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Okay, I've removed the whole discussion from the criticism section because the latest source used to replace Trott here does not refer at all to any claim by Gish. This edit probably resulted from a good faith effort to respond to an issue I raised earlier, but unfortunately it is way way off base to write our own criticisms of Gish here. Trott's criticism of Gish's comment about Neanderthal is sourced, but it's also lame. That's why I questioned Trott's credentials for making fact claims. (Trott seems to have been an IT student or something, not a biological anthropologist--that's one huge problem with using skeptic sources for fact claims. Many have no expertise at all; they're just hobbyists and self-appointed spokespersons for science). I raised questions why this criticism of Gish is noteworthy, in particular regarding his Neanderthal criticism because, again, it is just lame. Take the whole thing out: in the original version, it embarrasses Trott imho more than anything else. It demonstrates Gish's claim was accurate, and Trott's criticism of it was either desperately grasping straws or not written well enough to know what was wrong with what Gish said. In the second edited version, it's purely original research. In neither case is it a noteworthy criticism. I appreciate the effort to find more credible sources to use in this article. However these sources must refer directly to Gish. We cannot assemble our own evidence to offer side/by/side to make claims about Gish's accuracies or lack thereof. Professor marginalia 20:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Gish showed either incredible ignorance or a stunning lack of integrity when he stated that Lord Solly Zuckerman, writing in 1970 that Australopithecus was probably not an ancestor of Homo sapiens, had more or less all the evidence that we have today. The field of physical anthropology underwent a revolution in the 1970s due to new discoveries and Gish's claim is patently ridiculous. Gish also told his audience that Neanderthals are now accepted as "fully human Homo sapiens just like you and me." Of course, Neanderthals were not "just like you and me". A Neanderthal had a longer and lower skull, a larger face and larger teeth, no chin or a slight chin, and a massive brow ridge in front of a differently shaped brain, as well as a distinctive skeletal structure
<undent>I don't really see any way of reconciling this. I think it's worth a mention, and not a synthesis. We don't have other criticisms right now, and the page isn't huge, so there's room. RFC? WLU 21:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'm looking back through the posts. The objections to the paragraph seem to include the following. I've included my own rebuttal to each point.
1. Trott does not refer to any claim by Gish
2. We are criticizing Gish, but Trott is not
3. Trott's claim is sourced
4. Trott's claim is lame
5. Trott doesn't have the credentials or expertise to criticize Gish
6. The criticism/claim isn't noteworthy (because it's lame)
7. It embarasses Trott
8. It demonstrates Gish's claim is actually accurate
9. Trott didn't know what Gish was saying
10. It's OR
11. The sources don't refer to Gish
12. We need a source that criticizes Gish for making inaccurate claims against Neanderthals
13. It isn't our job to challenge or defend Gish
14. Gish is 'too big' for these little criticisms
15. Gish challenges the scientific consensus, so focussing on specific claims where his challenges are inaccurate is too obscure
16. Gish's claim is indeed disputed, but it's not notable
17. The Neanderthal dispute is too complicated to discuss
18. Based on a different reference, Gish criticized the classification of Neanderthals as H. erectus
19. There's too many important things about Gish that aren't said
20. The Neanderthal point is too technical and outdated to convey anything meaningful
21. Trott's article is an angry letter written by Trott and published in a college newspaper
Have I missed any? Have I misunderstood anything? Do we need to discuss specific points? Have we reached a deadlock in which we agree that we're disagreeing and should therefore take this to a RFC? WLU 21:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
<undent>So consensus seems to be that the Neanderthal criticism is OK, and I'm willing to let the criticism stand with just Trott's wording. No RFC needed. I'll replace the content without Tattersall. Hair-splitting criticism that it is, it's still a valid criticism. PM, if you've got other criticisms of Gish lying or being clueless to the evidence, please add them with sources. If the page gets of such length that it requires trimming, then we can revisit this. WLU 14:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I have several sources of noteworthy criticism we can work with. This from Gould asserts that Gish's own words rhetorically discredit Gish's own claim to science, ie Gish's own words show there isn't any "science" at all in "creation science". [3] That ref also lambasts creation scientists for misapplying punct. equil. theory, unfortunately it's not so direct a criticism against Gish himself for this. I'll keep looking for a stronger example. This one is very close to the first Gould link: [4] Massimo Pigliucci's book, "Denying Evolution" has many of criticisms of Gish, including the same criticism that Gould has: that according to Gish's definitions, creation science is not science. He criticises Gish for trying to disprove evolution with physics, for Gish's attack against evolutionary biology for its failure to giving a central position to philosophical-theological concerns while of course those concerns don't lend themselves