Assuming that a woman dressed in a certain way is sending a 'mating signal' basically reveals that you think men have no free will whatsoever. You speak for sociopaths who cannot control themselves, not for me.

You clearly remain wilfuly uninformed on the issue by belittling the sexual assault problem, considering the ridiculously high percentage of women who are raped and sexually assaulted. I assume that the reason you remain uninformed on the issue is that you actually don't care less, and want to blame women, for your assumptions of what 'men' are and your assumptions of a male lack of simple self control,

When you use the word 'men' you assume that males have no free will whatsoever, that they are absolutely helpless when confronted by some girl who looks sexy. You assume provocation, much like a medieval nitwit assumes that because the stranger entered the village during the neap tide and Aunti Emma's crops died, clearly it is the fault of the STRANGER and her WITCHCRAFT.

As someone who is both male and hypersexual, I find this kind of presupposition laughable. Blaming others for one's own personal issues is what sociopaths do. If you want to be a 'real man' then take responsiblilty for your own issues and stop blaming women for your own ineptitude and lack of self control,

Of course people were correct in criticizing the piltdown man. It's scientifically inaccurate. Therefore it was scientifically discarded. That's how scientific methodology works.

"How can one begin to understand that it was wrong when only a few had access to ALL the data on the damn thing?"

A fallacious argument given that Creationists still use it as proof, decades later, and well the information is at our fingertips now, and even before the internet there was a plethora of information available at one's local library. The error made by creationists is in assuming that evolutionary theory in any way hinged on it, or that it was even relevant. The entire creationist appropriation of the 'piltdown man' turns an inconsequential molehill into a mountain.

Mandarin is a perfect analogy in the context in which I used it. Evolutionary theories do indeed have a structure. A lazy outsider who cannot be bothered to take the time to understand the structure is liable to cherry pick and draw fallacious conclusions from a lack of understanding of the structure. Ignorance of a theory does not justify bad arguments. If one is ignorant of a subject, all the better reason to restrain one's self until one takes the time to come to a better grasp of an argument. AGW is a perfect example. The internet is at your fingertips and an understanding of scientific methodology is but a few clicks away. There is no excuse nowadays for scientific ignorance other than that of laziness. I put in the work by myself on my own time and anyone else can too. The 'ivory tower' is a fallacious genetic ad hominem fallacy, also known as an intellectual lie, the hallmark of the Creationist.

I think you might be inventing my straw man, by inventing an argument I never said. My criticism was of Creationists and their fallacious arguments, nothing more. Nowhere in my argument did I even mention the word 'Christianity', and I'm curious as to why you saw what wasn't there. I've plenty of friends who embrace different religious faiths including Christianity, from many backgrounds and across the political spectrum, and they embrace the sciences as well. I'm well aware of your arguments.

Personally, I have after many years found no value or use for the majority of the tenants of Christianity in my life, other than perhaps some of its philosophy.. the golden rule for example, although to be fair it is present in most religions and cultures worldwide and dates back through recorded history.

Sometimes there are a multiplicity of positions on an issue and sometimes there are not. For example there is no middle ground between creationism and evolutionary theory. The two are incompatible. One can believe in God and Evolution, but no creationist would accept that kind of belief. The peer-reviewed widespread scientific consensus on man-made global warming is another example, one can argue the details and the effects but the theory is established. When empirical evidence is denied due to ideology, there is no middle ground.

I've noticed that from time to time some Liberals do indeed exhibit the same kind of behaviour as the Creationists I grew up with. It likewise shows up in their arguments, the same 'plot holes', er, fallacies so to speak.

After moving from a profoundly conservative climate to a profoundly liberal climate I have certainly noticed though, that there are overall differences that cannot be denied. In Liberal circles, peer review and empirical evidence is far more valued.. You won't find Conservatives in my country running around standing up for gay kids who are being bullied because they do not experience empathy with these kids, they think they are 'sick' and will ignore what is happening. You won't find them taking the time to understand climate change or proper management of natural resources, rather, when peer-reviewed science conflicts with their ideology, they fire all the climate scientists and the environmentalists who warn that if we don't manage our fisheries we will be out of fish. In many ways I see far more similarities with that kind of behaviour and my old Creationist circles.

