Observation, Mediation, Speculation

[Suggestion Box]

Actually, birds are dinosaurs. If you doubt this, name me a characteristic of birds not found in dinosaurs.

The evidence is very clear and requires no witnesses. You can look at it yourself.

Anyone who observes birds, and knows something of their anatomy. Museum curators and paleontologists who examine the fossils. Those who see the fossils and the analyses in journals. People who go to museums to see the evidence. Guys like that.

And there's an easy way to refute this; give me a few basic characteristics in birds that aren't in dinosaurs. What do you have?

A characteristic of birds that no one has ever witnessed in dinosaurs is the fact that they squawk. No one has ever heard a dinosaur make any noise whatsoever.

The claim has been made that the following people are observers that birds are dinosaurs: me, knowledgeable bird watchers, curators, paleontologists, fossil observers, journal readers, museum attenders.

In reality, none of these people are eyewitness observers of the vast majority of the attributes of dinosaurs. Some of them have observed the dead remains of dinosaurs, so they would be eyewitnesses that there were at one point such things as dinosaurs, and they could testify to the bone structure of dinosaurs. Some of them might be able to testify to the external appearance of dinosaurs based on observation of fossils or molds. But there is a lot more to a creature than its remains, and it is impossible to compare a creature that I have never observed moving or thinking or eating or doing anything, to one that I have observed in action. This is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

If birds are dinosaurs, call me a featherless biped. This claim requires you to classify creatures strictly according to their known physical attributes - because physical attributes are all anyone can directly observe of dead remains. And there are still many physical attributes that have long since decayed, and cannot be observed. Besides physical attributes, there are behaviors that cannot be directly observed (unless you are planning a Jurassic Park). Any claim about dinosaur behaviors might be deduced from observation, but is not itself observation, therefore it is speculation.

 

[The Barbarian]

A characteristic of birds that no one has ever witnessed in dinosaurs is the fact that they squawk. No one has ever heard a dinosaur make any noise whatsoever.

Let's take a look...

Duck-billed dinosaurs have puzzled paleontologists for years, particularly because certain chambers in some of their skulls did not seem to have a clear purpose. But CT-scanning, originally designed for medical use, seems to support scientific speculation that the chambers played some role in communication between the animals.


Three-dimensional renderings of a Corythosaurus fossil revealed the shapes of inner skull cavities, including the ear, brain, nasal, and the mystery chambers, which are connected to the nasal passages and housed within oddly-shaped bony protrusions atop the dinosaur’s head.1


The scan results seem to confirm what one researcher, David Evans of the University of Toronto, has suspected for a long time: These strange chambers were used as sounding horns, “notably acoustic resonance for intraspecific communication.”2 “The CT scans documented a delicate inner ear that confirms that the dinosaurs could hear low-frequency calls produced by the crest,” according to a Ohio University press release.1
The Call of the Hadrosaur

So the evidence shows that dinosaurs could make sounds. I'll ask again; give me a few basic characteristics in birds that aren't in dinosaurs. What do you have?

In reality, none of these people are eyewitness observers of the vast majority of the attributes of dinosaurs.

So your claim is that we can't know anything we weren't there to see, or have a witness who was there? That's demonstrably wrong. Fire investigation, forensics, geology, paleontology, are examples that evidence can show us what happened.

It's not just the very large number of transitional fossils that knowledgeable creationists call "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory." It's the presence of scutes (scales found only on dinosaurs, crocodiles and birds), the discovery that T. rex heme (part of the hemoglobin molecule) is more like that of birds than it is like that of other reptiles. It's the discovery that birds and dinosaurs share the unique pneumatized bones and flow-through respiratory system formerly thought to have only existed in birds. It's the discovery that the bones in the avian wing corrospond to the reduction in bones in theropod dinosaurs.

I know of at least one bird characteristic that so far hasn't been found in dinosaurs. But it's technical and a very minor bit of anatomy. Other than that, birds haven't evolved much from their feathered dinosaur ancestors.

