Aron-Ra (September 9, 2003)
Usenet Archive

This morning, David Hancock, the webmaster behind http://www.questionevolution.com/index.html sent me his first response, which is as follows:

I was shocked and amazed to see that there was such passionate interest in the evolution / creation debate. I have received numerous comments (from both sides) and realize that there is a great deal of improvement that can be made to the site. One of the first people to comment was a very reasoned evolutionist - I have been in e-mail dialog with him, and he has made some excellent points which I do plan on posting on the site when I get around to updating it. Be patient - it took me 4 years from the time that I thought of putting it on the internet until I finally got it posted, so it will take a little while before I get around to an update.

While I am, as you correctly infer, a biblical creationist, it is clearly not the passion for me that it is for so many others, and I am glad that my little site has given so many so much to talk about. My time is split among so many other things (wife and children, VP and part owner of a software company, assistant instructor at a martial arts school, commissioner in my city government, president of my homeowners association, publisher of several newsletters (one which e-mails to 16,000 each month), writing articles for publication in magazines, guitarist for a band at a very large church, etc.) that the website unfortunately takes a very low priority.

I am saving all of the comments that I receive, and would like to take a stab at answering some of the criticisms (both constructive and otherwise). I finally put the site together while on vacation, and it may take until I have another one before I take time to make some changes. Until then, your comments, along with many others, sit in a special "Needs Attention" folder that I set up in my e-mail.

Thank you for your patience,

David

PS - You would not believe the aggressive, almost violent e-mails that I have received over this little site. Why do you think people get so passionate about this debate? Do you think that anyone has ever argued (or threatened) someone over to the other side?

I think that threats from the science side is a little stupid, but the creationist side does exactly that regularly. I've lost count years ago of how many times I've been threatened with damnation just for believing what I can prove over what someone else can't even show evidence for. I've also been surrounded by zealots yelling into my face in the most intimidating manner possible once they discovered I was an unbeliever. It was like a witch-hunt. I've also seen Christians vandalize the homes of pagans, and once personally knew a 13 year-old boy who was murdered by a Christian teen who cited Exodus 22:18 as his defense upon arrest.

Threats from the religious side are the norm, and have been for thousands of years.

"To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world is just as base as to use force."

--Hypatia of Alexandria, criticizing Christian doctrine

"The Christian glories in the death of a pagan, because thereby Christ himself is glorified."

--Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, praising St. Cyril for murdering Hypatia

One reason that so many science-minded proponents may seem hostile is that creationist web sources are inherently dishonest and will not allow open discussion on their sites the way that Talk.Origins does, and scientific journals must. The reason for that is that faith is a matter of preserving belief where peer-review is quite the opposite. Having debated this topic formally online for over three years now, I can show you archived documentation of all the debate challenges I've levied which are always refused time and time again. The challenge is that I can prove that biological evolution to be the truest, best explanation there is for the origin of our species, that I can prove that to your satisfaction, not mine, and the only requirement to that is a point-by-point discussion where none of the opponent's points or questions may be ignored. It becomes somewhat infuriating that the creationist side forbids the peer-review process (while pretending to be scientific) and perpetually refuses this simplest of all challenges to determine for certain what is really true. Since you actually promise to make corrections where necessary, your site is unique among its ilk.

When I first began participating in the Talk.Origins discussion group, it was to find out for sure where the weaknesses and strengths were to either side. In that time, I've come to discover that evolution does have a very few weaknesses, but creationism has absolutely no strengths. To put it mildly, creation "science" isn't science in any form, it's propaganda for a political movement who's agenda is nothing short of replacing democracy with theocracy. As sensationalist as that sounds, Pat Robertson, Kent Hovind, R.J. Rushdoony of the Chalcedon Institute, and independent promoters of the American Fundamentalist Movement have all admitted this agenda in writing as a matter of public record.

Yes this is a passionate issue, especially for those of us who support the freedoms this country was meant to guarantee. Theocracy has always been an automatic violation of human rights, and what is being proposed now (teaching creationism in schools) would violate everyone's rights, including most creationists. As a matter of mere belief, you can believe that the world is flat for all I care. But when you're lobbying to remove geosphericity from the science classroom in hopes of teaching flat-Earth beliefs to my children, then you should be expected to present profound defense of such claims, and cannot be allowed to teach anything that is entirely faith-based and particular to only one religious group in violation of the rights of all other students whether they have a religion or not.

Rob Naylor (September 29, 2003)
Usenet Archive

Dear Sir,

There has been quite a lot of comment on your web site on the "talk.origins" newsgroup. You state that you are a busy individual and may take some time to update your web site with rebuttals, comments etc. However, it seems that some of the more active participants in "talk.origins" have done much of your work for you in creating a web site which is being gradually populated with properly referenced and explained rebuttals to your points. Many of these points, incidentally, far from being "unanswered by evolutionists" have been comprehensively rebutted, some more than 20 years ago, to the extent that AiG and the ICR advise creationists *not* to use them in discussions and arguments.

Why not, since you are a busy man, do as the rebuttal site has done (posted links to your site), and simply post in your rebuttal section a link:

http://www.geocities.com/chastity403/questionevolution/index.html

to the rebuttal site. Dropping this link into your code for that page won't even take as long as reading this email, and would go some way to showing your good faith when you say that open discussion is something you wish to see.

