What? You’re afraid to debate?

One of the techniques used to ‘debate’ a rather ridiculous issue is to use the reluctance to debate inanities as a fear of loosing a debate. The creationist crowd often gets this one past the media. Eye on Science notes one case.

while the Discovery Institute doesn’t have the first clue about actual science, it’s very adept at the techniques of propaganda. The Institute is much too cagey to aim its spin at scientists, who actually know something about science, but rather at the average reader, who probably doesn’t. What the DI does is present a long list of half- and quarter-truths and hope nobody will notice.
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the Darwinists are afraid of two things. The first is giving you folks a shred of credibility by appearing in the same room with you. The second is that your piles of half truths will actually make people more ignorant.

You might call this a clash of cultures. The Darwinists are looking at the earth record: what they see in their microscopes, and experimental results, and the geologic record. The creationists are looking at the Bible and will look no further.

What can one do to make sense of this? One concept to consider is that it is the creationists are the ones pushing the issue. The Darwinists are trying to teach science as demanded by the engineering and scientific market. This leaves the creationists out and they don’t want to be left out, so they sue and protest and carry on. The Darwinists are not trying to foist their ideas on the Bible or on theological teaching.

These efforts at intrusion into other’s markets by force and its lack of integrity are indicators that can be used to determine the quality of the point of view. That is, if you think that a good measure of a point of view is how well it will stand on its own merits without needing distortion in its presentation or forcing it down the throats of those who do not accept it.