Evolution: Ignorance Verses Knowledge

I realise I haven't updated in a while, and I wouldn't want to keep all my 0 fans waiting, so while I'm busy compiling future posts I decided to drop this in here. This is the result of a debate I had with a friend who is an evolution denier (and therefore, obviously, a creationist). I originally had no intention of posting it anywhere other than the forum on which we had our discussion, but considering how lacklustre the response I got from him was, the work I put into it is really kind of wasted on him. Might as well do something with it.

To protect his anonymity, my friend will henceforth be referred to as "Jebus".

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A few months ago, Jebus posted an article on the main blog of this site, talking about his beliefs with respect to, among other things, evolution. After I read it, I decided to message him and arrange a friendly debate on the matter, as I feel he is the victim and unwitting distributor of profound scientific ignorance and disinformation. I consider this to be a cause worthy of mature debate. We haven't had much time to discuss the matter. This is a continuation of that debate from where we left it off.

For anyone who may be interested, what follows is a summary of each point raised in this debate, in no particular order. I was going to go by my usual point>counterpoint>counter-counterpoint system, but so far as I can tell going back over the conversation, pretty much none of the refutations I made to Jebus's arguments were themselves refuted, outside of simplistic rejections along the lines of 'there's no evidence', repetition of the claim without acknowledging my counterpoints, or simply moving on to another argument. So fuck it, we'll do it live.

I'll be supplying a short description of each argument levied against evolution, a description of what I believe to be the fallacy or logical flaw with the argument, followed by a single (occasionally two) paragraph refutation that hopefully will be more condensed than the one in the chat, but sometimes may be longer. Some will be points he raised in his blog that I might not have had the time to mention to him, others will be straight out of the chat, many were raised multiple times in slightly different ways, but I tried to cover everything as clearly as possible.

This is intended to be a simplified, albeit expanded summary of the debate to make it easier for any onlookers to keep track of how it progressed on a point by point basis, but if it serves to actually continue the debate, that's fine too. Please note this is a highly informal debate, carried out with no moderator and in a relaxed, conversational setting. At the end I will supply my own thoughts on the debate for anyone who is interested, Jebus is invited to do the same.



From the blog: Why are there still monkeys?

Fallacy: non-sequitur.
Asking why are there still monkeys is analogous to asking 'if Europeans colonized America, why are there still Europeans?'. It's a nonsensical question, there is no reason to expect a parental lineage to somehow mysteriously melt away into the ether simply because the child lineage has moved on. This stems from a simple misconception about how evolution works, where one assumes that since we evolved from them, that means they didn't evolve. The truth is they did, there are thousands of new species of monkey, they are simply well adjusted to their environment already, which is why they didn't change as much from their ancestors as our offshoot did. If this example is a little too educationally demanding, then consider a far more simple case. Jebus mentioned briefly how mankind has bred many different breeds of dogs, which by the way is known as 'artificial selection', another selection pressure in, you guessed it, evolution. Either way he acknowledges that this happened, so he probably acknowledges that the 'dog' we first started with was the wolf, which we tamed and then selectively bred through different morphologies. So if dogs came from wolves... why are there still wolves?



From the blog: There are pictures of dinosaurs walking with man.


Fallacy: Appeal to Authority.
I'm assuming he's referring to the Ica stones, which are sold by the natives of the area to tourists for some easy dime. Strangely they never seem to run out of these souvenirs, and their exact origins cannot be confirmed without knowing where the materials used to make them came from, but those that have been dated have been revealed to be decades old at the most, and some young enough that they still contain water. What we have here is someone handing you a hand-painted rock and TELLING you it is thousands of years old, so what would Occam's razor have to say about this? Actually many of the impoverished locals have admitted to making them, but that's beside the point. On top of all that, are we not on a website devoted to the study of the paranormal? If one is to consider that things like psychometry are plausible, why should the retrocognitive visions of an ancient civilization perceiving long-dead animals be a surprise?


This is all academic however, since 'evolution' does not say dinosaurs could not have survived to live with man, in the first place. Yep, you heard that right. Evolution has nothing to say about this, though the FOSSIL RECORD does. That thing that Jebus declares does not exist? Which would mean he is arguing with thin air. An absence of fossils that demonstrates such an overlap does not mean one could not have happened, and if it did, there would be nothing contradictory to evolution about that, although it would be a tall order to explain why we hadn't discovered any evidence of the thousands of generations of dinosaurs that preceded them. I for one would be ecstatic if we discovered they did live together, or even that some had survived to this day. That would be awesome, and nothing to do with any failure on part of evolution. We don't conclude that man and dinosaurs never coexisted because evolution says so, we conclude that because we see no evidence that it happened. Painted rocks notwithstanding.



From the blog: Darwin's deathbed confession

Fallacy: Poisoning the Well, Genetic Fallacy, Ad Hominem
Yeah, I'm sure you've all heard this one before. It's used in these types of debates ad nauseum. Or course people are saying the same about Hitchens now he's dead, and they'll do the same with Dawkins and Randi and so on, hell someone somewhere will probably say the same about me when I go. It's not true, even the most basic research will clearly show you that. You know why I'm so certain? He was *already* a Christian. Though not steadfast and refusing to take biblical history literally, he was raised orthodox. Creationists cannot comprehend the idea that someone would believe in evolution and believe in god, which is why they need to confabulate theories that he 'found' the faith. It doesn't occur to them that he was already a man of faith, because their bias is such that these two things cannot coexist in their minds, and they don't bother to actually research it because, well, if you're already making up facts why would you care? It also goes a long way towards proving that they, themselves, would never accept the theory purely BECAUSE of their faith.

The problem is, I wouldn't care if it WAS true. The belief that a theory's validity is in any way contingent on the beliefs or behaviours of its progenitor is an attitude carried by the unscientifically minded, anyone with any logic will understand that it wouldn't matter even if Darwin was a Muslim Nazi Racist Socialist Communist Jew, it has NOTHING to do with whether or not anything he said was accurate or verifiable. Even if he had renounced Evolution, that STILL wouldn't matter, because what we're talking about is what is true. What is true remains true regardless of how the person who discovers that truth decided to behave, and while this probably sounds pretty obvious, it gets easier to understand why people fail to grasp this simple fact when they regard the world in terms of 'beliefs'. To such people, there are no truths, only abstract constructs they arbitrarily determine to be their own truth, and as such, these truths can be changed based on how many people you get to believe (or disbelieve) in them. That's WHY the value they attach to the truth is so sparse.

Side note: Jebus also stated that Darwin faked his research by 'mixing in the bones of children with the monkeys'. I've been searching for data on this for several days now, and all I can find are re-postings of his own article. Deductively speaking, either Jebus had to have made this up, or he's quoting an extremely obscure (probably creationist) source that did. Again, the belief that evolution stands or falls on Darwin's shoulders betrays a total lack of understanding of the theory. It wasn't even close to validated until modern evolutionary synthesis became a thing, and that was decades after his death. Hell it wasn't even called Evolution when he was alive, he was just studying population mechanics. The most damning evidence against this though is this; at the time Darwin was applying his partner's theory of animal evolution to humans, the data he was working with was animal, this was BEFORE we began discovering human fossils, so what data exactly did he falsify by mixing children bones with it again? He didn't even HAVE (or claim to have) the fossil data Jebus is suggesting he faked. There is no possible way this claim could be correct. This. Is. A. Lie. Read: Origin of Species.

"I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind." ~ Darwin



I believe in some types of evolution, such as working out.

Fallacy: General misunderstanding
I went back on forth on whether to include this, since it isn't really an anti-evolution argument, but when first stated in his blog it is used as a qualification tool, to attempt to make it look like he understands evolution before taking it on, thus, while not a statement on anything specific, it bears addressing both as misinformation and to diffuse any possible received claim to authority. Evolution has nothing whatsoever to do with self-improvement within a single human lifetime. You might colloquially say you are 'evolving' yourself, but really this is so far disconnected from the actual fact and theory of evolution that it doesn't even bear mentioning in the same paragraph. It is, however, important to address this, because it demonstrates a critical lack of understanding on just what evolution is and how it works, namely that there are even different 'types' of evolution to begin with. And just so we're clear, evolution also has nothing to do with Abiogenesis, Biogenesis, the Bing Bang or any other Cosmology, God or anything else. Plenty of Evolutionists are Christian.



Which fish became a man?

Fallacy: Loaded Question, Reductio Absurdum.
To stick with my previous example, this is somewhat akin to acknowledging that ancient humans migrated from Africa to the Germanic regions, then eventually to England (as Anglo Saxons) then colonized America, and asking 'Which ancient African human became a modern American?'. Again, this is an incomprehensible question, there is no such thing as a single direct chain of parent to child that ultimately began with one single fish, and somehow remains specific to humans. Was there a single fish at the absolute root of our genetic tree? Of course, likewise there WAS a single African at the root of our ancestral tree, but you can't expect that lineage to be isolated to humans any more than the African lineage would be isolated to a single American.


Why do creationists continuously forget that evolution works through divergent trees all branching out in multiple directions? Human beings are part of the order of Mammals, and ALL Mammals are related to one another, and all descendants of ancient Mammals > Proto Mammals > Reptiles > Amphibians > ancient lobed fish. There isn't 'one' fish that became humans, they became *all* Mammals. What confuses him is this same problem of all those intermediary steps also still existing, owing to the fact that other versions of them also branched forwards, because he still carries the same fallacy from before, of assuming that a parent species can no longer survive if their descendants have migrated and changed. It is incredibly oversimplistic, to the point of risibility to ask which 'one' became a man, especially when this entire process has only just been thoroughly explained to you.



If dinosaurs evolved into chickens, how is that good for survival?

Fallacy: Non-Sequitur
I wasn't sure whether to include this one, as this is supposed to be a summary/expansion of my responses to Jebus, and this was one of the points that got buried under the dozens of other points he was firing at me, thus it could be considered unfair for me to 'have my say' now rather than when I had the chance. For this reason, consider this response to be an optional read, and expunged from whatever scoring system you are going by as you read our debates. Nonetheless I will briefly address it. How is it good for survival? Well, they survived didn't they? Jebus seems to misunderstand evolution as some kind of process of becoming stronger, bigger and objectively 'better', as demonstrated by the last response. As I said, evolution is about survival, if being big is not a boon to survival (requiring extra food to support larger mass, finding it harder to breath due to there being lower oxygen levels now, which is actually the reason we don't find land animals that big anymore, etc) then becoming smaller is the advantage to survival. When you stop looking at evolution as some kind of race to a non-existent finish line, it begins to make a lot more sense. It's JUST about adaptation.


If evolution is true: Rape would be moral.

Fallacy: Appeal to emotion
If you're confused about where this one came from, don't be. This was neither in the blog nor our documented debate, but rather something Jebus said to me the instant I approached him to proposition this debate. Since it's not part of the official debate, feel free to ignore this one. I forget the other arguments he made at the time but this one stuck in my mind because of the simplicity of its refutation. He is actually quite correct - although not 'moral', since morality is a concept invented by us to encourage certain behaviours of which this is NOT one, it is fair to say that rape would be 'advantageous' to evolution. Indeed it is likely the case that we ALL exist as a result of one of our ancestors forcing themselves upon their mate. The mistake Jebus is making here is the simple inversion between reason and meaning, logic and desirability. In an ideal world, I would also love for there to be no killing in nature, but it is still necessary for animals to eat one another. How much or little we condone something has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not that thing exists, and however immoral rape may be, that has nothing to do with the mechanics of evolution. If you don't like it, I suppose the one to complain to would be god. It was evidently his idea, after all.



This study says an ancient diet should be good for us, it is not.

Fallacy: Appeal to Authority, Strawman.
It's rare that someone appeals to an unspecified authority in defence of an argument they don't even agree with. Understandably, the problem here is that I cannot be expected to just agree with everyone that Jebus *claims* was an evolutionist and defend their stupid claims, we're not all under the same umbrella. Suffice to say, though, Jebus made it very clear with his examples that humans need protein in addition to the berries and other sources of carbohydrates. He seems to think that I should think that this is in contradiction with evolution - but the simple fact is, humans are omnivores. Why should this surprise me? Animals become omnivores when they don't necessarily have a consistent diet, sometimes you can only get access to berries, sometimes meat. You take what you can get, so we adapted to everything we can get. What seems to confuse him is that to exist at absolute optimal standards we need a very specific diet, the problem here is not only is that not impossible for a wild human, but no one ever said that we WERE living at optimal standards. Modern human society has helped us develop to a potential we might never have reached in the wild.