Yours in hope.

Rob Naylor

---

I've had the following email from Mr Hancock in response to mine. Since I did no more than alert him to the rebuttals, please, you guys, take his comment as *your* due, not mine!

Wow - excellent job!

While it did actually take longer than it took to read the e-mail, every 'rebuttal' link on each page should now simply go directly to the link that you sent. If you see any prolbems please let me know.

Have fun!

Thanks for the help,

David

Aron-Ra (December 29, 2003)
Usenet Archive

This message was posted to the Talk.Origins usenet group and carbon copied to [email protected]

QuestionEvolution.com is a website boasting a collection of supposedly unanswered challenges to evolution. Several of the Talk.Origins regulars including myself have gone through their list and found that all of these have in fact been properly explained in public media time and time again over the last few dozen years. T.O. contributors answered every question on that webpage once again in a volley of emails to the webmaster, and even counter-challenged him to publish our answers in the rebuttal section of his site, which, (much to his credit) he has actually done. Not only that but he hasn't tried to counter a single one of them so he must consider them all adequately addressed. But that was over three months ago, and his main page still bears the comment that "the questions found on this site remain unanswered by the evolutionist".

Specifically, which questions on this site haven't we answered already? Because I don't think we've missed a single one, nor do I think we've answered anything insufficiently. Therefore, I still think this site is a deliberate misrepresentation that will never be corrected.

Chastity403 (March 2, 2005)

It's been nearly a year and a half since you wrote:

I was shocked and amazed to see that there was such passionate interest in the evolution / creation debate. I have received numerous comments (from both sides) and realize that there is a great deal of improvement that can be made to the site. One of the first people to comment was a very reasoned evolutionist - I have been in e-mail dialog with him, and he has made some excellent points which I do plan on posting on the site when I get around to updating it. Be patient - it took me 4 years from the time that I thought of putting it on the internet until I finally got it posted, so it will take a little while before I get around to an update.

While I am, as you correctly infer, a biblical creationist, it is clearly not the passion for me that it is for so many others, and I am glad that my little site has given so many so much to talk about. My time is split among so many other things (wife and children, VP and part owner of a software company, assistant instructor at a martial arts school, commissioner in my city government, president of my homeowners association, publisher of several newsletters (one which e-mails to 16,000 each month), writing articles for publication in magazines, guitarist for a band at a very large church, etc.) that the website unfortunately takes a very low priority.

I am saving all of the comments that I receive, and would like to take a stab at answering some of the criticisms (both constructive and otherwise). I finally put the site together while on vacation, and it may take until I have another one before I take time to make some changes. Until then, your comments, along with many others, sit in a special "Needs Attention" folder that I set up in my e-mail.

Thank you for your patience,

David

PS - You would not believe the aggressive, almost violent e-mails that I have received over this little site. Why do you think people get so passionate about this debate? Do you think that anyone has ever argued (or threatened) someone over to the other side?

How are your efforts progressing?

Chastity403 (November 16, 2005)

I notice that you have, sometime in this past year, removed the Rebuttal links from your pages at QuestionEvolution.com. Why is that?

Alexander (November 18, 2005)
Usenet Archive

Hi there - your site has attracted attention over at the Talk Origins newsgroup (which can also be found on Google Groups if you ever care to wander over). It can be quite a rough evironment for the new comer but there is very much a quid pro quo attitude. If you are polite and are sincerely there to learn or understand aspects of evolutionary theory and it's relationship to religion then the locals are polite back. Sadly it does seem to attract the kind of Christian who is more interested in attacking people they believe are atheists (which is odd considering a great many of the scientists at TO are Christians themselves) than trying to tackle the real issues at stake.

Your polite response to some of the issues raised did generate some comments and of course it's recognized that this is your site and you have a specific reason for calling it 'questionevolution' rather than 'debate' evolution. What seems odd (especially to those who have taken the time to study the relevant issues through Biology, Paleaontology, Cosmology, Physics to post-graduate level and beyond) is that the list you've put forward has in fact been answered within the natural sciences (some questions for some time as well).

The problem is not of course that you have not established a forum for debate (entirely your prerogative of course) but that you have made a claim that:

Rather it (the website) was created to show that the theory that is presented as scientific (evolution) is really not nearly as well supported by scientific fact and discoveries as the average evolutionist believes. A careful and objective study of the universe points one more in the direction of special creation than natural evolution.

By listing the questions that have been repeatedly and conclusively refuted you have presented the idea that these questions have either never been asked or adequately answered when they have. I realise it is not your intention to present a site that could be construed as ignoring or overlooking the evidence but this does mean your site should carry either more specific disclaimers or attempt to provide a more realistic representation of the nature of the questions (which ones have been answered, which ones are incomplete, some open ended questions that remain etc - science doesn't have all the answers of course).

If you want to present all aspects of the argument without having to go to the trouble of storing the collosal amounts of data available on the evolutionary model then the simplest thing is to link to www.talkorigins.org which has a comprehensive list of responses to all the claims made on your website (they are not new ones, but if any occur to you let us know and we can put it to the individuals with the appropriate expertise).

Take care and best wishes
Alexander