To paraphrase an old saw: Arguing with a young earth creationist is like wrestling with a pig, at the end you are both filthy and exhausted –and you get the distinct feeling that the pig enjoyed the experience.

So, Radar saw and responded to my rant. What I wanted to get out of him –some kind of defense of his ideas didn’t happen. Instead, I got a couple of insults thrown my way (fair enough, I threw a couple his way, though I really don’t think calling him a troglodyte was meant as an insult) but he totally skirted the issue at hand and instead talked about politics. I have to say, I really didn’t expect that, I thought he’d at least acknowledge some of the points that I have made that have not been made on his blog, but he chose to ignore them, and instead tell me to go on the Democratic Underground whatever that is.

So I decided to confront him on his blog by responding to his posts. At first, it seemed to go well, the other commenters praised my insights and arguments, even though he would not respond to direct questions. Then it all went to hell. In this post he said this in reference to the ACLU:

“You think we are better served by having such an organization around even though they are financed in large part by your tax dollars?”

Which struck me as strange. Why would the government fund an organization that sues the government? So I did a little research, and lo and behold, they are not funded by the government. The only “government money” they recieve is money awarded to them when they win in court, which they use to fund their organization (kinda like a law firm). For instance, the New Jersey ACLU received 1.2 million dollars in court settlements which constituted 18% of their total budget. Reasonable people will realize that’s not a “large part” of their funding –hell, it’s not even 1/5. It’s also worth noting that they only receive this funding when the government is demonstrably wrong on an issue. His counter argument is that reducing his salary by 20% is a lot, which really makes no sense, 18% is still not a large part of anything. Even though he’s been given notice that this isn’t true he still makes this claim, and I believe he has firmly stepped over the line of mis-characterization and is now lying. I take the truth very seriously, and have to say I would never knowingly repeat a claim that is false even if it helps my argument. That to me is against the rules, but to him, it’s just a tactic to prove a point.

So that’s why I’ve given up wrestling with him, because we can’t even agree on ground rules for debate. He’ll dissemble, ignore, taunt, belittle and yes, even lie in order to make a point. I’m not going to stoop to that level.

The ACLU episode has also changed my opinion of his intelligence. Once I thought he was misguided and possibly ignorant in the sense that he hadn’t been exposed to scientific thought, but now I just think he’s ridiculously childish and wants to keep it that way.

And on that note, I’ll leave you with a final quote.

“Wrong again! (Hee-hee, two for two!) Both creation scientists and evolutionists evaluate data and the same data is available to both. The difference is in the interpretation of the data. Your science is limited by your world view and so also your science is the poor science out of the two.”

What? No Nyah Nyah Nyah at the end? That’s how all good arguments end.

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