Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

real life wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

Pauligirl wrote:

I don't think you get brownie points for quoting creationists saying evolution didn't happen.

Ha, too funny

A great circular argument.

'Anyone who agrees with you is disqualified as a source because they agree with you.'

If someone is a PhD in their field and come to recognize the weaknesses in the evolutionary arguments, suddenly they are no longer qualified to address the subject, eh?

You're gonna have to do better than that.

No, rl, if you're to make any headway for your proposition, you're going to have to do much, much better than persist in such transparent straw man argument as your apparent one-trick-pony performance heretofore so amply has illustrated. The argument presented is not, as you dishonestly allege, "'Anyone who agrees with you is disqualified as a source because they agree with you ... If someone is a PhD in their field and come to recognize the weaknesses in the evolutionary arguments, suddenly they are no longer qualified to address the subject", it is that, all other considerations aside, the inherently invalid practice of quote mining, however employed, is dishonest.

Quote:

Why don't you address why you think their specific statement is erroneous instead of using a circular argument?

Straw man; apart from the fact specific exposure and refutation of error in many instances throughout this discussion explicitly has been provided, the specious, absurd presentations and defenses of the Creationist/ID-iot proposition stand unambiguously, conclusively, decisively unmasked, laid bare, refuted, and rejected by the scientific, academic, theologic, philosophic, judicial, and legislative communities, in concert, without substantive dissent. Now, while the weight of consensus opinion from any one of those communities at the very least would present significant inconvenience to your proposition, the actual state of affairs, the congruence of directly relevant, legitimate, authoritative, consensus opinion amounts to established fact; Creationism/ID-iocy is bullshit.

The only circular argument operational in the entire matter is "It appears to me inconceivable that things might appear to be as they appear without having been brought to appear as they do through the action of a designer, therefore, since inconceivable is that other than that there must be a designer, obviously, there is a designer", which, in effect and in practice, is the founadational Ignoratio Elenchi, Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, Petitio Principii, Argumentum ad Ignorantum material fallacy which comprises the basic, essential category error from which your terminally flawed proposition proceeds. If not for ignorance, superstition, arrogance, and deceit, your proposition would have no capital to invest.


On the other hand, there is little cause to expect your proposition might soon exhaust such capital as is at its disposal.

If evolutionists don't want their quotes 'mined', then perhaps they should avoid voicing their true opinions and simply stay 'on message'.

If your guy is off the reservation, timber, it's not my fault.

I am constantly amazed how thin the skin of some evolutionists seems to be , and how little they can tolerate dissent, even within their own ranks.

I don't think you get brownie points for quoting creationists saying evolution didn't happen.

rl wrote:

A great circular argument.

'Anyone who agrees with you is disqualified as a source because they agree with you.'

If someone is a PhD in their field and come to recognize the weaknesses in the evolutionary arguments, suddenly they are no longer qualified to address the subject, eh?

You're gonna have to do better than that.

No, rl, if you're to make any headway for your proposition, you're going to have to do much, much better than persist in such transparent straw man argument as your apparent one-trick-pony performance heretofore so amply has illustrated. The argument presented is not, as you dishonestly allege, "'Anyone who agrees with you is disqualified as a source because they agree with you ... If someone is a PhD in their field and come to recognize the weaknesses in the evolutionary arguments, suddenly they are no longer qualified to address the subject", it is that, all other considerations aside, the inherently invalid practice of quote mining, however employed, is dishonest.

"The explanation value of the evolutionary hypothesis of common origin
is nil! Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, it seems to convey
anti-knowledge. How could I work on evolution ten years and learn
nothing from it? Most of you in this room will have to admit that in the
last ten years we have seen the basis of evolution go from fact to
faith! It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is
remarkably shallow. We know it ought not be taught in high school, and
that's all we know about it."

(Dr. Colin Patterson, evolutionist and senior Paleontologist at the
British Museum of Natural History, which houses 60 million fossils)

"All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into
it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all
believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on
this planet. It is just that life's complexity is so great, it is hard
for us to imagine that it did."

(Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Prize winner)

"It is my conviction that if any professional biologist will take
adequate time to examine carefully the assumptions upon which the
macro-evolution doctrine rests, and the observational and laboratory
evidence that bears on the problem of origins, he/she will conclude that
there are substantial reasons for doubting the truth of this doctrine.
Moreover, I believe that a scientifically sound creationist view of
origins is not only possible, but it is to be preferred over the
evolutionary one."

(Dean H. Kenyon, professor of biology at San Francisco State University)

"For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy
of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The
liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain
political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of
morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our
sexual freedom."

(Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means)

"If I knew of any Evolutionary transitional's, fossil or living, I would
certainly have included them in my book, 'Evolution' "

(Dr. Colin Patterson, evolutionist and senior Paleontologist at the
British Museum of Natural History, which houses 60 million fossils)

Quote:

"The explanation value of the evolutionary hypothesis of common origin
is nil! Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, it seems to convey
anti-knowledge. How could I work on evolution ten years and learn
nothing from it? Most of you in this room will have to admit that in the
last ten years we have seen the basis of evolution go from fact to
faith! It does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is
remarkably shallow. We know it ought not be taught in high school, and
that's all we know about it."

(Dr. Colin Patterson, evolutionist and senior Paleontologist at the
British Museum of Natural History, which houses 60 million fossils)

Transcript: DR. COLIN PATTERSON

AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

NEW YORK CITY

November 5, 1981

My title is "Evolutionism and Creationism.". I can tell you that title was laid on me by Don Rosen. I'm speaking on it to gratify this old friend of 700 years. I've never spoken on it before and I hope I never have to speak on it again. It's true that for the last eighteen months or so I've been kicking around non-evolutionary or even anti-evolutionary ideas. I think always before in my life when I've got up to speak on a subject, I've been confident of one thing that I know more about it than anybody in the room, because I've worked on it. Well, this time it isn't true. I'm speaking on two subjects, evolutionism and creationism, and I believe it's true to say that I know nothing whatever about either of them.

One of the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, or let's call it a non- evolutionary view, was last year I had a sudden realization for over twenty years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That's quite a shock to learn that one can be so misled so long. Either there was something wrong with me or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory. Naturally, I know there is nothing wrong with me, so for the last few weeks I've tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people.

Question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, "I do know one thing - it ought not to be taught in high school."

Well, maybe someone here know a more convincing answer than. that - something they know about evolution. The other answer, apart from the high school answer, I've had from anybody, and I've had this from several people in conversation - yes, they do know something, Convergence is everywhere, that's what they've learned.

Well, I'll come to convergence later but it does seem that the level of knowledge about evolution is remarkably shallow. We know it ought not to be taught in high school and that's all we know about it.

My second subject is creationism and what do we know about that? We know that it ought not be taught in high school too ...

I think I'll stop and go into some quotes. This one is by Darwin the Origin.

"When the views entertained in this volume are generally admitted, systematists will be able to pursue their labors as at present.
By "present" Darwin means as in pre-Darwinian times, as in pre- evolutionary biology. He is saying don't let the theory get in the way of systematics.

The last quote is from Gillespie again and it concerns Hooker. If you think about it, Hooker was the only professional systematist amongst the Darwin coterie. He was also Darwin's oldest confidant in reading all of Darwin's manuscripts and talking to him solidly since 1840 and yet he remained unconverted to evolution until 1859. Here is Gillespie on the reason Hooker was not converted.

"Hooker adopted a view that species were immutable and each descended from a single parent. It was not necessarily his belief but a methodological postulate to make classification possible...Hooker believed that a taxonomist, who was an evolutionist, must ignore his theory and proceed as if species were immutable."
In other words, evolution may very well be true but basing one's systematics on that belief will give bad systematics.

or this:

Quote:

"All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into
it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all
believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on
this planet. It is just that life's complexity is so great, it is hard
for us to imagine that it did."

(Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Prize winner)

... This theory [the reference is to Panspermia] had been proposed before scientists knew how readily the organic materials of life can be synthesized from inorganic matter under the conditions thought to have prevailed in the early days of the earth. Today, Dr. Sagan said, it is far easier to believe that organisms arose spontaneously on the earth than to try to account for them in any other way.

Dr. Harold C. Urey, Nobel Prize-holding chemist of the University of California at La Jolla, explained the modern outlook on this question by noting that "all of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel that it is too complex to have evolved anywhere.

And yet, he added, "We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great it is hard for us to imagine that it did."

Pressed to explain what he meant by having "faith" in an event for which he had no substantial evidence, Dr. Urey said his faith was not in the event itself so much as in the physical laws and reasoning that pointed to its likelihood. He would abandon his faith if it ever proved to be misplaced. But that is a prospect he said he considered to be very unlikely.

"It is my conviction that if any professional biologist will take
adequate time to examine carefully the assumptions upon which the
macro-evolution doctrine rests, and the observational and laboratory
evidence that bears on the problem of origins, he/she will conclude that
there are substantial reasons for doubting the truth of this doctrine.
Moreover, I believe that a scientifically sound creationist view of
origins is not only possible, but it is to be preferred over the
evolutionary one."

(Dean H. Kenyon, professor of biology at San Francisco State University)

Quote:

"For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."

(Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means

Then again, there's always the question of intermediate fossils:

Quote:

"If I knew of any Evolutionary transitional's, fossil or living, I would
certainly have included them in my book, 'Evolution' "

(Dr. Colin Patterson, evolutionist and senior Paleontologist at the
British Museum of Natural History, which houses 60 million fossils)

TO: Palaeontology Department, British Museum of Natural History.
ATTN: Dr. Colin Patterson.
July 9th 1993.

Dear Sir, I recently read your book "Evolution" and feel compelled to write to you. I notice in the forward of your book an invitation for readers to contact you. I realise that this was made some time ago, so I hope that you will not mind this intrusion on your time. However, you are probably the only person who can solve the particular dilemna I have...The reason I am writing to you is because of the use of several 'quotations' of yourself in Creationist literature here in Australia...In 1990 the CSF published a booklet entitled the "Revised Quote Book". It is a 'revised' version because
the original "Quote Book" was withdrawn after a number of the 'quotations' were found to be blatant misquotes.

The "Revised Quote Book" contains five quotations of yourself. None of these are checkable in a library; Two are quotes of a letter you wrote to Luther D. Sunderland, a Creationist who has since published a book entitled "Darwin's Enigma" containing excerpts of your letter. Two are extracts of a BBC TV interview you gave in 1982, and the other refers to a keynote address you gave at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981.

The editor of the "Revised Quote Book" claims that the source material is held on file for all the 'quotations'. I recently contacted the CSF asking if they could provide me with the source for your particular quotations, as they were otherwise uncheckable. I received a rather rude reply from Dr. Carl Wieland, the director of the CSF...He refused to allow access to the files, and so writing to you is the last practical measure I can take in my investigation.

Specifically, I would appreciate it if you could clarify the meaning (as well as the accuracy of the quotation) of your words in the following example, as I suspect that you are being misrepresented by the Creationists.

The 'quote' is a current favourite. I have personally heard Carl Wieland use it in his lectures, and it is in wide use by the general Creationist community. It appears in the "Revised Quote Book" under the heading "Are there any transitional forms at all?":

35. '...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader?
I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I
should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line -- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.'

(Personal letter (written 10 April 1979) from Dr Colin Patterson, Senior Palaeontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, to Luther D. Sunderland; as quoted in "Darwin's Enigma" by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, USA, 1984, p.89.)

Creationists claim you are saying that there are no transitional forms.

To me, however, you just seem to be saying that it is difficult to determine which of the many transitional forms we are aware of are truly ancestral to other known species.

For example, it is difficult to deny that archaeopteryx is clear evidence of a high-level transition between reptiles and birds.

However, it is, as you point out in your book "Evolution" (p133), impossible for a fossil to disclose whether it is a true ancestor of something else.

For me, fossils such as archaeopteryx are definite transitional forms although they are not necessarily in the direct ancestral line which led to modern birds.

They may have, for example, branched off somewhere along the line, although they would at least be closely related to the true ancestors of birds.

The reason we have to construct evolutionary linages from such examples is because they are the species which just happened to be preserved and discovered as fossils.


I would greatly appreciate your comments on whether my interpretation, the creationist interpretation, or some other interpretation of your words is correct.


Yours Sincerely,

Lionel Theunissen

{letter dated 16 August 1993}

Dear Mr Theunissen,

Sorry to have taken so long to answer your letter of July 9th. I was away for a while, and then infernally busy.

I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists. The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes.

The passage continues "...a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is ARCHAEOPTERYX the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."

I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false. That brush with Sunderland (I had never heard of him before) was my first experience of creationists.

The famous "keynote address" at the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 was nothing of the sort. It was a talk to the "Systematics Discussion Group" in the Museum, an (extremely) informal group.

I had been asked to talk to them on "Evolution and creationism": fired up by a paper by Ernst Mayr published in SCIENCE just the week before. I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification).

Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to professional systamatists, and concerned systematics, nothing else.

I hope by now I have learned to be more circumspect in dealing with creationists, cryptic or overt.

But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientist's duty however much the stance may expose us to ridicule.


Yours sincerely,
Colin Patterson

timberlandko, great work, great research, and great point.

If nothing else, quote mining isn't actually making any argument. Your quoting someone saying something about something, but you're not taking the time to actually prove anything about anything.

If I'm trying to make an argument that the sky is yellow, it would be impossible to prove my point by simply quoting other people as saying that the sky is yellow. Even if that person was a pilot, who had lots of experience in the sky, it would do nothing to further my point.

real life wrote:

timberlandko wrote:

real life wrote:

Pauligirl wrote:

I don't think you get brownie points for quoting creationists saying evolution didn't happen.