Ancient humans lived over 300 years.

Fallacy: Appeal to Ignorance, just being plain wrong.
This is another one that falls under the category of 'WHOOSH, right over my head'. I didn't notice that Jebus said this at the time because he was just firing so many points at me occasionally I missed a couple during the three seconds it takes me to type a response (I type very fast, which goes to show how exuberant Jebus was being at the time). Nonetheless, this is yet another example of 'It's not true, but even if it was it wouldn't have anything to do with evolution'. Supercentenarian myths are a classic staple of the religious apologist, in this case most likely inspired by the Bible, due to its many extravagant claims about the ages of the characters in those stories. For centuries now people have tried to prove that humans could really live that long under the mistaken assumption that it would prove their religion is true. The figure '300', apart from being a kickass movie, most likely stems from Lucian, an ancient historian and satirist who recalled stories about various myths, including that of an ancient Chinese people who lived that long.


Never has there been fossils found to that effect, and if there were it would have been the most awesome discovery ever and we would all have heard about it on the news. This is again a case of Jebus propagating a myth and not actually understanding where it originated. That said, as I already mentioned, even if ancient humans could live that long, it wouldn't disprove anything in Evolution. Or has it escaped his attention that there exist animals today that are immortal? Somehow science failed to cover that evidence up too. Evolution doesn't 'say' how long anything should live, if anything did it would be general biology, and it is quite possible we evolved shorter lifespan as a survival mechanism even if we had once been capable of such long life. I suspect Jebus would find that difficult to understand, because he still believes that evolution must be a progression towards some kind of clear enhancement, when in truth it's just about survival and proliferation. If young people breed quickly and old people hold a society back (maybe during migration, etc) guess what's going to happen?


There is no fossil record/there aren't enough fossils

Fallacy: Self-imposed ignorance.
It's difficult to glean what his actual position is on that as he seemed to make a couple of excusatory steps back, does he think there is no fossil record at all, at least one that demonstrates evolution? Is he expecting the fossil record to be some single ominous warehouse filled with every fossil ever collected? Does he really not understand that fossils belong in museums and research institutes? Or does he accept all the above but simply find it a little bit lacking? Well to make such a judgement he would require a degree of qualification he obviously lacks, he's not in a position to understand or decide what should be where, the taxonomical data involved in making such a call is staggering, there is more information than a single person could process in an entire lifetime, which is why we HAVE research organizations who ARE qualified for this.


I understand him not being able to access and process all that information - but to say there are no substantive fossil records is beyond absurd. I will however add one small caveat to this, something that also frustrated me when I was first educating myself on evolution. The internet is sorely lacking a single, user-friendly database compiling every possible phylogeny and palaeontology archive. I believe such a thing would be immensely helpful for school education, and I know some people lobbying to get something like that set up. As it stands, you have to actually go to the websites of the universities and research institutes (most of which specialise in just one or two types of animal) and sift through the images by hand in a very counterintuitive way. It's not really set up to be user-friendly to the layman, because the people who use these databases are not lay people. There really needs to be a resource that compiles all this data and presents it an expandable tree covering every single genus past and present. I can understand his difficulties in finding the evidence, it takes a lot of tedious effort, but the data IS there, and there, is no, excuse, for, claiming, you looked, and didn't find it.


Why can we still not digest wheat?

Fallacy: Non-sequitur, Special Pleading.
I didn't bring up the issue of whether his numbers were correct on this because I am not informed enough on the topic, but given his other arguments hinted at things I know to be false (anti-vaccination arguments and such) and given his extremely confident, yet wrong, retelling of what evolution is, I am not overly confident in his source fidelity. Either way, even if we assume that ALL humans are wheat intolerant, why should we be able to digest it? The time our species has spent eating wheat is a drop in the bucket on an evolutionary timescale. Sure we've gotten a little taller, a bit smarter etc, but major changes such as an overhaul of our digestive system take MUCH longer than that. I believe this only doesn't make sense to him became he simply fails to understand that either the planet or the species is even that old, so he assumes that if evolution happens it must have to happen a lot quicker. Again, holding a theory he doesn't believe in accountable to standards that he, not its proponents, demand it should meet. HE decided the earth is young, and now somehow we all have to bend to that baseless assertion. On top of that, repeatedly stating that we have difficulty digesting wheat, if true, is a serious hole in the 'we were created to farm' theory, and puts a serious onus on the failure of the imagination of whoever created us specifically to eat farmed wheat, don't you think?


It's 'only a theory'

Fallacy: Appeal to Ignorance, Strawman, Equivocation, Mind Projection, Nirvana Fallacy, False Statement (and so many more).
Boy, don't get me started. It's a particularly annoying, unscratchable itch that plagues every rationalist that this argument still exists and is still used so frequently despite its thundering stupidity. To be fair, Jebus only used it in passing, but it's still a very important topic to address. People have this idea that theory means 'unproven', when in truth it doesn't. Let me be completely clear so there can be no confusion: THEORY HAS A DIFFERENT MEANING IN SCIENCE. A hypothesis can ONLY reach the status of Theory if it has met its burden of proof against thorough, rigorous peer review and empiric methodology. There is no such thing as a classification that is higher than Theory in science, it is the highest status a Hypothesis can obtain. Likewise, there is no such thing as '100% proof' in science, because unlike a belief system, science is built on a foundational understanding that even if it is incredibly unlikely, anything and anyone can be wrong. Rather than sticking to our views in spite of this, we simply admit it from the getgo, and remain vigilant in case that is the case. In other words, the absolute pinnacle standard of open-mindedness is built-in. Facts are not superior to theories, they are simply points of data. A fact is the observation, the Theory is the attempt to explain it.


From the blog and the debate: We never found the missing link.

Fallacy: No fallacy here, just a simple, and understandable misconception.
The phrase 'missing link' has been ingrained in our consciousness for decades, so often used in the same sentence as evolution that it's very easy to become convinced the two concepts must be intrinsically linked. This phrase made its first rounds in the Geological sciences, as a term for a suspected link between two Geologic timescales, and was later borrowed in a passing statement (either BY Darwin or in reference to him, I forget) referring to certain orders of ancient Ape that we had yet to find to fill in some of the gaps in the fossil record. Of course, this was a very long time ago, Palaeontology was in its infancy and we didn't have even a fraction of the fossils we now have. Why this phrase has become so tenaciously attached to things like 'sasquatch' sightings and evolution debate is just one of those memetic mysteries that we'll never solve. Suffice to say, in evolutionary terms, there is no such concept as a 'missing link', it's a nonsensical term, it doesn't make sense even as an idea. Every single animal is, by definition, transitional. The claim that scientists keep reporting to have 'found' the missing link only to be proved wrong is something you only seem to hear from creationists. It's quite amazing to me that all these creationists have managed to debunk these highly public claims, yet I've never seen those claims ever get MADE by the evolutionists themselves.


Evolutionists think birds developed one wing at a time, making life harder for them during the early stages.

Fallacy: There is no specific fallacy here, only a failure to understand the basic mechanics of evolution.
They do not think that. At all. Nobody does.


Can you really picture a fish evolving into a human?

Fallacy: Appeal to Ignorance.
Firstly, yes I can. Because when you fully understand how something works it is not at all hard to comprehend it, to me at least. Secondly, the inability of someone to imagine something happening has no bearing on whether or not such a thing is possible or even plausible. If science decided what was true based on how easily we could wrap our minds around it Quantum Mechanics would have never progressed beyond the early proposal stage. Look, I cannot imagine how they erected the Golden Gate Bridge, it seems like a brobdingnagian task to me, totally beyond my scope of understanding. For me to run around saying this is proof that it was made by aliens or something would be quite absurd. Things happen that are beyond our intuitive understanding all the time, which is why we HAVE the scientific method, to slowly interpret the evidence and *learn* to see beyond the primitive, easily awe-inspired instincts of our fallacy-prone minds.


Giant fossils!


Fallacy: Argument from Authority, Appeal to Ignorance.
When I first suggested that these images were hoaxes, Jebus's sardonic reaction was basically 'what, all of them?' as if a large number of pictures somehow adds more validity. Let me tell you something - I used to believe in the Loch Ness Monster. Passionately. I loved fantasizing about watching the surface of that lake, waiting to catch a glimpse of the extraordinary. Until I learned about the 'Surgeon's Hoax', the first ever picture of the monster (in the form that we now recognize) that essentially sparked the legend. Duke Wetherell created the image, using a toy boat and a sculpture. This image, formed in the shape of a Plesiosaur, became the officially recognized face of Nessie in all sightings from that point on. As it happens he had been sent to investigate a local urban legend which was ITSELF the product of another hoax, where the editor of a 1933 article, Francesco Gasparin had exaggerated a local story about a strange fish. Both of these hoaxes were admitted to by their perpetrators. There were some already existing obscure myths (actually about the River Ness, not the Loch) but that was common for its era, the point is, the Plesiosaur image was invented.


Do you know what it means when the first example of a series of sightings turns out to be a hoax? It automatically discredits all future sightings. Because what are the chances that an ACTUAL, undiscovered Plesiosaur happens to live in the same lake where someone up and invented the idea of one being there? And guess what? The very first 'giant bones' picture came from... an online competition to create inventive photoshop images, as confirmed by Snopes. Look, it was sad for me to let go of my Nessie fantasy, but I did, because that's what the evidence tells me. When that first photo of giant bones being excavated made its rounds on the internet, the religious nuts latched onto it as some kind of Nephilim nonsense, and obviously started creating their own versions of the same hoax. Is this really surprising? Isn't it actually something you'd EXPECT to happen? It would be stupidly naive to pretend otherwise, we're all smarter than that.


As I clearly explained to Jebus, however, there really is no reason that this would count against evolution, even if it WERE real, because evolution does not 'state' that such things cannot, or did not happen. For evidence of this one need look no further than the relatively recent 'hobbit' discovery. Does Jebus really believe that the discovery of giant fossils would be covered up in some grand conspiracy because it would somehow topple evolution, yet the discovery of miniature humans somehow would not? Contrary to his implications, THIS discovery had absolutely no negative impact on evolution, and in fact was wholeheartedly embraced once it was confirmed to not be a hoax. Why? Because evolution PREDICTS different breeds forming in different geographic locations, and a new sub-species of human, little OR big, is nothing more than a perfect example of that. Yet again, this is nothing more than a lack of understanding on what evolution is.


(Besides, a simple understanding of the square cube law makes it pragmatically impossible for giant humans to exist.)


No one has ever seen evolution happening in real time.

Fallacy: False Statement
Of course it's also true that even if we hadn't, that wouldn't count as evidence against evolution, the notion that we can't understand things without directly witnessing them is absurd and would castrate scientific progress if taken seriously - but if I put too many more 'appeal to ignorance' labels it's going to unfairly make Jebus look like a one trick pony. Or is that horse? Either way, the only mistake Jebus made here is believing what other people have told him, although that does seem to be a trend. I did explain to him in the debate that the pharmaceutical industry is dependent on evolutionary study, viruses and bacteria keep evolving which is why we need to stay on top of them. But even putting that aside we have ring species, pesticide research, real time studies of fruit fly evolution, same with finches and many, many, MANY more examples of observed modern speciation. It's just not possible to deny this and remain credible. And how is all this possible? Because evolution doesn't have so much to do with time as generations, Jebus is incorrect in stating unequivocally that evolution must take millions of years. If you have an animal that can go through many generations very quickly under harsh selection pressures, then that's the equivalent of millions of years in our terms. It really depends on the life-form.


