Should we reopen the book on Evolution?

I'll take this lame statement as a resignation. Are you actually asking for a do-over based on your unawareness of what a scientist is? what a scientific organization is? what the scientific method is? what a peer-reviewed scientific journal is? Well, you are taking on real science when you take on evolution, so don't come to a gunfight with your knife.

Do your own research and educate yourself. Look up these terms and google up some examples that meet the criteria, if you can. You did so on AGW, where you tended to confuse politics with science, instead of religion and science. But you did find some legitimate scientific issues to argue, even if they fell short of disproving AGW. It gave us something to discuss in logical terms.

But you can't argue science convincingly using political conviction and religious faith, even if some scientists are religious or political.

I have no issues with your religion, don't confuse me with martin. I have no issues with your politics, either. Just don't try to use political ideology or religious dogma as scientific evidence. That I have a problem with.

So, by all means, start over. Make multiple threads. Address all the issues. Start a Bible thread and kick my ass with feats of faith and magic. Whatever blows your frock up, amigo. But make scientific claims and people are liable to get all scientific on you.

 

No, the topic was the scientific legitimacy of evolution, not the authenticity of the Bible. I was trying to give you the opportunity to make whatever case you had for the Bible in some other thread instead of on the evolution thread, where I must insist that the Bible has no relevance. You tried an old ploy called "creating a smokescreen".

 

OK, I'll try. It's not an issue of who is acceptable, but of who is credible . . . for credibility is everything in science.

At its most basic a scientist is one who studies science. Obviously this includes amateur and popular scientists who study astronomy, birds, . . . whatever, as a hobby. But what we are talking about here are the professional scientists. To be a professional scientist does not require a Ph.D or university affiliation, although many have such. What it requires is a job working in science and scientific training with at least one science degree. A Ph.D holder in music or the arts is not automatically a scientist, but if he has a BS or MS along the way he may be a qualified scientist. Thats the objective part.

Now things become more and more subjective. A credible scientist must also establish a reputation in his chosen discipline. He does this by doing the research, reaching his conclusions, and publishing them in accredited scientific journals that receive peer-review and editing by other experts in the field. If his publish work withstands scientific scrutiny and become accepted, he gains expertise. A career full of papers, books, reports, presentations, and seminars that are widely accepted and utilized by others will enable a credible scientist to become an authoritative scientific expert.

Like all other endeavors, science has its superstars, its experts, its everyday journeymen, its struggling apprentices, and its incompetent practitioners. Science separates these based on credibility and expertise. Science is very broad and contains hundreds of disciplines. Credibility is assessed within disciplines. A person may be a world's authority in climatology and still have no credentials in zoology. This is why scientists judge each other by what they have accomplished in each discipline and how they are perceived within that field of study.

Some trained scientists never work in their fields or gain any credibility within the community. Others work a career and never publish anything worth noting and fail to gain credibility. Many must find other professions when they cannot measure up.

Some of these people continue to call themselves a scientist and may write on websites, popular magazines, self-published books, or newspaper articles. But if they do not publish in the accredited journals in their discipline, they cannot be taken as credible by the scientific mainstream. These publications will allow unsupported statements, that will not pass muster in the journals. They do not have to be reviewed by other experts for flaws. And they are not subject to expert critique in those same magazines.

This is why, when you cite Dr. Omniscient from the Northern South Dakota Institute for Applied Creation Science, I check him out and his agency. If it turns out that he has a Ph. D in social work, is an ordained minister and the CEO of the NSDIACS, which operates out of a trailer and has a staff of one . . . then I become skeptical. When I check out his published work and find nothing in the journals, just an article in the newspaper and a report published by . . . the NSDIACS! . . . then I can easily shoot down your sources as pseudo-science.

Is there anything else that you don't understand?

 

Well, that's a pathetic argument.