Whose opinion do you trust more - someone who understands the topic, or someone who knows nothing about it?

Question

My only point is, opponents of evolution are invariably laymen, while scientists and others who have researched the theory enough to understand it are in support of it.

(For those of you with a short attention span, please re-read the question above.)

Heart And Troll -

As impressed as I was with your ability to quote the first page of the first volume of your book about birds, you may want to check the publication date (1961). I like the fact that you rely on sources that disregard the last 50 years of scientific discovery, and then have the audacity to ask "Why is there no evidence of transitional forms in the fossil record?"

Keep in mind that tiktaalik roseae (the "fish with legs") was only discovered in the last year or so. It was found in a formerly tropical region which now lies in the arctic. Scientists hadn't been looking in the right places for it prior to its discovery. They continue to hone their search daily.

Of course, with your vast understanding of evolution, you know as well as I do that there is no such thing as a transitional form - every species can equally be considered a "transitional form", and new evidence never ceases to emerge showing a smoother progression from one organism to another.

The number of species on this earth is far too great for anyone to count, let alone catalogue. The onus is not on the scientific community to provide an explanation for every instance of evolution in action - the results of such an endeavor would overfill every warehouse on earth. Certainly specific examples can be found where there is still insufficient evidence as to a species' origins, but you'll find that that doesn't actually refute the theory.

Answer 1

I go for the informed opinion every time

Answer 2

I trust those who know something about the topic more than I trust an opinionated novice. That's why I rarely take anyone in the political section of Y!A seriously.

The theory of evolution is plausible, but remember it's still a theory. For all the data we have compiled there are still a lot of blanks we need to fill in before we can call evolution irrefutable fact. Something I have always found amusing was that evolutionists, and religious folk have turned the debate itself on it's ear and tried to make it about proving or disproving the presence or supervision of a god or omnipotent entity in the emergence of life on this planet. It has gone so far that religious pseudo-science has fashioned select scripture into a concept known as 'Creationism' to combat evolution. And scientists pander to this by trying to bat it down. Charles Darwin himself stated that perhaps the Creator had made provisions for the eventual growth of less complex beings that paved the way for the evolution of species as we know them today. Todays scientists want to ignore the history of something they are trying to build a future for, that's where their falliability is. Religion is well, just ignoring everything they don't want to hear or acknowledge hearing and that's where their falliability lies.None of this really has anything to do with a god or lack thereof, or spiritual depravity, but both sides in one way or another is still trying to make it that way. That is hilarious to me. There is a lot of intelligence floating between the 2 sides, but GOD forbid anybody actually show it, eh. Priceless.

Answer 3

Heres an interesting experiment



Items needed:

An aquarium (the larger the better)
sand
lime
very small gravel
small gravel
larger gravel
topsoil
clay
water
small shells
large shells
small bits of bone
large bone


To see what would have happened during the flood of Noah's day we will consider the bottom of the aquarium the lower crust of the earth. Place everything but the shells and the bone into the aquarium This represents the first few hundred feet of our strata. After placing everything into the aquarium, finally place the shell and bone on top... this represents life on earth at the time of the flood. Feel free to place as many differant sizes of bone and shell as you like... the more the better in a large aquarium.
Now its time to rock the boar.... rock the aquarium violently in order to simulate the fury of a worldwide flood. After just a minute you will find something amazing.....


Strata will form just like we have here on earth. You will find that the smaller items work their ways down further into the muck while the larger items meet more resistance and dont sink as far down. This shows why we have bracheopods and cepholopods appearing at a deeper level than the bones of a brontosaurus, which meets much more resistance when in the process of becoming burried by the muck. Also look at how the strata forms... just like the earths'. This is PROOF over theory... it is a microcosm of what really happened in the macro of the flood

Answer 4

I will trust someone who understands the topic.

And I wonder how much you understand the topic. Have you ever listened to an intelligent design scientist? Watched a pro-creation scientific video? Attended private school, where both theories were taught as science?

Because I have. And for me, the theory of origin boils down to religion, on either side of the coin. And for the public school system to choose economics (that's right, it's cheaper to keep the status quo than to change it) and for people to somehow think that means it is more scientific is chicanery, in my opinion.

