I’ve been saying for some time that I don’t post for the benefit of the irredeemable ideological stormtroopers for creationist lies. I post precisely so that the wider audience knows that bullshit does not pass here unchallenged. In short, to vaccinate the lurkers.
In my experience, It’s usually the ones who are experiencing doubts of their own that are likely to be responsive to the facts, ones who are already thinking that their religion is leaving a bad taste in the mouth or a bad smell in the nostrils.
The hardcore, on the other hand, are only useful for pedagogical purposes - namely, to bring into sharp relief how bad the smell and taste in question really are, to those whose senses haven’t been terminally warped by doctrinal poison.
Indeed, one of the lingering bad smells that should be making any honest person retch, is the routine, wilful and duplicitous deployment of blatant strawman caricatures of scientific postulates, a tactic that isn’t in my view even forgivable on the basis of ignorance.
We now live in an age where genuine information on this matter is available within ten seconds, to anyone who performs a competent Google search. Failure to do so before posting the canards in question is not merely indolent in this age, but wilfully dishonest.
Then of course, there’s that other tactic deployed by the sleazier specimens, namely demanding that they be spoon fed with a century’s worth of scientific research in a 2 minute Facebook soundbite, or a similar mendacious demand. Usually to be followed by summary dismissal of whatever is presented if it doesn’t meet this impossible and egregiously dishonest “specification”.
I gather Hovind fanboys are particularly fond of this discoursive outrage, given that it’s a documented part of his modus operandi. Though it’s wise to be prepared for this nefarious piece of legerdemain from other quarters as well.
This shell game is frequently accompanied by that brand of hypocrisy and double standard, whereby extensive expositions in detail of relevant concepts and data honestly by ourselves, is snidely and summarily rejected, but the whingeing and bleating begins on a grand scale, if we don’t roll over and treat unsupported assertions, no matter how banal, as purportedly constituting ineffable wisdom. Doubly so if the assertions in question are copy-pasted from their favourite choice of pre-scientific mythology.
Of course, I won’t be citing appropriate countermeasures in public, on the elementary basis that you keep your enemy guessing wherever possible, though relevant ideas should make themselves apparent from first principles to the astute and experienced.
I suggest others here keep a copy of this for future reference, because you will almost certainly encounter the malfeasance I’ve described above frequently.