to empirical inquiry in the first place. He criticizes Gish for claiming evolutionary biology is not a science any more than creationism is. Massimo alludes to the fact that Gish has or had his critics even within ICR who rejected Gish's use of outmoded physics (ie pre-Einsteinian concepts such as the theory of "ether"). The trick in picking criticisms of Massimo, just like Trott or anyone else, is choosing the best examples to exemplify the best key points. That's why I'm much more concerned at this point with improving the article overall so it actually describes well Gish's most notable concepts--then the criticisms will have some meaningful context. (Gish isn't a noteworthy target of criticism because he goofs up some of the science factoids he uses. What's really the point with his most significant critics is Gish's affinity for distorting the scientific evidence purely to supplant real science with religious ideas, his propensity to completely ignore any scientific evidence or argument that doesn't fit the religious agenda, and the rhetorical tricks he uses to "dazzle" and confuse converts to his theory.) More later. Professor marginalia 17:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Flatly calling someone's position an error is inherently a violation of NPOV. Wikipedia is supposed to describe debates, not enter into them. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 01:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
GusChiggins, you've misunderstood my point. Besides, it's not good form to edit the section while the RFC is in process, and you really don't want to edit war-that's not how to resolve this. I think the RFC needs to be pulled down at this point. It's not written neutrally enough, and it's full of debate among editors whose opinions are already given on the talk page. That's not how to do an RFC. Professor marginalia ( talk) 14:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
See the section on "Disputed Claims made by Gish". This seems to violate NPOV. Maybe we could say that scientists dispute some of the claims he has made, but calling them incorrect seem to be entering the debate. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 05:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
(undent)If this is seriously your argument, I would strongly advise against bringing up another RfC on this article. It would be viewed as even more frivolous than the previous one. Baegis ( talk) 04:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with calling his claims disputed. The problem is when you take a view that a majority of scientists support, and call it a fact. Scientific consensus is not fact, and it never has been. It is merely scientific consensus. So you can say that someone's views contradict scientific consensus, but you can't say that they are wrong; that's entering the debate. Furthermore, questions about whether or not there were precursors are, by definition, outside of the realm of the scientific method. Someone who disputes gravity can be shown to be wrong by doing a simple experiment, but the same can't be done for taxonomy and history of evolution.
You can say that most scientists think he's wrong, or cite evidence that contradicts his position, but you can't flatly call it wrong, any more than you can call 9/11 conspiracy theorists wrong, even though everyone knows they are wrong, because there are a few people that support that view. The examples you gave are all theories that have no support whatsoever today. And no, creationist theories are NOT "rejected". A plurality of Americans supports young earth creationism, compared to approximately 10% that support evolution by natural selection. Also, we're using a ridiculously biased source to make all of these statements.
It's a major problem on the whole ID project; we're entering the debate, calling people creationists who don't consider themselves such, saying evolution is a demonstrable fact, calling people pseudoscientists, etc. Instead, we should be describing the state of the debate, showing that scientists overwhemingly support evolution, but that there are a few experts who disagree, and a whole lot of non-scientists that disagree. Our inability to do this has spawned conservapedia, and a whole lot of criticism, and I only expect it to get worse. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 14:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
<undent>Here's a question - the page does not say that Gish is wrong, it points out where science disagrees with his claims. This is exactly the position that you appear to be arguing for Gus. So why are we talking about this? Your objections are no longer about Gish, they're extending to evolution itself, and bringing in conservapedia is irrelevant. By your own rational, there does not seem to be a reason to have this discussion, or change the page. If you have problems with the way evolution is presented on wikipedia, take your comments there, this page is about Gish. And if you do decide to debate evolution on wikipedia, then don't. This is the place to report, not debate. And if still, you think it's necessary to discuss, note that public opinion doesn't determine the scientific consensus, truth, or scientific theories. Testing and evidence does. So this point is a red herring no matter where you go. WLU ( talk) 18:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Gus, that's tendentious casuistry to the point of disruptive editing. When Gish states, for example, that Archaeopteryx had "a skull totally birdlike" he is incorrect. Birds don't have teeth. WP is fact based, not fantasy based. .. dave souza, talk 08:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
