Evidence Chicken
Offline (I'm placing this in the Irrationalities forum not because it is an example of an irrationality, but it is one particular tactic of debating against irrationalities. If anyone else has examples of patterns or tactics for debating/countering irrationalities, I think these would make great topics for posts. What do you guys think?)
Evidence Chicken
In the game of Chicken, two players compete by simultaneously raising the stakes of the game, until some imminent but not entirely predictable time in the future when the final result of the game will be determined to see who is 'chicken' and who is not (this player is the winner). For example, two young people race their cars toward each other, head on, until one or both swerve off to avoid collision.
To determine the result of the game:
- if both players are chicken, then they both lose a small amount. Each walks away with a wounded pride. But aside from that, no big deal.
- if neither player is chicken, then they both lose a very large amount. Head-on car crashes are often fatal.
- If only one player is chicken, then the chicken loses a significant amount, while the winner gains a significant amount. Their friends all love the daring winner and shun the chicken.
Most people are at least vaguely familiar with this game. It can be played for very high stakes, such as driving cars head-on, but it can also be played with lower stakes.
Some might ask, why even play the game at all? It seems like a lot of risk for a very uncertain reward.
That may be true, but as soon as one person challenges another to play Chicken, the game has already begun, and attempting to withdraw from the game is seen as being 'chicken'. So the initial enticement to play seems small and harmless, and many people end up over their heads by the end of the game, too committed to withdraw, but with very little chance of exiting the game without losing a lot of 'face'.
In the game of Evidence Chicken, a skeptic entices a person who makes an extraordinary claim to play Chicken by expressing doubt that the claimant can provide evidence for their claims. Many claimants can be enticed to play Evidence Chicken if the skeptic keeps the initial enticement to play as fairly innocuous, such as a simple innocent-sounding question. As soon as the claimant has committed to playing Evidence Chicken, the skeptic can pretty much increase the stakes of the game at will, while the claimant soon finds themselves in over their heads, unable to back up their claims with convincing evidence. They almost always leave the game having lost significant credibility in the eyes of the on-lookers who were not fully convinced either way before the game began.
As a result of this predictable pattern of engagement, the skeptic is able to find a lot more willing partners in debate, with relative ease, and with a high probability of winning the game, and hence achieving the goal of reducing the prevalence of the unfounded belief in extraordinary claims.
I use Evidence Chicken a lot. It's basically my one-trick-pony way of getting people to actually bother to try defending their silly beliefs publicly, rather than just brushing me off with, "Well, I just have faith," or "We'll have to agree to disagree."
Depending on the audience and the temperament of the claimant, I may begin quite innocently, or I might just come right out and say, "Where's your evidence?"
The latter is easy, but it often results in the claimant not really engaging in debate, and instead throwing out red herrings like, "You're so rude," or "You think you know everything."
To use the innocent approach, you can try actually showing some interest in the claim, like, "Hmm, that's interesting. Where did you hear about that?" and just escalate the difficulty of the questions as you go. Pretty soon, the game of Evidence Chicken is on.
It's of course important not to fall into the trap of making too many claims of your own which you might not be able to back up with evidence. And when you do make claims (which can be useful as a give-and-take way of escalating the game to higher stakes), try to make sure you definitely can back them up with real, independent evidence, such as a scientific article (or better, several).
As a way of being prepared for backing up your own claims with high probability, take notice of good sources of evidence for unusual scientific facts in your daily life. If you hear something interesting about evolution, for example, and you think, "Hey, that might be a good point to raise in debates with my creationist friend," don't just remember the fact itself; find out its source. What were one or two of the researchers' names, or what nationality were they? What was the title of their paper? Where did you hear about this new finding (e.g. were you listening to a particular radio show, watching a program on TV, reading a particular website, newspaper, or magazine?)?
All of these little details do not have to be remembered perfectly, only enough to allow you to plug them into Google to find the original source article (or science news summary) where the interesting new fact was demonstrated.
