How can Biologists believe in the ToE?

Hi Vashgun,Your first two points dovetail nicely to create a self-rebuttal. First you argue that the earth isn't ancient, then you cite Behe's concept of irreducible complexity. Did you know that Behe accepts an ancient earth and universe and most of evolutionary history? This is from page 5 of Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box: So Behe's right when he argues for irreducible complexity and wrong when he accepts an ancient earth and universe?Behe isn't really a practicing scientist any more. If you visit his webpage at Lehigh University (http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/faculty/behe.html) and look at his list of selected publications you'll see that it is pretty sparse with regard to technical papers in peer-reviewed journals. Here they are: Contrast this with another biologist from Lehigh University that I chose randomly, Barry Bean (he's listed right above Behe on the faculty page, which was how I chose him). Here's his list of recent publications (http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/faculty/barry.htm): Quite a list, huh! Behe is nearly a persona non grata at Lehigh and isn't really engaged in much serious research. He primarily involves himself with promoting his views through books, articles and public appearances, and with the Discovery Institute, the primary organizational force behind the ID movement. About transitional fossils, the TalkOrigins page you referenced includes examples of transitionals at the levels of species, genus, family, order, class, phylum and kingdom, and it includes a number of invertebrate transitions. In order to successfully argue for a dearth of transitionals you have to at least choose a couple examples from the list and describe why they aren't really transitionals. If the excerpt you provided was all that was said about thermodynamics then I would agree with you that it is poorly argued. But your excerpt is only the 2nd half of the 2nd paragraph of a three paragraph section that does a pretty good job of describing the thermodynamic issue at a lay level.--Percy

If you're talking about biologists, who are the subject of this thread, then judging by the peer-reviewed literature it would be a very high percentage that accept the TOE, certainly well above 95% and probably above 99%.If you're talking about scientists in general, then again judging by the peer-reviewed literature, but this time across all fields of science according to whether a paper follows mainstream or creationist views, it would again be a very high percentage, again certainly well above 95%. But they don't stay silent. They publish technical papers consistent with the views of mainstream science. There are very few odd birds like Richard Sternberg (he of the BSOW ID paper infamy) and Michael Behe (Darwin's Black Box) who are willing to work in a field so strongly at odds with their personal views. Approximately 1% of the population is named some variation of Steve. When creationists announced a petition expressing doubt about the ToE signed by around 200 scientists, as a tongue-in-cheek response the National Center for Science Education circulated a petition expressing support for evolution that can only be signed if your name is a variant of Steve. Currently both petitions have around seven or eight hundred signatories, so this indicates that the ratio of scientists accepting the ToE versus those questioning it is around 100 to 1.In other words, there is no significant but silent body of ToE doubter scientists out there. Perhaps you can point us to a creationism contribution to science. A new vaccine, perhaps, or identification of new oil fields or other geological resources, or discovery of a new planet orbiting a distant sun, or new data about cosmological origins.With the exception of an occasional Andrew Snelling (whose science is horrid, by the way) and John Baumgardner (who wrote a wonderful geologic simulator), for the most part creationists don't engage in research. They instead peruse the literature cherry picking excerpts of articles that they think support creationist views (though the articles' authors would, of course, never agree with their conclusions) so they can present them in creationist literature, websites and presentations. I'm sure most evolutionists regret any arrogance displayed by our side, but please keep in mind that your side has a guy at this very site arguing for UFO's for God, and such cockamamie stuff is by no means uncommon. If creationists aren't going to police their nuttier elements, too many of whom seem to find their way here, then please understand that evolutionists are human, too, and there's only so much nonsense one can tolerate. The evidence strongly argues against this view. If scientific consensus were really a matter of faith then scientific views on topics in biology, cosmology, geology and so forth would long ago have become as fragmented as religion. That degree of acceptance of creationist views divides across religious lines rather than national or cultural lines makes it clear that creationism is religion, not science.--Percy

A few years ago, creationists announced a list of scientists who questioned evolution. Agreeing with you that providing a list of people supporting a view doesn't make that view correct, and seeing such a list as wholly ridiculous anyway, the National Center for Science Education announced a parody of the creationist list called Project Steve that is a list of scientists named Steve (in recognition of the then recently deceased Stephen Jay Gould) who support evolution. The lists have continued to accumulate names through the years, and the lists are about equal in length. Since about 1% of the population have names that are a variation of Steve, this means that scientists who question evolution represent about 1% of scientists.While I don't have any figures right at hand, support for evolution is even broader within biology than within other fields, and so the 99.9% figure is believable.I'd provide a link to the creationist list, but the Discovery Institute's website appears to be down right now, so I can't find the list right now. This is most certainly true, and I doubt you'll find any disagreement with this here. But within science a consensus forms because scientists are all studying the same real world, and scientists become convinced that we have uncovered something probably true about the real world when they're able to replicate the results of experiments performed by other scientists who are also studying the real world. A scientific consensus forms when enough scientists become convinced that something probably true about the real world has been uncovered.In other words, scientists don't accept something as probably true because there's a consensus. Rather, the consensus forms because something is probably true, and the way scientists uncover what is probably true is through the scientific method. Science is not based upon the theory of evolution. Rather, the TOE is a scientific theory, meaning that it was developed through widely replicated research, has made many successful predictions, and is falsifiable.Theories are formulated by generalizing from the evidence, a thought process called induction. Predictions are then made by making deductions from the theory. Successful predictions are the bread and butter of a successful theory.--Percy

Yes, been wondering that myself. --Percy

Science uses deduction to draw conclusions and induction to make predictions.--Percy

Your last statement contradicts your first one.--Percy