So we can study these things happening without much difficulty, and none of this is in an effort to 'prove' evolution, because it's not a controversial subject outside of the sensationalistic media, the genetic evidence alone is more than enough to prove evolution, never mind the fossil record on top of that. We study these things to LEARN about evolution. Even if we didn't have this evidence, or even if, as Jebus contends, there exists no fossil record, the strongest evidence in favour of evolution is genetics. The very same methods that let you trace your ancestral lineage using those 'who am I' websites and such is also used to trace the genetic relationship between different animals. We can literally SEE that we are genetically related to this species and that and track the evolving generations recorded in our own genes. Yes, sometimes the claimed nature of that relationship changes, but this is due to the addition of MORE information, not the sudden collapse of the entire scientific method. New data REFINES our understanding of the truth. A system that rejects new information that contradicts already established facts wouldn't be called science so much as... religion?


Scientists have lots of different theories!


Fallacy: Appeal to Ignorance; god of the gaps, Inflation of Conflict.
Even just summarizing the flaws in this mindset would take far more than the one or two paragraph limit I have assigned myself, but at the same time this attitude is so prevalent, particularly among spiritualists, and particularly at AS, that something needs to be said. I will be writing a full article to address this at a later time, if anyone is interested. To give you the short version though; the tendency for specialists to argue and come to conflicting conclusions is easy to judge to be a failure of modern science when you're looking at it from the wrong viewpoint. When you judge things in terms of 'facts' it seems silly that everyone has a different opinion, only one thing can be true, right? But at the same time you understand that anyone can also be wrong.

The point is, the scientific method factors that in, and excludes what you think of as fact from the process entirely. There are NO proclamations of total truth, unlike religious ideologies. As I mentioned previously, there's no such thing as a 100% proven theory, so everyone is always fighting to prove everyone else wrong, this process acts like a massive filter, killing off easily disproved theories and only allowing the more solid ones to survive because there are no weaknesses to attack. That's why science is superior to belief systems that depend on presupposition and refuse to budge even when proved wrong. Debate is a GOOD thing, it keeps us honest. Saying that we can't even claim to understand the truth because people disagree is asinine, using this as a vehicle to then suggest that these disagreements prove that everyone is wrong, even more so.

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The crux of the debate, and the most pertinent flaw in Jebus 's logic, in my opinion, came down to this:

Me asking 'Do you understand that my example demonstrated Speciation?'
And his reply, 'No I believe it demonstrated adaption.'

Or... y'know, 'adaptation' as we old-fashioned folk like to say...

Ok, so Jebus has no problem with the idea that visually, humans can change drastically given enough time and enough selection pressures. I basically walked him through a morphological tree such as we would find in a cladistic progression of fossils, by presenting this to him one step at a time he didn't actually notice where evolution happened - because it's not a thing that just happens, it's a process. He had no problem with the idea of one group of humanity becoming short, and the other tall and nimble. So if size is not a problem, there's really no reason to assume one of the two groups could become tall of neck, but short everywhere else. The mechanics are the same.

Likewise, he accepts that skin colour can change significantly, as he himself explained. Given the right selection pressures, we can change colour - and there's no reason to assume that given a huge period of time, this would be limited to varying shades of beige or brown - we COULD become purple, or bright green given enough time, if it was necessary. By the same logic we can safely presume that he would have nothing against the idea of us developing thicker coats of body hair until it becomes fur. If that fur grows in thicker and harder, little by little, over hundreds of generations, we get quills. That's what quills are, just very thick hair.

He also accepted the digestion argument, that one of the two groups could adapt to digest something poisonous - that's a MAJOR overhaul of the digestive system, if we can change that much internally, theoretically we could become practically anything, certainly we can adapt to eat anything or take on drastic new shapes. The teeth, and by proxy face/bone structure would also have to adapt depending on what we eat, which in turn can alter the cranial cavity effecting our intelligence - but if we can change size drastically, and that same exact mechanism can change teeth, this should also be no problem for Jebus  .

He understood that everything from body shape, to speed (and by extension, muscle structure) to pigmentation and internal construction can drastically change given time. Each of the steps in my example are merely logical extensions of the specific evolutionary laws that Jebus conceded could happen as we built our more subtle example. I could keep going, but this should be sufficient to demonstrate my key point: Using a 'type' of evolution that Jebus agrees with we have extrapolated a possible future in which two breeds of humanity have respectively evolved into a big, purple, giraffe-necked creature that eats tree bark, and a tiny, porcupine-quilled lime green scavenger that can run very fast.

But remember... evolution isn't real.

Now of course he might object to this extrapolation, but at which point would he draw the line? Where is the cut off point between hairs and quills? Tallness and slightly taller neck? When does pink stop being pink and become something closer to lavender, then purple? Like I said, evolution is a process, it's the end result that creationists can't bring themselves to accept because it SEEMS so extreme. If they are walked through it one step at a time though, there's nothing to complain about. It's when you go into evolution EXPECTING nonsense born from that expectation of extremeness, like birds giving birth to dolphins that your brain locks up, because that's not what actual evolution even proposes. You won't find the things you object to about evolution when you really look at it, because no one ever said they were there.

Historically, evolution has nearly always been opposed by religious people, and always by religious people who don't understand what evolution actually says, and have no interest in actually learning. As Jebus and I reached this impasse all he could still object to was Speciation, which is purely a genetic phenomenon which wasn't even fully understood until recently even by the experts. Is he really planting his flag there? Obviously, not being Geneticists, neither of us understand anywhere near enough about genes to even begin to comprehend the kind of science that goes into studying such things. But let's be real here, did Jebus really join this debate because he found the idea of genetic incompatibility between two ridiculously different, but distantly related creatures to be so outlandish that it alone could topple the entire theory of evolution? No.

Never mind the fact that my example was simply a blown-up representation of an already observed evolutionary phenomenon known as ring species, in which a species that becomes geographically divided will evolve separately to the point where the end products become genetically incompatible with each other, and most certainly is observed in real time - in other words a macrocosm of evolution in action. Hell, let's be honest here, he didn't even know what Speciation was until I explained it to him, and even if he had done he wouldn't have understood it. I don't fully understand it all and I've actually studied it, it is a complex science that requires special training to interpret, does Jebus honestly claim to know more than those experts who do so?



He fell back on Speciation because it was the only unknown factor still left on the table, and as such, it was the only place left for him to plant his flag. I engineered the debate that way intentionally, to demonstrate that when push comes to shove, evolution deniers will agree with every single step of evolution when it is clearly explained to them but will then still refuse to admit that evolution can happen. Speciation is something that takes place at a level that neither of us understand well enough to credibly object to, so to do so is nothing more than a final, bigass appeal to ignorance. I don't understand how genes work, thus - evolution is a lie. Even if genetic research DID indicate this and he saw that data, he wouldn't be able to comprehend it in order to explain to anyone WHY it indicates as such, so don't tell me that's how you came to the conclusion, Jebus. It isn't.

But let's take off our debating hats and put on the thinking caps for a moment here. Speciation is a huge part of evolution, yes, but it is not the end all be all of it. Even if there weren't countless studies that show it happening in real time, and more fossil and genetic records than I could copy paste in a million years, what we're really arguing about here is can animals CHANGE through adaptation over time, that's what evolution IS, that's ALL it is, and clearly, there is no valid way to oppose it. Jebus admitted that this can happen, and that's simply what evolution IS. In order words, he's not objecting to the process, he's objecting to the WORD. Is it so bad to concede that maybe we got here through a process of nature's wrath forging us into better survivors? I would think someone who holds self-betterment in such high regard wouldn't find something like this all that awful.


Looking back over my summary of this debate you may begin to notice a pattern - literally every single one of Jebus's arguments ultimately stemmed from a misconception or lack of understanding on how evolution works. Go ahead, look again. A dictionary could have argued each point he raised into submission. He didn't know what the theory was (or even what a theory is), he didn't know what it means or how it is supposed to work, he didn't know what Darwin really believed despite thinking he did, or what Darwin attempted to prove despite feeling qualified to say it was faked, he didn't know what proves evolution right, what would prove evolution wrong or what evolution actually predicts, he didn't know what evolutionists think or don't think, and when he thought he did he was wrong, and when I clearly explained an example of evolution in action he simply said 'oh well yeah of course I agree with THAT kind of evolution' which is what every single other evolution denier does when put in the same situation - because they think they already know what evolution is, and they are wrong.

There aren't different 'types' of evolution, the difference between macro and micro is just a question of time, not size, not severity of the changes, not wishy-washy gut feelings like a religion would offer - it's just a temporal classification. To argue otherwise is to say that the scientists are wrong in how they are using a term for which they invented the meaning. The problem is this was a presupposition argument from the getgo. Jebus came to it with his mind already made up, and to a lesser extent you could say I did too, though only because I knew how the debate was going to turn out. The difference is the reasoning behind it, however. I accept the theory of evolution as the best explanation for the diversity of life (and unlike Jebus , I already knew that's all it is supposed to be) because when I was ready to decide - I researched it. At THAT time I was not presuppositional, had it failed to hold my attention I would not have accepted it. Can Jebus say the same?

Everything Jebus said about evolution is what hardcore propagandising creationists SAY evolution is supposed to be about, so despite his proclamations to the contrary, it is clear to me that he has only observed anti-evolution arguments from anti-evolution sources in order to develop his opinions. He has a very clear understanding of what he thinks evolution should be, and when he sees evidence that contradicts that view he quite rightly decides the theory is invalid. Which is a justifiable reaction, but the problem is he's attacking a parody of evolution, not the real thing. Everything he points to as evidence against evolution is something that (ACTUAL) evolution would actually PREDICT should happen or otherwise fits perfectly in line with it, EVEN when it is an outright fraud, because the hoaxers didn't understand what they were trying to prove wrong in order to fabricate the right sort of evidence. Of course, by his own reasoning this should mean he would now be willing to concede to evolution's validity. He's open-minded, right?

The difference between us is that I would drop evolution like a hot stone tomorrow if I saw convincing evidence against it, because it's irrelevant to me. It isn't somehow important to my beliefs or my character that I evolved from lesser primates, it's an irrelevancy. But when you include personal beliefs, that's exactly what things get - personal. Jebus wants to believe he was created - and I understand that. Even if evolution were a direct contradiction to this, which it isn't, he should still be willing to accept what is right in front of him. He may claim he would change his views too, but there is ample evidence out there and somehow through all of his 'research' he still came out of it failing to understand even the most basic principles of evolution. Does anyone here *really* believe he took an open-minded, scholarly look at evolution? I don't say this to tease him, I say it to encourage him. Jebus is actually a very rational person, he just needs to realise that by his own standards, he's better than this.

You want to say there are no fossils? Go to a museum. You want to say there aren't ENOUGH fossils? Well how many is enough? Will creationists only be satisfied when every single animal that ever died has been recovered? It's amazing the fossil record is as extensive as it is considering how incredibly rare the process of fossilization actually is. You want to know which fishes were our ancestors? Go to a research institute, look at a phylogeny cladogram, pick any single image from any evolutionary stage in any tree, find out what its name is, then Google it to see if there are fossils of it. Chances are, there are some. Within a matter of hours you could be AT the museum or university where one of those exact fossils is being held and see it right under your own nose. Anyone who says they have looked at the records and found them lacking is either lying about having done the research or simply lying to themselves. When you refuse to look for evidence, you will always find the evidence lacking. The thing is, you have to actually do the work.

Look, I have no problem with someone announcing they won't accept something because it contradicts their faith-driven biases, I could even respect such a person. At least that is consistent - at least it is honest. What I find troublesome is someone pretending that's not the case when they know it is, because that shows me that they know it's wrong to do that in order to feel the need to LIE. It means they understand that their bias undermines their argument and they find that troubling enough to want to deny it, but they're going to just sweep all that under the carpet and do it anyway. It doesn't bother me if you want to say evolution isn't real because your religious text says so - but if that's the case, come out and actually SAY that, rather than just insisting you've done all the legwork and came to this conclusion the scientific way. If you can't bring yourself to do that, that should tell you something about the nature of what is really inside that text.



I started my conversation with Jebus with a very simple, yet very significant concession. A caveat upon which this whole thing rests. Evolution is not in contradiction with creation(ism). I believe I have sufficiently explained why that is, so I won't just sit here repeating myself, but suffice to say, there's no reason to assume otherwise in the first place. There's obviously no syllogistic problem here, if god COULD create all species fully formed then he COULD also create the process of evolution, so it's not like we're outreaching ourselves. Maybe it detracts from one's sense of 'specialness' to accept that they are just one rung in a ladder? But if it's god's plan, why complain?