Former Creationist reads above post and sends you an obligatory ra-men.

There problem isn't manipulating data. The problem is falsely representing what a theory is in the first place, before beginning to criticize it. Until one understands what one is criticizing, one's criticisms come off as strangely random and irrelevant, because one does not know what it is one is attempting to criticize.

I repeat my analogy. Two people look at a passage written in Mandarin. One person reads Mandarin and begins criticizing the structure of the grammar, the arguments. The Creationist is the equivalent of someone who cannot read Mandarin, who looks at the text and comments on how it looks like little trees and houses, and makes flippant comments about perceived 'errors' in the 'pictures'. They simply have no idea what it is they are criticizing, nor are they interested in learning. Yet all the information is out there, available at their fingertips.

eg: www.talkorigins.org

You've summed up why I don't bother to engage in certain debates now. After years of being surrounded by creationists, it's pretty obvious to me when someone has absolutely no understanding of scientific methodology, and has no real interest in coming to understand what it is before engaging in a debate on the issue, either. I find it pointless to debate when there is no established ground, and the other person makes wild assumptions about a topic they clearly know nothing about and hence it's not that their criticisms are fauty, their criticisms are actually irrelevant. Their criticisms are as relevant as a person who cannot read Chinese poetry looking at a poem and declaring it looks like a bunch of little houses.

And won't even allow you to shed light on their wildly informed assumptions, because they are physically 'addicted' to being right. As a friend of mine liked to say, the difference between (stereotypical) conservatives and liberals is one of epistemology.

Exactly, science is about finding models that work. That there are errors in them is an obvious given, that's what science is all about. Evolutionary theories by far vastly fit the facts and have the predictive power we would expect from any substantial accepted scientific theory.

BTW there is no such thing as an 'Evolutionist', unless you live in an insular religious community.

Sure. It did not really represent evolution as a whole, but rather, evolution as a political conspiracy and as a fallacy, through the use of faulty analogies, poisoning the well tactics, genetic ad hominem fallacies, and so forth.

It started off with the typical blind watchmaker, that is, the analogy that life was far too complex to arise by chance. It showed a building blown up by a bomb and said 'how could an explosion (the big bang) result in order'? It then claimed that the theory of evolution states that single-celled life spontaneously formed one day with all its inherent complexities and went into showing how that was impossible. From there it represented evolution as a singular, linear and entirely 'progressive' chain (aka man came from monkeys), then claimed there were 'missing links' that all scientists knew about and denied the existence of, and tried to hide the existence by creating pretend missing links (google the piltdown man). It showed pictures of fruit flies subjected to radiation experiments then claimed that genetic mutations were entirely destructive, and could not result in new species. And so forth and so forth.

I actually can't remember the entire strawman, but it filled an entire book with lots more like the above. The whole point was to make it appear that there was someone out there called an 'Evolutionist'. And these 'Evolutionists' knew they were wrong, and were going to all lengths of stupidity to deny God. Once I came to understand just how unrelated all of the above is to evolutionary theories, I got the vibe that whomever came up with these bizarre tin foil hat arguments was either in the grips of a stimulant-induced paranoid psychotic break with reality, a chronic liar, or a combination of both. The people who believe it on the other hand, well, since they take pride in believing it and empowerment in calling 'those scientists' a bunch of 'brainwashed idiots', thereby perpetually poisoning the well, there's not much one can do.

I so agree. What convinced me in the end was having a wealth of clear and concise information available, free of ego games. Well, that and a general sense of curiosity! :)

I work in IT at an academic institution and constantly help out in classroom scenarios. One day I was assisting a professor in an introductory biology class. A quiet student came up and began asking him questions to clarify things about evolution. As soon as the prof knew the kid was a creationist, he began to make uncalled-for assumptions about everything else the student believed, as well as ragging on the kid's religion. This, to my mind, is the opposite of a productive and enlightening discussion.

Of course, this depends on the religion. Some religions, and some individuals, are a lot more open to discussion than others. My religion was quite fundamentalist, so the idea that the bible was metaphorical was an idea they dismissed for this reason: They believed their interpretation of the bible WAS the true word of god (the Truth) and all other interpretations of the bible were temptations and manifestations of Satan.