Any claim about dinosaur behaviors might be deduced from observation, but is not itself observation

I've always thought of observations as being observations.

If birds are dinosaurs, call me a featherless biped.

You are a featherless biped. But you were going to show us some characteristics of birds not found in dinosaurs. Do you have anything at all?

 

[Suggestion Box]

So your claim is that we can't know anything we weren't there to see, or have a witness who was there? That's demonstrably wrong. Fire investigation, forensics, geology, paleontology, are examples that evidence can show us what happened.

That is not my claim. My claim is that if we weren't there to see it, there are no direct eyewitnesses. This means that observing evidence is not the same thing as observing an actual event. Deducing unobserved information from evidence is not observation. It is speculation.

I'm not saying speculation is always incorrect, but it is less credible than having two or three credible eyewitnesses - the standard used by Jesus to testify to his own authority, as I have mentioned previously, and also the standard used in the Torah. Furthermore, the credibility of guesses that are far removed from the present are less credible than those that are recent or near in the future. So I would be more likely to accept fire investigation or forensics than I would be to accept the portions of geology or paleontology which are speculative. The example of the Hadrosaur is a good example. I just went to a museum a few weeks ago which displayed a Hadrosaur model and gave a variety of possible different reasons for the crest - sound was one speculation. Fighting was another. But I was proud of the museum - they went to the trouble to state that they didn't actually know, but that these were educated guesses. Your article above also says that the new evidence "seems to support speculation", which is correct. It seems to. The evidence does not confirm anything, but it does add some credibility to an existing speculation.

 

[The Barbarian]

That is not my claim. My claim is that if we weren't there to see it, there are no direct eyewitnesses.

That's just two ways of saying the same thing.

the standard used by Jesus to testify to his own authority, as I have mentioned previously, and also the standard used in the Torah.

In science, evidence counts. Which might not matter to you. But it works. Works better than anything else humans can do to understand the natural world.

Furthermore, the credibility of guesses that are far removed from the present are less credible than those that are recent or near in the future.

No, that's wrong. For example, we know that at least some of the Precambrian biota were animals, but we don't know how Greek Fire was formulated. Neither involve guesses, though.

Traces of cholesterol in Edicaran fossils confirm that they were animals. And from historical data we know some components of Greek Fire.

So I would be more likely to accept fire investigation or forensics than I would be to accept the portions of geology or paleontology which are speculative.

See above. You've been badly misled here. More examples, if you want.

The example of the Hadrosaur is a good example. I just went to a museum a few weeks ago which displayed a Hadrosaur model and gave a variety of possible different reasons for the crest - sound was one speculation.

So someone did some experiments. Turns out the chambers resonate at the right frequencies. So the evidence indicates they were for making sounds.

The evidence does not confirm anything, but it does add some credibility to an existing speculation.

Hypothesis. Speculation isn't testable. But hypotheses are. So now it's not merely a hypothesis; it's an inference from evidence, the evidence being a confirmation of the prediction made by the hypothesis:

"Perhaps the crests of Hadrosaurs were for making sounds. If so, the chambers should resonate at low frequencies."

Turns out, they do. And so a confirmation of the hypothesis. If more evidence is produced, the hypothesis will become a theory. How much? Enough to convince many paleontologists.

This is what science is. Again, this might seem wrong to you, but it works. And it works really well.

You were going to tell us some feature of birds that was not in other dinosaurs. Have you found one, yet?

 

[Suggestion Box]

I already said birds squawk. Even if a Hadrosaur's crest could be observed in an experiment to vibrate at certain frequencies, that does not mean that the creature used it for that purpose. The event is unobservable, and there is no record of observation of this event. Furthermore, even if it turned out that the speculation is a good one - that the Hadrosaur made a noise with its crest - this still isn't a squawk. It's a different noise entirely.

It is clear that we do not agree on the definitions of terms.

 

[The Barbarian]

I already said birds squawk. Even if a Hadrosaur's crest could be observed in an experiment to vibrate at certain frequencies, that does not mean that the creature used it for that purpose.

