Evolution and the myth of "scientific consensus"

[JacksBratt]

And I'm honestly completely not bothered by that. Not one bit. I'm sorry, but if you're at least 150 years behind the times; if you're challenging one of the most robust theories in modern science and have failed to bring any real contradictory evidence to the table or an alternative model that actually qualifies as "science"; if it is blatantly obvious that most people involved have no interest in a good-faith debate (if there's one running thread throughout the whole debate, it's the degree to which flat-earthers are willing to misquote and distort their sources to gain a veneer of respectability)... Then you have no place in academia.



No, it isn't. If someone rejects the scientific paradigm in favor of an unscientific, completely evidence-free hypothesis on the basis of their religious beliefs, that's their right. What is not their right is to then go on to lead successful academic careers. Creationists get "discriminated against" in academia for the same reason that people in computer science who believe that "goto" is good programming convention get discriminated against - because they're wrong, dishonest, and not presenting anything that isn't PRATT.



So should geology departments accept flat-earthers?

Seriously, this is not a difficult concept. You know that expression, "standing on the shoulders of giants"? At a certain point, we have to use existing research as a jumping-off-point, lest we spend our lives running in place. The theory of evolution has been around for 150 years, and so far, every single piece of evidence available has done nothing to shake its foundations. Young earth creationism, on the other hand, doesn't even qualify as a scientific theory! Neither does intelligent design, and Behe testified as much in court! It's not even that we have two competing hypotheses, it's that we have one idea, and a bunch of people who want to take it down and replace it with "God did it".

And let's be clear here. Teachers who believe things directly orthogonal to what the scientific evidence shows should not be teaching science classes. If my hypothetical child's biology teacher was a creationist, I would be writing a letter to the superintendent as soon as I found out, because it's like having an AIDS-denier teach sex ed or an illiterate teach classic literature: they're obviously incapable of considering the subject objectively, and they may be reflecting these views in their teaching. Understanding biology is hard enough without the teacher actively throwing a wrench in the proceedings.

And why, pray tell, should a professor whose stated beliefs essentially guarantee that he will produce nothing of value be considered for tenure? Given that YEC is a completely indefensible, unscientific hypothesis, one would expect that creationists publish extremely little of any value in the peer-reviewed literature; and, surprise surprise, this is exactly what we get.

Science departments, research facilities, universities, all affiliated scientific offices, should accept any data, observations and presentations based on their truth and accuracy. Not by whether or not the are in line with the scientific understandings up to that point or not. People should not be criticized, demoted, discredited, failed, denied degrees, dismissed, or denied funding based on whether or not their studies back evolution or the TOE itself.

There is an increasing amount of bullying anyone that goes against this status quo. Also, there is a growing amount of new and ancient data that is getting harder and harder for the TOE to stand up to. I have said this before and been criticized for it but the Smithsonian is an organization that is active in ignoring, hiding, destroying or dismissing any evidence that does not fit the evolutionary paradigm.

The information that I posted is blatantly obvious proof that it is your belief in the TOE and your bowing down to it that is more important than your intelligence, academic achievements, observations, contributions to science and grasp of obvious facts.

 

[Goonie]

Science departments, research facilities, universities, all affiliated scientific offices, should accept any data, observations and presentations based on their truth and accuracy. Not by whether or not the are in line with the scientific understandings up to that point or not. People should not be criticized, demoted, discredited, failed, denied degrees, dismissed, or denied funding based on whether or not their studies back evolution or the TOE itself.

There is an increasing amount of bullying anyone that goes against this status quo. Also, there is a growing amount of new and ancient data that is getting harder and harder for the TOE to stand up to. I have said this before and been criticized for it but the Smithsonian is an organization that is active in ignoring, hiding, destroying or dismissing any evidence that does not fit the evolutionary paradigm.

The information that I posted is blatantly obvious proof that it is your belief in the TOE and your bowing down to it that is more important than your intelligence, academic achievements, observations, contributions to science and grasp of obvious facts.

Pass me the tinfoil hat, please give us any evidence of the smithsonian doing any such thing.

 

[lasthero]

I have said this before and been criticized for it but the Smithsonian is an organization that is active in ignoring, hiding, destroying or dismissing any evidence that does not fit the evolutionary paradigm.
\

Your idea that the Smithsonian Institute is part of a global conspiracy to surpress anti-evolutionary thought might get more traction if you could come up with things like motive, or methods, or capabilities, or history or...any evidence at all, really.

 

[The Cadet]

Science departments, research facilities, universities, all affiliated scientific offices, should accept any data, observations and presentations based on their truth and accuracy. Not by whether or not the are in line with the scientific understandings up to that point or not.

