Comparitive delusions

Faith, I'm puzzled. You said If having a science degree would allow you to evaluate critically the evidence which is purported to support evolution, why do you think that it doesn't allow others to do the same thing?Surely it makes sense to listen to what those in science actually think of the evidence in their own field? You've stated that this education in science would be required to allow you to look into this and evaluate it, yet you feel that you can dismiss this evidence without the "science degree". You feel you can have objections to this evidence, yet you don't feel you have the necessary education to research the facts of it.On the presentation of the evidence, if you feel that a science degree is necessary to understand the data in the primary literature, does that not make you think that explanations given in the same form might be beyond anyone without the science degree you consider necessary and that explanations which are more straightforward and less "data-heavy" might be the best way to communicate with the layman?This is the reason why we consult doctors when we're sick, plumbers when our pipes leak and electricians when we blow every fuse in the house - they have the necessary training and expertise to get to the bottom of the problem and fix it without (hopefully) causing more problems in the process. Scientists are of the same type - they're the ones that become experts in the field of science to work through the knotty problems then explain their findings to Joe Public in language that Joe Public understands.I'm not trying to have a go here, I'm just trying to explain how it appears to me when you make arguments like this.

But Faith, when science presents its evidence to Joe Public in the same format that it presents it to the scientific community, it's accused of using impenetrable jargon or of blinding everyone with science. You said yourself that someone on here couldn't expect you to read a whole paper that they'd kindly provided a link to, I think it was PaulK.You can't really have it both ways, you've either got to make the effort to look at the primary data, to educate yourself in understanding the primary data, or you have to accept what those with the expertise say about the primary data.I'm not in defensive mode here, I'm genuinely trying to understand why you think that you need a science degree to understand the primary literature and data, yet you don't require a science degree to reject the conclusions of those who do understand it. You seem to be saying that it's alright to reject something that you don't understand on the basis that you don't understand it. That implies that you can't really know what it is you're rejecting in the first place.

We're getting back into the realms of the crimescene here. it's in the past too - how do you test that? You collect evidence. You use the evidence to build a theory, then you test the theory.The point I'm trying to make is that if you would look at the primary literature and data you would discover how this is done and how conclusions can be drawn about the past.Think of it like an archaeological dig. Two feet below the surface they find pottery dated to the 1400s. Four feet below that, they find Roman pottery. Both are in the past, but we can conclude that the pottery from the 1400s was deposited after the Roman pottery because it's above it. What we know of history supports that the Roman pottery is older than that from the 1400s.Would it be sensible to say that the conclusion is invalid because the past can't be tested?Edited as per usual for typos :sigh:This message has been edited by Trixie, 03-24-2006 05:50 PM

Science has never claimed to know everything - it's not that arrogant. It doesn't just present it's conclusions either, it provides the evidence on which those conclusions are based so that anyone who can be bothered can verify it for themselves.Science has never claimed to have a monopoly on the truth, but it does claim to have theories which are well supported by evidence. If the evidence doesn't support conclusions, there are plenty of scientists out there who will point it out.Scientists don't dare to say that they know about hominids millions of years ago, they say that they have theories which are supported by available evidence. You've been informed of this many times, so why do you keep ignoring it?The bottom line is that you're not going to accept anything that doesn't fit in with your own opinion because it doesn't fit in with your own opinion and because you can't understand it without a science degree, as you claimed before. That's fine, just don't pretend that you have a reasonable and well thought out basis for not accepting it.

You don't have to know the perpetrator of a crime to know that a crime has been committed!The police don't turn up at a murder scene and say "Well, yep, there's a dead, stabbed person, but we don't know who did it and it's in the past so there can't be anything to help us. Let's not bother investigating".From evidence there is much they can recreate about the crime scene, just like there is much that scientists can recreate about the past. It's done using the available evidence.