Walt Brown and his Phone-Debate Offer
Posted on: October 21, 2007 - 1:08am
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Walt Brown and his Phone-Debate Offer
Checking on Walt Brown's home page, I find that he has offered to debate critics of his hydroplate-theory Flood Geology.
But he will only do a phone debate, and not an essay debate, like the Thomas-ReMine debate, or even a text-chat debate. And given the complexity of the science he has decided to take on, it seems that a written debate might be a better choice.
Does anyone here think that he's worth taking on?
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I'm the opposite of this person. I only do written debate. Real-time "debate" usually consists of talking over one another (Laura Ingraham?), making dubious assertions that bamboozle the other person, use logic arguments that contain flaws that aren't obvious (Anselm's Classic Ontological Argument?), throw out arguments the person may need time to critically examine but real-time debates don't allow such examinations, it becomes too easy for people to dance around arguments without it being noticed until the debate is over, and it becomes rather easy to say stupid things in live debates because you aren't allowed the time needed to critically evaluate your own argument.
People who avoid written debates are generally those who couldn't survive a debate without the use of such intellectually dishonest ploys. They're not worth a serious debate.
Stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes!
So you are concerned that the "winner" will be the one with the greatest rhetorical flair? I agree on that concern; some creationists have become very proficient in the "Gish gallop" of stating lots of supposedly unexplainable things.
But I think that Walt Brown might cringe in fear of debating the RRS team, because after listening to some RRS radio shows, he might have serious doubts as to whether he'd win on the rhetorical front.