I'm with you so far...

People should not be criticized, demoted, discredited, failed, denied degrees, dismissed, or denied funding based on whether or not their studies back evolution or the TOE itself.

...And here it falls apart.

See, here's the thing. Young Earth Creationism is wrong. We know this. We've known this for hundreds of years. The scientific basis for an old earth was laid in the 1700s and has only been cemented into place since then. Someone claiming to present evidence that the earth is young is not going to be presenting useful or valid data. This shows - pick a "creation scientist" out, and I'll compare his body of research to that of any random researcher at university or in industry. The result is almost uniformly failure (although the degree may be different, from someone like Andrew Snelling who actually does publish, albeit whose work consistently runs contrary to his stated opinions, to someone like Kent Hovind, whose doctorate is worth less than the paper it's printed on). And what else would you expect? It's not a scientific theory, it offers no testable predictions, and it has made effectively no contribution to the knowledge of mankind in the 50-odd years since it was proposed.

There is an increasing amount of bullying anyone that goes against this status quo.

It's not about the status quo. If any of these "scientists" would like to put forward a scientific hypothesis that actually conforms to the evidence, they are welcome to do so in peer review. Then, as their hypothesis gains support, they will earn the right to be taken seriously in academia.

However, the "bullying", as you describe it, comes from a very specific place: academia rightfully getting sick of this ****.

And who can blame them? Creation "scientists" have been dishonestly pushing an unscientific model of the origins of the universe that fails both to support its own claims and to make any testable predictions. It's not science, no matter how hard they insist that it is, and when they completely failed to support their claims in academia and peer review, they proceeded to try to take a shortcut and teach it straight to high-school students instead, trying to pitch their nonsensical ideas to the largely uneducated public with the help of a whole lot of outright lies. And this has been going on for almost 50 years. At a certain point, an idea is no longer worth taking seriously. Young Earth Creationism passed that point a long, long time ago.

Or, to put it another way: it is not bullying when the geologist who believes that the earth is a flat disc gets passed up for tenure. At a certain point, you stop caring what that person has to say and you move on with a model that actually shows any kind of promise.

Also, there is a growing amount of new and ancient data that is getting harder and harder for the TOE to stand up to.

No, there really isn't. As much as creationists crow that the evidence against evolution is piling up, the fact is that there is nothing there of any substance. What have they put forward? "Radiometric dating doesn't work because we misapplied it and got wonky results"? "The human eye the bacterial flagellum the human nervous system <insert complex biological system here that has not been conclusively explored> could not have evolved because it's irreducibly complex"? "Horizontal Gene Transfer proves that we can horribly misquote the research of real scientists"?

 

[JacksBratt]

Your idea that the Smithsonian Institute is part of a global conspiracy to surpress anti-evolutionary thought might get more traction if you could come up with things like motive, or methods, or capabilities, or history or...any evidence at all, really.

The motive is simple. It goes against the TOE and the TOE and Darwin are the only god allowed. Anything that goes against this is trash talked, dismissed, called a hoax or the people presenting it are told to put on their tinfoil hats.

Just take a look around. Take off the blinders. Stone Henge, any of the multitude of megalithic structures, stones carve with precision that we don't have today in sizes we cannot handle today, (all done in a time where the tools were not available or supposedly the mineralogy and metallurgy was not available), the precision with which they were aligned with each other while being on opposite sides of the globe and aligned to the poles and stars. ancient art on the walls of caves and any ancient culture, they show giant humanoids, animals with man, astrological configurations that they would of had no idea about with the limited technology they had. Numerous non human yet human like skulls found all through the Americas and many parts of Europe, Australia and the East, giant skeletons and numerous newspaper articles from all over North America, with pictures, of such finds. Even this quote from "honest Abe" Lincoln talking about Niagara Falls :

"But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent---when Christ suffered on the cross---when Moses led Israel through the Red-Sea---nay, even, when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker---then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Co[n]temporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastadon---now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long---long time, never still for a single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested,"

 

[Goonie]

The motive is simple. It goes against the TOE and the TOE and Darwin are the only god allowed. Anything that goes against this is trash talked, dismissed, called a hoax or the people presenting it are told to put on their tinfoil hats.