Consider Heaven. Religious people accept the mortal existence while believing in the promise of heaven, yet never seem to think to ask 'why not just put me right there?' And if you proposition them about that, they'll just say god has his reasons, a plan, mysterious way, that life in the mortal coil is somehow necessary to his workings. Maybe this is a staging area to prepare us for something mind-blowing, maybe it's the journey through life that we really need to experience, maybe it's all just a big test. They'll accept all these possibilities, yet they won't extend that same logic to evolution. If this slow, mortal existence is somehow necessary, why must we embellish it further, and crap all over that amazing design by suggesting it should have been even more incredible?

Maybe evolution WAS necessary for his plans? Maybe, rather than simply handing us the finished product, much like he didn't deliver us straight to heaven, he wanted us to get there on our own? Weathering the harsh winds of nature to sculpt ourselves into something unique, something special, something that, much like a child growing into a man, can come from within without just needing to be a product of the coding he puts in our brains? Surely any parent here can understand the value of that? Is it so hard to conceive that maybe your god had a plan that even YOU can't immediately understand? Would it not be arrogant to dictate that if you can't grasp what he's up to, then you obviously know better? Better than nature? Better than the truth?

The evidence for evolution (and I use that phrase laughingly because by this point it can't really be considered evidence in the same way that pouring a bucket of paint over a canvas can't be called a painting), is so pronounced that no one can disagree with evolution and remain intellectually credible at the same time. I have proved this quite clearly with Jebus, and with many other people before him. People always have lots of arguments to make, but to do so, at some point, they always have to compromise their integrity. Whether it's the sharpshooter fallacy of trying to overwhelm your opponents with twenty different arguments ranging from evolution to vaccines to conspiracies and the age of the earth, or repeatedly pretending not to understand something that was just clearly explained to you. Somewhere, at some point, you always have to cross that line, because you cannot defend an incorrect belief without at some point having to lower the bar.

You know, it's funny. Every time I debate a creationist they say they have already debated/won debates with X number of evolutionists, and yet they always seem surprised by the most basic explanations and arguments put to them as if they never heard them before. Are my arguments unique? Hardly, my friends and sources that have had these same debates with creationists number in the hundreds and somehow they all get the same reaction every single time. The talking points of the creationists always seem to be a carbon copy of other articles or questionable personalities, with no care taken to fact-check any of the claims being made. On the other side of the coin, it's standard practise if not structurally imperative for skeptics to fact-check before even attempting debate. That's why I'm informed on what anti-evolutionists think and rarely encounter a new argument, whereas the people I debate with have no clue what evolutionists think. Why is there this disconnect between the standards each side adheres to?

Religion speaks a lot about humility. It seems to be a very important virtue to the faithful. I am not religious, or particularly humble, but I've never had to pretend I already understand a topic I don't in order to defend it in a debate. I've never needed to look at only one side of an argument and then insist I've looked at both, purely so I can look more credible without just being credible. And when I make my mind up about something, I actually do the research first. I'm not accusing Jebus of lying, he's one of my oldest friends and I respect him, but I also know the kinds of mental gymnastics people can do to convince themselves of whatever they want when pressured, even without realising it, especially when strong beliefs are involved. It would take a very humble man to be capable of admitting this when someone clearly demonstrated it for them. Whether or not Jebus is being honest with himself and us about how willing he truly is to change is something only he can know.

And of course, his god.

All I can say with confidence is that Jebus is very clearly wrong, and I struggle to understand why he wouldn't be able to see it given how obvious and simple this is. It's possible his faith is just that strong, to the extent where it overwhelms judgement, but I think more of him than that. Logic would suggest that by this point he would have to understand that he is wrong, and to assume otherwise would be doing him and his intelligence a disservice. I refuse to judge him to be that simple. He is more than intelligent enough to realise after all of this that he came into this topic with the wrong mindset and a badly misinformed idea of what evolution is supposed to be. Whether or not he chooses to recognize this is between him and his conscience. As a friend, I trust him to do the right thing.

---

 


Why I instigated this debate.

If I'm known for anything at this site, it's for my proclivity for argument - but several things have always been consistent in my debating etiquette. Firstly and foremost. I never flame until flamed. If you can keep a civil tongue, you'll never invoke my ire (those that do quickly learn it was a mistake) and we can continue to have a civil, enlightened conversation that actually leads somewhere productive. That was the case with this debate, so there's proof that it works. Secondly, I almost never actually initiate a debate, usually I enter into one already raging, add my two cents, and if someone chooses to engage me I don't hold back. Sometimes I'll poke at an argument already being made, but that's usually in the interest of keeping the debate balanced. I'm kind of a devil's advocate by nature. [Insert Christianity pun.]

I also tend to keep my personal views out of it. Often it is the case that I am arguing against a position I actually hold, or in favour of one I have no real opinion on. I do this to challenge myself as well as others, but also so I can laugh at the inevitable accusations of bias made by people who have no clue what my true feelings are. In this case, clearly my actual views are on the table, as was necessary to properly pursue this matter. However, while I am unapologetically a great lover of debate, it always remains observable that I don't, under normal circumstances, go out of my way to actively seek it out. I wait for the heat to come to me.

There are very few things that I take so seriously, that I consider so important that I am willing to compromise my personal rules or preferences in the way that I did here, and enter into a situation that I would otherwise not be inclined to enter, such as challenging a friend to a debate on a topic that could, if it went ugly, ruin a valued friendship. There are very few reasons so important to me that I would find myself not content to simply observe, but to actually challenge, beyond my own comfort zones, what is being said. One of those things is education.

I take education extremely seriously, because I have watched this great civilization we have built slowly spiral towards idiocracy, and I can't bear it. I was educated at a school that gave me a brilliant and in-depth wealth of incorrect facts, and had to make a fool out of myself many, many times in order to tease out the propaganda I had been instilled with. I was lucky to not be born to a religious family, so I didn't have to contend with further anti-education on top of this, but the long and short of it is I barely learned a single damn thing in school, and had to basically re-educate myself once I discovered the internet. That took a long time, and a lot of hard work. More than almost anyone would understand.

It's easy to dismiss whoever you are debating with as just set in their ways, and undoubtedly I will be facing such accusations now, as I always have... but my views on god have gone from non-believer, to believer, back to non-believer based on how convincing the arguments put to me were, my position with respect to the paranormal has jumped all over the board and there are some scientific hypotheses and biases that I spend a great deal of time battling because they are flat out wrong, and most embarrassingly I was once a proponent of the 9/11 conspiracy hypothesis, and even ran around praising 'Loose Change', until a good friend educated me on the mistakes and fallacies therein.

I don't base my views on what feels nice or would be cool if it were true, nobody should. I don't go by what my social groups favour or what would give me a higher sense of belonging - I base them on where the evidence leads, what arguments make sense, are as close to objective as possible, and are not ultimately fuelled by bias of any kind. I don't accept that truth is a matter of belief, and I won't compromise my rationality by clinging to something that feels nice rather than opening my eyes and taking steps to avoid the snake-pits.

If I learn that something I hold true seems to be false, I will change. And if I am presented with a good argument, I will concede it. I don't believe in conspiracies because such things are not a matter of belief, they are a matter of knowledge. I KNOW there have been, are, and will be conspiracies that corrupt our cultures, many of them religious in origin, so when I hear someone telling me that vaccines give you autism or evolution is a lie, I'm going to actually look into it and study both sides of the argument before making my mind up. So if I disagree with a conspiracy theory, you can usually bet I've done a lot more research on it than you have.

Clearly not everyone can or is willing to do so, and that's a big problem. The internet is a huge resource for information, but also misinformation and disinformation. Given the inadequate and descending state of modern education I am seriously concerned for the next generation. It's true that with each generation we get smarter, assimilating more and more data at earlier ages, but this is raw potential, not a guarantee. If we can learn anything from America (and I say this in the nicest possible way while not compromising my honesty) it's the incredible damage that poor education can do. The US is like a giant social experiment where we locked a bunch of children in a room without education and tried to see how badly we could fuck up an entire culture. The results have been disastrous.

This is why, when I see a source of misinformation on the internet, in a medium where it may come to influence many people's opinions (including naive young people who haven't yet developed the faculties to understand a faulty argument or dubious sourcing) it is my imperative to attack it, and is one of the only few reasons I will ever step up and actually seek a debate, crossing whatever lines are necessary. In such circumstances, it doesn't matter to me if it's a friend, a family member or a complete stranger, if people are spouting incorrect facts and presenting them as valid, it is an obligation that befalls any conscionable person to do something about it, and I encourage everyone else to do the same. Yes, that includes people who don't share my views, because when you challenge the actual facts with your propaganda, the worst possible result is we have a dialogue, and THAT is valuable under any circumstances, even if only for you.

The freedom of the internet grants us a licence to say whatever we want from our own soap boxes, but it also imbues us with responsibilities. Over the years I have been engaged projects and thought experiments that in some cases people took a lot further than I was intending them to go, and I have come to understand that that was wrong. At the time I was at best working from sources that could not be independently verified, so even if my hypotheses were correct there was no way to know (although I never present such things as fact). The problem with beliefs is they are a part of your identity, and just like coming out as gay or even gaining a new religion, there is a huge overflowing well of need to share this part of yourself with other people, more than enough that it can supersede rationality. It is very easy to lose sight of the potential damage those views could be doing to the emotionally vulnerable or susceptible around you.

Sometimes what we recognize to be truth changes, but if one is coming at a topic from a position of already wanting it to be true, even if they are actually correct, that's no way to figure it out, leaving open the possibility that you may be wrong. And while you may feel like you are merely exercising your right to defend your own belief, you could in fact be harming people by exposing them to confidently stated lies which you will only discover to be lies much later on. Having a dialogue about it is fine, like I said, that's what we should be seeking, but if deep down you know that you only believe something because not believing it would feel distasteful to you, it is indecent and dishonest to proselytise that viewpoint to other people until you are confident within yourself that you really have understood the facts and challenged your own preconceptions to the point where you can honestly say you have earned the right to believe as you do.

That's what I do with every single piece of knowledge I acquire, and it's exhausting, hard work, stressful, annoying and inconvenient. But it is also necessary. If truth is to be respected, if the geniuses of tomorrow are to be given their golden tickets, we must not smother the world with pretty fictions and what-ifs and pleasant-sounding ideas about what might be if only life were a poem. By all means, expose everyone to every viewpoint, but do not shy away from discussion, do not be afraid to challenge something you disagree with, and always do so with an open mind and a civil tongue. Although it may not have gone anywhere too productive for the two of us, Jebus and I were able to have a calm, respectful conversation on this matter, and it is my hope that at the very least it will be educational to the onlookers.




Just remember, your words effect other people. Everything you say and do adds ripples and waves to the thought processes of everyone around you. You don't live in a vacuum where incorrect beliefs only harm you. Good ideas can be infectious, but bad reasoning is insidious. Are you really so confident, so steadfastly certain in your views that you are willing to permanently instil those notions in the developing minds of people who, given the right exposure to true knowledge, may one day become a guiding light of this wonderful race? If so - be ready to defend it, and be willing to hold your hands up and admit, with dignity, when you can't.


As always in this sort of debate I have already supplied ample sourcing for every claim I have been forced to make in the debunking of the unsourced claims of my opposition, but I have plenty more material to offer. If anyone here is interested in further learning on this topic, there are several resources you might want to consider, I generally prefer to first learn in video format then research the sources cited in the videos afterwards, so there are many video series I can recommend that will generally show you both sides of the argument and clear, properly-sourced, indisputable proof why the anti-evolution side is wrong.

AronRa is perhaps the best resource I have ever been able to find, this first series deals specifically with evolution, explaining how it works and debunking the deniers' claims.
Falsifying Phylogeny

And this is more generally about the claims of creationism, including evolution.
Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism


This series is by Thunderf00t, a man I don't particularly like or agree with on many issues, but his science is still indisputable. Clearly the title of his series is inflammatory, as is often his tone, so if you're easily offended maybe just skip this one. It is an informative series however.
Why do People Laugh at Creationists?