Actually, even as an atheist, or perhaps more accurately an 'igtheist', I agree with you. There are many, many interpretations of what God is that are not so dependent on or reactive to materialism.

That all depends on the political climate in which you live and also your beliefs.

Political climate: some countries have very accessible health care, others do not.

Beliefs: Even the poorest in Africa who are dying of aids could have benefited from modern medicine to some degree, if their religion didn't teach them that wearing a condom was sinful.

I'm sure as science explains more and more of the natural world we'll see the 'God of the gaps' retreating, gap by gap.

Growing up very religious in a small town, I really thought that I knew what evolution was, and why it was wrong. It seemed so silly to me that 'scientists' could believe in this conjecture,er 'theory' full of 'missing links'. Clearly it was a conspiracy by godless atheists (where I now seem to comfortably fit in) to drown out the 'Truth'.

Then at age 18 I got the internet and began to discover that I never, in fact, had ever been taught what Evolution really was. I had been taught a fantasy, an imaginary concoction that nobody actually believed in. As we all have seen, Creationists create a straw man simplification of evolutionary theory and then attack the straw man, rather than attacking the real thing.

So I set out with my newly acquired knowledge. Surely, I though, now that I know that we've only been taught a mistaken notion of what evolutionary theory is, I can convince some people. Boy oh boy was I ever wrong. The first responses I got was, quite literally, "how dare you accuse our religion of LYING to us. They wouldn't lie to us". And so forth. I learned a lot about logical fallacies. The straw man. The fallacious appeal to false authority (look, this 'scientist' says evolution is fake, therefore it is). The argument from ridicule ("Man was made from monkeys, what kind of nitwit believes that"). It was a fascinating and revealing time in my life, and the clear intellectual dishonesty I saw compelled me to change my life. Within a couple years I went from being a homophobic creationist to going out to queer parties, not because I was gay, but because I discovered many of my friends were queer, and hadn't told me for obvious reasons.

I am reminded of this Salon article talking about how social conservatives basically assign a lot of emotion and identity to their belief. They think it is rude if others challenge their beliefs, yet they desire to push their beliefs on everyone else. http://www.salon.com/2012/02/24/the_ugly_delusions_of_the_educated_conservative/

In the end, you cannot convince people who do not want to challenge their presuppositions and assertions. What will happen in the future, is that we will continue to move on and embrace exciting new advances, technologies, medicines that stem from biology, while those who do not understand it will simply be left behind.

Then how does this sound: Treat everyone regardless of gender or skin color decently and well, and stop making pitiful excuses for treating others badly because one thinks one is hard done by!

Everyone has challenges in life. Fortunately, most men and women at some point grow up and treat each other with the respect they deserve. But it's hard talking to people who think they have it rough, when they've no idea what it is to have it rough. If a 6yo girl wearing a t shirt is the worst that guys get it, if the worst one has had in one's life is a couple insults, then tough cheese, grow a spine and quit using a poor availability heuristic as an excuse to make an embarassingly fallacious tu quoque argument. Most men are not on a day to day basis constantly patronized, treated like idiots, groped and sexually harassed by creeps every time they get on the subway, paid less, have their abilities stomped on, merely because of the genitals they possess. It's no different than racism, treating one as lesser because one is black. Even worse, much like sociopaths, the perpetuators of the problem deny the problem, feeling sorry for how hard done by they are because some sitcoms in the 80's dared to insulted some male characters, all the while refusing to acknowledge their own behaviour that contributes to the problem.

When people declare that boys have it tough nowadays, they show a wilful (eerily neoconservative) ignorance of human history. What, boys have it rough nowadays because boys have to *gasp* sit still and learn discipline in school? We should pick up the complainers and drop them off in Britain, circa early 20th century, when if boys so much as dared move in class, they'd be severely beaten with giant rods and belts, typically by drunken power tripping schoolmasters. Then when they were old enough to lift a firearm, off to war they went to die horrible deaths on alien battlefields. And if boys were raped, they had no recourse because the problem wasn't even acknowledged. Boys have it rough nowadays? Pah!! Boys still have challenges, everyone does, but at the same time, they've never had it easier in human history!