Just take a look around. Take off the blinders. Stone Henge, any of the multitude of megalithic structures, stones carve with precision that we don't have today in sizes we cannot handle today, (all done in a time where the tools were not available or supposedly the mineralogy and metallurgy was not available), the precision with which they were aligned with each other while being on opposite sides of the globe and aligned to the poles and stars. ancient art on the walls of caves and any ancient culture, they show giant humanoids, animals with man, astrological configurations that they would of had no idea about with the limited technology they had. Numerous non human yet human like skulls found all through the Americas and many parts of Europe, Australia and the East, giant skeletons and numerous newspaper articles from all over North America, with pictures, of such finds. Even this quote from "honest Abe" Lincoln talking about Niagara Falls :

"But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent---when Christ suffered on the cross---when Moses led Israel through the Red-Sea---nay, even, when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker---then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Co[n]temporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastadon---now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long---long time, never still for a single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested,"

Sorry, but the only group declaring darwin to be god, are christians/creationists. And the rest of your reply is pseudoscience b*******.

 

[lasthero]

The motive is simple. It goes against the TOE and the TOE and Darwin are the only god allowed. Anything that goes against this is trash talked, dismissed, called a hoax or the people presenting it are told to put on their tinfoil hats.

You're still not stating what the Smithsonian Institute gains from surpressing things. They can't make money off something they're hiding or destroying, so what's the benefit?

Just take a look around. Take off the blinders.

And this is a big part of the reason you get the conspriracy theorist label so often. Common theorist talk: Everyone is just being blind to the truth that so obvious. It never seems to occur to people like you that the reason people don't take you seriously isn't because they're willfully dense, but because they don't find your argument persuasive.

Stone Henge, any of the multitude of megalithic structures, stones carve with precision that we don't have today in sizes we cannot handle today,

Please provide evidence that it would be impossible to make these structures today.

(all done in a time where the tools were not available or supposedly the mineralogy and metallurgy was not available), the precision with which they were aligned with each other while being on opposite sides of the globe and aligned to the poles and stars.

Evidence? And what do giants have to do with evolution and the Bible? Even if giants did exist, they wouldn't falsify evolution or give any credence to the Bible, anymore than vampires existing would nescessarily mean that Dracula was a true story.

ancient art on the walls of caves and any ancient culture, they show giant humanoids, animals with man, astrological configurations that they would of had no idea about with the limited technology they had.

Hearing a lot of talk, not seeing a lot of evidence.

Numerous non human yet human like skulls found all through the Americas and many parts of Europe, Australia and the East, giant skeletons and numerous newspaper articles from all over North America, with pictures, of such finds. Even this quote from "honest Abe" Lincoln talking about Niagara Falls :

"But still there is more. It calls up the indefinite past. When Columbus first sought this continent---when Christ suffered on the cross---when Moses led Israel through the Red-Sea---nay, even, when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker---then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now. Co[n]temporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh to-day as ten thousand years ago. The Mammoth and Mastadon---now so long dead, that fragments of their monstrous bones, alone testify, that they ever lived, have gazed on Niagara. In that long---long time, never still for a single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested,"

You didn't source this quote so I have no idea about the larger context, but it hardly matters what Abraham Lincoln's opinion on the existence of giants was. Though it sounds like he's talking about more about the mammoths and mastadons, and not some extinct race of giant people.

 

[Loudmouth]

I take it that you are, in fact, serious here. Well, here are some findings from a Christian web page:

by Jerry Bergman


Summary

The writer interviewed over 100 persons who were active in what is known as the creation-intelligent design movement.

"Active in the movement"? That would include lawyers and dentists like Luskin, wouldn't it? I thought we were talking about real scientists.

The writer also reviewed the literature and interviewed about a dozen academic deans and department chairs in the field of science. All, without exception, felt that openly holding a ‘scientific creation’ worldview would seriously impede or terminate an academic career. Many openly stated that they would not hire or support the candidacy of an out-of-the-closet scientific creationist for a tenured position in academia.

Just like holding to Geocentrism would seriously cause problems in your Astronomy career. Just like holding to Demon theory as the cause of infectious diseases would seriously cause problems with your Microbiology career. When scientists insist on being wrong in the name of religious beliefs, they are not going to have very good science careers.

 

[The Cadet]

The motive is simple. It goes against the TOE and the TOE and Darwin are the only god allowed.

As recently as 2005 more than half of biologists believed in God. The idea that evolution is some anti-theistic crusade is completely and utterly baseless.

Just take a look around. Take off the blinders. Stone Henge, any of the multitude of megalithic structures, stones carve with precision that we don't have today in sizes we cannot handle today

...Are you serious? Like, do you really believe this to be the case?

