I will point out that my original question had to do with disagreement with the *consensus* of experts, not with disagreement with a single expert--and it's the consensus of experts on the subject on which they are experts.
What makes them experts? Years of intensive study with others who are also engaged in intensive study of the subject matter.
As to post 80's cartoon in which one character says, "Only accept if scientifically proven," and the other replies, "That's a philosophical claim":
(1) When it comes to beliefs about which there is a fact of the matter, we want our beliefs to be true and not false.
(2) Moreover, we do not want them to be true merely by chance--merely by good fortune; we want them to be reliably true.
(3) What gives us any confidence at all that our beliefs are reliably true is our having good reasons to think that those beliefs are true.
(4) Moreover, good reason isn't enough; we need sufficiently strong reason as to think our beliefs are true. (To illustrate: suppose you're a juror in a murder case, and you learn that the defendant owns a knife of exactly the same kind as was used in the murder. That's good reason to think he's guilty--it raises the epistemic likelihood that he's guilty--but it's not strong enough to vote to convict--for that, you'd have to know that it was the *same* knife as was used in the murder, and you'd have to know that *he wielded it* at the time of the murder. Good reason is not necessarily sufficient reason.)
(5) How do you get sufficiently strong reason as to think that a statement about the world is true? By carefully looking at the world. By comparing your findings with those of other careful investigators. In the case of proposed explanations, by checking them for logical consistency and testing them against experiment or observation. By paying close attention to what other careful investigators report having found.
So, yes, when it comes to statements about the world--about empirical matters of fact--scientific demonstration (I don't like "proof," as it sounds like the complete elimination of any conceivable doubt)--the way we gain knowledge *is* through science. It's the same way you find that your refrigerator has magnets on it--by looking and checking to see--and it's the same way you figure out the cause of a knocking sound upon your door--by hypothesizing that a person is knocking on it and then checking that hypothesis by opening the door to see if you're right. The scientific way of gaining knowledge about the world is just the ordinary way of gaining knowledge about the world, but done more intensively and extensively and carefully, with greater comparison to what other careful investigators have found and with greater exposure to rational criticism.
If you say that's philosophical--fine. It's philosophical. You have another way?
The issue is not "who are you to question" but rather to those who already do question, "why disagree with the consensus?"
And yes, if you're not an expert in the relevant subject, it is still possible that you have spotted some error in the consensus of experts, and you are certainly free to point it out. (The experts would like that. They hate to get things wrong.) But beware: if you are not yourself an expert in the field, then almost surely, your objection will be one that the experts have already considered and shown not to be fatal to the consensus view.
On occasion, I think of some objection to relativity theory or to quantum theory. (Rarely.) When I do, I do not write to my physics professor friend and tell him that I've discovered what the world of physics has overlooked. Rather, I write to my physics professor friend and tell him that although I assume physicists have already thought of my objection and have a perfectly good answer to it, I do not know the answer, and could he please explain it to me?
I have seen numerous anti-evolution Web sites--primarily Christian ones--giving bad anti-evolution arguments as though they thought that evolutionary biologists had never thought of them. As though they thought that scientists were just stupid. Some even peddle the old evolution-would-violate-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics canard. (I did run across one, though, that tried to get things right, and that said something like, "Please don't use the evolution-would-violate-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics objection--it's not true, and it just makes us Christians look bad.")
But if you *do* deign to disagree with the consensus of experts, say why--and the "why" can't just be "Casper the Friendly Ghost told me so." It has to show that some underpinning of the consensus view is false. (Like TruthMuse's appeal to error-checking. I don't know that his objection is correct, but it's a relevant objection, at least to the claim of abiogenesis. On the other hand, "It doesn't fit with Scripture" isn't going to carry any weight with anybody who doesn't already assume the correctness of Scripture.
And yet , to your point, Rome was absolutely steeped in mysticism
Which goes to show, in the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed Man is King.
And yet , to your point, Rome was absolutely steeped in mysticism
Which goes to show, in the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed Man is King.
Again showing you have no clue of what is going on or has gone on in this issue.
And yet , to your point, Rome was absolutely steeped in mysticism
Which goes to show, in the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed Man is King.