These series' are by Potholer54, one of my favourite Youtube content makers who combines intense research, immaculate sourcing and logical arguments to put forth a case that you simply can't deny without just sticking your fingers in your ears and going lalalala. Unfortunately many of these playlists are currently empty due to the fact that his account was recently hacked by creationists and they deleted all of his work, he is in the process of trying to get them restored so hopefully someone reading this will get the chance to experience it soon.
Our origins made easy - Potholer
How to confuse a Creationist - Potholer
Creationist fails - Potholer

He also tackles the climate change issue and those playlists seem to remain relatively untouched, so there's something else that might interest you. Youtube is an excellent resource for things like this, but there's a lot of propaganda and disinformation as well, just remember to check the sources of every claim made in order to determine who is being most truthful.


Lastly, if you want some secular sources for reliable data on this matter, I recommend www.talkorigins.org and www.ironchariots.org. I wait until now to mention these resources as it could be seen as biased to invoke them during the actual debate. I trust Jebus will also respect that idea, and present his own evidence citing actual scientific studies like I did, not people who got their PhD in the post from creationist universities. It's better to keep things neutral or this will just descend into "my guy is truer than your guy".

My friends, evolution is an amazing, beautiful fact of nature. Yes it is entirely the product of how the laws of physics randomly balance out, just like fire. But that immaculate arrangement of laws and natural processes all aligning in such an exquisitely perfect way as to give rise to something that, entirely of its own volition, can crawl its way up to the point of sentience and morality and the creation of beauty, is as awe-inspiring and divine as any miracle. To say that we absolutely must have been created in this form in this eleventh hour of a 14 billion year old pressure cooker is to cheapen that miracle in more ways than I could begin to identify. If god is real he is an artist, and if I, an atheist can respect his masterpiece as it really is, why wouldn't you?


In closing - I understand that to theists, Atheists are often regarded as crass and hostile, again not that this is a topic that has anything to do with Atheism, but if at any time I seem arrogant in my certainty that you are wrong or forceful in my insistence in trying to make you see it, Jebus, understand the reason why. It is not that I don't respect your views. It is that I respect you. I wouldn't try to debate with someone I thought too stupid to understand me, believe me I've been down that road so many times I wore it down. I try to show you your error because I believe in your capacity for reason and rational thinking to the extent that I am willing to try to push past your beliefs and give you the chance to recognize what the facts are telling you.

But most importantly, education is the fulcrum upon which enlightenment turns. I'm never afraid to be proved wrong, because to me it is a good thing. I always want to keep learning, that drives my entire existence, a journey for self-betterment. I think you and I share that in common.




In the interest of fairness I'll leave the last word to a recent, randomly selected creationist I happen to have crossed paths with (this is not Jebus):

'We can't even solve our problem with debt or find a cure for cancer or AIDS, yet we know for a fact that the earth started out as a Big Bang and evolved. It's all a theory (logical guess), you can't be sure unless you go back in time before earth was created.'

A gentleman and a scholar.

Thanks for hearing me.

(Please note: This entire post is intended to be read to the sound of this music track.)



--------------------


If anyone is interested, his response to all this can be summarised (and I use the word loosely, as it was really jut a couple of paragraphs) as "you're stupid and you hate religion", complete with a few made-up examples of what I allegedly "do" in my pursuit of hating religion. Really, the blasé dismissal, without refutation, of every single point I made was the worst move he could have made, as it not only pissed me off, but essentially made him look like someone who just knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on, and doesn't even care - which is why I no longer particularly care about keeping the article private.

He's an alright guy, he just doesn't want to learn things which he fears will challenge his beliefs. Don't hate on him, but at the same time, don't let scientific ignorance remain unchallenged. I hope someone somewhere finds this content mildly useful. I am working on future posts so this is really just a placeholder. I'll keep it here though for posterity. If anyone wants to see the original chat debate that can be added to the article.


Tata.

Making money with Surveys - a substantive review.

This post may not be entirely similar to the general style of my previous posts, if such a style exists, but the whole point of starting this baby is so I could talk about the things I want to talk about. This happens to be a subject I have learned a lot about in recent years, and I thought maybe other people could benefit from some of the information I've gathered in that time. Please note, I am in the UK, as such I will be dealing primarily with UK survey sites and currency, but I will give some nods to the American sites too, plus many of them are international anyway.

Firstly, for those who aren't entirely sure - surveys for cash is a valid way of making money. I say this because there are some people who view this topic along the lines of all those other "too good to be true" money-making ideas that turn out to be scams and pyramid schemes and the like, or perhaps similar to things like affiliate marketing which, while valid, tend to be quite esoteric and require a heavy skill set and investment to make them work. This isn't at all like that, although some of these survey sites will greatly exaggerate how generous they really are in advertisements. The truth is, as with anything, there are downsides and upsides to doing this properly, and a lot of it has to do with which companies you join up with.

You most definitely can make money with survey for cash schemes, indeed, you certainly WILL if you give it a fair try, but let me make one thing very clear. You will not make MUCH. I only get what I would consider to be pocket money, and that's by the standards of someone who is utterly broke. What's more, if you work full time, or perhaps even part time, it is NOT worth the investment of time. Depending on the site, you could make the equivalent of anything from  50p-£1 to in the best case scenario maybe £3-£4 an hour. Note, this is an extrapolation, I'm not saying that after 5 hours you will make around £5, rather than a single survey pays about 50p-£1 for an hour's work. The chances of you finding enough viable surveys to make a significant amount of money in a single day are low.

A final word before I get to the reviews concerning safety - though some people would assume this doesn't need saying, it is worth pointing out that you should always be careful with your personal information. Many of these survey companies will ask for your phone number. Whether or not you choose to give a real one, a fake one or pass on that company is up to you. Personally I give fake phone numbers usually, as on the few occasions I have given my real number I immediately got added to dozens of telemarketer databases that still harass me daily.

Likewise, you may want to use a pseudonym and I strongly advise you dedicate an email account just to this. You will find yourself inundated with a lot more spam than usual, although in recent years the spam filters seem to have advanced enough to limit most of the overspill. Bear in mind that sometimes a survey will check the details you input during the qualifier questions against their records, so if you are going to use multiple aliases, always remember which one belongs to which site.

Remember that nothing is a surefire, and there are no ways to "get rich quick", not unless someone finds a way to upload "luck" directly to the internet. You'll only get out of  incentive schemes what you put into them, that's the whole point of an incentive. I consider them best suited to people who are struggling financially, and have the time to make full use of this system, whether because they are unemployed or for whatever other reasons. It takes time and effort, but both of these factors decrease significantly as you get used to it and streamline your approach.


What follows is a comprehensive list of the most popular survey sites that I myself have used, and my review of how they hold up. After this, I will add some thoughts, tips and advice on how to go about this, a few words on the ethics of how honestly you should fill out the surveys and some red flags to be on the lookout for if you want to avoid getting kicked out of surveys unnecessarily. Please note; some of the survey sites I'll be reviewing won't have links, the reason being, they are so far as I am aware, invite only. If I am able, I will invite you directly using an affiliate link if you so desire. Just contact me with your email address.


Valued Opinions

Value for time: [***--]
Number of surveys: [****-]
Qualification rate: [***--]
Reliability: [****-]
Withdrawals: [***--]

I decided to start with my favourite, but hear me out before you jump in and sign up assuming them to be the best. This site makes me all warm and runny but mainly because it is a safe bet. In terms of value for time spent - they are actually NOT the best. You'll typically get offered rewards like 50p for 25 minute long surveys, 75p for 35 minute, sometimes £1 for the same period of time (sometimes even as high as £1.50 -£2). It of course varies, but the overall payoff for your time is not as high as it is on other sites.

Another area where VO falls short is the withdrawal method. They have a minimum withdrawal amount of £10, meaning you must have at least this much in your account before you can withdraw. They use a voucher system, where you redeem your money in the form of a giftcard for various supermarkets. I first signed up for this site because they offered Tesco giftcards, but they have since cancelled that particular voucher system, and now I am forced to use Sainsbury's, which I like less due to Sainsbury's higher prices (making the fruits of my work overall seem less valuable).

Unfortunately the ticks in the con column continue to mount when we get to the topic of waiting. After ordering a voucher from VO it takes a VERY long time for it to arrive. We're talking weeks, perhaps months. I honestly don't know because by the time they arrive I have completely forgotten that I even ordered one, it takes that long. This is the strongest downside of using this site, even Amazon e-vouchers, which you would expect to be quicker, seem to take just as long.

It's not all bad, however, and there are good reasons why I consider this to be my favourite site. Firstly, the lack of design errors in the surveys. I don't know who codes the VO surveys but they should be commended, no other survey site has so few problems with their interfaces. The disqualification rate isn't all that bad either. It's by no means the lowest, but VO seems to avoid that nasty little problem of waiting until you completed half the survey before deciding you don't qualify. This only goes to show that when other sites do it, they really don't need to. They deny this, but I think they are just taking the data and running.

VO has a very high rate of survey offers, typically I'll get 2 or 3 a day, most of which I am able to actually complete, with the occasional dry spell where you don't seem to hear from them for a while. What I like most about them is that they are not too demanding on my computer, they can sit there patiently while you flick back and forth filling them out without just randomly crashing, and it's overall just a safe guarantee of money. I've withdrawn from VO at least 3 times more than any other site.

Good consistent money from these guys, and every once in a while you'll get a pretty decent invite offering you £3 or £4 for a single study. Worth sticking around for. If you have to leave this review with just one recommendation, Valued Opinions would be the one I would have to go with. They're not nearly as good or as clever or as important as they think they are, but they definitely are a very dependable way to make money. Albeit, not a whole lot.


MySurvey

Value for time: [***--]
Number of surveys: [***--]
Qualification rate: [**---]
Reliability: [**---]
Withdrawals [****-]

This one is much more of a mixed bag, and I hesitate to say it is my second favourite. The value for time is probably about the same as VO, if not lower, but every once in a while you'll be offered a cracking deal. I like this site mainly for the low withdrawal limit, you can claim your earnings when you've reached as few as 345 points (the equivalent of £3) and best of all - you can withdraw to PayPal!

I LOVE this feature, and I do not understand why more sites don't use it. Somehow it feels more like actual money than a voucher, plus you can decide what you spend it on and where. Of course, you can also withdraw to Amazon (and many other places) but I don't see the point. I don't care for Amazon due to how retardedly expensive it is compared to eBay, but even if you insist on wasting your money there, you could just as easily withdraw your PayPal money to your bank and pay that way.

It does take a little while for the money to go through, nowhere near as long as VO, but somewhere in the order of 1-2 weeks at the most. It's always a nice little ka-ching sensation when you get that email from PayPal telling you a bit more money has appeared in your account. I would like the process to be a lot faster, but considering how easy it is to make and claim it, I'm not complaining. They used to add a little extra to your account as a thank you even when disqualified from a survey, which was very pleasant, but have since replaced that with "prize draw" entries that you won't win.

Now for the downsides - first and foremost, the survey design. MySurvey has *horrendous* survey coding, they frequently crash for no reason, glitch out or are just badly designed. I was once asked to provide a number that was more than 3 but less than 4.The survey would not let me move on until I provided this non-existent figure. It's like the whole thing was coded by a bunch of moneys with keyboards - and not the Shakespeare-writing kind.

But the biggest problem by far is the inactivity countermeasure, at least that's what I'm assuming it is.

If you leave the survey untouched for any more than 5 minutes... you're screwed. Maybe I'm exaggerating there, but I don't know by how much. You can't tell that the survey has broken as a result of your inactivity, it still lets you fill out the entire thing, even if it's a two hour long survey. Then, once it's complete, and you click the submit button, it redirects you to an error page. Oh that error page... how I despise that fucking error page. I have seen it so many times. You will come to hate it too, you'll see.

The support staff are completely incompetent  never answering your queries and barely able to string a coherent sentence together when they do. You generally won't find your problems resolved even after getting promises that they will be and it's just not even worth the time complaining. If you're going to use this site, you're going to have to make peace with a harsh disqualification rate, an extremely high rate of survey glitches robbing you of your hard-earned money, and the knowledge that there is jack shit you can do about it.

