Before you argue against something, make sure you actually know what it is you’re arguing against.
Here’s a helpful exercise. Before you start ranting about how evolution is just a ploy by the scientific hegemony, why don’t you go ahead and define evolution first? Define it the way scientists define it. If you can’t, then you’re being a little intellectually dishonest, don’t you think? Making people think you actually know what you’re talking about and all.
Sum 1 to N 
Posted by radicalearthling on August 12, 2007 at 11:13 am
That’s the problem with any so-called “debate” these days: people don’t define their terms before beginning a discussion or argument, and then both sides wind up arguing about entirely different things.
It’s like debating over whether evolutionary theory or creationist bunkum better explains how life began–but wait! Evolutionary theory doesn’t tell us how life began! It tells us how life developed once it had begun! But even the evolutionists get tripped up by this one, accepting creationists’ terms for the debate without question.
Posted by Edward Carson on August 12, 2007 at 11:22 am
Your suggestion is true of politics, books, and gender construction. Very good advice.
Posted by dangoldfinch on August 12, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Friend,
I appreciate your advice, but since you linked to my blog, I’d like to say something to you in the form of a question. In my post about blue lobsters, which you have linked to and which forms the basis of your own ‘rant’, I ask no fewer than 10 questions to scientists or others who have more information available than I do. Now, with that bit of information in mind, don’t you think that is an admission by me that I, in fact, don’t know what I’m talking about? That is, I said I’m making no assertions; I’m asking questions about Blue Lobsters, genetics, mutations, reproduction, evolution, etc. So, while your advice is ‘good’, it is meaningless as far as my blog entry is concerned. The fact that I am asking questions about the subject presupposes that I don’t understand it. Or did you miss that?
If you wish to stop by my blog and answer the questions I have asked in sincerity, about Blue Lobsters and genetic mutations, please do. Otherwise, follow your own advice and ‘make sure you know what you are arguing against’ before you start ranting about it. That would be the nice and courteous thing to do. Otherwise, you are just another evolutionist who simply cannot or will not answer questions that a serious inquirer asks.
Thanks again for the link, stop by anytime.
jerry
Posted by Jon on August 12, 2007 at 10:33 pm
I did answer your questions, in fact. Perhaps you forgot. And you clearly intimated, in response, that you thought I was rationalizing.
You wrote:
For someone who’s genuinely interested in the answers to their questions, you certainly reacted as if that wasn’t the case.
Posted by james on September 9, 2008 at 3:41 am
did you read my arguments with jerry?
if you lost interest you should go back to the lobster page where he continually dodged my logic for a couple of months before packing up and closing shop. haha
i know others got burned out on it…but over a couple of months he gave up on me.
i dont know if it was cause he was like a cornered dog finding the first way out or he just got bored and i didnt rub his ego the right way.
but he closed down the blog cause i wouldnt leave him alone haha.
i love life!
your pal,
james
Posted by Jon on September 9, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I read a little. Awhile ago. I don’t remember many details. 🙂
Are you sure he closed the blog down? I can get to it just fine.
Perhaps he just banned ya.. Which wouldn’t surprise me, honestly.