Uh, yeah, that's what it does. You might as well say that just because a dinosaur had legs, that doesn't mean they used them to walk. Dinosaur walking is unobservable, and there is no record of observation of this event.

So you still can't find even one feature of birds that is not true of dinosaurs. Even if you can't prove that dinosaurs actually walked.

All groups of living archosaurs vocalize. And they all walk. So it's pretty foolish to deny that dinosaurs didn't, especially when we have evidence that they did.

 

[The Barbarian]

Here's something I question. I think scientific evidence is really not much different from historical evidence. In both cases, people are relying on the testimony of other people, often recorded, often handed from person to person.

The difference is reproducability. Research findings must be duplicated by others doing the same observations, or they are rejected. So if someone announces that a dinosaur fossil has been found with pneumatized bones (indicating relationship with birds), then:
A. Someone independently looking at those bones would find the same thing.
B. Even better, other dinosaur bones would be found with such features.

Since both A and B have happened, the information is quite credible.

 

[Suggestion Box]

pneumatized bones (indicating relationship with birds)

What authority decided that pneumatized bones are a defining characteristic of birds? Furthermore, how did that authority get from classifying birds by their air-gappy-bones... to establishing an ancestral relationship among all creatures who have that quality?

 

[The Barbarian]

What authority decided that pneumatized bones are a defining characteristic of birds?

Ornithologists. Until we learned that other dinosaurs had them, it was assumed that they were an apomorphic character for birds. In retrospect, it's probably one of the major reasons why dinosaurs turned out to be so successful. The Triassic was marked by a low oxygen content in the atmosphere. The flow-through respiratory systems of dinosaurs (including birds) gave them a leg up on other animals.

Furthermore, how did that authority get from classifying birds by their air-gappy-bones... to establishing an ancestral relationship among all creatures who have that quality?

This was more like further confirmation of Thomas Huxley's prediction over 120 years ago, that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Since then, a large number of what were considered bird apomorphic characters turned out to be also found in other dinosaurs. Which is why birds are now considered dinosaurs. It's not just a huge number of transitional forms. Not long ago, a bit of heme (fragment of a hemoglobin molecule) was found in a T. rex fossil. When tested, it turned out to be more like that of birds than like that of any modern reptile. And birds, other dinosaurs, and crocodiles have scutes, a particular sort of scale that can be induced to form feathers.

Until we found a lot of transitional series from early dinosaurs to birds, there was some speculation that neither evolved from the other, but diverged from a common thecodont ancestor. But with all the transitionals, that is no longer seriously considered.

Here's a way to test your doubts; give me one characteristic that is true of birds that is not found in other dinosaurs.

Right now, I think I know one, but I'd have to know more about Jurassic dinosaur skull morphology to know for sure.

 

[Suggestion Box]

For the following statements, please do me a favor. I know that I could look this information up for myself. But if I did that, I would be filtering out sources that I don't trust, and preferentially seeking those I do trust. It seems likely that the set of organizations and persons that I trust are different from those you trust. So I would like to know where you are getting your information. If you have assessed the credibility of your sources, then you should be able to point me to a specific source - perhaps a reputable person, or a standards organization, or a particular school, or a historical figure that you find trustworthy. I'm most interested not in what you can look up now, but what source of information first convinced you of the truth of your statements.

You speak of Ornithologists. Is there a particular standards organization of Ornithologists that you find credible, to which you could refer me?

There is the matter of naming conventions. Is this based on that of Carl Linnaeus, or some other convention?

The huge number of transitional forms: is this documented publicly, somewhere I can access it? I need to know just how many is a huge number, and what they actually look like if possible. Compared to me and my observations, a million is a huge number. But on a time scale of hundreds of millions of years, a million is a small number. Please be specific and provide your source.

Again, I don't want just any source - I want your source. I want to know what sources of information you found credible enough to convince you of these things in the first place. Then I can judge if I find those same sources credible as well, and I can assess whether they are mediators, observers, or speculators.

