Why Disagree with the Consensus of Experts?

TruthMuse, the person who demonstrates knowledge superior to that of specialists in this field has every right to dismiss their thinking on the subject.

You don't.

The Emperor has no clothes; think for yourself. As I said earlier, there are those on both sides of the debate that are experts. You are not reasoning anything out for yourself if you automatically assume one side of the debate, on all topics, is always going to be right or wrong. The evidence and arguments are encompassing too much to think that way.

"think for yourself", says the person who starts from an entirely dogmatic position!

There're ll kinds of subjects on which I'm more than happy to do so but this is one that requires specialist knowledge in organic chemistry & biology & that's somethig I don't possess, so I defer to those that do.

You choose to express your opinion on the good doctor’s lecture. You know more than a chemist speaking about chemistry?

Now you're mis-representing everyhing I've said about Dr. Peltzer! At no time have I questioned his scholarship but his is a lone voice & it's a fact that he's lent his support to a creationist cause. If he strictly limited himself to the science alone, I'd have no particular problem with the man.

He's also compromised himself academically by directly linking his scepticism about the science involved in abiogenesis with his religious convictions & this matters whether you like it or not.

Not least is the question of relevance because even if our very best minds in this field of enquiry were to state as a professional body that life can only possibly ermerge as the result of divine creation, there would still be no demonstrated connection between such an 'agency' & the 'God' of Christianity. This also matters because it raises questions about Peltzer's ability to make logical inferences.

No, I have not misrepresented what you have said and are still saying! It was his science and his reasoning that he brought to the table, not a religious Biblical quote. The notion that truth is only valid as it embraces a nonmaterialistic view of the universe is a dogma worldview as anything contrary to that notion.

Peltzer explicitly refers to faith at the beginning of his talk & it seems obvious he means the religious kind. At the close of his talk he gives five references for further reading, two of which are on the subject of the Christian faith!

What on earth are these things doing in a supposedly scientific evaluation of the objections to abiogenesis?

We are all creatures of faith; there is no getting around that. Where the evidence leads to isn't restricted by your views on what is or is not acceptable.

Yes but how is that relevant to what should have been a fact-based talk?

Let's say that the talk had been given by a devout Muslim chemist, how would you feel about that person steering their talk to the conclusion that Allah is in fact the supreme creator.

Or a Hindu, concluding that all the gods of hinduism are somehow validated because only they can provide a credible explanation of how life emerged?

Suddenly I don't think you'd be quite so enthusiastic to support the line of reasoning.

A discussion of any scientific topic should restrict itself to the science, to what is known with confidence & what can reasonably be inferred, avoiding the temptation to stray too far outside of these bounds. Religious faith has no part to play until facts can be presented to support it but then of course, it ceases to be mere faith!

Religion has to do with facts no different than anything else in life. If something is said, that is not historically true; that would be an error or falsehood no matter what people believe. Science has faith in it as well so in that there is no distinction, you have to believe in what you are doing even to do science, you have to believe the results you are looking at are accurate and correct, we also must believe our rational is accurately seeing things for that they are.

There is no getting around religion, and science is looking at the same universe, but in different ways, but if something is right, real, it will be true and real regardless if it is found in science or religion. If it is not true and real, it does not matter what way it was being looked at and studied. Revealed truth by revelation or our the bottom up means as we figure things out are both pointers to understanding the same reality. There is no mixing reality by science and religious faith; the facts of the universe remain facts no matter how we find them. There is not a reality according to science and a different reality according to religion, there is but one reality, and it is what it is.

Knowledge gained by means of the scienific method has been shown to be reliable. We can send probles to the outer limits of our solar system because our understanding of both Newton's model of gravity & that of Einstein, is so well developed.

The device you're using to read this only works because our understanding of Quantum Physics is so advanced. And modern medecine offers hope of treatment for a host of diseases because of the systematic investigation of these things carried out over many generations.

Studying the superstition & folklore of certain middle-eastern tribes from the late Bronze-Age informs a person of only one thing - the superstition & folklore of certain middle-eastern tribes from the late Bronze-Age!

It is not a process of aquiring knowledge about actuality or how the Universe works. It is essentially an exercise in dogma & that has no equivalence with the scientific method.

Science is a bottom-up search for truth and understanding of reality, while revelation is a revealed truth. It doesn't alter reality how come to know what between the two, only that it is what it is.

I file 'revelation' under the superstition & folklore heading. It isn't a reliable method of establishing what is actually so. The scientific method is.

No one should fool themselves into thinking that revelation is any way equivalent to a systematic examination of the evidence.

You file revelation under superstition? When you speak to someone expressing your views about any topic, you are revealing your thoughts and personality. No one could ever get to know you without you revealing yourself to them. No one is going to glean that type of person you are by only looking at you, studying your DNA, X-raying your body, and so on.

I also would say again, if something is revealed to you and it is the truth, it is the truth. That is the bottom line!

"I also would say again, if something is revealed to you and it is the truth, it is the truth. That is the bottom line!"

The 'revealing' is completely irrelevant. If something is fact then a process of examination will demonstrate the fact of the matter. If it's not a fact, no amount of revelation will make it so.

There is no 'truth' other than the truth-valued statements we can make regarding matters of fact.

I agree if something is a fact it is in fact and calling it revealed, or for that matter, a matter of science will not alter its truthfulness.

You will have to define what a ”truth-value” statement means to you.

A statement regarding some matter of fact which is either true or false.

Yes, that is pretty much what I have been saying about truth statements, as they relate to what they are referring to. This is in dispute some how?

But it's references to 'the truth' that are meaningless unless you mean all possible things about which we might make truth-valued statements.

If you assert something to be the case then you should be able to construct statements regarding them that are either true or false.

Are you suggesting no one can use the word truth unless they have perfect knowledge of the universe? I'm saying what is true remains so no matter what or when. If conditions change, so will the truth of that statement. I can say in all honestly and truthfulness I'm sitting at my desk in my home now writing on my computer. That means now, and throughout all time, that statement will remain true, that at this time, I'm doing what I said. Later, when I get up and go someplace else, it will no longer be the truth of where I'm at and what I'm doing, something else will be correct. The fact will still remain at the moment in time I was referring to it was the truth.

Now this means if something was true in the past, it would always be true. If we bring in opinions about this or that, they can change with the wind.