Difference between religion and science fora

If you were invited to be a moderator, do you think you would be able to tell when someone grasped every oportunity to revisit his favorite topic, no matter what the thread? What do you think should be done with such a person? Of course, this is off-topic and mentioned only rhetorically.Some on the science side feel uncomfortable applying the principle of tentativity to facts, but as facts are gathered by fallible humans there is really no other choice. For example, professor Blondlot believed N-Rays a fact because he had observed their effects projected upon a screen, as had others. Percival Lowell and others believed the canals of Mars a fact because they had observed them through telescopes. If we ever find the Higgs Boson it will be through probabilistic analyses of the results of millions of high-energy particle collisions and not because we ever actually saw one. Even facts go through levels of tentativity.Faith raises a good point when she asks for assessments of the degree of tentativity, but they would likely have the reliability of movie ratings. There's no substitute for the hard work of slogging through the evidence and forming one's own opinion. But if she's interested in the opinion of scientists, because of evolution's unparalleled success in explaining and interpreting the diversity of life, the fossil evidence and the genetic evidence, and because of the absence of evidence that doesn't fit the evolutionary framework, there are few that would give the supposed fact of evolution any chance of ever being falsified.--Percy

I'm placing your comments in the proper context: I was only explaining why scientists have high confidence in the fact of evolution. I already suspected that you weren't really interested in the opinion of scientists, but you asked about ratings of tentativity, so I told you how scientists see it for evolution.But this is not a thread for discussion of evolution. I hope the replies do not attempt to address the substance of your post, at least not without placing it in the broader context of this thread, though that doesn't look easily possible. I can tell you've got a lot of pent up desire to discuss evolution, but this isn't the thread for that.I thought your question about tentativity was a good one. Perhaps you can return to discussing tentativity, since it would be on-topic.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 08-01-2005 04:37 PM

There is not yet unanimity of opinion among moderators about the religious fora, but I've been arguing strongly that nonsense is nonsense no matter where presented, and that it should not permitted under any circumstances. Participants should be required to support their points with argument and evidence as much in the religious fora as in the science fora. The difference is that religious arguments and religious evidence are permitted in the religious fora.Using your example, anyone arguing that the geologic layers do not represent millions of years by normal physical processes would have to provide supporting argument and evidence. But anyone arguing that the layers are not old because God only made them look old has a permissible argument in the religious fora.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 08-01-2005 04:51 PM