Jose Fly
Fisker of men
I've been in these creationism vs evolution debates in one form or another for about 20 years, and just over the past three to five years I've noticed something. I've noticed that, for the most part, creationists have retreated to two main arguments: 1) challenging us science advocates to explain how life first arose, and 2) challenging us to explain how the universe began.
If you look through the Index to Creationist Claims at Talk Origins, you'll see all sorts arguments that used to be quite common among internet creationists, but are now rarely seen. Oh sure some of them will pop up from time to time, but overall they're fairly uncommon. And it's not just at Religious Forums that I've noticed this trend. I see the same thing at many forums where creationism/evolution battles used to be a regular thing.
I've also noticed that several of the science-advocacy websites that are specifically focused on countering creationist arguments are kinda dead. Talk Origins is certainly one, as is PandasThumb.org and many others. From what I can tell, the lack of activity at those sites is a result of the lack of anything new coming from creationists. As long as creationists aren't really doing anything, there's just not much for those sites to talk about.
I think there are two main reasons for this. First, as polling data shows younger Americans are much more accepting of evolution than older generations. Second, the court rulings in the 1980's banning Biblical creationism plus the Dover decision against ID creationism in 2005 pretty much killed creationists' efforts to get their beliefs taught in science classes, which means from a legal and public policy standpoint it's a settled issue. I'd also say our advancing knowledge of the evolutionary history of life on earth has filled in many of the gaps creationists used to exploit.
Given all that, what's a devoted internet creationist to do? Well, you focus your efforts on the two big questions that haven't been answered....how life and the universe began.
And I have to say, that's very gratifying to see.
If you look through the Index to Creationist Claims at Talk Origins, you'll see all sorts arguments that used to be quite common among internet creationists, but are now rarely seen. Oh sure some of them will pop up from time to time, but overall they're fairly uncommon. And it's not just at Religious Forums that I've noticed this trend. I see the same thing at many forums where creationism/evolution battles used to be a regular thing.
I've also noticed that several of the science-advocacy websites that are specifically focused on countering creationist arguments are kinda dead. Talk Origins is certainly one, as is PandasThumb.org and many others. From what I can tell, the lack of activity at those sites is a result of the lack of anything new coming from creationists. As long as creationists aren't really doing anything, there's just not much for those sites to talk about.
I think there are two main reasons for this. First, as polling data shows younger Americans are much more accepting of evolution than older generations. Second, the court rulings in the 1980's banning Biblical creationism plus the Dover decision against ID creationism in 2005 pretty much killed creationists' efforts to get their beliefs taught in science classes, which means from a legal and public policy standpoint it's a settled issue. I'd also say our advancing knowledge of the evolutionary history of life on earth has filled in many of the gaps creationists used to exploit.
Given all that, what's a devoted internet creationist to do? Well, you focus your efforts on the two big questions that haven't been answered....how life and the universe began.
And I have to say, that's very gratifying to see.
