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I agree. I think the point of this headline is the headline. They know that most people will see Peter Thiel and something about dismissing evolution, and most

I agree. I think the point of this headline is the headline. They know that most people will see Peter Thiel and something about dismissing evolution, and most people won't read the article. (At least one other commenter has confessed to falling into this pattern.) I don't agree, but if contrarianism is done civilly and in good faith, it should be allowed. What we don't want is a general regime of squashing all discourse. Here is a link to part 1 of the article. I skimmed it. This guy could be an anti-evolution bigot if you dig deeply enough, but at least he's not pounding on the usual debunked tropes. (Maybe I should thank him for bringing issues to my attention that are new to me.) He also has a good enough grasp of science, I can't dismiss him outright, other than that I'm convinced evolution by natural selection is correct. https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-crisis-revisited-part-one https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-a-theory-in-c...

dragonwriter 8y ago
> but at least he's not pounding on the usual debunked tropes. The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument, which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd, to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument Yes, that's in there, actually. which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd I only skimmed the article, so mea culpa. (There's value for the side of truth if the best effort of the opposition so easily, functionally falls into a usual debunked trope.) However, I don't think people like that are all dishonest. I think a lot of them have some kind of mental block. I'm reminded of when I've taught coding and when I've taught music. Some people can't distinguish fine degrees of pitch difference, and those are the same people who can't distinguish little differences in rhythmic placement. (Some scientists have actually studied these "amusical" people.) Some people simply can't grasp the values of variables changing over iterations. Others may have an axe to grind. to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it. That sounds interesting.
- deleted 8y ago
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dragonwriter 8y ago

> but at least he's not pounding on the usual debunked tropes. The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument, which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd, to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it.

stcredzero 8y ago
The argument he makes is the standard absence-of-transitional-forms argument Yes, that's in there, actually. which is pretty high on any list of “usual debunked tropes” of the dishonest creationist crowd I only skimmed the article, so mea culpa. (There's value for the side of truth if the best effort of the opposition so easily, functionally falls into a usual debunked trope.) However, I don't think people like that are all dishonest. I think a lot of them have some kind of mental block. I'm reminded of when I've taught coding and when I've taught music. Some people can't distinguish fine degrees of pitch difference, and those are the same people who can't distinguish little differences in rhythmic placement. (Some scientists have actually studied these "amusical" people.) Some people simply can't grasp the values of variables changing over iterations. Others may have an axe to grind. to the point where even at least one creationist has debunked it. That sounds interesting.
deleted 8y ago
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