 

[The Barbarian]

You speak of Ornithologists. Is there a particular standards organization of Ornithologists that you find credible, to which you could refer me?

Here's one list:
Class Aves-Characteristics And Classifications

Science doesn't work like a standards organization. It pretty much by consensus. But pneumatized bones were consider apomorphic for birds only until we found that other dinosaurs had them as well.

There is the matter of naming conventions. Is this based on that of Carl Linnaeus, or some other convention?

Binomial nomenclature is used to identify species. One capitalizes the genus, while the species is lower case. Doesn't have much to do with classification, other than identify the most closely-related species.

The huge number of transitional forms: is this documented publicly, somewhere I can access it?

Well, there's a very long list of series (not just a single transitional, but multiple transitionals in each series) mentioned by YE creationist Kurt Wise:

Evidences for Darwin’s second expectation — of stratomorphic intermediate species — include such species as Baragwanathia27 (between rhyniophytes and lycopods), Pikaia28 (between echinoderms
and chordates), Purgatorius29 (between the tree shrews and the primates), and Proconsul30 (between the non-hominoid primates and the hominoids). Darwin’s third expectation — of higher-taxon stratomorphic intermediates — has been confirmed by such examples as the mammal-like reptile
groups31 between the reptiles and the mammals, and the phenacodontids32 between the horses and their presumed ancestors. Darwin’s fourth expectation — of stratomorphic series — has been confirmed by such examples as the early bird series,33 the tetrapod series,34,35 the whale series,36 the various mammal series of the Cenozoic37 (for example, the horse series, the camel series, the elephant series, the pig series, the titanothere series, etc.), the Cantius and Plesiadapus primate series,38 and the hominid series.39 Evidence for not just one but for all three of the species level and above types of stratomorphic intermediates expected by macroevolutionary theory is surely strong evidence for
macroevolutionary theory. Creationists therefore need to accept this fact. It certainly CANNOT be said that traditional creation theory expected (predicted) any of these fossil finds.
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j09_2/j09_2_216-222.pdf

There are numerous articles for each group and species on the web. Can't show you all of them here, but you can check and see.

Again, I don't want just any source - I want your source.

As you see, Wise is a young Earth creationist. He hasn't been converted to evolution, but he is honest enough to admit the vast number of transitional forms are "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory." I would think you'd find that an acceptable source.

I want to know what sources of information you found credible enough to convince you of these things in the first place.

You want about 57 years of study? That's a lot of journals to cite. But let me get you started with something that's going to be readable for someone without an advanced degree in biology. For a little basic prep:

Get a Grip on Evolution David Burney
Very basic, but covers the basics pretty well.

What Evolution Is Ernst Mayr
Dated and a little more technical, but worth the read.

Splendid Isolation George Gaylord Simpson
Another older source, but wonderful information on the paleontology of South America.

And best of all for someone ready to learn about it:
The Evolution of Vertebrate Design Leonard B. Radinsky
A pretty good summary of the paleontological evidence for vertebrate evolution from the chordates to modern taxa. Well worth reading, great illustrations and lots of supporting data and sources.

Pretty much any of the essays by Stephen Gould. His opus, The Stucture of Evolutionary Theory is definitely not for a layman.

There are a lot of paleontological journals. One of the best is here:
Journal of Paleontology | Cambridge Core

Probably not for a beginner, though. Radinsky's book, once you get the basic evolutionary theory, is probably a good one to start. If you want to assess credibility for yourself, you'll want to slog through the journal articles. But it's just like assessing the credibility of the guy who designs the airplanes you ride. You'll need a lot of prep before you can do that.

 

[Suggestion Box]

Bah, sorry to write a book. Here's what I came up with.

Ok, first the references. Thank you for providing that information. I will try to look into it more when I get a chance, but I got a start.