Again showing you have no clue of what is going on or has gone on in this issue.
By all means, enlighten us!!
(This should be good.)
No. You don’t want to be enlightened, you only want to argue. You’ve shown that over and over. If you did you could study the brutal history of the Roman Catholic organization for yourself.
No. You don’t want to be enlightened, you only want to argue. You’ve shown that over and over. If you did you could study the brutal history of the Roman Catholic organization for yourself.
Question-dodge, much?
😊
The issue is not "who are you to question" but rather to those who already do question, "why disagree with the consensus?"
And yes, if you're not an expert in the relevant subject, it is still possible that you have spotted some error in the consensus of experts, and you are certainly free to point it out. (The experts would like that. They hate to get things wrong.) But beware: if you are not yourself an expert in the field, then almost surely, your objection will be one that the experts have already considered and shown not to be fatal to the consensus view.
On occasion, I think of some objection to relativity theory or to quantum theory. (Rarely.) When I do, I do not write to my physics professor friend and tell him that I've discovered what the world of physics has overlooked. Rather, I write to my physics professor friend and tell him that although I assume physicists have already thought of my objection and have a perfectly good answer to it, I do not know the answer, and could he please explain it to me?
I have seen numerous anti-evolution Web sites--primarily Christian ones--giving bad anti-evolution arguments as though they thought that evolutionary biologists had never thought of them. As though they thought that scientists were just stupid. Some even peddle the old evolution-would-violate-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics canard. (I did run across one, though, that tried to get things right, and that said something like, "Please don't use the evolution-would-violate-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics objection--it's not true, and it just makes us Christians look bad.")
But if you *do* deign to disagree with the consensus of experts, say why--and the "why" can't just be "Casper the Friendly Ghost told me so." It has to show that some underpinning of the consensus view is false. (Like TruthMuse's appeal to error-checking. I don't know that his objection is correct, but it's a relevant objection, at least to the claim of abiogenesis. On the other hand, "It doesn't fit with Scripture" isn't going to carry any weight with anybody who doesn't already assume the correctness of Scripture.
Well stated
The false assumption behind this thread is that there are 100,000 experts in field X and are all singing in 100,000 part harmony and then there’s “you”.
And since we are in an Evolution discussion club those are obviously the “X’s” that are being referred to (biology, geology, etc.)
There are most definitely experts that disagree with the majority consensus in these fields as far as morphing of species or age of the Earth/Universe. And so disagreeing with the consensus is not as crazy as the thread OP implies, it is simply not being in the majority, which shouldn’t need to be justified as a principal.
But the only "experts" who disagree are a small contingent of Protestant YEC fundamentalists who make no bones about their disagreement being based on their interpretation of Genesis (And even many YECs are increasingly recognizing that speciation is an indisputable fact). Now that may pose no problems for the religious, but for the non-religious it is not a valid reason for wholesale dismissal of the scientific evidence.
You exaggerate, and I see no reason to delve into this with you for the 20th time. Regardless, I stand by my statement in post #132 as an answer to the original post.
Lol, I don't think we've ever discussed the age of the earth/universe; certainly not 20 times. And it's no exaggeration at all. With the exception of a small handful of YEC scientists who on the basis of their interpretation of Genesis deny it, there is universal consensus (not just a simple majority) among scientists that the earth/universe is much older than 10,000 years! So much so, in fact, that belief in a 10,000 year old earth/universe (or younger!) is recognized as pseudoscience on the level of those who believe the earth is flat.
Regarding, "morphing of species" that requires more qualification. One of the problems is that YECs routinely misuse scientific words like "species" and "macroevolution." If organisms in a population stop interbreeding and producing fertile offspring with the rest of the population, then they are a new species. It's as simple as that and the fact this occurs in nature is indisputable and has been observed. Sometimes dramatic changes in morphology accompany speciation, but speciation can and often does occur with little to no change in morphology at all.
I understand what you're getting at though--you accept "horizontal" evolution within Genesis "kinds" but reject "vertical" evolution above or between Genesis "kinds." But the types of large-scale "vertical" changes YECs envision and reject are much larger scale than "morphing of species," which is common place and indisputable. So in any discussion of evolution it is critical that terminology is used correctly, and the types of evolution that YECs reject is *not* biological speciation but more larger scale than that. In fact, that's one of the problems is that YECs have yet to clarify what exactly constitutes a Genesis "kind," which is what my "How much is too much evolution?" OP is about.
