Skeptics in the Pub Review - Paul Taylor from Answers in Genesis

Last night I freed up enough time to go to the Skeptics in the pub meeting in that there London. It appears I managed to stay longer than one of the Skepchicks who had to walk out after the first few minutes. Giving the talk was Paul Taylor (thats him on the left) from the Answers in Genesis "peer reviewed" creationist journal (which I've talked about before). As such I thought I would try something a little different for Skeptobot and review it.

Firstly I have to admit I had a lot of respect for the guy in actually having the balls to turn up in front of so many skeptics and say the things he said. But man did he talk a lot of crap. Well spoken and with humour but still crap. The crap itself wasn't the problem, it was it's rate of change (dcrap/dt). I could go on for page after page breaking apart each and every slide (of which there was a lot), I could just focus on the areas I'm specialized in (his claim that the homogeneity of the Cosmic Microwave Background disproves the age of the universe, and Einsteins relativity allowing for 6000yrs to be long enough for the whole universe to reach what it looks like now). But that misses the bigger picture.

Indeed most people in the questions did pick their topic and try and hold him to account on it (I tried to talk about the CMB, stalker fans, but as the microphone went dead I panicked and rather than shout about relativity I ended up asking a rather awful question about which bible he believed in, and what set christian creation science ahead of other religions creation science). Most people did much better than me and hammered home individual points, but it still didn't matter.

Taylor had sprinted through Cosmology, Astrophysics, Timescales, Geology, The Fossil Record, Biology, Evolution, Education. For each one he explained how the evidence supported Creationism and moved on. Anyone trying to bring him to account on any of those topics was faced with 'I'm not an expert, and I don't pretend to be, I am a generalist, a populist' (paraphrased).

Now in this situation, that's fine. The audience is experienced with science enough to see the game he is playing. But what has scared me since is pondering on how that talk is normally used.

Taylor's main claim was that science is colored by the assumptions and beliefs you have going into it. And that the data supports an atheists view as equally as a creationists. Which is of course a ludicrous, but subtle perversion of what science is about. In reality he's just attempting to create the illusion of debate. That wonderful wedge strategy to get it taught in schools.

But what is worrying is that my take home message was how successful his shotgun approach to whole realm of science was. He typically gives church talks, presumably he races non-scientists through every sphere of science in 60mins and tries to plant a little seed of doubt in their mind about each area.

A skeptic can follow him up with weed killer and destroy each seed in turn with ease. But the effort it takes to plant a seed is so much less than the effort to remove it that you worry that enough will escape to leave that doubt in the publics mind.

And that, I suspect, is all he wants. It doesn't matter how many individual ideas come crashing down, as long as he can keep the pace up he can win.

Now how do we face that?

Too stupid, even for the 'Answers in Genesis' Journal.

This is quite entertaining and if you often find yourself battling fools on the internet, it's could even come in useful. If even the dullards at AiG thinks your arguments are bullshit, then you've got to be wrong. 

Their webcomic makes their aims clear. 

It's clearly all about the science

Answers in Genesis is the 'Peer Review Journal' that sets out to prove, defend and proclaim creationism.  Now obviously, actual peer review journals work by being about a subject, but with no set aims for where the research they publish will take them. That way the scientists who publish within the journal compete amongst themselves, checking and improving, each others work despite having separate, and often contradictory, ideas about their subject. 

Brilliantly Answers in Genesis have decided what arguments for creationism are too stupid. Even for them. They recommend that creationists do not use the following:

• Darwin recanting on his deathbed.
• Moon-dust thickness proving a young moon.
• NASA's computers  'find'  Joshua's missing day whilst modelling the past.
• Wooly mammoths were flash frozen during the flood.
• The second law of thermodynamics began at the Fall.
• If we evolved from apes then apes shouldn't exist anymore.

And it goes on and on. Now if they are trying to raise the quality of their arguments, and weed out the flaws, then this is great news. They are attempting (poorly) the scientific method. They are still looking for data that supports a hypothesis rather than vice versa, but at least they are cutting out the data that is wrong right? They'll eventually exclude everything and give up right?

Well we can hope. But this little nugget implies that they are mearly trying to find the most successful arguments rather than the most truthful. 

• “There are no transitional forms.”

"Since there are candidates, even though they are highly dubious, it’s better to avoid possible comebacks by saying instead: “While Darwin predicted that the fossil record would show numerous transitional fossils, even a century and a half later, all we have are a handful of disputable examples.”

An idea fans of memes understand well. So unfortunately It seems they don't really want to follow their own advice buried in the middle of the page:

"We must not try to read into Scripture that which appears to support a particular viewpoint."

Housekeeping: Finishing a PhD is hard work, so I haven't had chance to write part 2 of my Scientology protest thing. But it is coming. Honest. They'll be a guide to how Scientologists will stalk you if you go to the next protest on March 15th.