How can Biologists believe in the ToE?

Hi Lucy,
I have to take objection to this I'm afraid; Is that what you imagine the average scientist does with their day? You say that as though deliberately creating fakes is standard practise.
I assume that you are referencing the "Piltdown Man" hoax (if not, please put me right).
There is no proof that Piltdown man was created by a scientist. It was almost certainly the work of "discoverer" Charles Dawson, who was an amateur, not a professional scientist.
Also, your contention that the hoax was intended "to support a floundering theory" is baseless. A more likely motive is that Dawson sought personal aggrandisement. He also traded in fakes, swapping them for genuine items. Plenty of motive there.
The way creationists bring up Piltdown is rather sad. The actions of one dishonest man no more disgrace the whole of science than the scandals around Ted Haggard disgrace the whole of religion. Constantly reviving the spectre of Piltdown is pathetic, and does nothing to advance your argument.
The overwhelming majority of scientists are honest. If this is not n the case, please feel free to show me the mountains of faked evidences that surely must abound.
Questioning the integrity of hundreds of thousands of professional men and women around the globe is insulting and intellectually dishonest. It certainly does not reflect well upon your own integrity. Do yourself a favour and withdraw your comment, which is essentially a libel upon every scientist alive.

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Mutate and Survive

Yes, been wondering that myself. --Percy

More likely an oblique reference to the "Nebraska Man"A discredited claim, rather than an outright hoax, and I don't recall anything about modifying the evidence in that case.Enjoy.

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As a relative newcomer to the boards I'm always a bit curious about the claims to a 'floundering theory'. Can you show where it is floundering or did you just make that up?

It's obvious, the theory explains Achiropsettidae, Bothidae, Paralichthyidae, and Pleuronectidae, a moving experience.

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When I talk about the "Floundering Theory", I'm talking about the study of the phenomenon that surrounds a certain species of fish who not only have two eyes on one side of their head but also have a foot in their mouth.Edited by LucyTheApe, : typo

Your right again Granny. I've withdrawn that stupid remark.

The question LucyTheApe, is how do you determine reality, how do you test concepts for truth?Biologists accept the Theory of Evolution for a number of reasons, including its explanatory power, and lack of real competition, but mostly because it is tested against reality by the scientific method, and that this testing shows the theory to be a very robust sound theory. They have better reason than the general population to either accept or reject the theory because they work with it and the evidence every day, yet the proportion of evolutionary biologists that accept the theory of evolution is much higher than the general population.Do you research creationist claims to see what their validity is, how they actually measure up against the evidence?Or do you accept them without question because they match your template for reality, and anything that appears to be "true" to that template is good enough for you?Enjoy.

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In the US there are at least 2000 Christian Religions, and growing weekly. They all claim to have a handle on the truth. At least 1999 of them must be wrong (on the condition that no two have the same tenet).
That's their problem. That's faith. Doesn't need reasoning.My problem on the other hand is that evolutionary science is inductive by it's nature. It uses inductive reasoning (you guys call scientific method). Therefore the conclusions however well presented by their arguments are non the less probabilistic, but that's fine on it's own. The error factor compounds when conclusions are built on conclusions.For this reason any science that uses induction as a basis for reasoning must be thorough, vigorous in leaving no stone unturned and spotless in their analysis. Let me use a recent example, the hobbit. A find was made that was very interesting. But without proper scrutiny the news flashed all around the globe that a new human ancestor was found. It's news for a couple of weeks or a month and ONLY then does the peer review kick in. Normally in science a paper is presented and reviewed before it becomes news. Why?I'm not worried about me, because these things interest me and I will keep an eye on developments. What I'm worried about is that the kids are being brainwashed by supposed truths before the facts are laid on the table. If I can use an analogy. Take for example when a politician or public figure is accused of some scandalous act. The appropriate minister comes out and declares that It's inappropriate to comment and people shouldn't speculate because there is an investigation underway and any discussion could hinder the legal process. Then the body undertaking the investigation has 18 months or so to complete their investigation. Of course during that time people have forgotten. Do you see where I'm coming from so far?Edited by LucyTheApe, : why?

Science uses deduction to draw conclusions and induction to make predictions.--Percy

exactly

quote:

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What I'm worried about is that the kids are being brainwashed by supposed truths before the facts are laid on the table.

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So what facts about Evolution do you believe are missing?Do you similarly mistrust the teaching of the various competing theories of Gravity, something we understand far less thoroughly compared to Biological Evolution?Just becasue we don't have perfect knowledge doesn't mean we don't know anything.The ToE has been tested and refined for around 150 years. The most recent line of evidence that contributes to its robustness is the discovery of DNA and the role genes play in heredity. We learned that the morphological tree of life, built using Evolutionary concepts before Genetics existed as a field, matches the subsequently constructed genetic tree of life very closely.Given this evidence, what misgivings do you think warrant mistrust of the ToE?

Your last statement contradicts your first one.--Percy

Very logical. But you seem to be criticizing biology, not the 2,000 brainwashing sects.Scientists are expected to present evidence for what they teach to children as (always tentative) "truths".The overwhelming majority of the world's children are being indoctrinated with one religion or another from a very early age (before they know what the word "biology" means) and history shows that only a minority of each generation will manage to de-program themselves.That's brainwashing.

Actually, for the large part it's not the scientists who produce the materials used to teach children, at least children in the primary and secondary school systems (ie, K to 12th grade). Most of those textbooks are written by professional textbook writers, not by scientists. As a result, not only is the content determined by the publisher -- who is strongly influenced by pressure groups, such as creationists, and by considerations of what will sell in the larger states where the school boards are themselves pressured by special interest groups such as creationists. Add on to that the writers' own misconceptions about science and evolution.For example, in the mid-1980's William J. Bennetta (later of "The Textbook League") was involved with the California State Board of Education's purchase of a new high school biology textbook. He enlisted the help of a group of scientists to review the candidate textbooks. They found all of those books to be filled with misconceptions, factual errors, and just plain wrong statements. Even though none of those books were acceptable, they did choose the least unacceptable of them and presented a list of corrections that needed to be made before it could be minimally acceptable. The publisher made a few of the corrections and then the Board accepted it without informing Bennetta and the scientists, essentially acting behind their backs. As a result, students were being taught wrong "information".What Lucy was complaining about was that the press reports their version of a scientist's new findings before any peer review has taken place. Actually, what I've seen is that the press doesn't normally learn of these discoveries until the scientist has published it, meaning that the peer review process has indeed taken place.However, the real concern should be the misinformation contained in the textbooks that the students are learning from and that the teacher (who is not always trained in science; eg, biology teacher John Peloza was schooled in PhysEd and my son's biology teacher in middle school was the home ec teacher) is depending on. Textbooks that are written without input from the scientists.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)