>In response to Allen Roy's claims of "lies" in the t.o FAQs, Steven
>Schimmirch and Wesley Elsberry both asked something like:
>>> I'm interested, Allen. Can you document a lie in the t.o. FAQs?
>
>Allen Roy responded:
>> Anyone can say this, knowing full well that no one has the time to
>> adequatly research all the thousands of statments to document a
>> 'lie.' Not to mention the near impossiblity of 'proving' that
>> something is a lie.
>
>I don't think *intent* is too important, and it's not really our
>position to judge it anyway... so you can skip the problems that
>you mention in your last sentence. It is sufficient to document
>statements which are seriously in error. Even if the author is
>not *knowingly* spreading untruth, the end result is the same as
>far as the readership is concerned.
>
>I also don't think it's all that difficult to document statements
>that are seriously in error -- providing that the source is as
>low-quality as you allege the t.o web site to be. Since you are
>knowledgeable about creation/evolution arguments, you shouldn't
>*have* to research all of the statements on the site. You should
>be able to read a few FAQs, pick out a few really questionable
>statements, and only research those. Let me give you an example...
>
>A few weeks ago, a young-Earther threw the following quote in my
>face (among a few others, all cut-and-pasted off the "Handy Dandy
>Evolution Refuter" web site) on the supposed unreliability of
>isotope dating:
[SNIP]
>There it is, Allen. I documented a *seriously* erroneous claim on
>a young-Earth web-site. Either I am quite lucky or else that site
>is of very low quality, for the very first one that I looked into
>turned out to be a lulu of a falsehood.
>
>As for the issue of deliberate lies... I don't care whether the
>authors of the Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter: (1) deliberately
>misrepresented the contents of the paper (i.e., are dishonest);
>(2) misunderstood the contents of the paper (i.e., are clueless);
>or (3) just "inherited" the blunder by copying it without checking
>it out themselves, from another YEC source that contained the same
>error.
> All that really matters is that the authors of HDER are
>making false statements which are causing sincere (but overly
>credulous) Christians to get hammered in debate. So far I have
>obtained three of the technical papers referenced by that web site
>and *all three* have blown up on the young-Earthers in similar
>ways (though in the other cases, the HDER's own claim isn't as
>heinous as a false charge of fudging data).
>
> If I were to guess, by the way, I would say that option #3
>(credulously copied, "inherited" error) was the most likely reason.
>In my opinion the widespread use of this practice in the YEC
>community is why the "error rate" of most YEC literature remains
>unacceptably high. However, even so... (1) at the bottom of the
>reference chain there must be someone in one of the first two
>categories who originated the error; and (2) by referencing the
>scientific paper directly (instead of the source that the claim
>was copied from), the authors of HDER assumed responsibility for
>the falsehood.
>
>Anyway, there it is. This is the practice I recommend, Allen:
>First check it out. If it turns out to be spreading falsehoods
>then by all means let it be known -- by presenting examples.
>("Test all things. Hold onto the good.")
Let me say that this is NOT an isolated incident. I see this again
and again with YEC claims. They simply do NOT stand up to scrutiny.
I would refer people to my critique of Woodmorappe's geochronology
paper for several other examples of SEVERE misrepresentation of the
truth. And when you bring this up to the YEC community, they often
respond with name called (Woodmorappe used a half-dozen Nazi
reference when responding to my critique) and refuse to engage in
serious dialogue.
- Steve.
-- Steven H. Schimmrich Assistant Professor of GeologyPhysical Sciences Department schimmri@kutztown.edu (office) Kutztown University schimmrich@earthlink.net (home) 217 Grim Science Building 610-683-4437, 610-683-1352 (fax) Kutztown, Pennsylvania 19530 http://home.earthlink.net/~schimmrich/