> -----Original Message----- > From: Michael Dinowitz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 12:53 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: Ben Stein's "Expelled" > > The problem is, he's right to an extent. Once the scientific world sets > a > 'standard', anything against that standard is almost hitting a brick > wall.
EXACTLY: once experiment, experience and consensus (a long, arduous, contentious process) reach a conclusion it takes extraordinary evidence to alter it. That's a core principle of the scientific method. This doesn't mean that "science" is closed-minded but rather than certain aspects of it are so well explored, so well founded, so well understood that it takes significant evidence for the community to even consider radical changes. > The community is against Cold Fusion (the physics idea), so no > experiments Cold Fusion is a classic example of how there has NEVER been an replicable claims yet there are dozens of new crackpot claims every year. This is the hypothesis that's cried wolf. Should any real, replicable evidence for ColdFusion arise it would be met with skepticism (of course!) but if it worked it would be accepted (of course!) - that's just the way science works. > or papers on it are accepted or treated seriously. Same for ANY > challenge to > evolution, no matter how scientific and non-religious it is. Look at This is just not true. The finer points of evolution are under constant debate. When did life become sufficiently complex to allow biological evolution? Is evolutionary change steady or punctuated? Is the largest contributor mutation, environmental pressure or some other process? The theory is under constant refinement, it's the core understanding that is nearly unassailable. NOT because of some "conspiracy" but simply because the evidence is utterly overwhelming and convincing. > the > fight that string theory had to go through for years before it was even > looked at by the community. Exactly: it was a fight. It was challenging a deeply established norm. You'll notice that while it's still controversial it IS considered a legitimate field of study now. It paid it's dues. Evidence was collected, hypothesis made and validated, etc: in short they did their science and they gained support. > Science is based on theories that are more provable than their > predecessors. > There are no facts because we don't have all of the information. It > does > seem that some of those theories are being treated as facts and are > being > protected from any challenge. Not remotely. What is true (as it should be) is that those theories with more and better evidence are more difficult to challenge. That's as it should be. In this case Intelligent Design wants all of the benefits but doesn't want to do any of the work. It's a whiney little bitch of a theory screaming "I wanna be science!" when it's done no work, raised no reasonable challenges to the established theories and fails to meet the basic criteria of inquiry. It took well over 50 years for evolution to become widely accepted, another 100 for it to be considered truly a cornerstone of science. This was trough a massive effort of evidence collection, biological advances and experiment. If anybody wants to throw all of that away then the evidence for their hypothesis has to be at least as compelling. > But I'm separating the concept of an organized force against some new > ideas > from what he is saying about intelligent design. I think you have to... anybody familiar with the competitive, contentious and often downright soap-opera dramatic world of science knows that the idea of a secret, global, concerted conspiracy of scientists is simply ridiculous. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Enterprise web applications, build robust, secure scalable apps today - Try it now ColdFusion Today ColdFusion 8 beta - Build next generation apps Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:241994 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
