Your friend has absolutely no idea what science even IS based on this. Science is not a body of knowledge. Science is a process of induction, construction of theories is primary goal. The scientific method is as follows.


  • Ask a Question
  • Do Background Research
  • Construct a Hypothesis
  • Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
  • Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
  • Communicate Your Results


Darwin asked a question. Incidentally, the question he asked was not "How do I disprove religion?", it was "How do I prove creation?" Might want to ask your buddy who he thinks funded Darwin. He might be surprised to learn it was the church. A man who was raised religious, and set out to prove religious teachings is the one who came up with the theory that has stood in opposition to creationism to this day. He spent years doing background research. He constructed a hypothesis. The experiment has been running since he came up with the idea and we started watching. The evidence thus far has been rather insurmountable. Data was analyzed and re-analyzed over the course of 150 years, conclusions were drawn, and thus was communicated, the theory of evolution. You can't get a whole lot more scientific than evolution. Trying to call it unscientific because it hasn't been proven beyond all doubt is absolutely ridiculous. Given that requirement, science does not exist. Does the theory of evolution have some gaps? Sure. There's missing information. Creationism is nothing BUT a gap. Trying to drag evolution down to the level of creation is nothing more than a sad attempt at building credibility. Him going from neither can be proven 100% to both have equal evidence is simply absurd. In addition to having no understanding of what science is, he also has no understanding of what inductive reasoning is. He is not equipped with even the most basic tools required to have a rational argument, I would recommend wasting no further time or energy on this individual.

As for dealing with the arrogance of idiots, I recommend looking into the Dunning Kruger effect. Arrogance just makes me laugh now, as I can reasonably consider it evidence of idiocy. The more confident somebody obviously full of shit is, the less intelligent they likely are. Also just not giving a shit about people helps.

There's a good reason for respectable scientists refusing to debate that imbecile too.He isn't worth their time, he wouldn't listen to reason anyways, and the only thing they'd be doing is giving him an outlet to evangelize his stupidity. I for one, am glad that respectable scientists don't waste time on morons.

So, he cites blatantly stupid sources, yet attempts to criticize you for sources he can only assume you even use? He's using fallacies to support fallacies to support fallacies. This clown is so far gone into his own little world, there is no redeeming him. If he ever gets his by a bus or something, let me know, I'll put in a nomination for a Darwin award.


As for critiquing your own conduct... You seem to be relying a little heavily on credibility rather than data, but that's sometimes required, especially in debates with stupid people, because sticking titles to opinions and calling it an argument is sometimes the only thing they can actually understand. So I guess it really depends on whether you yourself actually believe in a particular argument just because somebody considered an expert does.

I still don't think you quite grasp the difference between agnosticism and atheism. I've actually been out flexing my philosophy muscles over the past several months, so my own position on this has adapted since the last time we had this discussion as well. The simplest distinction is that atheism is a metaphysical position on the existence (or in this case, nonexistence) of a deity. Agnosticism is an epistemological position on the nature of absolute knowledge, particularly with regards to the existence or nonexistence of a deity. Dawkins himself doesn't use a binary understanding of Atheism. We have the Dawkins' scale, on which Dawkins himself is a 6. The Dawkin's scale also has two degrees of uncertain theists. So he himself would disagree that anyone without 100% conviction is atheist. Attempting to use that in your argument comes dangerously close to turning into a No True Scotsman fallacy. Technically you could claim everyone from 4-7 on the Dawkin's scale as an atheist, and still be within the limitations of the term's definition. The question you have to ask is, do you really want to? That would be lumping people who have never even given a thought to the origin of reality into the same metaphysical stance as yourself or Richard Dawkins. Not using the distinction of the related epistemological stances merely devalues your own metaphysical stance. I should think one would be eager, more than just willing, to seperate themselves from apatheists, ignostics, and morons who don't even have the intelligence to pose the question when defining themselves as a member of an ideology. But I digress.

Outside of that, I find no error in your conduct.