<outdent> GusChiggins-I think that in some ways the section is just vague enough that as a consequence readers may be reading completely different arguments in it. The following is a quote from Gish:
Here's the "phylogentic tree", what's called the "phylogenetic tree of dinosaurs", the idea of some evolutionists of how dinosaurs are related. And they start with one particular dinosaur, and then they branch out into the various kinds of dinosaurs, the plated dinosaurs, the horned dinosaurs, the duckbilled dinosaurs, the big plant eaters and all of that. Now, if this were truly...if they really truly had an evolutionary tree of dinosaurs along the trunks and the branches they would have the transitional forms, the intermediate types you see, showing horns gradually evolving, showing jaws and teeth gradually changing into duck bills and all this sort of thing. That's what we must have if evolution is true. But what we have among the dinosaurs is what we see throughout the fossil record. Each one of these unique types of dinosaurs appears fully formed, right at the start. You see, there's no evidence they gradually evolved from some ordinary reptile, or from some different kind of dinosaur. And that is what we must find, you see, if evolution is true. Well, let's look at some of these different kinds of dinosaurs. We believe this is the way God made them, and that's why they do appear fully formed. Here we have triceratops. Now triceratops means "three horned face". This dinosaur had one horn above each eye, and one horn above the snout. Now he's a three horned dinosaur. Notice he has a huge bony armor sheath, now this bony armor sheath was several inches thick, protecting his neck and his flanks. Now we have different kinds of dinosaurs. There are one horned dinosaurs, there are five horned dinosaurs, there are seven horned dinosaurs, various kinds of horned dinosaurs. And if they've evolved, as evolutionists believe, we should start with some ordinary dinosaur or reptile, maybe with some kind of nobbies up there on his head, and then these nobbies finally got longer and longer through millions of years of time until we have the triceratops. Well then, if that were true, we ought to have some fossils of the intermediates, and we've never found such a thing. These three horned dinosaurs appear fully formed right from the start.
What Gish has done there is to define a necessary criteria for evolution to be true, insisting that there must be transitional forms evident in the fossil record. Then he uses triceratops as an example, delineating features he would expect the transitional forms to have. He established the criteria, and he claims, "we've never found such a thing". But Gish was either ignorant of or blind to the fact that "such a thing" as he says we would need to find has been found, many many of them. He doesn't say, "we have these but we can't know they were precursors", he simply says we have never found these "nobby" headed dinosaur forms. This is not a difference of opinion about whether fossils can be evidence of evolution. What Gish has done here is to acknowledge that such fossils would be evidence of evolution, but denies we've ever found any. That we have found such fossils is an historical fact. We do have them, it's a fact, and we can see pictures of them here in this very encyclopedia. It's justifiably an "opinion" whether scientists can prove a common lineage from the fossils, that's true. But scientists and others can prove that the fossils matching the description Gish gave have been found. Professor marginalia ( talk) 19:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
This is increasingly off-topic, if you would to continue this further, please see User talk:GusChiggins21. |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
We're arguing too much about theories, and while that's important for improving the whole ID project, I'd like to talk about the wording of the article. I have several proposals. 1. Could we change the criticism section to cite the "incorrect" statement to a specific source? 2. Or, could we present Gish's arguments from the debate, and then present the criticisms of those arguments? Right now we only present the criticisms without presenting the arguments that drew the criticisms. 3. Could we just remove the word "incorrect", because its only source is a debate? GusChiggins21 ( talk) 06:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, this is really a waste of time. This article reflects the bias of the community here, and there's no way it will change. There are at least a dozen people (and probably a legion of sockpuppets that can be summoned), supported by like-minded admins, who believe that wikipedia's purpose is to prove the theory of evolution is the only reasonable thing anyone could believe. It's not; no rational person could look at the fossil record and support evolution by natural selection, or look at the fairy-tale explanations for the origin of life and consider them to hold any weight. I wish that the editors in this project had the intellectual integrity to be willing to set aside their own bias for long enough to write an encyclopedia, but I am dreaming. Academia has a presupposition that there is no God, and that science must describe the world as having no God, and that wikipedia must consider "science" the only viewpoint. I hope you re-consider your views about the origin of life, or at least about what itellectual integrity is about, but I'm done wasting my time on this. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 06:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC) |
