rwallace comments on Let Them Debate College Students - Less Wrong

46 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 09 September 2009 06:15PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (139)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: lavalamp 09 September 2009 07:55:18PM *  7 points [-]

Why would a high-status creationist have a motive to debate a low-status evolutionist?

And how would that play out? "The scientists aren't really interested in listening to us, all they'll send are college students." Would you agree to debate Behe's proofreader?

But for the purpose of actually getting scientists to hear out the crazy ideas (which are correct every once in a while (EDIT: ID/creationism not being one of those!)) without risking anything, I think this is a great idea.

I think it would be bad PR. Good science, bad PR.

Comment author: rwallace 10 September 2009 12:33:25AM 1 point [-]

It's better than "the scientists aren't really interested in listening to us, they won't debate at all", and I don't think professional scientists should feel obliged to spend their time arguing about stuff that was debunked generations ago. And it's something I would have been happy to volunteer for when I was a student. Proposal upvoted.