context or correct text of some ‘quote’ they use, or show a picture of something they claim doesn’t exist, the audience might start ignoring them too.
Have a “multiple views type open forum” where three speakers can state their views (OEC, YEC, TE) and then have a Q&A afterwards. Or allow a quick response to all others then a QA.
I would avoid a straight up debate. That is us vs them. Rather, share thoughts. I’d guess most people have too little knowledge of science to actually understand a science debate. So, present an alternate model of Genesis and avoid science as much as you can.
Plus some people are so entrenched in literalism, even if the Biblical account said Jonah swallowed the whale, instead of the other way around, they would still believe it.
I occasionally have delusions of doing the same thing as well, but have resisted. I think if done outside a church setting it would be better recieved. perhaps in a para-church sponsored group like the ASA or Intervarsity or whatever.
I think a structured format would be best, as both YEC and ID adherents are well schooled on inundating speakers with multiple questions that attempt to get the discussion off track and back to their agenda as @SkovandOfMitaze stated .
Citing Christian scientists who accept evolution would certainly help (plenty here at BioLogos). The Clergy Letter Project might also be worth mentioning. It is signed by 15,000+ Christian clergy who openly call for the acceptance of evolution and why it is not a threat to Christian belief. Here is the letter:
As many Christians here demonstrate, Christianity and the theory of evolution can co-exist.
When discussing the science, I think there are two approaches. One approach is to frame the discussion in terms of what has convinced Christian scientists that the theory is correct, and why that is. For example, the nested hierarchy is one of the big pieces of evidence that convinced scientists common ancestry was probably true. I would even use human designs as a counterpoint, showing how they don’t fall into a nested hierarchy. Transitional fossils are another good example, such as the hominid transitional fossils. I would also stress that transitional and ancestral are two different things. No transitional is assumed to be an ancestor of any living organism. Rather, it is the mixture of features in a fossil that makes it transitional and a direct test of the theory. From there, I might dip into the DNA evidence such as oft mentioned mutation bias that is seen in the data:
A second approach is to ask what evidence would your opponent need to see in order to change their mind?
As others have mentioned, make it more of a discussion than a debate. For example, you could ask your opponent what features they are looking for in a transitional fossil, or what criteria they use. What pattern of shared and derived features would they expect if evolution is true? What pattern of transition and transversion mutations would they expect to see when comparing the human and chimp genome if special creation is true, and why?
What I would stress is that there are observations that science is trying to explain, and thus far the theory of evolution is the only explanation that works. If someone claims the theory is false then they need to explain why we observe exactly what the theory predicts we should observe.
It works up to a point, well several points actually. You can claim it is the best that science can offer, but that does not make it totally correct, or complete,
It is not an all or nothing scenario. To claim it completely false would be to ignore too much, but to claim it 100% correct is to enter the realm of belief.
To what end? YEC believers are so fully entrenched that no amount of rhetoric will change their minds. If you are trying to influence those who are uncertain is it really worth doing it at the expense of YEC crowd instead of simply validating the known facts of science.
What actual good would a public debate do except to further divide people?
A reasonable question. I think it goes back to who the audience is. I have friends whose young adult daughter now describes herself as agnostic even though raised and homeschooled in a conservative Christian home, that tended to the literalistic side of biblical interpretation and YEC. She has told her parents that the primary reason she has drifted away from Christianity, is that she enjoyed science, but the church was into science denial.
So, if you have an audience of confirmed YEC adherents, mixed with hard core ID and EC supporters, you are likely just stirring the pot. But if you have some people genuinely wondering how it all can fit together, and how the true claims of science can be reconciled with the Bible, you might just have a positive effect.
No theory in science is totally correct or complete. What we have is our best explanations. If someone comes up with a theory that better explains the observed facts in biology then that new theory will be adopted.
Not all YEC’s are fully entrenched, and there might be those in the audience who are on the fence. If nothing else, YEC’s can perhaps grow more comfortable with the idea of other Christians accepting science.
I am not a biblical literalist and I struggle wrapping my mind around those who, in this day and time, still holds onto the Biblical creation narrative an a scientific document rather than a collection of writings that speak to Gods relationship with his people. The beautiful writings in the scripture reflect a cosmology that, while appropriate thousands of years ago, bear no relationship to scientific understanding today.
For me the creation story can be summed up with, “In the beginning GOD”.
I can appreciate that position when dealing with those who may be experiencing uncertainty. I can also see it devolving into a spectacle that could create as much confusion between the two vastly divided arguments. Science deniers are a challenging group because their arguments are most time not based in fact.
I regularly present scientific material to Christians with a variety of backgrounds and I have generally found that I find the most success by walking students through why and how scientists came to the conclusions they did about say - the Big Bang Theory. In other words, we walk through what the observations and data are and how the consensus models really are the best explanation we have at present. If you want to replace the model, you have to come up with a better explanation as in explain all the existing data and come up with new predictions of things we can find. I find the topics really fascinating and thus approach them with a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity.
I don’t spend a lot of time discussing how young earth creationists try to deal with the data as they really can’t. It’s just simply God made it look like something like the big bang occurred. Or God made it to look like evolution really happened. Or God made it to look like the Earth really is old and then arranged the isotopes of radioactive elements in the correct order.
I think one consequence that is particularly jarring of the YEC approach is what has happened in discouraging young people to actually pursue science. While it’s not a perfect Venn Diagram, you would find YEC aligning most with Evangelical Protestants, a group that makes up 28% of the general public (as of 2009 - sorry this poll is kind of old but illustrates the great failure of YEC science and how it discourages young people). Yet they are only 4% of scientists. Sure there may be other confounding factors, but the YEC wave your hands magic approach to science and nonstop belittling and passing judgment on scientists may play a big role in these sorts of numbers.
Thank you referencing this letter and posting from it.
I glanced over the first two pages – Evelyn Wood’s Speed Skimming Course – and noticed a few things. Many women pastors, ECLA, “United” denominations, Episcopalians, PCUSA were fairly well represented. Many YECs, many, many of whom go to very conservative churches, will look at this list and dismiss them and their attestations as illegitimate, because they’re “Liberal”. And therefore not really a christian. : (