These need to be added http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cre-error.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.234.250.71 ( talk) 14:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Erroneuz1 seems desperate to prove that Shermer was an atheist, in an apparent attempt to justify Gish's ad hominem attacks on him. However:
This is simply a piece of dishonest WP:COATRACKing, in an illegitimate attempt to besmirch Shermer's reputation. Hrafn Talk Stalk 05:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
The stuff about Archaeopteryx under the disputed claims section would be better sourced using this detailed article rather than the Trott article. Nedin is a published paleontologist. Trott, on the other hand, is just a guy.—Preceding unsigned comment added by SlubGlub ( talk • contribs) 16:47, 13 December 2008
Maybe this is just my ignorance of how Wikipedia works, but I have some questions about the repeated citing of a source only known as "Numbers 2006, p.XXX." This document is cited 5 times in the article. I am totally unable to track this source down or determine anything about it. Since the whole point of citing your sources is to show readers where your information/point comes from, it seems that these citations are a total failure in that respect. If anyone knows anything about these sources or where to find them, I would greatly appreciate either editing the entry or just replying here, if the citation format is, in fact correct. In general, I always want to improve Wikipedia, but in this case I'm also very curious about this topic and would like to learn more. 76.120.122.220 ( talk) 02:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)Daniel
I'd like to dispute the overall tone of the Debates Section. In reading it, it seems that the portrayal of Gish's style is the predominant focus and it is in a negative light. I know this a user-driven site, and Gish is an extremely polarizing figure, but shouldn't the description be more neutral in approach? I focus on Debates here, but in the article and above comments, several mentions of figures that oppose Gish are made that are just as polarizing (Pietropaoli, for example, uses a low-science, high-trash talk style in "Denying Evolution"). I think that comments/discussions, not to mention hundreds of independent web sites, are the place for the debate, not an 'encyclopedia' article. ( talk) 01:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.96.113 ( talk)
I would point out that it requires more than for somebody to have written a forward for somebody else's book, or for them to hold the same general ideology (two ludicrously permissive standards), for them to be sufficiently relevant to be listed in the 'See also' section. I'm sure Gish has written forwards for hundreds of obscure books, and I know that there are millions of YECs. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 08:29, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Is it just me or has the photo of Gish been taken or distorted to make him look grotesque or ridiculous? Some of Gish's views appear ridiculous in that they contradict mainstream science but surely we should use a more neutral photo, or is this actually what the man looks like? Booshank ( talk) 18:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Like Booshank, I too was familiar with the phrase "Gish gallop," but I had no idea it was connected to this guy (or that it was originally used specifically to refer to creationists.) I added a sentence in the article to convey that it is now used outside of the creationist context (and, yes, I was extremely tempted to write something along the lines of "The phrase "Gish gallop" has evolved to mean...") That being said, I really struggled with writing a sentence explaining how it's now used, and the references I used aren't great. If anyone wants to improve on what I wrote or the references, please do so! (We could delete it altogether, but I think that would be doing our readers a disservice -- if you came accross the phrase "Gish gallop" and didn't know what it meant, wouldn't Wikipedia be one of the first places you would check??)— Preceding unsigned comment added by JoelWhy ( talk • contribs) 13:38, May 21, 2012 (UTC)
Answers in Genesis is not the epitome of reliable sourcing for most things, but they're not people who would make up something like this - David Gerard ( talk) 18:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The Institute for Creation Research (where Gish worked) also noted his death, so I think it safe to assume that in this case AiG is correct. Evolutionist1859 ( talk) 03:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
There is a discrepancy between Gish's birth date in the body of the article (February 17, 1921) and the in side bar (December 7, 1921). I have e-mailed the Institute for Creation Research for a clarification. Evolutionist1859 ( talk) 04:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
The Institute for Creation Research confirms that February 17, 1921 is the correct date. Evolutionist1859 ( talk) 02:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
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Quotes such as these do nothing to inform the reader. There's absolutely no reason to suspect that gushing (factually inaccurate) praise from his fellow creationists helps an impartial reader come to a better understanding of Gish. See WP:ASTONISH. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
To what quote are you referring? Dimadick ( talk) 07:55, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Or, better, find a non-creationist expert in rhetoric to offer an evaluation. Why should it be at all encyclopedic what creationists think of other creationists' presentation styles? jps ( talk) 21:37, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
