OK, fair enough. In that spirit, please explain how a body of scientists come to a conclusion if not by consensus? Imperial edict?
Denial of Evolution VI.
- Thread starter garbonzo
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No it isn't. My statement directly addresses your argument by pointing out that it's a logical fallacy (appeal to authority) anmd implicitly queations whether or not you have an argument to present that isn't based omn a fallacy. An ad hom would be something like "You're wrong because you're a creationist troll."
They're actually quite scathing as letters go. Scientists don't accuse each other of bias lightly.
which is identical to you saying "a magazine that hosted a news editorial" when in fact it was an synopsis of a conference that synopsis being published in a respected peer reviewed journal.
yes, it was an ad hom trippy.
However that article may be characterized it was most definitely not a "synopsis". Let's be careful with our words here...
in my opinion a consensus would imply 100%, it's a consensus that 4+4=8, a conclusion that the universe has an edge.
too bad the science wiki was shut down, now would be a great time to have some definitions all in one place for everyone to see and use.
Wiki does a good job:
Consensus decision-making is a group decision making process that seeks the consent of all participants. Consensus may be defined professionally as an acceptable resolution, one that can be supported, even if not the "favourite" of each individual. Consensus is defined by Merriam-Webster as, first, general agreement, and second, group solidarity of belief or sentiment.
It doesn't require 100% agreement, just "support".
in my opinion the time frame is irrelevant.
i take it at face value, the "sudden appearance" is just that, an appearance without any known predecessors.
or
the appearance without an obvious linage to its predecessors.
in the case of fossils it would be the appearance without any transitional forms to explain it.
have you ever wondered why that is?
this only happens in regards to evolution.
there is a reason for this and i believe it's to squelch any honest debate on the matter.
some comes from evolutionists some comes from creationists, but it really needs to stop.
OK. Just for kicks, let's set up a hypothetical scenario. For purposes of this gedanken, let's assume that "sudden" equates to one century. Let's suppose that a brand new species, totally different from any on the planet in the previous century, evolves over the course of one hundred years. Never mind the mechanism for this *ahem* extremely rapid speciation, the mechanism is irrelevant to this exercise. Further, let us suppose that this species reproduces every six months so that one century equates to two hundred generations. Are you with me so far leopold?
OK, now let's say every generation morphs a little bit so that our creature went from a long nosed egg laying lizard to a warm blooded mammal employing a prehensile proboscis in two hundred stages. Now leopold, if you're still paying attention, let me riddle you this: What do you think the likelihood of any specimen from those two hundred generations has of showing up in the fossil record? Hmmm? Remember, your looking at one century of potential fossils versus two billion years of life on this planet. This is how the gaps in the fossil record become "real" - meaning we're never, ever going to find those "missing links". This does not invalidate evolutionary theory. At all. Not even close.
Although you may not see the relevance of this exercise, I implore you to try and think about it for a moment. Try to wrap your head around the enormity of two billion years of evolution... Wow. Do you really think every step of evolutionary change is going to be recorded in the fossil record? Really? Especially considering punctuated equilibrium evolution which allows for (relatively) rapid speciation? Really?
Hardly. How about Big Bang Theory? Happens there too. Do you see a common thread? Anything that threatens faith based doctrines is very contentious.
He does have me on ignore, but it doesn't matter. This exercise isn't about trying to get through to an intellectually dishonest creationist nutcase anymore, it's about our readership, and the job is easier without his direct interference.
i understand what has been said, but we come right back to the clear no stated in the science article.
in other words this CLEARLY DOES NOT HAPPEN.
like i stated before, these forms MUST appear throughout the record and in such quantity as to warrant the conclusion.
in other words the record is apparently riddled with "sudden appearances", not just a few nor just in one or two branches.
the record apparently shows forms suddenly appearing, existing in their present state, then disappearing, with no known linkages to their predecessors.
i have found similar statements on creationist sites but never believed it because i assumed they had some kind of axe to grind.
something must explain this randwolf and that something will not be found by pretending this doesn't exist.
the gaps are there, they are real, so real in fact that it warranted the conclusion.
this falls under the realm of "anomalous evidence" and i presented a piece that describes what happens to scientists that presents such things.
ive said it before, could it be that quantum physics plays a role in this somehow, or maybe the grand unification theory should include the life sciences?
it's a chilling thought that the human race can blink out of existence but the record show it to be a very real possibility.
That still wouldn't be enough to make it an ad hom. Probably. But that is not enough to constitute an ad hominem. The simple fact is that Lewin was aCting as a news reporter at the time and the article is an editorial. No amount of squirming on your part or twisting is going to change that.
What your doing is trying to distract from the fact that you are relying on the pedigree of the author of the editorial and the pedigree of the magazine hbosting it.
Incidentally, the definition of Magazine includes "A periodical publication containing articles and illustrations, typically covering a particular subject."
Which Science fits. Also note that the URL for the science website is scienceMAG.org (mag as in Magazine). So I'm really not sure what you're on about here.
not according to the material RAV posted.
in said material lewin was called an arbitrator.
Now you'red just being silly.
It doesn't just happen in relation to evolution, your own sources are sufficient to disprove that.
Even if this is correct, what does it change? Nothing! He was still there acting as a reporter for a magazine. The two roles aren't neccessarily exclusive you know...
actually it does.
they apparently found him unbiased enough to "direct" the discussion.
there is a BIG difference between "news reporter" and an "arbitrator".
He was, of course, only referred to as an arbiter thusly:
"In taking it on himself to arbitrate a scientific debate, Lewin has encouraged widespread misunderstanding of a particular set of issues and, more generally, of the way science actually works."
leopold doesn't actually attempt to understand a single thing he reads.
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