Then, when your creationist friend says, "... well, the birds just flew around Noah's Ark until the flood was over," you can say, "But that doesn't make sense, because we know that birds evolved from dinosaurs, and you already claimed that dinosaurs had to be kept as eggs on the Ark in order to fit all the species on there."
And when your friend says, "Birds didn't evolve from dinosaurs! There's no proof of that!" You can say, "Well, yes, actually, there is, and here's the URL to the latest proof which I just pulled up in Google by typing in 'archaeopteryx' which I heard about last week on that science show."
And then you up the stakes of the Evidence Chicken game by saying, "So, now that we've shown the story of Noah's Ark to be unreliable, what evidence do you have that anything in the Bible is true?"
Related topics: The Socratic method of argumentation
Wonderist on Facebook — Support the idea of wonderism by 'liking' the Wonderism page — or join the open Wonderism group to take part in the discussion!
Gnu Atheism Facebook group — All gnu-friendly RRS members welcome (including Luminon!) — Try something gnu!
- Login to post comments
"because we know that birds evolved from dinosaurs" - That's a pretty huge claim. Where's your evidence.
When I look up the 'archaeopteryx', I find that Larry Martin, a paleontologist from the University of Kansas, said clearly in his work, The Beginnings of Birds, in 1985, that "the archaeopteryx is not the ancestor of any modern birds; instead, it's a member of a totally extinct group of birds."
Ardent evolutionist Pierre Lecomte du Nouy said in his work, Human Destiny, in 1947:
We are not even authorized to consider the exceptional case of the archaeopteryx as a true link. By link, we mean a necessary stage of transition between classes such as reptiles and birds, or between two smaller groups. An animal displaying characters belonging to two different groups cannot be treated as a true link as long as the intermediary stages have not been found, as long as the mechanisms of transition remain unknown.
The archaeopteryx, showing fully developed feathers and bird bone structure shows up millions of years earlier in the fossil record than the closest reptiles that are more bird-like in their skeletal shape. (I am looking for the verification of this piece of evidence) So how could it be a descendant of them. I am currently look up the difference in reptile DNA and bird DNA to do a probabilistic analysis of the needed natural random changes that would have to occur to 'evolve' fully developed feathers.
Perhaps you should try some other fossils, like archaeoraptor or bambiraptor to back up your claim.
Thanks, for the discussion,
Joe
Let's keep it a two-person game for now. Okay, guys? Just Natural and Joe. For now.
Lol, and a Creationist actually starts evidence chicken on that exact point, with appeals to authority from 1947 and 1985, no less.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
The current theory is not necessarily that birds evolved from dinosaurs, but there is much evidence, including analysis of traces of collagen protein found in fossils, that they are closely related, and probably shared a fairly close common ancestor. So archeopteryx is fully consistent with the claim.
As butterbattle pointed out, you need to keep up with the latest findings.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I used this many times. I always win of course
Bob, chicken is a two person game, but your statement exactly contradicts the claim made by Natural, and the basis for this particular game of chicken. Collagen protein, eh? Would that be where they got the turkey DNA that Science magazine passed as dino DNA in an article? (circa 2003)
What are the mechanisms of creation?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
My reference does not contradict the basic claim natural makes. The distinction is really just at what point did the lineage that lead to birds branch of from the dinosaurs, and would they be strictly classified as 'dinosaurs' at that point. It is more a matter of details and exact classification.
One study "utilized eight additional collagen sequences extracted from a femur of Brachylophosaurus canadensis, a hadrosaur.[4] ".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds
Of course DNA would not likely be preserved over that time period, but proteins carry evidence of the sequence of DNA which guided their production. There have now been many studies which confirm the close relationship, so any early errors have been thoroughly sorted out. That is how science works.
Theists typically just cherry-pick any incident or study that supports their views, and ignore or 'explain away' the rest. Everyone, even scientists, are prone to this very human failing, but science recognizes it explicitly, which is why there is so much emphasis on replication of experimental results and observations, and rewards for scientific 'heresy' which can be backed up, rather than punishment.
God is an explicit contradiction of reality.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
- Possible contamination.