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Okay, I've removed the whole discussion from the criticism section because the latest source used to replace Trott here does not refer at all to any claim by Gish. This edit probably resulted from a good faith effort to respond to an issue I raised earlier, but unfortunately it is way way off base to write our own criticisms of Gish here. Trott's criticism of Gish's comment about Neanderthal is sourced, but it's also lame. That's why I questioned Trott's credentials for making fact claims. (Trott seems to have been an IT student or something, not a biological anthropologist--that's one huge problem with using skeptic sources for fact claims. Many have no expertise at all; they're just hobbyists and self-appointed spokespersons for science). I raised questions why this criticism of Gish is noteworthy, in particular regarding his Neanderthal criticism because, again, it is just lame. Take the whole thing out: in the original version, it embarrasses Trott imho more than anything else. It demonstrates Gish's claim was accurate, and Trott's criticism of it was either desperately grasping straws or not written well enough to know what was wrong with what Gish said. In the second edited version, it's purely original research. In neither case is it a noteworthy criticism. I appreciate the effort to find more credible sources to use in this article. However these sources must refer directly to Gish. We cannot assemble our own evidence to offer side/by/side to make claims about Gish's accuracies or lack thereof. Professor marginalia 20:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Gish showed either incredible ignorance or a stunning lack of integrity when he stated that Lord Solly Zuckerman, writing in 1970 that Australopithecus was probably not an ancestor of Homo sapiens, had more or less all the evidence that we have today. The field of physical anthropology underwent a revolution in the 1970s due to new discoveries and Gish's claim is patently ridiculous. Gish also told his audience that Neanderthals are now accepted as "fully human Homo sapiens just like you and me." Of course, Neanderthals were not "just like you and me". A Neanderthal had a longer and lower skull, a larger face and larger teeth, no chin or a slight chin, and a massive brow ridge in front of a differently shaped brain, as well as a distinctive skeletal structure
<undent>I don't really see any way of reconciling this. I think it's worth a mention, and not a synthesis. We don't have other criticisms right now, and the page isn't huge, so there's room. RFC? WLU 21:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
OK, I'm looking back through the posts. The objections to the paragraph seem to include the following. I've included my own rebuttal to each point.
1. Trott does not refer to any claim by Gish
2. We are criticizing Gish, but Trott is not
3. Trott's claim is sourced
4. Trott's claim is lame
5. Trott doesn't have the credentials or expertise to criticize Gish
6. The criticism/claim isn't noteworthy (because it's lame)
7. It embarasses Trott
8. It demonstrates Gish's claim is actually accurate
9. Trott didn't know what Gish was saying
10. It's OR
11. The sources don't refer to Gish
12. We need a source that criticizes Gish for making inaccurate claims against Neanderthals
13. It isn't our job to challenge or defend Gish
14. Gish is 'too big' for these little criticisms
15. Gish challenges the scientific consensus, so focussing on specific claims where his challenges are inaccurate is too obscure
16. Gish's claim is indeed disputed, but it's not notable
17. The Neanderthal dispute is too complicated to discuss
18. Based on a different reference, Gish criticized the classification of Neanderthals as H. erectus
19. There's too many important things about Gish that aren't said
20. The Neanderthal point is too technical and outdated to convey anything meaningful
21. Trott's article is an angry letter written by Trott and published in a college newspaper
Have I missed any? Have I misunderstood anything? Do we need to discuss specific points? Have we reached a deadlock in which we agree that we're disagreeing and should therefore take this to a RFC? WLU 21:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
<undent>So consensus seems to be that the Neanderthal criticism is OK, and I'm willing to let the criticism stand with just Trott's wording. No RFC needed. I'll replace the content without Tattersall. Hair-splitting criticism that it is, it's still a valid criticism. PM, if you've got other criticisms of Gish lying or being clueless to the evidence, please add them with sources. If the page gets of such length that it requires trimming, then we can revisit this. WLU 14:46, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I have several sources of noteworthy criticism we can work with. This from Gould asserts that Gish's own words rhetorically discredit Gish's own claim to science, ie Gish's own words show there isn't any "science" at all in "creation science". [3] That ref also lambasts creation scientists for misapplying punct. equil. theory, unfortunately it's not so direct a criticism against Gish himself for this. I'll keep looking for a stronger example. This one is very close to the first Gould link: [4] Massimo Pigliucci's book, "Denying Evolution" has many of criticisms of Gish, including the same criticism that Gould has: that according to Gish's definitions, creation science is not science. He criticises Gish for trying to disprove evolution with physics, for Gish's attack against evolutionary biology for its failure to giving a central position to philosophical-theological concerns while of course those concerns