 

[Oncedeceived]

Thanks for the insight, I guess that why our paths don't cross that often. Besides Wieland being way out of his field, he absolutely doesn't even discuss ice core chronology, rather makes a few odd references, only one of which (isotope ratios) has anything to do with chronologies and he doesn't even discuss the basics of it. The whole idea is that the Lost Squadron is burred under some 250 ft of ice, thus if those planes are under 250 feet of ice in only 50 years, then the mere thickness of the Greenland ice cap negates an age of tens of thousands of years, much less millions of years.

Well, here's his problem and utter display of ignorance in the area, which unfortunately, little if any of his captive audience will ever fact check, even if they knew how. Where the planes were forced landed was on the southeastern coast of Greenland where the annual snow fall is more than 2 meters, (6 1/2 feet). It is also on an unstable glacier where no glaciologist would ever take core samples for that reason. Furthermore, the 250 ft is not solid ice, rather a full third of that is snow pack and fern. The depth or thickness of ice has absolutely nothing to do with ice core chronology, rather the annual layers which are quite easily identifiable through a number of independent methods. In fact, seasons are identifiable within annual layers and individual snowfalls throughout the year(s) do not show up as or are mistaken for annual layers. And the point I am making is that this kind of reasoning and literature by non-experts is a large bulk of the creation science literature.

Thank you for the time to explain this all to me. It was as interesting as I thought it would be. I am totally ignorant of the concepts described but it seems logical to me.

As far as creation science literature, I know that in Biology there are some highly educated and working scientists that have produced very well researched and accurate articles in support of ID.

 

[RickG]

As far as creation science literature, I know that in Biology there are some highly educated and working scientists that have produced very well researched and accurate articles in support of ID.

But not in the scientific literature that I am aware of.

 

[Loudmouth]

As far as creation science literature, I know that in Biology there are some highly educated and working scientists that have produced very well researched and accurate articles in support of ID.

Such as?

I have yet to see a single paper with original research that tries to produce positive evidence for intelligent design. What articles I do see are reviews of what other scientists have done, and they almost exclusively try to argue against evolution instead of arguing for ID.

 

[JacksBratt]

As recently as 2005 more than half of biologists believed in God. The idea that evolution is some anti-theistic crusade is completely and utterly baseless.



...Are you serious? Like, do you really believe this to be the case?

Yep, check out this site:

https://deusnexus.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/massive-ruins-discovered-russia/

If the megalithic ruins a Baalbek weren't enough, they have found more in Russia. These ruins are very very old, too old to have tools to cut granite, immensely enormous (3,000 tons) cut with precision and stacked 40 meters high.

Tell me, who can do that today? They were confused about the pregnant woman stone at Baalbek. Yet these are twice as big, dragged up a mountain and then stacked.

The author states:

"Of course much more research needs to be done on this site. Nobody knows who cut these stones or how old they are. Jensen believes that they come from a time well back into the mists of pre-history…"

As time goes on each generation will care less and less about the coveted TOE. We are in an age where they have never had to deal with conflict between God and evolution. They have grown up with only one theory, the TOE. It has been hammered into them from the early grades. It is the quest of every generation to discover more, search more, dig deeper and progress more. They will delve into all the nooks and crannies. They will search for answers to questions that still are mysteries. Doing this, they will uncover things that have been hidden, dismissed and rejected.

They will be on a quest for truth and soon see that the "brotherhood" of men and women trying desperately to quell any evidence of anything that contradicts the golden calf of the TOE have overlooked many things that common sense will tell you was not by accident, through random changes, survival of the fittest, etc, etc, etc.

They may not be creationists but they will soon drop the curtain on the farce of evolution.

 

[crjmurray]

Yep, check out this site:

https://deusnexus.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/massive-ruins-discovered-russia/

If the megalithic ruins a Baalbek weren't enough, they have found more in Russia. These ruins are very very old, too old to have tools to cut granite, immensely enormous (3,000 tons) cut with precision and stacked 40 meters high.

Tell me, who can do that today? They were confused about the pregnant woman stone at Baalbek. Yet these are twice as big, dragged up a mountain and then stacked.

The author states:

"Of course much more research needs to be done on this site. Nobody knows who cut these stones or how old they are. Jensen believes that they come from a time well back into the mists of pre-history…"

As time goes on each generation will care less and less about the coveted TOE. We are in an age where they have never had to deal with conflict between God and evolution. They have grown up with only one theory, the TOE. It has been hammered into them from the early grades. It is the quest of every generation to discover more, search more, dig deeper and progress more. They will delve into all the nooks and crannies. They will search for answers to questions that still are mysteries. Doing this, they will uncover things that have been hidden, dismissed and rejected.

