I was reading an article at
Smithsonian.com:
which I found quite interesting. What really caught my attention though was the comments. Third comment to appear was this:
evolution is a biggest HOAX in world history
... and I think the commenter might be fairly called a Creationist. I won't mince words though, this commenter is a troll. There are probably hundreds of replies now and several trolls getting batted about by smart people who seem to enjoy a good game of Whack-A-Mole. More power to them. My interest was in how the Creationists trolls appeared seemingly on cue, as if they were being actively organized and sent off to do battle against "the evil that is evolution".
"Do they really do that?" I thought. "Well, duh!", I answered, "And stop talking to yourself too."
Of course these people are organized, either at their churches or at various sources around the internet, and all I need to do is search around until I dig some up. So I searched, and I found a likely candidate; a forum post titled
Help! need help debating an evolutionist! at a site called
Chistianforums.com. Just the sort of place where I might find a seething den of Creationist scheming to troll any public forum that dares to publish about science and evolution. The original poster (OP) asked for help ...
[outdoor_engineer] I have an ongoing debate with a kid at school about evolution.
He's presenting some pretty good arguments and he's kicking my butt, can anyone help?!
... and with a little prodding OP provided details of the argument:
It is a long, drawn out logic style argument, I'll go through it step by step:
First he said that there are two different types of claims:
faith claims: those which could not be falsified by observation or experiment even in principle.
(i.e. god exists)
-and-
science claims: those which can be falsified by observation or experiment
(i.e. the earth is roughly spherical in shape)
This seemed perfectly rational, so I agreed.
he asked if I would agree that only science claims should be taught in science class. After some hemming and hawwing I agreed.
then the argument went like this:
faith based claims are those that which cannot be falsified.
faith based claims should not be taught in science class.
Creationism / ID can incorporate any evidence by saying "God made it that way"
Therefore creationism / ID cannot be falsified
Therefore creationism / ID should not be taught in science class.
He got me, Where did I go wrong? where's the flaw in his logic that I can't see?
This OP kid is up against a good argument, but this is where things started to go wrong. I was expecting the first reply to an irrational screed, but what came next was this:
[Mallon] There is no flaw in his argument. He's right.
Why do you think creationism should be taught in science class?
Huh? What?! This was supposed to be an investigative post about where trolls come from - where they live, what they plan, how they organize. I wanted to blog about that. I intended to blog about that. WHAT'S GOING ON??? How can my seething den of rabid Creationism be filled with
educated, thinking, rational people. This is horrible! My first attempt is an
utter failure.
But what a wonderful way to fail.
If your
read the thread you will see a number of rational people writing similar comments, but a
real troll does finally show up on page 2, who writes ...
[Calypsis4] I'll give you some help, young person.
1. Evolution does not exist in the first place because if it did it would be a violation of natural law. (a) the law of Biogenesis...life must generate from life. It cannot generate from non-living matter and no one has ever observed such a thing occur in nature. (2) Entropy keeps non-living matter from developing into living organisms and entropy keeps living organisms from becoming a different kind of organism. (3) the fossil record reveals that living organisms began abruptly, highly complex and no transitional forms. [...]
2. God meant what He said through Moses and the creation in Genesis and there is no historical reason not to believe the account he gave us. Even the ten commandments affirm the six day creation account (Exodus 20:11). Secondly, the Lord Jesus Christ affirmed the six day creation account (Mark 10:6 & 13:19). All of His disciples taught that the creation was true and that Adam and Eve were real people.
3. Evolution is nowhere taught in the Bible. It is a fairy tale.
[emphasis added]
Pity this poor troll, for he is about to get body-slammed:
[pgp protector]
1) Evolution has nothing to do with Biogenesis, please learn what the theory states.
2) Genesis only works that way if you read it as 100% literal, and that also makes God a deceiver (God made the Earth look old, but told us it's young).
3) computers programing is nowhere taught in the Bible. Please stop using the internet.
[emphasis added]
I laughed. I howled. My wife wondered what the heck I found so funny. The troll introduces some fun and it turns into a rollicking good 8 flaming pages of
Young Earth Creatroll versus
Theistic Evolutionists. Darned sharp TE's too - I could learn something from them. I also learned that this forum has "darker" corners, which might be the lair of the trolls I seek. My search has just begun.