don't lend themselves to empirical inquiry in the first place. He criticizes Gish for claiming evolutionary biology is not a science any more than creationism is. Massimo alludes to the fact that Gish has or had his critics even within ICR who rejected Gish's use of outmoded physics (ie pre-Einsteinian concepts such as the theory of "ether"). The trick in picking criticisms of Massimo, just like Trott or anyone else, is choosing the best examples to exemplify the best key points. That's why I'm much more concerned at this point with improving the article overall so it actually describes well Gish's most notable concepts--then the criticisms will have some meaningful context. (Gish isn't a noteworthy target of criticism because he goofs up some of the science factoids he uses. What's really the point with his most significant critics is Gish's affinity for distorting the scientific evidence purely to supplant real science with religious ideas, his propensity to completely ignore any scientific evidence or argument that doesn't fit the religious agenda, and the rhetorical tricks he uses to "dazzle" and confuse converts to his theory.) More later. Professor marginalia 17:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Flatly calling someone's position an error is inherently a violation of NPOV. Wikipedia is supposed to describe debates, not enter into them. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 01:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
GusChiggins, you've misunderstood my point. Besides, it's not good form to edit the section while the RFC is in process, and you really don't want to edit war-that's not how to resolve this. I think the RFC needs to be pulled down at this point. It's not written neutrally enough, and it's full of debate among editors whose opinions are already given on the talk page. That's not how to do an RFC. Professor marginalia ( talk) 14:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
See the section on "Disputed Claims made by Gish". This seems to violate NPOV. Maybe we could say that scientists dispute some of the claims he has made, but calling them incorrect seem to be entering the debate. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 05:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
(undent)If this is seriously your argument, I would strongly advise against bringing up another RfC on this article. It would be viewed as even more frivolous than the previous one. Baegis ( talk) 04:04, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with calling his claims disputed. The problem is when you take a view that a majority of scientists support, and call it a fact. Scientific consensus is not fact, and it never has been. It is merely scientific consensus. So you can say that someone's views contradict scientific consensus, but you can't say that they are wrong; that's entering the debate. Furthermore, questions about whether or not there were precursors are, by definition, outside of the realm of the scientific method. Someone who disputes gravity can be shown to be wrong by doing a simple experiment, but the same can't be done for taxonomy and history of evolution.
You can say that most scientists think he's wrong, or cite evidence that contradicts his position, but you can't flatly call it wrong, any more than you can call 9/11 conspiracy theorists wrong, even though everyone knows they are wrong, because there are a few people that support that view. The examples you gave are all theories that have no support whatsoever today. And no, creationist theories are NOT "rejected". A plurality of Americans supports young earth creationism, compared to approximately 10% that support evolution by natural selection. Also, we're using a ridiculously biased source to make all of these statements.
It's a major problem on the whole ID project; we're entering the debate, calling people creationists who don't consider themselves such, saying evolution is a demonstrable fact, calling people pseudoscientists, etc. Instead, we should be describing the state of the debate, showing that scientists overwhemingly support evolution, but that there are a few experts who disagree, and a whole lot of non-scientists that disagree. Our inability to do this has spawned conservapedia, and a whole lot of criticism, and I only expect it to get worse. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 14:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
<undent>Here's a question - the page does not say that Gish is wrong, it points out where science disagrees with his claims. This is exactly the position that you appear to be arguing for Gus. So why are we talking about this? Your objections are no longer about Gish, they're extending to evolution itself, and bringing in conservapedia is irrelevant. By your own rational, there does not seem to be a reason to have this discussion, or change the page. If you have problems with the way evolution is presented on wikipedia, take your comments there, this page is about Gish. And if you do decide to debate evolution on wikipedia, then don't. This is the place to report, not debate. And if still, you think it's necessary to discuss, note that public opinion doesn't determine the scientific consensus, truth, or scientific theories. Testing and evidence does. So this point is a red herring no matter where you go. WLU ( talk) 18:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Gus, that's tendentious casuistry to the point of disruptive editing. When Gish states, for example, that Archaeopteryx had "a skull totally birdlike" he is incorrect. Birds don't have teeth. WP is fact based, not fantasy based. .. dave souza, talk 08:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
