Agreed! Or should I say Amen?

I wasn't going to post anything in this thread because I figured it wasn't worth my time to respond to people that have already made their minds up on the various points of human evolution. I am still not going to bother to address those posts as obviously a scientist that specializes in this area wouldn't be welcome. However, this above is ridiculous. I am a scientist. I am a scientist in paleoanthropology (human evolution) and I say 'I don't know' when I don't know. Almost every single scientist I have ever met says that when they don't know something no matter what their field of specialty may be. I deal with scientists all the time. Of course there are the few exceptions that maintain their stances on hypotheses that have been disproven with new facts, but fortunately most of us are not like this.

The whole point of science is that it is self-correcting. That is it's biggest strength, but often that is what people use to try to say that scientists don't know what they are talking about. This shows a lack of understanding on the scientific methodology.

I have to agree with Paleo here. It isn't the scientists who push dogma, it's the second tier "experts," the doctors, the nutritionists, and particularly, what passes for journalists, who do so. In fact, I'd say the further you get from the source of information, the more dogmatic the person you encounter is likely to be. Doctors are more open minded and less dogmatic than nutritionists, for example. The scientific method is about refining and improving upon knowledge, which is an inherently anti-dogmatic stance.

I do think it interesting that in a thread that has religious trappings, it's the scientists who are being attacked as faith-based pretenders. Mainstream science, flaws and all, isn't responsible for the vast majority of nonsense you see pushed every day. I haven't seen a real scientist yet who claims the world is 10,000 years old, for example. But I can point you to several preachers who do.

I guess it's true that I have "made up my mind" based on the little bit of research that I have done on the subject. That doesn't mean that if you were to post something contrary to what I think/believe that I am going to flame/bash your opinion as that's not my way (even if this is the "war zone"). Personally Paleoanth, I would love to read your input as you obviously spend tons more time working with this particular topic than I do.

Whether I am well versed in a subject or not I always try and listen to other people's input as even if 98% is BS as there can be 2% that is true and valuable (not at all saying that any of your input would be BS though).

As far as the religion aspect of this topic goes, I don't think that there is any need to bring that into this thread (not bashing you Kwik, as I still think that you are the man!) as this forum doesn't want any part of that and I can agree with their stance on the issue.

Anywho, I am always looking to expand my knowledge base as I'm not the smartest guy around (although if you put stock in those silly IQ tests I guess I would be considered IQ test smart ). So if you guys feel lead to post your opinions, I'd love to read what you have to say and I promise that I personally won't be nasty (although I may make a bad joke once in a while).

I actually think it is the opposite. All the evidence we have fits the evolution theory. All the evidence directly contradicts the creationist theory.

Scientists will tell you that you can not conclusively "PROVE" evolution, but that there is enough evidence that you should believe it and no evidence that you should not. And make no mistake, there is a huge amount of evidence supporting evolution.

Creationist tell you to believe their "theory", despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary and absolutely zero evidence supporting it.

I can't wait for a Catholic priest to say "we just don't know".

Brobin