For one thing, I noticed that the Journal of Paleontology by Cambridge has an open-access section, which is convenient for those who cannot afford the time or money to dive into this information full time. I found a few articles there which show pictures, which is good. To the extent that Cambridge is reporting eyewitness observations, I think I can trust them. I trust that the pictures are real. I trust that they really did find the fossils they say they found. As for their conclusions, I'm skeptical. I think the main reason I trust their observations is the same reason I don't trust their conclusions. They want to appear "socially good" to modern culture - they have an anti-slavery statement and an equality diversity and inclusion policy. To modern culture, lying about observations is bad. So I doubt they're doing that. But to modern culture, it seems brilliant to forecast events in the distant past based on data collected only in the past several hundred years. And even looking at a few articles told me they were doing that. I do not agree with this philosophy (though I did once), so I do not believe their reasoning is sound. Valid yes. Sound no.

This one looks promising: The Evolution of Vertebrate Design Leonard B. Radinsky. It's available on Google Books in a limited sense, for a preview. Page 3 says:

We have two main sources for the evolutionary history of vertebrates. The fossil record and the diversity of living vertebrates. The fossil record is very incomplete, for it preserves evidence of only a very small percentage of all the species that ever existed, and it usually provides information only on their hard parts or skeletons. However, it is our only source of information about extinct species. The fossil record is set in the framework of geological time and therefore can provide direct evidence of actual evolutionary transformations at fairly specific periods through time.

This seems to indicate that fossils provide a small amount of evidence compared to all the species that ever existed... which I think is a fair way of looking at things. Instead of claiming they have "lots of evidence" compared to what a person might think to be a lot, they compare the volume of evidence correctly by weighing against all the species that ever existed. However, I don't share their confidence in the dating of events:
(on Page 4),

Fossils are dated by radiometric "clocks," that is, elements with unstable forms that change (decay) spontaneously and at a regular rate compared with other elements.

I don't know all the ins and outs, but I do know one thing: nobody mortal has directly observed any historical event prior to Adam. There is no record that I know of that could be used as an anchor point for the people who developed radiometric dating to test the accuracy of their method. So... all the anchor points they possibly could have used would be somewhere in the last, say, 8000 or so years. Now, when I'm forecasting the life of one of my company's products, or perhaps a wear part or a tool... I love to assume that the rates will just be nice and linear. I'll even settle for exponential, as long as it follows a consistent curve. Then I can just curve-fit it into excel and poof: I've predicted the life of the product. Then I can take that product out in the field to a customer, expecting it to follow that same rate, and I can consistently without fail... fail. Every time. Never, ever, ever do things in the real world behave as I would expect them to. There is always some lurking variable, some factor I didn't account for, some extra bit of grease or a hotter environment or less humidity or something. There's what you see in a lab... there's what you read about in a book... and then there's what happens when you go to test it. Proof, or lack thereof, is in the putting. But where's the putting for radiometric dating? Here's what I would do, if it were my job to test the dating method. I would find historical artifacts of known date. Documents or artifacts archaeologists had found, or items long-preserved, which stated the year of the writing. I would try to find a large number of these... several hundred per century for all of history would be ideal. I would test the various elements used in radiometric dating on each of the specimens. I would use measurements obtained from a lab setting as well (for what it's worth). Then I would generate a graph. Hopefully, I would find a nice-looking exponential decay curve. Then I would start at the present and go back to each data point, one at a time, to see if the half-life held constant. And then, if it did - if it held perfectly constant, and I could repeat this experiment, I would call myself an eyewitness that the half-life of these elements stays constant over the measured range of 8000 years. But I still would not dare to forecast backwards hundreds of millions of years. I might dare to forecast backwards by half the measured range, so that at least 2/3 of the data range on my graph was real, and 1/3 was an educated guess. But forecasting over a range tens of thousands of times greater than that of the data I measured? The error approaches infinity. So maybe they came up with a better way... but I can't see how they manage to test this.