<outdent> GusChiggins-I think that in some ways the section is just vague enough that as a consequence readers may be reading completely different arguments in it. The following is a quote from Gish:
Here's the "phylogentic tree", what's called the "phylogenetic tree of dinosaurs", the idea of some evolutionists of how dinosaurs are related. And they start with one particular dinosaur, and then they branch out into the various kinds of dinosaurs, the plated dinosaurs, the horned dinosaurs, the duckbilled dinosaurs, the big plant eaters and all of that. Now, if this were truly...if they really truly had an evolutionary tree of dinosaurs along the trunks and the branches they would have the transitional forms, the intermediate types you see, showing horns gradually evolving, showing jaws and teeth gradually changing into duck bills and all this sort of thing. That's what we must have if evolution is true. But what we have among the dinosaurs is what we see throughout the fossil record. Each one of these unique types of dinosaurs appears fully formed, right at the start. You see, there's no evidence they gradually evolved from some ordinary reptile, or from some different kind of dinosaur. And that is what we must find, you see, if evolution is true. Well, let's look at some of these different kinds of dinosaurs. We believe this is the way God made them, and that's why they do appear fully formed. Here we have triceratops. Now triceratops means "three horned face". This dinosaur had one horn above each eye, and one horn above the snout. Now he's a three horned dinosaur. Notice he has a huge bony armor sheath, now this bony armor sheath was several inches thick, protecting his neck and his flanks. Now we have different kinds of dinosaurs. There are one horned dinosaurs, there are five horned dinosaurs, there are seven horned dinosaurs, various kinds of horned dinosaurs. And if they've evolved, as evolutionists believe, we should start with some ordinary dinosaur or reptile, maybe with some kind of nobbies up there on his head, and then these nobbies finally got longer and longer through millions of years of time until we have the triceratops. Well then, if that were true, we ought to have some fossils of the intermediates, and we've never found such a thing. These three horned dinosaurs appear fully formed right from the start.
What Gish has done there is to define a necessary criteria for evolution to be true, insisting that there must be transitional forms evident in the fossil record. Then he uses triceratops as an example, delineating features he would expect the transitional forms to have. He established the criteria, and he claims, "we've never found such a thing". But Gish was either ignorant of or blind to the fact that "such a thing" as he says we would need to find has been found, many many of them. He doesn't say, "we have these but we can't know they were precursors", he simply says we have never found these "nobby" headed dinosaur forms. This is not a difference of opinion about whether fossils can be evidence of evolution. What Gish has done here is to acknowledge that such fossils would be evidence of evolution, but denies we've ever found any. That we have found such fossils is an historical fact. We do have them, it's a fact, and we can see pictures of them here in this very encyclopedia. It's justifiably an "opinion" whether scientists can prove a common lineage from the fossils, that's true. But scientists and others can prove that the fossils matching the description Gish gave have been found. Professor marginalia ( talk) 19:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
This is increasingly off-topic, if you would to continue this further, please see User talk:GusChiggins21. |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
We're arguing too much about theories, and while that's important for improving the whole ID project, I'd like to talk about the wording of the article. I have several proposals. 1. Could we change the criticism section to cite the "incorrect" statement to a specific source? 2. Or, could we present Gish's arguments from the debate, and then present the criticisms of those arguments? Right now we only present the criticisms without presenting the arguments that drew the criticisms. 3. Could we just remove the word "incorrect", because its only source is a debate? GusChiggins21 ( talk) 06:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, this is really a waste of time. This article reflects the bias of the community here, and there's no way it will change. There are at least a dozen people (and probably a legion of sockpuppets that can be summoned), supported by like-minded admins, who believe that wikipedia's purpose is to prove the theory of evolution is the only reasonable thing anyone could believe. It's not; no rational person could look at the fossil record and support evolution by natural selection, or look at the fairy-tale explanations for the origin of life and consider them to hold any weight. I wish that the editors in this project had the intellectual integrity to be willing to set aside their own bias for long enough to write an encyclopedia, but I am dreaming. Academia has a presupposition that there is no God, and that science must describe the world as having no God, and that wikipedia must consider "science" the only viewpoint. I hope you re-consider your views about the origin of life, or at least about what itellectual integrity is about, but I'm done wasting my time on this. GusChiggins21 ( talk) 06:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC) |
