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Subject: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 9:26am  I've been having an interesting (not to mention civil, on-topic and personal-attack-free) debate with Smacks on a few topics. One point we discussed was the value, if any, of scientific consensus in relation to evolution/ID. The following link brings up a few good points about it: Behe on 'Scientific Consensus' | Uncommon Descent It's short, but the thing that caught me eye was actually the quotes from Michael Crichton, of Jurassic Park and ER fame: "I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had." And "Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What are relevant are reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period." "What are relevant are reproducible results." This is where OOL and macroevolution totally fail. Which goes against the current scientific consensus, but is a fact nonetheless. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Loreweaver posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 11:53am  curses, i hate when i have to break my lack of responses because i agree with something you post. link seems to be broken though. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Smacks posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 2:08pm  "I've been having an interesting (not to mention civil, on-topic and personal-attack-free) debate with Smacks on a few topics." Prov. 15:1 "A gentle response turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath." Well, I'll let it go that a science fiction author is describing how science is supposed to work and just deal with his claims. First of all, he first seems to suggest that consensus is bad (the best scientists break consensus), and then that it is irrelevant (which would suggest neither good nor bad). No quite clear, but a minor issue. Second, consensus is derived from evidence. I'm not sure what Mr. Crichton was suggesting should happen that isn't. Scientists do evaluate the evidence; that's what reading other peoples methodologies and reanalyzing and reinterpreting their data is all about. Where consensus-based arguments come in is when the scientific community is communicating with the public (or to those in other fields, e.g. physicists talking to biologists). That's where the authority of consensus is used. (Do you disagree?) The question then is whether this is legitimate. I argue that, to a degree, it is. My reasons: 1. The consensus is evidentially based because it comes out of the evidentialist (scientific) community. Politics is based on consensus because there is no external factual basis to be studied. Just saying there is a consensus does not mean it is not fact-based. There is a consensus that the sky is blue because the masses have observed the sky and agreed on its blueness. 2. The public typically depends on consensus of necessity, for it is unable to evaluate claims for itself. This is not to make scientists into some kind of priesthood; they are just people who are trained in their area. My mechanic can evaluate the inner workings of my car, my doctor can evaluate my bloodwork, and scientists can evaluate scientific evidence. This is not difficult to demonstrate. Look at the picture below. THAT is a key piece of evidence demonstrating that DNA has a double helical structure. Who among us can interpret that? Chemists, trained in x-ray crystallography. The CONSENSUS of biochemists, based on evidence, is that DNA is a double-helix, and we believe them. Should we? I think yes, because they have the technical skill that we do not have in order to evaluate the evidence, and they all agree on the interpretation. This is how most everything works in science: the public is largely unaware of the supporting evidence, but the consensus of scientists, who *are* aware of and capable of interpreting the evidence, guides their beliefs. This is ordinary and non-controversial until someone has an a priori disagreement (creationism, climate change denialism, etc). Now, within the scientific community, this changes. The actual evidence must be presented; this is the process of peer review, and it is one of the foundations of science. No one cares who you are or how many people agree with you; it is all based on evidence. My point is, consensus means squat within the scientific community. Michael Crichton wouldn't know because he doesn't deal much with it. The consensus can be wrong, for sure, as has happened many times. That alone, however, does not allow one to be anti-consensus. To do so is to ignore evidence, Mr. Crichton's concern. For the consensus to be overturned takes strong evidence (as it was built on strong evidence), which those in the scientific community are still waiting on from the pseudosciences. ""What are relevant are reproducible results." This is where OOL and macroevolution totally fail." And this is where you don't appear to understand what reproducible results means. Not all science is based on a laboratory experiment. We get reproducible results all the time in macroevolution research, but it is of a sort that is commensurate with the claim. You can't reproduce a process that takes millions of years, but you can reproduce observations and measurements and make predictions (such as the location of a transitional form, in the case of Tiktaalik.) The point of reproducibility is that the evidence can't just be accessed by a single person at a single point in time. Peace. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 6:18pm  I highly recommend Crichton's book 'State of fear,' about climate change. It's massively researched. I dunno what to think about consensus myself. Crichton raises eugenics as an issue that found lots of consensus. Newtonian physics worked great until it crashed about a century ago. I don't think many people expected it to fall - many people here don't agree that it has fallen. I agree that reproducible results aren't the only way to do science. I think that falsifiable hypotheses are what it's all about. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: luna1580 posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 2:16am  crichton may have done a lot of research, but he seems to have done a very poor job of absorbing the parts of it that conflicted with the opinion on climate change he had going into that research process. just for a start: RealClimate: Michael Crichton's State of Confusion RealClimate: Michael Crichton's State of Confusion II: Return of the Science Review of Michael Crichton's State of Fear : Weather Underground Answers to Key Questions Raised by M. Crichton in State of Fear | Pew Center on Global Climate Change: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 11:18am  I think he made a pretty good case for land use playing a significant role in the perceived increase in temps worldwide... And it's obviously heavy-handed about Hollywood types, no doubt. But it is a novel, after all. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Rainbow Medicine Man posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 2:54pm  Michael Crichton is a science "fiction" writer. Just that little point. Not that is opinion has no value as mere opinion... If 99,99% of geologists and paleontologists defend a reasonable and logical theory supported by a zillion tons of evidence, and you come here with one that is quite contrary to all evidence I can find, then I must go with the consensus. Even if that Crichton fiction writer has a fit. Present convincing " EVIDENCE " and I swear that I will go against any consensus. Question is that you haven't even claimed to have evidence for Creation. Sorry, man. Bye-bye, alligator. IMO there's aplenty, tons over tons, of evidence for evolution, and lab experiments have been made at the human life timescale; field experiments have been also made, in the form of prediction of when and were such and such fossil form will be found, accouting for larger timescales. You know that, but you insist on the long timescale making impossible lab experiments because you do not have much else to grab to. But lab experiment are not the only way to make comprobable predictions...and, mind, repeatable; I can repeatedly search for dinos over the KT boundary and find none. Any time... Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: lowredx posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 3:07pm  The KT boundary is nothing more than the result of volcanic activity during the great flood. Just have to love Creatwiki. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Rainbow Medicine Man posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 3:47pm  That so?. Then that was what we call "una putada" !. One drowns but also burns...remember, those are creative Creationists!. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: tonyc posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 3:50pm  Behe is a science fiction writer too. Remember him claiming in court,on oath, that there was no evidence for the evolution of the immune system? He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters as proof there is evidence. He then admitted he hadn't read any of them. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: lowredx posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 5:07pm  Be careful, the works of Behe figure strongly in the foundations of Hootism. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 5:41pm  "Michael Crichton is a science "fiction" writer." The only science fiction in this forum is the tale of evolution. From his official web site: "Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT." Sounds to me like he could speak with some authority on the subject. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Thu, Nov 5 2009, 6:21pm  Yep - he's not yer average author. I disagree strongly about reproducible results being the definition of science. Astronomy hardly ever works that way, and you can seldom manipulate variables. It's about falsifiable predictions. The ones that work, we keep. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 4:48am  Falsifiable predictions can be useful, but not infallible. For example, How would you falsify four-legged mammals evolving into whales, or single-celled organisms evolving into multi-celled organisms? The fossil record cannot be used, since I could just as easily say every fossil in the theorized whale "family tree" was designed, and share similar traits because that's the way they were designed to fit into different environmental niches. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 11:22am  You're not even trying, hoot. We suggest common descent based on anatomical and embryological and fossil evidence, then predict similarities in biochemistry and DNA that are successful. ID says 'The designer may do as He wishes, I guess... Evolution predicts intermediate fossils, which are found. These are all falsifiable predictions, hoot, and you know it. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Just Joan posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 2:47pm  I don't know it and I am trying. How do you suggest common descent based on embryological evidence? What evidence do you mean and how did you decide it's existence suggested common descent? Is it as basic as children look like both of their parents depending on the facial expressions? What anatomical evidence do you refer to? Isn't this the crux of the disagreement? The many organs we rely on are all necessary to our organism having life. If an organ is missing, we tend to be dead and not reproduce anymore. That "evolution predicts (tsk, tsk) based on intermediate fossils" is wholly unacceptable on two levels. Grammatically for sure, since it's a process and not capable of predicting anything as it is not sentient. (Yes, I had to get picky - I have to try harder than the rest of you to make sense of your claims. And I've caught ye lot up more than once because of my attention to detail, too). Splitting the timing distance between any two fossils found creates an unending series of "intermediate fossils". It doesn't prove or falsify anything that I can tell. Please clarify. Joanie Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 3:15pm  Here's some basic anatomical evidence. Mammals have 7 neck bones - giraffes, mice, whales, 4200 different species. Creation or design imagines that that's the best number for some reason I can't imagine. Evolution says this is because they share a common ancestor that had 7 neck bones. Here are two basic kinds of embryological evidence. Sea squirt adults look like Gary Larsen's drawings of stomachs. But as larvae, they look like tadpoles, with an obvious head and tail. So we suggest that they're more closely related to vertebrates than other inverts. That lets us make predictions about biochemistry and DNA, which work out. Adult segmented worms and mollusks don't look much alike, but have a very similar larval form (trochophore larva?). Again, if this indicates common descent, we can make predictions about biochem and DNA that work out. I've got others. Most snails have a coiled digestive system - starts out straight and coils, called 'torsion.' But even those who have straight guts undergo torsion, followed by reverse torsion. That's odd design... Here's what I meant by intermediates, which I think you misquote me on. If we think mammals derived from reptiles, we can predict the existence of fossil forms intermediate between reptiles and mammals. The line between fossil mammals and reptiles is so very unclear that the call is meaningless - just as predicted by 'people who ascribe to evolutionary theory and common descent.' Dunno that ID makes any predictions there. When confronted with someone who gave him grief about ending a sentence with a preposition, Churchhill is supposed to have said 'That is something up with which I will not put.' Sorry if I was unclear. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Just Joan posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 7:27pm  The similarity of 7 neckbones doesn't necessarily mean nor even imply a shared ancestor. Similarly to claim it is "best" as a design is also unqualified. Both camps are just guessing. To choose one or the other is equally arbitrary. When you say that sea squirts are closer "to vertebrates than other inverts" how do you decide what "closer" means? Is there a cord of some kind that metamorphosizes away or disintegrates and that it might briefly be within the sea squirt as a larva is why you begin a prediction? Does that mean butterflies are "closer" to centipedes because as caterpillars they have more legs than ants do? Regarding post birth alterations to the digestive systems - that happens in people babies too, but in the ability of the physically present intestines to digest varieties of foods. That's why babies only nurse for a while and we introduce foods slowly. The digestive system isn't "done" at birth, the way the fingers are. It's not odd design, it's lovely (subjective word, I know). Because of this immaturity babies are necessarily cared for by adults. This "design" is just one of several that lead to the development of families and further of societies. Babies and snails have the right features and abilities at the right times for their benefit so they are excellent evidence of design. This doesn't exclude "evolution" as a means, but it sure includes an extraordinary aspect that "mindless evolution" wouldn't require at all and in reality would be detrimental to the success of the assorted organisms by having weakling babies instead of strong, independent babies. I like your answers, they help make things clearer to me and they still leave plenty of room for conversation. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 8:01pm  Why would 7 be the right number of neck bones for all mammals - whales don't move their necks, for crying out loud... It could be design, but that leads you nowhere, lets you make no predictions. So even if it's true - and of course, I believe in a creator God - it's no help. If a designer wants a snail with a straight gut, why coil and uncoil it? I conclude the coiled and straight ones have a common ancestor, and we have descent with modification, rather than suggest the Designer is dumb... Here's a page on urochordates. The adults mostly glue themselves to the ocean floor and filter-feed;on the lower left you see a pic of the free-swimming larval form, which suggests they are related to vertebrates. Their biochem and DNA is more similar to vertebrates than to other inverts - prediction fulfilled. You ask good questions and add to the discussion. What's not to like? Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Just Joan posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 10:09pm  Why do predictions need to be made at all if life was designed? Similarities in biochemistry or DNA that are successful would be expected. For that which we suspect is faulty, insufficient, excessive or awkward perhaps the defining is too subjective and the value of the trait is not recognized by us, the observers, right? Coiling and uncoiling of snail guts might be advantageous in ways that we haven't discerned. Why do you decide gut changes imply ancestral relations instead of time specific digestive needs? Maybe the questions and suppositions are limiting the accuracy of the answers. I can't see a link, but I believe you are describing motility well. If a snail larva swims like a tadpole that might indicate some kind of a spinal cord. But sperms swim like tadpoles and they don't have spinal cords. I miss why you have fulfilled the prediction of similarity somewhere along the way. Please explain more. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Sat, Nov 7 2009, 8:21am  Why do predictions need to be made at all? Partly because it;s FUN! Also, So we can guess what's gonna happen. That can be very useful - survival of the fittest explains why we have drug-resistant superbugs, and supports the idea of using antibiotics sparingly and correctly. (Finish the prescription, don't use it for colds...) I'm not being very clear, partly because I'm mixing stuff I've learned over decades of looking at this. Torsion and de-torsion in snails happens before they eat anything. If a designer wants a snail to have a straight gut, the obvious way to do it is to avoid coiling it in the first place. Again, the idea of ancestral relations lets us make predictions about similarities in biochem and DNA that work... Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Just Joan posted Sat, Nov 7 2009, 9:59am  Learning is fun, but that doesn't mean it was accurate. I don't understand why you've chosen antibiotics/microbes for your example of survivors of the fittest when fossilized, anatomical and embryological evidences don't work as a tutorial example of these life forms. I am being as specific as I can because I haven't clogged my brains up with decades of these concepts. When snails are babies they're smaller than when they're adults, right? As babies they don't need to reproduce yet, and they haven't even eaten (?) before their guts uncoil. Maybe the reason the guts are coiled before they uncoil is because there is room for other organs to grow at a later age, like sex organs for when the snail is older after the guts uncoil. That would indicate patience and timeliness, neither of which is a quantifiable quality in a laboratory observation. People babies are born with big eyes in relation to the size of the rest of them. People babies are also less hairy than adults. Neither of these is a fossilization evidence. I'm pretty certain neither is an embryological evidence. Maybe there's anatomical evidence of eye growth cessation or hair growth commencement, but I don't know it. If there is a designer, there is a reason for why things are as they are. A designer on an omniscient scale can use any means or any reason at all. A scientist is only a human. Some are observers and some are changers. If they observe, perhaps they are trying to know the mind of God (whether or not they think that is their intention). If they change, perhaps they are the tools of God. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Sun, Nov 8 2009, 9:41am  I think you have forced H to turn it up a notch, Joan! I will make a hopeful scientific prediction and state that someday H will realize that maybe the God he believes in did actually guide the development of life more than just setting the universe in motion and sitting back to see how it all turned out. On a more direct note to his and your debate, the argument that "evolution must be true, because the Designer wouldn't have done it that way" is a very weak position. Since we have no way of knowing the Designers intentions, or how far from the original design species and the environment have perhaps varied or degenerated from the original design, how can we say things should have been done differently? Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Just Joan posted Mon, Nov 9 2009, 10:46am  Hroth has an extraordinary mind! I delight in such a vast collection of remembered details as he has. Always I learn from him about something utterly unknown to me and being solution oriented I can connect dots that might not even have been recognized as dots by him because he is so loaded with details. We have fun conversations. His willingness to teach and share is wonderful. I agree very much with you on the weakness of "evolution must be true, because the Designer wouldn't have done it that way". It is untenable with the "little changes over time" of evolution theory. They aren't mutually exclusive sentences, but the one makes the other look a little limited by it's definition. That so much variety exists in successful forms clarifies the greatness of the Designer in spite of attempts to define His means of creation as fully comprehended by us within the Theory of Evolution. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Tue, Nov 10 2009, 2:46pm  You're kind to say so. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Wed, Nov 11 2009, 6:50am  "That so much variety exists in successful forms clarifies the greatness of the Designer in spite of attempts to define His means of creation as fully comprehended by us within the Theory of Evolution." And that is the problem in a nutshell. As long as science refuses to accept the obvious truth that life is designed, it will continue to be nothing more than a collection of Just-So stories that misinterpret the evidence. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Tue, Nov 10 2009, 12:50pm  I don't see the two as incompatible, hoot. I know God moves in human history, but I wouldn't stop at contemplating the causes of WWI or WWII as 'God wanted it to happen. The Bible shows that God incorporates 'natural' processes into His plans. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Wed, Nov 11 2009, 6:55am  "I don't see the two as incompatible, hoot." I realize that. I simply feel you have delegated God to the single role of First Cause, and ignore evidence showing that natural processes alone are incapable of achieving the diversity we see in life, both now and in the fossil record. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Wed, Nov 11 2009, 4:36pm  Are you really misunderstanding my point? Intentionally or not, you're misrepresenting my position. If someone dies, I agree that one explanation is that it's God's will - a least what they call permissive will. But that doesn't mean that here aren't proximate causes, some of which are natural. Stop trying to call me a deist who only believes in a watchwinder God. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Wed, Nov 11 2009, 10:43pm  "Are you really misunderstanding my point?" Yes. Here is the problem. If you are NOT a deist who believes in a watchwinder God, in regards to biological life, what kind of God do you believe in? In all the time we have been debating, you have many times asked for evidence for ID. Yet it seems like you yourself believe in ID, at least at some point above the level of the creation of the first replicating life. If you do believe God did more than wind up the universe and let it run, at what general level of involvement do you see Him? Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Thu, Nov 12 2009, 12:49am  It might be as simple as God manipulating the odds of successful mutation. So common descent could happen, with God acting to make possible event you consider statistically unlikely to the point of impossibility. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Thu, Nov 12 2009, 4:19pm  It might be. But somehow I don't think God would use such an inefficient, even to imperfect humans, method of developing life. It's analogous to a computer programmer using bugs and glitches in existing code to write new software. I suspect God has a somewhat more efficient, and more direct, method of guiding life. You mention some miracles in your post below. One that comes to mind regarding the current issue is the account of the resurrection of Lazarus. Having been dead for parts of several days, in the warm climate of Judea his body had already begun to decompose. Yet in the blink of an eye he was whole and hearty again, with fully functioning cells and neural connections. Proof that God has the ability to create life in a little faster than 3.5 billion years. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Thu, Nov 12 2009, 12:56am  In Exodus, God's level of influence in human history shows a wide variety of levels of involvement. God 'hardens Pharoah's heart' gets him to act on his urges. This would have looked 'natural' to most observers, but we're told that God intervened. Some of the plagues were 'normal', while killing of firstborn was so selective as to be obviously supernatural in origin. It looks to me very much as though God has used the 'natural' process of evolution to create the diversity of living things we see around us. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 5:17pm  "You're not even trying, hoot. We suggest common descent based on anatomical and embryological and fossil evidence, then predict similarities in biochemistry and DNA that are successful." That is my point. Evolutionists are "suggesting" common descent. How can this suggestion be falsified? You claim, correctly, that sometimes evolution guess correctly regarding a fossil with intermediate characteristics. But where is the evidence that this similarity is actually the result of evolutionary forces? In other words, making a correct predicition does not validate the methodology of making the prediction. I might be able to predict the day of the first snowfall each year with a better than 50/50 success rate by how much pain I have in my big toe. Does that mean my Big Toe Weather Theory has any scientific value? Also, since paleontolgists have know for over 150 years there is great variety in fossils, making a prediction that new ones will be found somewhere between two known ones is not a very impressive feat. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 5:55pm  C'mon hoot. Common descent could be falsified by finding advanced forms among rocks way too old. Show me a bunny rabbit in Paleozoic rocks, and we'll have to re-write common descent. Predictions that work are what science is about, in 25 words or less. If we've got a theory that works, we can't tell it from the truth. Intermediates appear with the right features at the right spots in the fossil record. All you can do is pretend to understand the will of the Designer, and even you admit you don't have a naturalistic mechanism to point to. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Rainbow Medicine Man posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 12:44am  Morning Hooty, if you reread, you'll see I did not discute he had other califications. He is a good writer, too, or at least I like what he writes, well, a bit. He's got an opinion, too, probably better based than mine. But I refuse to accept his words as inerrant. For that, read the Bible. Science fiction writers ar all cuckoos !! (Ducking fasta speed o' light). Yesterday I had polluelas de agua and chickapeas with bull tail stew. Today all seems somehow better and pinker... Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: hroth posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 1:27pm  Chickpeas. Yerch. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Entity posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 2:08pm  "(not to mention civil, on-topic and personal-attack-free)" So you are ready to stop attacking peoplenow? No point in debating you if you can not do at least that much... Remember.. Insult and be inulted! I really hope we can go back to the debate, and stop with the childish insults and coward replies. Agree? Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 5:36pm  The only people I "attack" are people who insult me. Like yourself, for example. You want to get back to the debate? Jump in. I never left. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Entity posted Fri, Nov 6 2009, 10:32pm  You insult way more on this site than anyone else. That is why people insult you. You know that. So stop whining and back to the debate (I ask again)? Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Sat, Nov 7 2009, 6:44am  I get attacked way more on this site than anyone else. It's simple mathematics. I post the most on-topic threads showing the flaws in evolution theory, I get the most insulting off-topic insults from believers in evolution. "So stop whining and back to the debate" Another example of an off-topic insult. From you. Which is pretty much all you ever do on here. I doubt if you are able to engage in meaningful debate. That is not an insult, just an observation based on numerous past off-topic posts of yours. So I'll get back to the Smacks and Hroths and Just Joans, who do know how to discuss things civilly. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Entity posted Sat, Nov 7 2009, 7:35am  The reason you get attacked is not because of your beliefs, but your insults and hypocrite comments. Your way of dancing around an important question or refusing to answer it. Cowardly of you. Admit when you are wrong and stop insulting others who do not agree with you and you earn some respect. "I doubt if you are able to engage in meaningful debate. That is not an insult, just an observation based on numerous past off-topic posts of yours. So I'll get back to the Smacks and Hroths and Just Joans, who do know how to discuss things civilly." Again you insult (or try). You can not debate at all. It is always "I am right and you are wrong", but never backing this up. We asked for evidence for ID! You bring nothing. Trying to poke holes in the evolutionary theory is not evidence for ID. And you know it. You are very often off-topic and spamming the forums with troll posts. "Some evolutionist guy said he doesn't know exactly how it happened so evolution is non-scientific and atheist propaganda blablabla" posts are boring now. So I say again: Let us get back to the debate! No insults which you keep on starting, and be meaningfull, non-trolling propaanda nonsense. If you man up to this I will debate with you like I do with everyone else here. You are the problem, Hoot, not everyone else! Cheers and have a nice weekend. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Rainbow Medicine Man posted Sat, Nov 7 2009, 8:03am  Entity, only to point that Hooty has admitted that there's no evidence to back up ID at all, and that ID is not concerned with who is the Intelligent Designer. I wonder what ID is concerned about. That there's no evidence about what it does concern itself about must be evident, because even Hooty admits it, even if it isn't clear what that concern is. I don't understand it either. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Sun, Nov 8 2009, 9:22am  "You can not debate at all." I'm sorry. I'm too busy debating with others on here to respond to your lies and insults. When you get over your whining and name-calling, feel free to join in. If you are able to do so, which again I doubt, since you never have before. "Cheers" and tautologies about evolution being a fact seem to be your only cards. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Entity posted Sun, Nov 8 2009, 9:57am  I tried to reason with you, but you refuse. Too bad. At least we can debate with the other creats here. Phil hase more debate skills than you do. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Hootowl posted Sun, Nov 8 2009, 5:26pm  "I tried to reason with you, but you refuse." No, you talked down to me and insulted me. No reason evident or implied on your part. "At least we can debate with the other creats here." If, by "we" you mean other condescending, off-topic and insulting posters like RMM, lowredx, monkeyboy, et al, I can't say you'll be missed. I'll continue to debate with those who show me mutual respect and courtesy, while disagreeing with my views. If you are ever able to develop and exercise those God-given traits, feel free to jump in the debate. And I'm not a creationist. Subject: Re: The Value of Scientific Consensus From: Entity posted Mon, Nov 9 2009, 3:34am  "No, you talked down to me and insulted me. No reason evident or implied on your part." Not true. You keep doing that. That is the reason you get insulted back.

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