I’ve been through this often with you. You criticize everything about YEC and then deny that you believe in old Earth . I don’t want to do it again with you.
I've never said I deny an old earth. To the contrary, the weight of evidence convincingly shows the earth/universe is old. But I can see where the misunderstanding/miscommunication is. What I've said is that you can't use Genesis to argue for an old earth. That would be anachronistic and faulty exegesis. No one in Bible times would have understood "day" (yom) in Genesis to mean millions or billions of years.
And for the record, I wholeheartedly support the handful of YEC scientists who do legitimate scientific research and work to build relationships in the scientific community (vs. name-calling and criticizing from without), who have the honesty and integrity to acknowledge that the current weight of scientific evidence does not support their YEC beliefs.
The Bible doesn't tell us one way or another. The most natural understanding of yom is a regular day (as I have agreed on multiple occasions), but are the six days of creation meant to be read rigidly as a linear temporal sequence of events that convey scientific information, or is yom ("day") functioning as an organizing device for liturgical, theological purposes? I know the answer may seem obvious to us today, but that's because we tend to read and see things very rigidly and linearly in modern times. But people in Bible times did not read things/tell stories as mechanically as we tend to today.
While I know you disagree, the poetic elements of the account (e.g., parallel structure, repetitive phrasing akin to stanzas like repeated "And there was evening and morning," heptad repeats, chiasms, highly stylized structure that shows correspondence between days 1 & 4, 2 & 5, and 3 & 6, etc.); along with evidence Genesis 1 may have been used as temple liturgy; and the unmistakable use in Genesis 2-3 of OT terminology applied to the tabernacle/temple; heck, even the seven-day motif itself...all this combined truly does raise legitimate questions as to whether the 7-day creation week is intended to be taken as (a) a rigid, linear temporal account (i.e., mechanical, temporal), or (b) theological, liturgical, or (c) all of the above. "a" is possible but not required; "b" seems a definite yes; but both could also be true "c".
***But even if we're meant to read it mechanically as a rigid, forensic description of a linear temporal sequence of events, Genesis 1:2 still makes it clear that the earth (with water) already existed prior to the first day of the creation week for an undisclosed period of time--how long or how short that period of time was, we are not told...which is why I said the Bible doesn't tell us the age of the earth one way or another.
The Bible doesn't tell us one way or another. The most natural understanding of yom is a regular day (as I have agreed on multiple occasions), but are the six days of creation meant to be read rigidly as a linear temporal sequence of events that convey scientific information, or is yom ("day") functioning as an organizing device for liturgical, theological purposes? I know the answer may seem obvious to us today, but that's because we tend to read and see things very rigidly and linearly in modern times. But people in Bible times did not read things/tell stories as mechanically as we tend to today.
While I know you disagree, the poetic elements of the account (e.g., parallel structure, repetitive phrasing akin to stanzas like repeated "And there was evening and morning," heptad repeats, chiasms, highly stylized structure that shows correspondence between days 1 & 4, 2 & 5, and 3 & 6, etc.); along with evidence Genesis 1 may have been used as temple liturgy; and the unmistakable use in Genesis 2-3 of OT terminology applied to the tabernacle/temple; heck, even the seven-day motif itself...all this combined truly does raise legitimate questions as to whether the 7-day creation week is intended to be taken as (a) a rigid, linear temporal account (i.e., mechanical, temporal), or (b) theological, liturgical, or (c) all of the above. "a" is possible but not required; "b" seems a definite yes; but both could also be true "c".
***But even if we're meant to read it mechanically as a rigid, forensic description of a linear temporal sequence of events, Genesis 1:2 still makes it clear that the earth (with water) already existed prior to the first day of the creation week for an undisclosed period of time--how long or how short that period of time was, we are not told...which is why I said the Bible doesn't tell us the age of the earth one way or another.
I agree it isn't very clear, either way. I believe it is young, but that is as far as I can take it.
One cannot cite ceremonial or ritualistic handwashing for priests as medical advice.