These need to be added http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cre-error.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.234.250.71 ( talk) 14:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Erroneuz1 seems desperate to prove that Shermer was an atheist, in an apparent attempt to justify Gish's ad hominem attacks on him. However:
This is simply a piece of dishonest WP:COATRACKing, in an illegitimate attempt to besmirch Shermer's reputation. Hrafn Talk Stalk 05:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
The stuff about Archaeopteryx under the disputed claims section would be better sourced using this detailed article rather than the Trott article. Nedin is a published paleontologist. Trott, on the other hand, is just a guy.—Preceding unsigned comment added by SlubGlub ( talk • contribs) 16:47, 13 December 2008
Maybe this is just my ignorance of how Wikipedia works, but I have some questions about the repeated citing of a source only known as "Numbers 2006, p.XXX." This document is cited 5 times in the article. I am totally unable to track this source down or determine anything about it. Since the whole point of citing your sources is to show readers where your information/point comes from, it seems that these citations are a total failure in that respect. If anyone knows anything about these sources or where to find them, I would greatly appreciate either editing the entry or just replying here, if the citation format is, in fact correct. In general, I always want to improve Wikipedia, but in this case I'm also very curious about this topic and would like to learn more. 76.120.122.220 ( talk) 02:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)Daniel
I'd like to dispute the overall tone of the Debates Section. In reading it, it seems that the portrayal of Gish's style is the predominant focus and it is in a negative light. I know this a user-driven site, and Gish is an extremely polarizing figure, but shouldn't the description be more neutral in approach? I focus on Debates here, but in the article and above comments, several mentions of figures that oppose Gish are made that are just as polarizing (Pietropaoli, for example, uses a low-science, high-trash talk style in "Denying Evolution"). I think that comments/discussions, not to mention hundreds of independent web sites, are the place for the debate, not an 'encyclopedia' article. ( talk) 01:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.97.96.113 ( talk)
I would point out that it requires more than for somebody to have written a forward for somebody else's book, or for them to hold the same general ideology (two ludicrously permissive standards), for them to be sufficiently relevant to be listed in the 'See also' section. I'm sure Gish has written forwards for hundreds of obscure books, and I know that there are millions of YECs. Hrafn Talk Stalk( P) 08:29, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
Is it just me or has the photo of Gish been taken or distorted to make him look grotesque or ridiculous? Some of Gish's views appear ridiculous in that they contradict mainstream science but surely we should use a more neutral photo, or is this actually what the man looks like? Booshank ( talk) 18:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
Like Booshank, I too was familiar with the phrase "Gish gallop," but I had no idea it was connected to this guy (or that it was originally used specifically to refer to creationists.) I added a sentence in the article to convey that it is now used outside of the creationist context (and, yes, I was extremely tempted to write something along the lines of "The phrase "Gish gallop" has evolved to mean...") That being said, I really struggled with writing a sentence explaining how it's now used, and the references I used aren't great. If anyone wants to improve on what I wrote or the references, please do so! (We could delete it altogether, but I think that would be doing our readers a disservice -- if you came accross the phrase "Gish gallop" and didn't know what it meant, wouldn't Wikipedia be one of the first places you would check??)— Preceding unsigned comment added by JoelWhy ( talk • contribs) 13:38, May 21, 2012 (UTC)
Answers in Genesis is not the epitome of reliable sourcing for most things, but they're not people who would make up something like this - David Gerard ( talk) 18:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
The Institute for Creation Research (where Gish worked) also noted his death, so I think it safe to assume that in this case AiG is correct. Evolutionist1859 ( talk) 03:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
There is a discrepancy between Gish's birth date in the body of the article (February 17, 1921) and the in side bar (December 7, 1921). I have e-mailed the Institute for Creation Research for a clarification. Evolutionist1859 ( talk) 04:00, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
The Institute for Creation Research confirms that February 17, 1921 is the correct date. Evolutionist1859 ( talk) 02:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
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Quotes such as these do nothing to inform the reader. There's absolutely no reason to suspect that gushing (factually inaccurate) praise from his fellow creationists helps an impartial reader come to a better understanding of Gish. See WP:ASTONISH. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 04:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
To what quote are you referring? Dimadick ( talk) 07:55, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Or, better, find a non-creationist expert in rhetoric to offer an evaluation. Why should it be at all encyclopedic what creationists think of other creationists' presentation styles? jps ( talk) 21:37, 4 October 2018 (UTC)