Answer 5

I suppose the scientists are happy with the theory's random mutations leading to dominance underpinnings.

The macro-molecule that we call dna, was a random mutation. Run the numbers. Use a nice exponential probability function. Have you asked them?

Better yet work it backwards. You got the time frame, calculate the probability of a successful chain of mutations. Ask them.

Scientists have been known to have some really offbeat theories. That's why the NSF doesn't fund every project.

Answer 6

I hate to say it, but the only way we can get back to the basics and have people truly represent the will of the people is to pass the following Amendments to the Constitution:

1. NO lawyers may hold Federal office. (Congress or President).

2. Once elected to office, you can have up to two terms, then you cannot hold another Federal Public office. If your a Senator, two terms, and that's it. You cant run for President.

3. If caught being corrupt and taking payoffs, 10 years in Prison and can never hold a public office, State or Federal.


Unless this is done, you cannot hope to have someone in office that is not bought and paid for by one of the two political parties. Look at Tedd Kennedy???? He killed a lady and still sits in office, doing nothing to help this country.

Answer 7

I am an opponent of evolution. Perhaps you can address my point of opposition. That is, if you are truly someone who understands the topic, and not someone who knows nothing about it.

Darwin wrote in Origin of the Species: "...innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ...why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory."

"The evidence we find in the geologic record is not nearly as compatible with darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be. Darwin was completely aware of this. He was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn't look the way he predicted it would.... Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. ....ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as the result of more detailed information." David M. Raup, U. Chicago; Ch. F. Mus. of N. H., F.M.O.N.H.B., Vol.50, p.35

Proposed fossil "links" have been widely debunked, for example:

"The origin of birds is largely a matter of deduction. There is no fossil evidence of the stages through which the remarkable change from reptile to bird was achieved." BIOLOGY & COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY OF BIRDS, Vol.1, p.1.

So I ask you, why is there no evidence of transitional forms the fossil record?

Secondly, and this is where you appear to be lemming like in your understanding, you are grossly mistaken in your claim that "while scientists and others who have researched the theory enough to understand it are in support of it." Many scientists disagree with much of evolution. It appears that it is you who do not understand the topic. Your conclusions, presented as your question, are not as "scientific" as you wish them to be.

ADDITION: How very interesting, your claim that " new evidence never ceases to emerge showing a smoother progression from one organism to another." If you can include some of that evidence, it would be helpful. You original question, and refusal to address my questions, indicate that you are disinclined to provide any evidence.

It was troubling that you argued against the flaws in the *THEORY* of evolution by symantics, rather than science. I used Darwin's term "transitional forms", and you deny that there is any such thing. Because you use a different word now, does that provide the transitional form evidence that Darwin sought?

Also troubling is your point of view that there are just too many species to find the transitions. It would seem to me, laws of probability applied, that the probability of finding "transitional forms" (I use that term just for you) would be greater with greater numbers of species.

Do you discredit arguments by citing the year of the book, declaring it to be old, and then providing no new evidence?

In other words...help us out here, show your proof of evolution.

Show the transitional forms/intermediate species, etc. that give any proof at all of evolution.

But I wonder if you will do that, since you declare that "the onus is not on the scientific community to provide an explanation for every instance of evolution in action."

I'm asking for one, two, maybe three. You've provided none.

Answer 8

I trust the opinions of experts, but I'm leery of experts with political motivations. I can find you scientists who say evolution is a bunch of c**p. They say the theory of us evolving from a single cell is baloney. That Darwin was wrong. I've listened to scientists give differing definitions of evolution. Maybe we're still learning. Maybe God started evolution? I don't think the verdict is in, and quite frankly, I think it is beyond full human understanding.

Answer 9

By that rationale, don't trust people who can't grasp the concepts of income mobility or tax revenue rising at 3 times the rate of CPI.

Answer 10

Well, every coin has two sides...so I try to look at a problem from all possible angles as well as listen to all the people concerned with the problem...it gives me a better insight to all the aspects and then I, based on my own judgment, decide whose opinion to believe.

Answer 11

What say. I listen to all opinions because they make me think. After all, they are opinions, and like @ssholes, everyone has one. If I want an expert answer, I will go to a specialist in the field and get what I require.