- Only 130 base pairs. Depending on the particular segment, more than a hundred different species of birds could have the same.
- Evilutionists are fallible. Magazine articles are fallible.
You win!
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I tried arguing with an evangelist once, but my friends didn't really want to and were leaving. When I had set my trap (asking why faith is necessary, to continue to ask why God would think faith is more important than being a good person), the guy started just babbling about all sorts of unrelated things. I think they are kind of prone to not really answer the question but just talk about how great god is, without showing any proof of his existence.
Bob,
Thanks again for the help, but I don't think you are allowed to concede 'chicken' on behalf of Natural.
His claim is that "birds evolved from dinosaurs". So he will back-peddle on his own.
I will take a look at your links though. I would like to talk to you, one-on-one, specifically about genetics and your theory of how we all got 'here' from the first random replicating RNA strand. We should start another thread for that though.
Thank you,
Joe
Joe, if you want to have a one on one debate with Natural, then there is a forum for that. If that is what you want, I can set that up for you.
In any case, your own source does not support your contention.
So if it is from an extinct line of birds, then it has a last common ancestor with contemporary birds that was itself a bird. Therefore, it would be a bird which strongly resembles earlier reptiles.
The term “last common ancestor” merits additional consideration here. When two lines have genetically separated to the point where reproduction is no longer possible, then they are generally considered to have become different species (but google for the term “ring species” for more information on that).
Now, in recent years, it has been established that there were many lines of later dinosaurs which had feathers. Also, somewhat earlier dinosaurs appear to have had something like a protofeather. So at least some of the features that are found in birds were very likely extant in many different genetic lines. Doubtless, those lines continued to diverge until the extinction event at the KT boundary.
Had the KT event not happened, then it is possible that today, we would have greater diversity from those genetic lines and we might put the origin of the aves clade back farther that where we look at it today. Even so, we have enough of a fossil record to provide a general outline for what happened.
One interesting example is the modern line of penguins. There are actually several species in that line and from the beginning of evolutionary biology, there have been those who contended that that line evolved from a last common ancestor which was earlier than that of all other modern birds. Put in modern terminology, the debate would be if the clade divergence predated the formation of the aves clade.
Now if that was the case, then they would be from a different line of the protobird clade and while having many similarities to modern birds, they would not actually be birds as we understand the terminology.
Fortunately, protein sequencing has shed some light on that. A study done in 1990 on egg white proteins provides evidence for just when the divergence probably occurred. It now seems to be reasonably certain that while distinct from other bird lineages, the divergence probably happened shortly after the development of the aves clade. Thus, we can safely say that penguins really are birds but that they are from one of the earliest lines of birds to develop and the last common ancestor was fully a bird as we understand that to mean.
=
You are quibbling over details/semantics. Why? Do you have a problem with the theory of evolution, or are you just trying to be pedantic prick?
Your erroneous claim about archeopteryx suggests that you either don't grasp the theory, or are dishonestly fishing for what you can claim are errors in the theory, to try and discredit it.
If birds did not evolve from ancestors that would necessarily be classified as 'dinosaurs', it is still believed that that last common ancestor was very close to the dinosaurs.
All I was referring to was that more recent analyses have pushed back the probable split earlier in the lineage, to where it may be not quite in accordance with current classification to call them 'dinosaurs'.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }
Is it just me or is there an irony that a thread titled “evidence chicken” has turned into a debate on the evolution of birds?
=
Yes virginia there is an irony, but the OP hasn't cried "fowl" to get back on topic yet. Maybe we can slide off into descussions on Larry Bird or Admiral Bird, just saying.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Or Rodger Mcguinn. Don't get me started...
Whhoops! too late for that.
=
"It was my understanding that everyone has heard..."
BTW, did you know that John Denver played in the same band as Rodger McGuinn?
Not at the same time though. McGuinn was in at the start and Denver at the end.
Even so, avert your eyes from your monitor before opening this video and you will hear John Denver being comedicaly racist:
=
OK ktulu, you beat me in terms of raw time. Even so, I beat you in term of vaguely racist John Denver.