All that aside however, you can make a lot of money very fast, provided they are not in one of their dry spells, which can last weeks. When they end, however, you'll usually find yourself inundated with survey offers. Try to jump on them quickly, they expire fast.

MySurvey has a Mobile ap for cell phones, but so far as I can tell - it's crap. Doesn't do anything.


OpinionWorld

Value for time: [**---]
Number of surveys: [**---]
Qualification rate: [*----]
Reliability: [*----]
Withdrawals [*****]

If MySurvey is a mixed back, this place is like a bag of scrambled eggs. In a blender. I don't know how you would fit a bag of scambled eggs in a blender but that's still a fitting analogy for the living contradiction that is OpinionWorld. I honestly don't know whether I utterly hate this site or completely adore it. There is a lot to say about this relatively simple, straightforward website, so let's get to it.

Firstly, the best part of this site and quite possibly the best feature out of all of these sites: You can withdraw, IMMEDIATELY to PayPal. Yes, you read that right. You can literally click a few buttons and have all your reward money in your PayPal account in under a minute. It does have a high withdraw limit of £10, though that's par for the course. Nevertheless, being able to withdraw INSTANTLY is a godsend, and for this alone I would recommend this site.

Now... the downsides, chiefly among which - the survey design. This site has quite possibly the worst survey coding of any site I have ever seen. Literally over half the surveys I attempt to take on this site immediately fail due to some sort of bug, whether it's a redirection to that tedious "It seems you paused the survey" page or simply "an error occurred". Most infuriating is when this happens half way through a survey, which is an extremely common occurrence as well. I've been robbed of more hard-earned cash by this site than any other.

To their credit, the staff very often get back to you when you launch a query, and very often you'll find that they manage to get the money to you after all  Just be sure to quote the correct survey reference number in your email, and bear in mind that they probably won't pay you for a survey that kicked you out, however errantly, before it was 100% completed. You will also need to show patience for the fact that for some reason, despite making you fill out a personal details page, they STILL refuse to send you  surveys targeted for your demographic, so you frequently get kicked out anyway. Why HAVE that information if you're not going to use it?

This site is incredibly frustrating to use, and combining these constant glitches and incredibly harsh disqualification rate with the fact that they simply refuse to take down surveys that are already quota-filled (forcing you to waste a few minutes trying to qualify before you find out it is already full) and their long periods in which no new surveys get added, I actually get so angry with this place that I rage quit it at least twice a year, and have sent them so many emails threatening to close my account that I don't think they even take me seriously any more.

For the money, it's worth it. But you may end up paying for that purely in blood pressure and shortened lifespan.


Newvistalive

Value for time: [**---]
Number of surveys: [*----]
Qualification rate: [*----]
Reliability: [*****]
Withdrawals [**---]

This survey site is very much in a class of its own. By that I don't mean it is far superior to the others, merely that it is a very different animal from your typical incentive scheme. You can't regard it on the same terms as sites like VO or MySurvey, and if you try you'll find your patience quickly runs out. NVL is best treated as a kind of background earner, not something that gives you immediate payoff.

For starters it has an extremely high withdrawal limit. £50 - that's really about as high as it gets in this industry. On top of that, they have an extremely low and sporadic rate of survey offers, and their surveys have extremely harsh disqualification rates. In other words, you'll only get a few surveys from these guys a month, and you'll be immediately kicked out of so many of them that you'll start expecting that to happen by default.

It will take you a very long time to reach the £50 mark, it took me probably two years to get to my first one, and just over a year later I still have a good £5 to go before I am due again (I'm particularly annoyed right now as I only just got disqualified for a £3 survey - RRRHH!) Survey glitches and errors do happen, though nowhere near as often as MySurvey and NVS, but annoyingly, when they do happen it tends to be half way through the survey, and good luck getting them to compensate you for it.

The biggest gripe most people have with this site, besides its absurdly low rate of survey offers, is how long it takes for your cheque to arrive after withdrawal. You can ONLY withdraw by cheque, and you have to specifically request it by email. It takes MONTHS for it to arrive. It took so long for me last time I had to get them to re-send it, because I'm fairly confident they left it so long they just forgot. You need to keep on their backs about it or apparently it just won't happen.

My personal biggest gripe with them is their use of stupid tricky little quality checking protocols they implement to rule out liars or bots. Rather than just give you a captcha or ask a few simple qualifier questions, they try to actually trip you up with confusingly worded questions like "How many cars do you own" followed by "And how many vehicles to you own?" which IS supposed to include cars. They engineer silly little verbal trapdoors where if your exact phrasing drifts a little from a qualifier question at the start of the survey to the quality check question at the end, you can find your entire (up to an hour's worth) work gets simply erased.

I remember one time losing a significant portion of money due to answering a harmless question and suddenly being subjected to this Sherlock Holmes-esque deductive tangent where it broke down all my previous replies with a series of deconstructive statements; "You claimed the chief income earner was over 18, and also that you were the oldest member of your household yet you also mentioned that you live alone, and seperately, that you are unemployed. Indupitably, (I may have adlibbed that) you must therefore be the chief income earner of which you spoke. Furthermore, you went onto say this and that, but how can that he true if this is like that?" Etc etc etc. Usually this happens because they phrase a question stupidly as if you deliberately lure you into giving the wrong response.

I think there is a big difference between keeping people honest and trying to deliberately trick them into making a mistake with these pointless gotcha questions just to eliminate them. I dislike that sort of underhanded behaviour, treating their own members as guilty until proven innocent. That's just a personal grievance. Elementary my dear fucking assholes.

Newvistalive isn't for the impetuous or the faint of heart, it is best left on the backburner, slowly accumulating money while you go about your business, and then hopefully you'll log in some day and be pleasantly surprised by a full account. Don't sign up with them if you are impatient or don't take rejection well. ...Or perhaps if you have a tendancy to overuse detective novel analogies.


Toluna

Value for time: [*----]
Number of surveys: [****-]
Qualification rate: [*----]
Reliability: [**---]
Withdrawals [*----]

I have a complicated relationship with Toluna. Sort of like that one ex that you never quite stop feeling conflicted around, but then you spend five minutes with her and instantly get reminded of her annoying quirks like laughing nasally at things that just aren't funny, or that thing some people do where they keep saying "yes" every half second when you're talking to them and you're like, bitch shut up, I'm trying to talk to you and you're constantly interrupting me by telling me that you're listening!

Once upon a time Toluna had an enormous and dedicated community built around it. They had polls, forum threads, topical discussions, private messages, the whole shebang. Friendships were made there, unique traditions and communal activities were born there. It was far more than just a survey site, it was a site built on the idea that we can all come together and share our thoughts on things, AND get paid for doing so.

I'm not sure what happened, but about a year ago they fucked it all up. They killed off the entire community, reducing the whole site to a no-frills survey for cash site, and not a particularly good one at that. The surveys were never its strong suit - high withdrawal requirements (80,000 points for a £15 amazon voucher) low value for time (average survey around 1-2000 points for anything up to 45 minutes work), high rate of glitches, and possibly the largest disqualification rate of all the other sites combined. It even has the same slow delivery problem as NVS.

I never liked using Toluna for the surveys alone, and now that it has gotten so much worse, I'm seriously considering closing my account after I'm done collecting my current batch of points. There is also a "product testing" option, but in the 3 or 4 years I've been a member, despite applying for the testing of pretty much every single product they had on offer, I never once was selected to test one.

Now they have implemented this absurd, insulting "gifties" and "lucky dip" system where you throw all your points away like spaghetti at a wall hoping that something will stick, it's essentially a buy your own mini prize draw system, but of course you're never going to win. They must think we're completely stupid, it's like if your employer walked up to you and offered for you to gamble your wages for the chance of being the one employee who wins a watch. Fuck that shit.

Toluna, you and I used to have something, but I'm sorry. I just can't do this any more.

It's not me, it's you.


The following are survey sites that I am unable to do a full review of as yet, either because I have only recently joined them, they are very slow earners, or because of some other factor limiting my knowledge of their trustworthiness. Please note, this particular blog post will be updated regularly as I get to know these and other survey for cash sites over the coming months.


Knowledge Panel

This is an American company, so I couldn't sign up for it - hence the lack of scoring. It's also invite-only, so I don't know how you'd go about getting in as I can't help you there either. It does, however, look like a pretty decent company. Not just because of their surveys, but also the fact that if you don't have any, they will PROVIDE you with both a free computer AND optional internet access in order to do their surveys.

I did contact them and confirm that their computers DON'T come with monitoring software for analyzing trends, but they do have such a software which is voluntary. All that is required for you to keep all this gear is that you remain active completing surveys, which they boast at being at the rate of about 1 per week. After 36 months you get to keep the PC and opt out of their surveys if you want.

I do not know anything about any other incentives they might offer.


Survey Network

Value for time: [*----]
Number of surveys: [*----]
Qualification rate: [*----]
Reliability: [-----]
Withdrawals [?]

If you've never heard of this one, that's forgiveable, even if you're already into this kind of thing. If so however, you've probably seen it before and not realised it. Survey Network are most often used as third party survey designers which other survey sites like VO or OW will sometimes redirect you to. They do however have a site of their own that you can join... and it is less than impressive.

The whole site is about as user friendly as a paper dick with no single section where you can search for the latest surveys, instead just one big list filled with every survey they have ever hosted, forcing you to click on each one randomly in the hopes that it redirects you to an actual survey. When that happens you will be prompted with a dialogue box asking you to confirm your age and location, upon doing so you'll... probably be told that there aren't any surveys to complete.

But that's okay, sometimes you'll actually GET to complete a survey before being told the same thing anyway. As I type this I'm looking at a page that I was taken to upon successful completion of a Survey Network survey that says "Thank you for your Feedback! Although you didn't qualify... etc" That's right, my reward for completing a survey is to be told I didn't qualify for it.

And this happens. All. The. Time. This site is even more badly designed than OpinionWorld's surveys, its disqualification rate is through the roof, and after between 2 to 3 years of work, I am finally at the £20 withdrawal limit. I can't tell you how fast the transaction goes through because I haven't done it yet, I'm trying to build up as much money in my reward fund as I can before withdrawing so I can finally close my account on this infernal site.

The one good thing it has going for it is that after you complete (or fail) a survey you will usually get immediately redirected to a page that offers you another survey, allowing you to do two or three attempts in a single run before you finally run out of surveys to get pointlessly kicked out of (or patience.)

Would I recommend this site? Only as a form of euthenasia for the criminally insane.


Digital Trends Panel

Value for time: [*****]
Number of surveys: [**---]
Qualification rate: [*****]
Reliability: [***--]
Withdrawals: [*****] (Note: read review.)

This newcomer to the market is an odd cookie. I only just joined so I'm still getting a feel for it, but my first impressions are positive. First thing's first - it's quite different from your typical survey for cash site. For one thing, you can't "login", at least so far as I can tell. This means you can't check your balance or look for available surveys, but there's another side to this. The way the system is set up actually precludes the need to do any of that quite well.

Firstly, they only seem to send you surveys if and when they have surveys for you to do. There's no reason to login anywhere to find the surveys because if they had any for you, you'd already have taken them. Also, and this is quite possibly my favourite part, there's no need to check your balance and request checks or anything like that, because they send you a PayPal payment for every individual quantity of money you earn. I cannot confirm this yet, as I haven't at this point had any money put into my PayPal account, but I see no reason to assume it won't happen.

The value for time is extremely high, perhaps the highest I've ever seen. They average out at £1 per every 5 minutes, and the first time I started filling out a survey and saw the progress bar leap from 0% to 18% completion after answering a single question it was a joy. The surveys are very user-friendly, and although I've only completed about 5 so far (one of which glitched, but to be fair I hadn't touched it for about 4 days, it should be noted however that it waits until the survey is complete before failing on you) I'm very impressed.

The final point I want to make about this company is that the survey aspect of it seems to be more of an after-thought, what they are more interested in is data collection through a downloadable web meter. I don't know if you can join their survey panel WITHOUT having installed this program because I downloaded it myself. They offer £15 straight to your PayPal in exchange for having it installed for 30 days (and a further £5 for every 30 days thereafter), and every time you launch a browser you are given the option to opt out of being monitored. If you're paranoid about them monitoring you anyway, this kind of thing isn't for you.