Oh, and on page 10, they do mention that they are using the Linnean system of classification. I'm okay with this for practical everyday use, but I don't agree with how Linneaus classifies humans, and I don't think species can be said to share an ancestral relationship simply because they share a few distinctive characteristics. I don't even think a high-percentage DNA match implies an ancestral relationship, for that matter. It is just as reasonable to think that God made beasts instantaneously with a lot of the same components as people, as to think that he made the process take millions of years. One reason would be to remind us that we will die. When we see the beasts die, and we notice that they have eyes like us, and legs and arms, and sometimes even fingers... we remember that we are dust, and to dust we will return.

I'm wondering if the other sources would be quite right for me... easy to read isn't necessarily more credible. Usually if something has been tailored to non-experts, it has gone through a few extra mediators, putting it farther from the eyewitness observers who generated the information. Then again, I am a non-expert, so what am I to do? This is a problem I keep finding. How can the non-experts trust the experts? If I don't first trust the expert, then I cannot learn from the expert. But if I am told that I must first learn what the expert is teaching so that I might trust him, then I am at an impasse. I must do A to get B, but I must have B to do A. It is a logical impossibility. Therefore, the means of trusting an expert must lie outside the realm of his expertise. There must be a way for me to find out if an expert is really an expert without learning what he has to teach. I must trust before I can learn, or else I'm not really learning. Similarly, there must be a way for me to find out if a Pharisee is a wolf in sheep's clothing before I sit down and learn what he has to say about the law. Perhaps... I could know them by their fruit?

Science doesn't work like a standards organization. It pretty much by consensus.

I think you're referring to something other than what I am referring to when you say Science. I don't think science works by consensus at all. Although it is good if a truth is popular, the popularity of an expert opinion does not increase its credibility. Nor does the total volume of information written about it.

I think standards are very important to science, because science is inherently collaborative. Without some common medium through which information can be shared, your observations and my observations can never be combined, and each is left only to his own direct observations. I often refer to standards organizations for scientific information to do my work. This is information obtained by the scientific method and published and controlled by national or international standards. Examples are AISI or ANSI or ASTM or ISO or DIN. Others abound. These govern things like the chemical composition of materials, strength testing of mechanical components, grades of oil... anything related to any component in any product that someone might buy. Beyond products, there are also standards organizations to make building codes, health codes, and whatever other kind of code there might be.

Standards require continuous scientific testing, both in the lab and in the field. This testing is not speculative in any way, and it isn't hidden from view. Direct observers witness the testing... and I don't even know them! But I don't need to. Anyone - even a non-expert - can test the efficacy of the testing method very simply. You buy the product. You see if it works. Or in the case of building codes, you test it by seeing if the building falls down or not. Or in the case of health codes, you test it by... well... I'll spare you the imagery, but you get the idea. Trial and error, guess and check, proof in the putting. The average non-expert can do this. Say the organization tried to lie, or misreported, or made a mistake about how much Iron is supposed to be in AISI A2 Tool Steel or some other material. Everyone would eventually see the results... buildings would start collapsing... lawnmowers would start falling apart... and airplane tails would start falling off. Yes it would take time for the error to be caught. But sooner or later it would be noticeable. Then one of the pilots might stop flying the Airbus 300 and become the safety chairman and decide to investigate it.

But it's just like assessing the credibility of the guy who designs the airplanes you ride. You'll need a lot of prep before you can do that.

It doesn't take much prep to do this much: I don't trust the guy who designed the Boeing 737 Max. And I don't trust the guy who designed the Airbus 300. These are two aircraft that I know of with failures causing planes to fail mid-air, ending in lethal crashes. I know of at least 2 mediators who conveyed this information to me: one of the then-A300 pilots that I know personally, and the news. I find these sources credible within the sphere of these incidents. Therefore, I believe that there really were such things as eyewitnesses of these events. Therefore, I believe that these events happened. Therefore, I don't trust the people who made these planes. Therefore, I would not knowingly fly on one of these planes.

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't know all the ins and outs, but I do know one thing: nobody mortal has directly observed any historical event prior to Adam.

And so what? If you're claiming that we can't know, with a high degree of confidence, something we never witnessed, that's demonstrably wrong. BTW, there's plenty of evidence that we often don't know something we personally witnessed.

I don't think science works by consensus at all.