Here is another bit from Rodger McGuinn:
=
Well, I am gonna have to move this stuuf to a new thread soon but if anyone wants to do a video battle with me I am game. Here is the inventor of the Jello shot:
=
Hi Joe,
First, I did not actually directly claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs (although, just to be clear, I will happily claim that now!). I proposed a hypothetical scenario about a hypothetical recent news piece giving evidence to bolster the already-strongly-demonstrated theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs. The hypothetical 'you' in the scenario was the one claiming that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
Now, with that cleared up: Birds evolved from dinosaurs!
As I said in the OP, when you make a claim, it's good to have kept a few sources in your back pocket so that you can back up your claims when challenged. This allows you to first of all share some useful scientific knowledge with people, and also share links to the sources of the information. But even more so, it allows you to 'up the stakes' in the debate.
So, here is my challenge to you, Joe: I'll show you evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs, if you show me evidence that your creationist claims are not the bunk I'm about to show you they are. Deal? Okay, deal.
Birds Evolved From Dinosaurs: Some Evidence
One of the best sources to debunk creationist claims is the website TalkOrigins.org
What's great about this site is that it is dedicated to debunking the endless creationist claims that seem to come out of nowhere. Well, they don't come out of nowhere. In fact, it's almost guaranteed that they are just regurgitated from some creationist source and have been debunked thoroughly several times in the past.
Even better, is that TalkOrigins also contains positive evidence to directly refute creationist charges that there's no evidence for such-and-such. Unlike creationist 'sources', TalkOrigins actually references actual scientific evidence to back up its claims:
TalkOrigins isn't the only source, of course, but it's a great resource to start with. Just search its Index of Creationist Claims, and you'll find most of these claims have been debunked years ago, but they still get resurrected by creationists who don't bother to check the actual science.
Here are some other good sources for links to tonnes of relevant research:
Your Creationist Sources Are Dishonest, Repeating Previously Debunked Claims, Quote-mining, and Worse: Some Evidence
You will invariably find creationist sources using intellectually dishonest tactics like the ubiquitous quote-mine. A closely related tactic is the elevation of an extreme minority or out-dated position from being merely an obscure opinion of one scientist to being some sort of 'deep' disagreement among scientists. This is what we see here.
This is incredibly ironic since they get so defensive when you "quote the Bible out of context." Well, unlike the Bible, science relies on evidence, and so it really doesn't matter what one scientist with an alternative theory said 26 years ago. From wikipedia's Evolution of Birds article:
You see, Larry Martin is an evolutionary biologist. In 1985, he supported the alternative hypothesis that birds evolved not from dinosaurs, but from earlier reptiles. So, yeah, doesn't really support the creationist claim that evolution never happened at all. By the way, I have no idea what hypothesis Martin supports today, but as he is an evolutionary biologist, I would expect that it has adapted to the overwhelming evidence that we have discovered since 1985(!).
As for Pierre Lecomte du Nouy, all I have to say is: 1947?!
Quotes are not evidence of anything except quotes, even if they happen to come from scientists. What matters in science is real evidence, like fossils, DNA, confirmed predictions, etc.
By the way, I did not claim that Archaeopteryx itself is the ancestor of modern birds. In fact, I didn't originally claim anything at all about Archaeopteryx, I only used it as an example of a google key word to use to find an article that 'you' (in the scenario) half-remember hearing about.
What Is the Alternative to Evolution, and Where Is the Evidence for It?: A Challenge
Now that I've shown evidence for dino-bird evolution, and shown your claims to be based on dishonest creationist propaganda, can you answer this one simple question:
What is the alternative to evolution?
I'll let AronRa state the challenge with far more detail. Please watch the whole video and answer all the questions in it
:
Oh, and while you're at it, can you address all the Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism? Here's the 10th one (video, script), which is especially relevant:
What are ya? CHICKEN?
Wonderist on Facebook — Support the idea of wonderism by 'liking' the Wonderism page — or join the open Wonderism group to take part in the discussion!