Note: The reason I listed the qualification rate so high is because technically you qualify for every single survey they send you (so far as I can tell) since they are targeted directly to your specific demographic. Without being a member, obviously, this is all academic anyway, but as I have explained, joining their survey panel is optional. The web meter is where the real action is at.


PopulusLive

Value for time: [*****]
Number of surveys: [***--]
Qualification rate: [*****]
Reliability: [****-]
Withdrawals: [*----]

I'm brand new to this baby, and it's looking AOK so far. The surveys are not the most frequent, although nowhere near as bad as other companies, but like DTP above they seem to be well targetted to my demographic and I don't think I've been kicked out of any yet. Also like DTP there is a very high value for time, about the same in fact, averaging about £1 per 5 minutes spent, which they boistrously advertize on their homepage and seems to be pretty accurate.

One drawback seems to be the withdrawal system, which employs a very harsh minimum withdrawal amount of £50. Another problem with this system is they only have one form of payout - cheque. Be sure to sign up with a name that matches your bank account or you have have problems cashing it!

It's still too early to tell yet how good these guys are, but I've had no problems so far and earned a good few quid for a rainy day. I see no reason to assume things are going to go bad, but I've been wrong before.

(Actually I haven't, but I'm far too modest to admit that.)


Rewarded Opinions

Value for time: [*----]
Number of surveys: [-----]
Qualification rate: [-----]
Reliability: [-----]
Withdrawals: [-----]

I didn't bother linking this one, not because it is invite only, but simply because... don't even bother.

I joined these guys well over a year ago, maybe 2, and their survey invites dried up almost immediately. They use a points system, and my account has been stuck on 900 points (of the required 2000 of cashout of £20) indefinitely since then. I'm pretty sure they are not getting snagged by my junk mail filter, they just aren't sending any invites.

It's frustrating seeing almost £10 worth of pointy goodness just lingering there in a virtual limbo, inaccessible and impossible to add to. It's been so long now I can't even tell you how much you earn per survey, but I do recall that it wasn't smoothe sailing. To say I do not recomend these guys would be an understatement. They are dead in the water.


GlobalTestMarket

Value for time: [-----]
Number of surveys: [*----]
Qualification rate: [-----]
Reliability: [-----]
Withdrawal [?]

Now look, this is an utterly biassed and individually specific review - I freely admit that. In MY experience, GTM is absolutely fucking terrible. They make you jump through hoops to qualify for every survey, and when there actually IS one to do at the end of all that, they kick you out straight away. I made a point of explaining that I'm biassed here because everyone's experiences are different, and somehow I can't find anything but glowing reviews of this place (interspersed with a few claims of having been ripped off).

All I can tell you is that I honestly have not qualified for One. Single. Survey. It was infuriating to the point where I just rage quit the site and never looked back. I see no benefit in constantly inputting the same personal details over and over again just to get shunted back the second I hit enter. I do not like this site, and I don't see how anyone can enjoy it. But maybe I'm just a statistical fluke, maybe they just don't like my demographic. Either way, my experience of GTM was dismal.

No surveys to do (despite the constant spamming of invitations) and my account has remained a very niggling, very conspicuously gaping zero from day one. This survey site gave me nothing but trouble.


InboxPounds

Value for time: [*----]
Number of surveys: [**---]
Qualification rate: [***--]
Reliability: [***--]
Withdrawal [?]

I joined these guys a good few months ago but have yet to reach the withdraw limit of £15, so I can't yet testify as to the waiting periods. Although they do the survey thing, that's only one small part of the site. They are more generally a third party offer site, that means they collect deals and adverts from other companies and incentivise you to join them.These sorts of sites are a whole different ball game from survey for cash schemes, and I know a few of them so if anyone is interested I can go into greater detail about that in a different blog post some day.

As a survey site these guys are mediocre at best. Very low value for time, often as bad as half an hour's work for 25p. You could literally do better just wondering around outside picking change up off the street. Their rate of survey invites is a little choppy as well, often leaving you with long periods of dry spells. The main focus of their site is through the slow and steady accumilation of cash through third party offers, clickthru adverts sent to your email address, sponsored web searches and other similar things.

If you know what you're doing, these guys aren't bad. But strictly as a survey for cash site, they are not great. I still recommend them though. Mainly for the other stuff. Just a couple of clicks a day allows me to slowly build up a balance, and hopefully when it comes time to cashout, it will be a smoothe transaction.


Opinion Outpost

Value for time: [***--]
Number of surveys: [**---]
Qualification rate: [***--]
Reliability: [**---]
Withdrawal [?]

The biggest problem I have with this site so far is the design of its own website. I honestly don't know if it's a problem with them or if it's on my end, but for some reason I just can't sign in. The only way I can login to their site to check on my account is by going through the welcome email they sent me on joining up which links me directly to my dashboard there. I've got no idea why this is the case, but it's annoying as hell (as is reflected in the reliability rating I gave them).

On the plus side however, they have an extremely low withdraw limit of £2.50, technically the lowest yet, and they claim it is an instant transaction although I have yet to experience it myself so I cannot confirm this. The reason being - low rate of survey invites. I've only been a member for a relatively little while but so far they've barely sent me anything. In fact the best way to get any action out of them is to go to the site direct, which as I've explained is an annoying process, for me at least.

They seem fairly average as surveys go. They tend to rent out a lot to other companies, so it's difficult to judge their average value for time, but so far (in my limited experience) it seems quite good. If they truly do cash out instantly, I would give them a stamp of recomended. We'll see.



Ongoing reviews (that I do not yet feel comfortable enough to comment on) include Justtheanswer, Ipsos, Shopper Thoughts, and NavteqPulse. Watch this space to see future updates as I get to know them better. Also under review is StreetwisetrendsPanel - who by the way I haven't heard a peep from since joining several weeks ago and thus have been unable to even experience what they're like, let alone add to my balance.

This concludes the review portion of this post. Now for the fun stuff.


A few words on Ethics.

Let me be clear. I believe in market research. I believe that big companies and corporations are ultimately slave to OUR will even if they sometimes forget it. They answer to us. They have to. If we all unite and speak out clearly about what we want, they will provide, because that's where the money is. Because of this, I do not condone the use of deception in surveys. It's easy to feel like you are just one person who can't possibly make a difference, but that is a flaw with all people. And that's why things generally stay so shitty.

I'm 99% sure that 99% of people can't say what I'm about to say honestly, and I'm 99% sure that most of you reading this won't believe me when I say it - but the fact is, I make an effort to be truthful and forthright in every survey I do. There have been many occassions where I willingly sacrificed a decent chunk of money just because I refused to compromise my own integrity by giving an untruthful answer to a survey that I knew wanted it. I take this responsibility seriously, and I give due diligence to every single question to the best of my ability. If you're going to do this - you should too.

The fact is your opinions offered in these surveys DO make a difference. People DO read your responses and those responses DO hold sway over the people who make the important decisions with respect to the food, entertainment and retail industries - even the government. You are being granted a chance to have your say, to sit down the politicians and the beurocrats and give them a piece of your mind, AND you are being paid - nay - EMPLOYED to do so. Do not squander that responsibility just to make some easy money off of randomly clicking your mouse. You can make that money AND make a difference with only a little bit of effort.

Having said all that - there are some exceptions. If a survey is particularly poorly designed, for example a chronic lack of neutral options, i.e., "Do you like Tom Cruise", with answers ranging from "yes a lot" to "not at all", but without any "no opinion" option, then I consider that survey fair game (bad example, I know, the correct answer is always "Tom Cruise is in the closet."). Likewise if there are coding/structural problems, stupidly phrased questions, typos, run-on questions that do not follow the format of the preceeding ones (e.g., Do you own a car? No. What type of car do you own?) all of these sorts of mistakes indicate a lack of care and responsibility on part of the survey designer, and if they're not going to take it seriously, why should we?

At the same time, surveys will often try to seed their own bias by asking a series of increasingly restrictive questions until everyone except those giving the answers they want have been eliminated from the survey. If you're going to do research into crisps/chips, and include every popular brand of crisps and have us state our opinions on each one, then THAT is valuable data. If you're going to kick out everyone who says they like pringles, doritos, walkers etc etc until only quavers is left, then fuck you in the neck. You don't get to engineer a survey where the only people who can possibly complete it have to say what you want them to, otherwise what's the point of the survey?

To be honest, doing these surveys can be a very rewarding experience, and being asked your own opinions on things, especially yourself, can really surprise you when an honest answer you weren't expecting comes out. You really can learn a lot about yourself, and in no time at all you'll find yourself shooting through these surveys very fast with no need to lie. However, if you MUST do surveys and not take them entirely seriously, or if perhaps you want to complete a survey you don't really have much stake in but aren't necessarily disqualified from either - here are some simple steps to bear in mind.

Always default to the neutral option. If you're not going to read the questions properly, you can limit the damage being done to the data gathering process by selecting the neutral options. The "I don't know"s, the "I neither agree nor disagree"s. By sticking to those, your vote is counting as a nothing. Both up and down vote at the same time, cancelling itself out. Of course that's not guaranteed, depending on how the data is interpreted (1000 people asked to review a celebrity, only 200 say they like him... neutral votes therefore count as negative votes) but this at least is the closest you can get to doing no harm.


The survey companies themselves tend to have some ethics problems. One of the biggest is the old hit and run method. If a company keeps disqualifying you when you are over half way through the survey - tell them why you're quitting, and ditch them. This isn't disqualification.50% of a survey is more than enough to have already ascertained if you are part of their target demographic. No, what's happening here is they are taking the valuable data you supplied them and running off with it, pretending you failed a qualifier question to excuse the fact that they aren't paying for you.

Generally speaking, you SHOULD be in the safe zone if you've managed to get 26-30% of the way through the survey. At that point, if it's a fair survey, you'll be on fairly safe ground to continue answering as you please without fear of sudden disqualification. Anything that consistently kicks you out beyond that point is ripping you off.

You may also get annoyed by the false advertising. While websites like PopulusLive rightly claim their surveys are worth £1 per 5 minutes, other sites, like Valued Opinions, stick into their every advert that you can earn "up to £5 per survey". Which is bullshit. I've been with them for years and years, the most I ever got was an offer for £4, which I got disqualified from before I could even get to the first screen. Don't be disheartened if a site doesn't pay off as well as it promised. Yes they can often be too good to be true - but that doesn't mean they're not still good enough.


The "Donate to a charity" option. This is a feature that many survey sites have, usually sitting right next to the withdraw button like a big, glaring eye.

Look, if you're doing surveys for cash, the chances are you're not well off. You're not obligated to break your back trying to scrounge up some spare money just to pass it off to someone else. Life isn't a Disney movie, if you can't make ends meet you have to take care of yourself. That doesn't mean don't look out for others or give back when you have wealth to spare, just that there's no reason to feel guilty for claiming your rewards. No matter how bad a situation someone is in there's always someone worse, you can't worry about all of them all the time.

Besides, these sites most likely don't actually respect your donations and actually give that money to charity. It's like those penny bins in McDonald's which they SAY is for charity. Does anyone really believe they hand that shit over? Hell no, they just tip it into the tills at the end of the day and some fatcat in an office (that I like to picture as Ronald McDonald with shades, a Bluetooth device and a bowler hat) chucks a token amount of cash at the nearest charity and calls it even. The point is, don't be emotionally blackmailed into throwing your money away, take care of yourself, then when you are in a more stable financial situation, you can take care of others without self-detriment.



Tips and red flags.

1: Read the description. First and foremost, always pay attention to the description of the survey. Surveys by Valued Opinions, for example, always list the "type" of survey in the invite. It might say "technology", or "food", something like that. Then, when you get asked about twenty different preferences you have, you know what to be on the lookout for. And when it asks you, in a "food" survey, if you ever eat out, you'll know to click yes. Something I like to do is click print screen to get a screen capture of the survey description, as I've very often forgotten what it said when it comes time to picking the right questions. This way I have an easy way to look back and make sure I don't screw myself over by picking the wrong answer.