Always has. No one certified that Newton was right about gravitation. No one officially declared that Apollo doesn't drive the Sun across the sky. No person or organization officially declared that Wegener was right about continents moving. But in my lifetime, geologists completely accepted his claim, after the discovery of sea floor spreading made it impossible to deny.

There is no record that I know of that could be used as an anchor point for the people who developed radiometric dating to test the accuracy of their method.

For example, argon/argon testing accurately dated the pyroclastic flow that buried Pompeii.
08.28.97 - Precise dating of the destruction of Pompeii proves argon-argon method can reliably date rocks as young as 2,000 years

But I still would not dare to forecast backwards hundreds of millions of years.

Turns out, all the data supports the notion of constant rates of decay. If they were markedly different, it would be life-threatening. So, if all the observed effects of radiation such as the heat of the Earth, were to have happened in a few thousand years, it would have killed all living things on Earth by the flux of ionizing radiation.

I'm okay with this for practical everyday use, but I don't agree with how Linneaus classifies humans, and I don't think species can be said to share an ancestral relationship simply because they share a few distinctive characteristics.

Here, you're confusing analogy with homology. Turns out, the best indicators are those that don't look alike, like the legs of horses, arms of humans, and wings of bats.

I don't even think a high-percentage DNA match implies an ancestral relationship, for that matter.

We can test that on organisms of known descent. Turns out, it works. Always. So that's not at issue.

Examples are AISI or ANSI or ASTM or ISO or DIN.

Those are engineering standards. There are scientific standards like reproducibility, disclosure of interests, statistical probability and so on. But not ISO or ANSI for science.

Therefore, the means of trusting an expert must lie outside the realm of his expertise. There must be a way for me to find out if an expert is really an expert without learning what he has to teach. I must trust before I can learn, or else I'm not really learning. Similarly, there must be a way for me to find out if a Pharisee is a wolf in sheep's clothing before I sit down and learn what he has to say about the law. Perhaps... I could know them by their fruit?

In the case of science, it's been spectacularly successful in explaining the things we see around us. Nothing else humans can do works better than science for that purpose.

Everyone would eventually see the results... buildings would start collapsing... lawnmowers would start falling apart... and airplane tails would start falling off.

In the case of science, dishonesty (or more often, incompetence) comes out when no one else can reproduce the results. Pretty much the way you know that the Airbus A300 is unsafe. Ultimately, we constantly trust experts with our lives in all sorts of ways, because we have learned that they are generally trustworthy.

It is just as reasonable to think that God made beasts instantaneously with a lot of the same components as people, as to think that he made the process take millions of years.

Comes down to evidence. And as the honest creationist admits, the fossil record is "very good evidence for macroevolutionary theory." Such creationists merely prefer their interpretation of the Bible to the evidence, and honestly admit it.

Another way to gauge the expert is to consider predictions. For example, Thomas Huxley, based on some anatomical data, predicted transitionals between birds and other dinosaurs. In fact, he wasn't aware that birds are dinosaurs, but he knew there was a relationship. Only much later did we find the predicted transitional forms. Ditto for whales and land mammals. And for reptiles and mammals. And a very long list of verified predictions. And genetic data matches up nicely when we have it. So does biochemical data. The heme molecules of T rex most closely match up with those of birds. Scutes found on archosaurs (dinosaurs, birds and crocodiles) are biochemical analogues of feathers and can be induced to form feathers. Creationists are fond of announcing that we've finally found dinosaur DNA. So far, such claims have always been debunked, but if we were to find it, it would be devastating for creationism, as sequencing such DNA would support all the other evidence, just as the dinosaur heme further confirmed the evolution of birds from other dinosaurs.

Edit: Linnaeus formally classified homo apart from apes. But he admits he did so to avoid trouble with clerics.

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character—one that is according to generally accepted principles of classification, by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none.... But, if I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I should have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I ought to have done so.
Carl Linnaeus

 

[Suggestion Box]

Thank you for your thorough and insightful replies to my questions.