Gnu Atheism Facebook group — All gnu-friendly RRS members welcome (including Luminon!) — Try something gnu!
The reason why scientific evidence is the best? When you rely on the science and stick to mostly mainstream science, odds are very good that there will be a constant, steady stream of more and more additional evidence popping up to support your original claim. Like this: "First Bird" Fossil, Archaeopteryx, More Closely Related to Dinosaurs
Oh, and that's when you get to rub it in the face of the 'chicken'
:
"First Bird" Fossil, Archaeopteryx, More Closely Related to Dinosaurs
Mounting evidence shows famous fossil more closely related to .
| July 27, 2011 |
By Matt Kaplan of Nature magazine
Analysis of fossil traits suggests that Archaeopteryx is not a bird at all. The latest discovery of a fossil that treads the line between birds and non-avian dinosaurs is leading paleontologists to reassess the creature that has been considered the evolutionary link between the two.
Archaeopteryx has long been placed at the base of the bird evolutionary tree. It has traits that have helped to define what it is to be a bird, such as long and robust forelimbs. Yet in recent years, the discoveries of numerous small, feathery dinosaurs have created a conundrum for paleontologists, raising questions about which animals are the ancestors of modern birds and which are just closely related cousins.
The fossil that is driving the latest Archaeopteryx rethink is called Xiaotingia zhengi, and is described in Nature today by Xing Xu, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, and his colleagues. It was found in western Liaoning, China, in rocks dating to the Late Jurassic epoch, 161 million-145 million years ago. Like many similar fossils, it is surrounded by feather impressions in the rock, but has claws on the ends of its forelimbs and sharp teeth.
These traits by themselves do little to help place the fossil in the dinosaur-bird transition, but Xu reports that it also has extremely long middle and last finger bones and a wishbone with an L-shaped cross-section at one end. These characteristics, Xu argues, identify Xiaotingia as very closely related to Archaeopteryx and another feathery relative, Anchiornis.
After analyzing the traits present in Xiaotingia and its relations, Xu and his colleagues are suggesting that the creatures bear more resemblance to the dinosaurs Velociraptor and Microraptor than to early birds, and so belong in the dinosaur group Deinonychosauria rather than in the bird group, Avialae. Many features led the team to this decision, but the most immediately noticeable are that Xiaotingia, Archaeopteryx and Anchiornis have shallow snouts and expanded regions behind their eye sockets. Microraptor has similar traits, but the early birds in Avialae have very different skulls.
Out of first place
The first Archaeopteryx specimen was discovered in 1861, just a few years after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Its combination of lizard-like and avian features made it the ideal 'missing link' with which to demonstrate evolution from non-avian dinosaurs to birds. But the latest rearrangement knocks it from its position as the earliest bird. "I think Archaeopteryx's placement was the result of both history and relatively poor sampling at the dinosaur-bird transition," explains Xu.
Even so, he acknowledges that the move is bold. "Because it has held the position as the most primitive bird for such a long time, I am kind of nervous about presenting this result," says Xu. But immediate responses from others in the field suggest that the decision will be widely embraced.
Archaeopteryx was a bird because it had feathers and nothing else had them. But then other animals started being found that had wishbones, three-fingered hands and feathers. Heck, even T. rex had a wishbone. So one by one we've learned Archaeopteryx 's uniquely avian traits weren't so unique. The writing was really on the wall," says Lawrence Witmer, a paleontologist at Ohio University in Athens.
Whether this change will be permanent depends on what other animals are discovered in the future, says Thomas Holtz, a paleontologist at the University of Maryland in College Park. "I don't think this is going to be the last word on this subject. You take this new Chinese species out of the mix and the argument falls apart, so the new placement is precarious at best until further evidence is dug up."
Wonderist on Facebook — Support the idea of wonderism by 'liking' the Wonderism page — or join the open Wonderism group to take part in the discussion!
Gnu Atheism Facebook group — All gnu-friendly RRS members welcome (including Luminon!) — Try something gnu!