Neither option says much about your credibility as a commentator.

when, dear bernie, when did i ever say i was a member of the creationist crowd? what, bernie dear, what did i say that would mark me as “religious”?

remember: all i asked was “would it be wise to consider the possibility of the that MAYBE the theory of evolution, as currently taught and (evidently) ruthlessly enforced, that said theory MIGHT possibly not be 100% correct?” as has been noted, answers must be scientifically observable and repeatable. “because darwin said it” is not the end of the argument. whatever happened to “let a thousand flowers bloom”?

are all evolution fascists this close-minded about *everything*? or is it just this? (i’m betting “everything”, BTW.)

You weren’t reading it right.

Fraud, manipulation and selective use of the facts are basic human tools for getting ahead. The difference between science and religion is that the scientific method recognises the fallibility of the individual and so requires that data must be repeatable and that hypotheses must be falsifiable (ie. that there must be some means by which they can be disproved, rather than with statements like ‘God made it’).

Religious folk often point to the changing nature of scientific knowledge as a weakness. In fact its ability to adapt to new information and further analysis is its most vital strength. The core tenets of the theory of evolution, having survived the full 12 rounds of scepticism and generations of aggressively sceptical research by those who find it inconvenient, are pretty solidly grounded.

It’s also full of tremendous successes far exceeding any other source of human knowledge that has ever existed.

Science is a process. It doesn’t promise perfection right away, or ever. It promises progress, over time. And the method is to provide evidence, not just to whine and whine and whine and then say stupid things like this:

“the utter silence on the marked lack of “transitional” (in the process of evolving) fossils”

This isn’t “questioning” evolution. Serious informed criticism of evolution is something that gets you all sorts of awards and praise: see Gould, Margulis, Kimura, etc. Uninformed goofy arguments that
openly expose ignorance of the very subject they claim to criticize deserve only to get laughed at.

There is no “marked” lack of transitional fossils, nor any “silence” about all the various interpretations of the fossil record. Do you even know what a transitional fossil is?

Hint: it’s not a “half-chicken, half-crocodile.” In fact, it’s never a half-anything.

This is actually used for a lot of things other than the origin of life. Probably does not mean possible, and while the odds are against it, the possibility remains.

i noted science has pulled off some gigantic mistakes in the past, and declared that a track record like that, full of bonehead errors, made it prudent to at least *consider* the possibility that their pet evolution theory might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

i also noted that it science has become politicized, and it’s now mandatory to sneer at anyone who would dare question the approved party position. rather like the educated 16th century elites, the most up-to-date and educated people of their times, who brought galileo to trial for daring to question aristotelian geocentrism.

current score on that comment: minus 23

“*silence* the heretic!”, demanded the mob. “there will be no more questions! the matter is settled!”

Exactly. Problems arise only when people deviate from this. The right to free speech and expression of ideas does not translate into the *right* to promote bad science. It makes sense to try to poke holes in the theory of evolution. It makes no sense to the offer forth a theory with a far weaker foundation.

Oh, and my vote for what’s funnier is Radley being labeled right wing, but only by a little.

It has been suggested by some observers that Crick’s speculation about panspermia, “fits neatly into the intelligent design concept.”[60] Crick’s name was raised in this context in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial over the teaching of intelligent design. However, Crick wrote:

“The age of the earth is now established beyond any reasonable doubt as very great, yet in the United States millions of Fundamentalists still stoutly defend the naive view that it is relatively short, an opinion deduced from reading the Christian Bible too literally. They also usually deny that animals and plants have evolved and changed radically over such long periods, although this is equally well established. This gives one little confidence that what they have to say about the process of natural selection is likely to be unbiased, since their views are predetermined by a slavish adherence to religious dogmas.”[61]

In the 1987 United States Supreme Court case Edwards v. Aguillard, Crick joined a group of other Nobel laureates who advised that, “‘Creation-science’ simply has no place in the public-school science classroom.”[62] Crick was also an advocate for the establishment of Darwin Day as a British national holiday.[63]

I’ve grown so tired of making that point in discussions with creationists. You’re right, though. It comes up every damn time.

This right here is the most common, and most ridiculously stupid, argument a creationist can make. And they all make it… it is, in fact, the only coherent argument (besides “I’m such a badass rebel”) that Stein makes in the trailers for his movie.

But this doesn’t make any sense at all. The theory of evolution says nothing (absolutely NOTHING) about the origins of life. Evolution starts with life of some sort already exisiting and then explains how things came to look like they do today. That’s the ironic thing here: There’s really no conflict between creationism (on the basic level of “God did it”) and evolution, which is why a scientist like Crick can believe in both.

Don’t be fooled, though. Crick understands that his belief in how life originated is unscientific and basically religious, and he’d want no part in having a creation “theory” taught in schools.

Another good laugh! You’re on a roll this morning, RB!

I have always found that a reliable gauge of intelligence in others is their SENSE OF HUMOR…their ability to understand sarcasm, for example.

(I sense some irony here.)

And Radley’s about as “right wing” as my left arm.

On the other hand, throughout almost all of human history, a failure to pay lip service to the local gods (and the local creation theory) will not engender deep blatant hostility. It will get you tortured and killed. Instantly and without recourse.

Besides, it is simply true that there is little hostility among scientists for those who choose to believe (or even proselytize) fairy stories about the origins of life or the universe. That hostility is almost entirely reserved for those who wish to dignify those fairy stories with the label “science”, with which the fairy stories have nothing in common whatsoever.