Debating Science

What is the best forum in which to debate scientific topics? How should advocates for science, specifically evolutionary science, determine how to approach such debates?

There is currently a report of such a debate on the Citizens for Science web site (Friday night debate in Colorado Springs), in which Steven Mahone and Sam Milazzo debated Kent Hovind. You can read about the numerous problems with the debate, its moderation, its format, and fairness in the article cited.

While I’m thankful to those people who are willing to walk into the den of lions, so to speak, and “debate” creationisim before a biased audience with a biased moderator, I question the value of this particular method of educating the public. Most of the people who attend these debates are already convinced on the issue, and in particular they are going to be folks who are convinced of some variety of creationism. Those who are convinced of the conclusions of evolutionary science tend also to realize that very little education is going to take place in a couple of hours of debate. If they have looked at Kent Hovind’s web site, or viewed some of his slide presentations before, they will also be aware that very little education will take place in a forum in which he participates.

The reason for this is that a public, oral debate only functions well when the forum is carefully planned for fairness and when all participants adhere to a reasonable standard of documentation and support for their statements. If any participant is permitted simply to create one-liners and to concoct “facts” out of thin air, an oral debate will not provide a sufficient forum to find the truth about a particular issue.

I faced this issue in considering debating the King James Version Only issue. Much like creation and evolution, the King James Version only debate is dominated by people who simply create their data out of thin air. I considered what I would have to do to prepare for an oral debate, and I concluded that the only way one could prepare for such a debate would be to become an expert on one’s opponent–not on the subject, on the person. The reason is simple: It is much easier to create falsehoods than it is to produce documented facts. It is also much easier to challenge documented facts than it is to challenge pure falsehoods, or very loosely supported claims.

Why is this? In academic study, participants are used to expecting that participants in a discussion have some reason, some documentation, for their positions. One can research that documentation, discover issues of context, difficulties with the methods involved and so forth. For completely fabricated data, one first has to figure out how the data was created and what support one’s opponent will claim for that data, and then one must challenge that. In my field, the claim that the church fatehr Origen systematically corrupted Biblical manuscripts is a case in point. There is no evidence to support the claim whatsoever, but it is made repeatedly. In fact, Origen researched manuscripts, and some of these manuscripts annoy certain modern fundamentalist Christians. In an oral debate, before an audience of lay people, the claim sounds more convincing than the simple statement that there is no evidence for it. How do you prove “no evidence” in a few moments? Now if someone would make a claim and reference the source, then you could examine that source and show how it did not support the claim made.

The Paluxy river human footprints are a good case in the area of creation versus evolution, or the repeated story of the discover of 12 foot human skeletons. The claim is easy; the refutation takes time, provided one feels it necessary to go beyond saying “Hogwash!”

Oral debates are, in the hands of creationists, simply propaganda tools. The point is to provide the faithful with one liners they can use in challenging their friends on the subject of evolution. As a Christian, I find this approach particularly reprehensible. It is dishonest. It is rude. Its primary intention is to teach Christians how to be rude. For Christians who attend these debates, the intent is to make them feel out of touch, and make them question whether they can be both Christian and believe in evolution. There is no intent to educate.

If you want to really understand the subject of evolution, you are going to have to study a great deal more than these debates will provide for. Unfortunately, much of the creationist literature is similar. It is designed as propaganda, not education. I think that the creationists (largely young earth creationists) fear the kind of discussion and education that would actually allow people to understand the debate, because once one understands the science behind evolution, even as a serious amateur, it becomes very clear.

I grew up as a young earth creationist, and was educated in Seventh-day Adventist schools, surrounded by young earth creationists. I read all the young earth books, and I knew the one liners that were supposed to devastate evolutionists. In studying Genesis itself, I became convinced first that it could not possibly provide a chronology for prehistory. Even very solid archeological evidence went well beyond the kind of chronology Genesis could be stretched to cover, assuming one took it as narrative history. At the time, I did not immediately turn to evolution, however, because I simply did not know enough about it. I studied by reading, and by using roadside geology guides on my annual vacations in the American northwest. As I learned the facts, it all began to fall into place.

One thing that became clear to me through this study was that the things that were said about evolution by my creationist sources were clearly wrong. I’m still simply an informed amateur at geology or in any of the life sciences. But when I’m dealing with a subject in which I am not confident, I tend not to trust people who make serious errors (or dare I say lie) on the subjects I can check. I’m not willing to assume that they are telling the truth on the more complex issues.

I say all this simply to point out that for people to become convinced that evolution is the explanation for the origin of the diversity of life we see on earth, they must learn a great deal. It’s fairly simple to say “God did it.” In fact, I’m quite willing, as a matter of faith and not of science, to say that God did do it. But the evidence is overwhelming that the method was evolution. Until I had the facts to support that position, I simply admitted I didn’t know.

In order to get the American people to understand this topic, we’re going to have to improve their science education. That’s going to require something in written form, something that can be checked. It’s going to require them to work a bit at their own education. Perhaps we need some folks fighting the propaganda battle. But only a few real scientists are going to be comfortable doing that. They deal in facts; propagandists deal in persuasion and manipulation.

Let the creationist crowd accuse scientists of being cowardly because they won’t face them in debate. People who are fair minded enough to be convinced will see through that particular ploy. And for the propagandists, and the very brave defenders of science, I wish you the best. But I think you’re often going to get the worst.