Why should evolution be accepted on authority?

I've been fiddling with this idea obliquely, and I was wondering if it might be a good topic.I myself accept evolution "on authority," but can't quite figure out a rationale for this acceptance. It's no good to say, "Well, it's obvious that you are convinced by all the evidence": the evidence itself is being accepted by me on authority.Definitions:"to accept on authority"--to believe a proposition because you trust those who give you the information, even though you have no direct access to the evidence."no way to access the evidence"--
This doesn't mean it's not physically possible to access it, but that it is impractical.
To read a book is not to access the information directly. It's still secondhand knowledge which we accept on the authority of the author.Possible contention: Often these specialists we trust (medical doctors,etc.) turn out to be wrong. Some of them, in fact, are crooks. Why shouldn't we be as wary of scientists who study evolution as we are of automotive mechanics? Both are mere "specialists."In fact [a creationist might argue] most of these scientists are liberal agnostics or atheists who might very well have, consciously or unconsciously, an anti-religious agenda. An insidious bias as a result might infiltrate all their work. If you took a poll of the percentage of "liberals" among university professors, the number would approach 90% [I made the number up, but my personal experience tells me this might be accurate].Why should we trust such people?This message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-18-2004 05:00 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-19-2004 11:58 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-19-2004 11:59 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-19-2004 10:44 PM

Yes, and by that logic there is a difference between accepting the word of a single Christian (or Muslim, etc.) over accepting the concensus of the Christian community.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-19-2004 08:59 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-19-2004 09:00 PM

Jar, my point was that sheer numbers of believers on one side or the other does not solve the problem . . .the Christians would win that battle.

One thought that I had was the matter of consistency. Why is it that we accept all scientific data without any qualms except data that we think disrupts our religious or moral beliefs? We don't have any problem accepting an explanation of how a microwave oven works (which is pretty mysterious). Why should that be any different from TOE?

Yeah, I wasn't sure. I thought it was possible.

Tell me some more about your past. I'm interested. I think we might have something in common. But you will have to put it in simple language for me (sorry, but I am what I am).

Questral, are not some of the rules you mentioned begging the question? How would a layman know if the evidence was "all the available evidence"? If there is a way to figure such questions out deductively, I would agree. But otherwise . . .

This I have doubts about. I don't think we can repeat the work of scientists.

I meant in a practical sense.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They are not repeatable by the layman, which this topic is all about.What do I care if someone supposedly "repeated" a study? I have no direct evidence of that.I'm still back to believing on authority or not believing.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are not going to win this game, Berberry. There are far more religious people than there are scientists.

I can read all the literature I want but that in itself will not get me any closer to the physical evidence. If we read a book, we accept the inductive evidence (real life samples) on authority since we have no practical access to those samples. What we can do is to ask ourselves,"Suppose this physical evidence mentioned in this book is real: does that prove the theory sufficiently?"In other words, we can figure out if the theory makes sense as a theory apart from the evidence, but we still have to accept the evidence on authority.

It's not being "kept back"; it's just that in the nature of things the layman cannot access it. It's not very realistic to say that I can go and look at the remains of Lucy. And even if I could, I don't have the training to be able to tell if the claims made about Lucy are valid or not. The only way I could do that would be to become a biological anthropologist. We can't all be researchers in the field of evolution.

This morning, after writing this up, I went to work (I teach English at a community college), and I was listening to a conversation between two other teachers. One, an economics teacher, was saying to someone that there really wasn't much proof for evolution; it was mostly speculation, he said. Presumably the economics teacher was reasonably well-educated. You have to have at least a Master's degree to teach there.Just goes to show how widespread this idea is that there is no real proof for evolution.

Are you talking about the fact that mommas have little babies, and these little babies are not exactly like either their father or their mother? What does this prove?