They will be on a quest for truth and soon see that the "brotherhood" of men and women trying desperately to quell any evidence of anything that contradicts the golden calf of the TOE have overlooked many things that common sense will tell you was not by accident, through random changes, survival of the fittest, etc, etc, etc.

They may not be creationists but they will soon drop the curtain on the farce of evolution.

Well that's not true.

 

[Goonie]

Yep, check out this site:

https://deusnexus.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/massive-ruins-discovered-russia/

If the megalithic ruins a Baalbek weren't enough, they have found more in Russia. These ruins are very very old, too old to have tools to cut granite, immensely enormous (3,000 tons) cut with precision and stacked 40 meters high.

Tell me, who can do that today? They were confused about the pregnant woman stone at Baalbek. Yet these are twice as big, dragged up a mountain and then stacked.

The author states:

"Of course much more research needs to be done on this site. Nobody knows who cut these stones or how old they are. Jensen believes that they come from a time well back into the mists of pre-history…"

As time goes on each generation will care less and less about the coveted TOE. We are in an age where they have never had to deal with conflict between God and evolution. They have grown up with only one theory, the TOE. It has been hammered into them from the early grades. It is the quest of every generation to discover more, search more, dig deeper and progress more. They will delve into all the nooks and crannies. They will search for answers to questions that still are mysteries. Doing this, they will uncover things that have been hidden, dismissed and rejected.

They will be on a quest for truth and soon see that the "brotherhood" of men and women trying desperately to quell any evidence of anything that contradicts the golden calf of the TOE have overlooked many things that common sense will tell you was not by accident, through random changes, survival of the fittest, etc, etc, etc.

They may not be creationists but they will soon drop the curtain on the farce of evolution.

Once again check your sources! The only sites containing these claims are pseudoscience ones, there is not a single credible source for this site, not even wikipedia.

 

[Goonie]

Yep, check out this site:

https://deusnexus.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/massive-ruins-discovered-russia/

If the megalithic ruins a Baalbek weren't enough, they have found more in Russia. These ruins are very very old, too old to have tools to cut granite, immensely enormous (3,000 tons) cut with precision and stacked 40 meters high.

Tell me, who can do that today? They were confused about the pregnant woman stone at Baalbek. Yet these are twice as big, dragged up a mountain and then stacked.

The author states:

"Of course much more research needs to be done on this site. Nobody knows who cut these stones or how old they are. Jensen believes that they come from a time well back into the mists of pre-history…"

As time goes on each generation will care less and less about the coveted TOE. We are in an age where they have never had to deal with conflict between God and evolution. They have grown up with only one theory, the TOE. It has been hammered into them from the early grades. It is the quest of every generation to discover more, search more, dig deeper and progress more. They will delve into all the nooks and crannies. They will search for answers to questions that still are mysteries. Doing this, they will uncover things that have been hidden, dismissed and rejected.

They will be on a quest for truth and soon see that the "brotherhood" of men and women trying desperately to quell any evidence of anything that contradicts the golden calf of the TOE have overlooked many things that common sense will tell you was not by accident, through random changes, survival of the fittest, etc, etc, etc.

They may not be creationists but they will soon drop the curtain on the farce of evolution.

Indeed many of the photos of this site are clearly pictures of natural granite formations, suchs as this one from dartmoor england.

 

[Mr Strawberry]

They'll be claiming the Giant's Causeway was made by genuine giants next.

 

[Goonie]

They'll be claiming the Giant's Causeway was made by genuine giants next.

What you mean it wasn't! Lol.

 

[Jan Volkes]

One of the evolutionist's favorite tactics is to immediately appeal to a "scientific consensus" that Evolution theory is beyond all reasonable doubt. If the vast majority of scientists accept Evolution theory (or more accurately, do not publicly oppose it) then it simply must be true. This reasoning is absurd on its face to any sophisticated reader, but lets demonstrate that it is false.

First, think about how many popular-science presentations you've watched where you've been matter-of-factly assured that the Big Bang really happened and is beyond reasonable doubt. It is casually stated as if it were as clear as the sky is blue. Audiences are never given the slightest hint that anyone with relevant expertise questions whether or not the Big Bang really happened.

For a start evolution is beyond all reasonable doubt and secondly the big bang has nothing to do with evolution,
it's like saying Christianity is all wrong because it does not explain where Allah or Krishna came from,
they are two totally different things.

 

[AV1611VET]

They'll be claiming the Giant's Causeway was made by genuine giants next.

Either that, or it was made FOR genuine giants.[VERSE=Genesis 6:4,KJV]There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.[/VERSE]