2: Your job. The biggest red flag in any survey is one that will happen right at the start: "Do you or any of your relatives work in any of the following industries?" ALWAYS say no. They are trying to screen out possible data conflicts, for example someone reviewing cola who works for the same cola company might not be as objective as they would like. Of course it's stupid to include extended family in this disqualification question, and we're all grown up enough to know how to be objective. I'm assuming that you are, so if so, be sure to always click "none".

3: Matching the qualifiers to the control questions. Remember that very often surveys will try to trip you up by first asking you at the start of the survey a few seemingly demographic identifying questions, such as how many kids you have, but will then ask the same questions at the end. If your answers don't match - you're out. If you are not being totally honest - which I do not recomend, then at least remember what you picked. Also pay close attention to the exact phrasing of the questions, to avoid those silly, pointlss gotcha questions like NVL likes to use.

4: Leading questions. "Have you ever used Colgate toothpaste?" I'm assuming that what you should say here is obvious, but just in case it isn't I'll explain anyway. While I support total honesty in surveys it is often the case that, as I already explained, they will continue to rule out more and more people with each question that eventually they are left only with the responses they want to justify their research. In these circumstances I consider it fair game to be dishonest. If they are clearly angling for a certain answer, just give it to them. At least then someone gains from them screwing people over with their false data gathering tactics.

5: Hidden tripwires. If you're breezing through a survey tapping away at all the neutral options, as I have advised, you may find yourself suddenly get kicked out for no discernable reason. Why? Because of a mid-way quality check question. These are easy to miss even when trying to do the survey legitimately, so keep an eye out for them. They'll typically take the form of "Please tick __ to mark your place in this survey", and unless you select the stated option for that question - you're out. Another, somewhat related issue is that sometimes surveys have time traps, where if you haven't spent enough time doing the survey, you get disqualified under the assumption that you are just cheating. Fortunately I tend to do several surveys at the same time, switching back and forth, so this hasn't happened to me, but if it does I will be livid. If you do this long enough you learn to recognize a question and identify the correct answer at a flash, so even doing them properly can be a very quick process. I recomend using the same tactic I do, and doing several at once. Just be wary of the ones that expire too!

6: Behaviour of the survey. It takes a while to develop a feel for this, but sometimes after answering a specific question you'll notice that the survey takes longer to load the next one. It changes a little, maybe the page restructures, maybe the whole page redirects rather than just the spinny circle loading. You need to have been kicked out from a good few surveys to identify the difference between that, and simply the loading of a new section of the survey. Once you get a feel for it, and you know you are being kicked out, try hitting the back button. Some surveys, very few, will let you go back and try again without penalising you. It's getting harder to pull this off as people improve their security, but if you've made a mistake, clicked the wrong option or misunderstood a question and you're about to lose money because of it, it doesn't hurt to try. Remember some sites keep permanantly trying to redirect you forwards, so keep going back until you reach a page that stops, or try hitting the stop loading button in your browser to stay on a safe page.

Best of luck with your future survey-doing adventures, I hope these guides help you avoid unnecessary exclusion.


As a final note, I will again leave you with the assurance that surveys for cash IS a real thing. It can make you money, but it's not going to be a substitute for a job. On the plus side you can do as few or as many surveys as you want to earn yourself some extra pocket money. In time you'll learn to tune out what you're doing and just relax, sit back, play some music and chill out while your hands do all the work. It's a great way to help get by when unemployed - trust me, I know, and it's invaluable when Christmas comes around if you save up all your vouchers.

Just remember to do so responsibly, safely and as honestly as possible.

If anyone can think of any companies I have missed, I'll be glad to hear about them and give them a try. Any and all future reviews will be added as an edit to this post, NOT future posts, but as stated, there may be future posts reviewing different incentive schemes.

Thanks for your time.

The internet does not belong to us

In light of recent major changes to shake the internet such as the dissolving of Windows Live and the awkward transition from BlogTV to the hilariously bad "Younow" (that quite possibly no more than two people signed up for), I've been thinking a lot lately about how increasingly obvious it is becoming that anything we keep or store on the internet ultimately does not belong to us. For the moment, I am speaking with neither condoning nor condemnation, I'll share my views in just a moment.

It can be scarily easy to get locked in this mindset of feeling like the places you hand out online are somehow sanctuaries for your personal use. It is easy to get complacent or even naive about just how sacred those places are. One fine example of this is Youtube, which continues to enforce its policy of "If it ain't broke, keep fixing it" and subjecting its users to an endless barrage of increasingly non-user-friendly alterations to their system. Facebook also is notorious for this, with its implementation of things like "timeline" which literally not one single user on the face of this earth actually likes or wanted.

As a result we often tend to feel affronted by these forced changes. I know that to me, my Youtube profile feels very much like a home away from home. It rests at the hub of my internet activity, and then Youtube periodically barges in like an uninvited maid and begins moving things around, changing the settings and preferences I have gotten just how I like them, utterly ignorant to my protests. Of course whenever they implement changes like these they insist that they had testers vote on whether they liked it and followed the popular demand, but nobody believes that, because nobody knows anyone (except contrarian trolls) who claims to actually like these designs.

Anyone who has lost an email account due to companies changing hands, or spent any time on a beloved forum only to have it crash and lose much of their work can relate to how frustrating it can be to have years of dedication and memories get swept away in the backwash as these big conglomerates come bursting through our sacrosanct domains like runaway trains and not even notice the damage they are doing. We spend years building our profiles and contributing hundreds or thousands of posts/comments to various discussions only to have to stand there and watch as it all gets thrown away.

The thing we need to remember though is that these online domains to NOT belong to us, they belong to those mindless corporations. The purpose of those corporations is to make profit, and if they can make a little extra money by snipping away some of your home page to add a little more ad space there, they will do it. They don't care about the effect it has on us because they genuinely don't understand what these places mean to us. We're in a sense like spiders building our own Web (see what I did there?) around manmade objects. We've made these little internet cubbyholes our homes, we're adapted their shapes and capabilities for our own purposes, but this is very much like a whole different world from the one they see.

Case in point - I used to blog on something called "360" hosted by Yahoo. It wasn't especially great as blog sites there but circumstances just happened to be such that I ended up moving there from LJ when I got bored with it. I posted many very detailed blogs there, commented on all manner of things and reserved it for only a few precious friends. In the end, however, Yahoo shut it down deciding it wasn't worth their investment. It wasn't making enough money for them, and as a result I had the pages torn from my diary. I fully expect the same thing to one day happen to this blog too.

You might be saying right now that it's not that bit a deal. Why do you care so much? I hear you cry. Well, imaginary person, let me tell you. Online content is getting increasingly necessary to every day life. Records are being transferred from physical to virtual, companies are becoming more and more reliant on online registration. We've gotten to the point now where we can't even watch movies or play vidja games without having some kind of utterly pointless online connection to grant us permission to do so. Even when you OWN something you don't really own it without the net.

What's going to happen when everything you do in your life is in some way completely dependant on having an internet connection? I am typing this directly into my blog, as opposed to a Word document like I normally do, because the measly effort of copy-pasting the finished product from one to the other is slightly annoying. Do you think Word hasn't considered this? That they aren't working on ways to make this transfer even smoother? Eventually it could very well be the case that any and all similar programs might no longer exist on our computer but rather are streamed directly from the internet.

What if, at some point the whole concept of having "downloaded" programs becomes redundant, and we all exist as part of this continuous data stream sending us everything in real time with all updates and mods constantly sequenced directly in? Data storage would take on a whole new meaning, now our literal diaries will become the belongings of whoever holds the keys, everything from the pictures we take to the most meaningful conversations of our lives will become the hostages of larger corporate bodies who will mess around with that data as much as they want. Think this is all hypothetical? Consider how much of this stuff of yours actually is stored on your computer verses online right now.

Do you think your Youtube subscriptions are no different to a TV service or magazine subscription? You're wrong. Do you really think that anything on your profile on your favorite forum or social networking site belongs to you? In addition to the profile itself being on their website, your history is stored in their servers, your avatar is hosted on photobucket, your friends list is the product of online stored email contacts and every discussion, poke, karma rating or shared post exists only on someone else's archive which they are lending you access to for so long as they decide you may do so. Even your credit card info is in the hands of probably a dozen strangers you never met.

This has huge ramifications when it comes to things like privacy. We've already seen steps towards targeted advertisement, where your private conversations are studied so that adverts hosted on those websites can be tailored to your needs. Facebook is infamous for its lack of respect for its members privacy, constantly trying to push at the boundaries of what we will let them do, meanwhile Google+ was a trainwreck that didn't do nearly as well as they wanted precisely because of their stupid rules such as forcing you to use your real name and linking it to your other google accounts such as youtube. Even Amazon has been reporting private transactions to the police to get people arrested for marijuana use.

All the while this is happening we've been assaulted by a plethora of bills designed to destroy internet privacy, usually in America, because America seems to think it owns the internet. SOPA and PIPA were just the start, there's nothing to stop these nutjobs from constantly throwing the same bill with a different name at the Supreme Court indefinitely until it sticks, and that has come very close to happening with CISPA, which has already won half of its victory.

The world is slowly transitioning from personal hubs that branch out to various networks, to online hubs that feed us directly into theirs. The distinction between online and offline is becoming obsolete, and the most powerful forces leading the internet know this, and want to be ready for when it happens. They want to have systems in place so that they can remain in control from the moment we realise that in order to do anything with our own work we are immediately beholden to their whims. If they want to force us to openly reveal all our personal data, we will have no choice but to comply.

Just look at Ebay. They were once the cheapest auction site on the internet, but as soon as they choked up all their competition they raised their prices to phenomenal levels. Then they purchased Paypal, and now they can charge twice as many obscene fees. Why do we tolerate it? Because we have no other choice. No other company can come close to competing with them precisely because of these tactics. They hold the keys to us being able to do the things we want to do,

Your Youtube account does NOT belong to you. Your favourite forum can vanish from the internet at a moment's notice. Facebook might go the way of Myspace tomorrow along with all of your other most used online resources. Think you have a right to Google? If they decide to, they could make it a premium service and soon all other decent search engines would follow suit. Wikipedia could be torpedoed by internet censorship laws, pornography is already under attack (which I'll maybe get to in a different post). Your vlogs could vlog off, your torrents might wash away, Reddit could be Redidn't and 4Chan... well 4Chan is already crap but that's beside the point.

If you are under any illusions that the online bedroom walls you plaster with posters of Miley Cyrus or lolcats or whatever the kids are into these days really are yours to keep, you are in for a rude awakening. These corporations that have the right to strip those personal spaces of yours bare and stir your personal data around the web are not malevolent, they are thoughtless machines. Yes, there should be accountability, yes they should care what their customers want, but no, they don't HAVE to, so they don't.

Perhaps at some point we could all get together and build a site that is entirely user-generated, where we do as we please and nobody can dictate the way our preferences should be set up, but in the mean time, one of the difficult lessons we all need to learn is that the places we treasure most can be taken from us at a moment's notice. However intrusive that may feel, however unpleasant, regardless of whether or not that is how things should be, it is the way things are.

Remember to keep a firm line drawn between the virtual things which you keep in your own safe possession like objects, and those which only appear to be in your possession, but actually reside in someone else's virtual back-pocket  The internet does not belong to us, we just rent a room there, and our landlords can do pretty much whatever they please. I am not condoning the fact that they may come for your illusory freedoms, I'm merely informing you that it could happen, so you don't get taken by surprise when it does.

The internet is our playground, and feels like a wide open world through the shining window of our monitors, but in reality it is a chain of linked hands passing money and responsibility from one authority to another, and we walk upon that chain with precarious naivete. Our playground could be sealed behind iron gates or utterly obliterated at a moment's notice, so if you have anything valuable hanging out there in the electronic ether, be sure to reel it in and at least make a hard copy of it.

And next time you decide to go running into the internet like a care-free child, stop, and check your footing. One of these days you may just find that the very ground upon which you tread has been pulled away. Nothing is certain in this day and age, and everything you hold dear online is but an immaterial incantation of code and binary signals, however real it may look, it is not really there. Always be mindful of this, lest you lose something so treasured because you thought your DeviantArt page or your LiveJournal was an actual diary under your bed.

Keep the internet safe, my friends. And keep yourselves safe from it, both in terms of security, and dependency.