A great circular argument.

' Anyone who agrees with you is disqualified as a source because they agree with you. '

If someone is a PhD in their field and come to recognize the weaknesses in the evolutionary arguments, suddenly they are no longer qualified to address the subject, eh?

You're gonna have to do better than that.

No, rl, if you're to make any headway for your proposition, you're going to have to do much, much better.....................

BTW I am not surprised that you were unable to recognize the circular argument presented by Pauligirl.

Demonstrate, in specific particular, that the Pauligirl comment you allege to be a circular argument - constitutes a circular argument

maporsche wrote:

timberlandko, great work, great research, and great point.

If nothing else, quote mining isn't actually making any argument. Your quoting someone saying something about something, but you're not taking the time to actually prove anything about anything.

If I'm trying to make an argument that the sky is yellow, it would be impossible to prove my point by simply quoting other people as saying that the sky is yellow. Even if that person was a pilot, who had lots of experience in the sky, it would do nothing to further my point.

ma:

How would this concept affect historians?

Apparently you wouldn't recognize a circular argument if it bit you on the



But, nevermind.

Pauligirl wrote:

Actually, I think Dr. Tahmisian should have done better. He's not offered any facts, just an opinion.

Pauligirl,

Do you think the two sentences quoted here are all there was of the Tahmisian statement?

Here are the words of a scientist who also doesn't swallow this "evolution" idea, Dr. Theodore Newton Tahmisian, a physiologist for the Atomic Energy Commission told audiences at several European universities, a few years ago:
"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution IS A FACT of life are great CON-MEN and the story they are telling MAY BE the GREATEST HOAX ever. In explaining evolution WE DO NOT HAVE ONE IOTA OF FACT. To advance, you HAVE TO HAVE something new. How can the progenitor pass on to his children what he himself didn't have?"
LIKE BREEDS LIKE yet evolutionists would tell us LIKE BREEDS UNLIKE. (I have yet to see a crocodile give birth to a canary.) A chemist, Edmund Carl Kornfeld, put it this way:
"The more one studies the science of molecular structure and interreaction, the more one is convinced of the NECESSITY of a PLANNER and DESIGNER of it all ... the simplest manmade mechanism requires a planner and a maker. HOW a mechanism TEN THOUSAND TIMES more involved and intricate can be conceived of a SELF-CONSTRUCTED and SELF-DEVELOPED is completely beyond me."

Theodore N. Tahmisian, a nuclear physicist with the Atomic Energy Commission, once stated:
Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact.... It is a tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure jaggling (as quoted in Jackson, 1974, p. 37).

PDF]
Enzyme-activated Irreversible Inhibitors of L-Omithine:2-Oxoacid ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
thank Dr. M. Gittos for the synthesis. of &amino-1,3-cyclohexadienyl. carboxylic ... L. G., and Tahmisian,. T. N. (1969) J. Biol. Chem. 244,2241-2249 ...
www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/253/20/7431.pdf - Similar pages

Beams, H. W., Tahmisian, T. N., Devine, R. L., Anderson, E., 1956. Phase Contrast and Electron Microscope Studies on the Dictyosome and Acroblast (Golgi bodies) in the Male Germ Cells of the Cricket. Jour. Roy. Micr. Soc., 76.

Now, gunga, surely even you can see that anyone employing the quote mine tactic, in the manner you have held to so valiantly in the face of continued exposure, IS PERPETRATING FRAUD ... ....

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
And I really wish you wouldn't beat me so much
when you get drunk you sorry @sshole,
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death...

real life wrote:

Pauligirl wrote:

Actually, I think Dr. Tahmisian should have done better. He's not offered any facts, just an opinion.

Pauligirl,

Do you think the two sentences quoted here are all there was of the Tahmisian statement?

Pretty much so. I just looked through 89 occurrences of his name in google and all but 5 had the same identical quote, usually in the same list that gungasnake posted.

Here's one where he said more, but he didn't help his case a bit. In saying he " have yet to see a crocodile give birth to a canary" he just showed his ignorance of the evolutionary process. Also, calling it a "mishmash of guessing games and figure juggling" is just more opinion and nary a fact. Now, the PDF file might have been interesting, but I couldn't open it. I brought you back the address, so maybe you can. The last one was just a reference to an abstract. Now, if you can find something he said against evolution with more substance to it, I'd be happy to read it.
---------------------------

Quote:

Here are the words of a scientist who also doesn't swallow this "evolution" idea, Dr. Theodore Newton Tahmisian, a physiologist for the Atomic Energy Commission told audiences at several European universities, a few years ago:
"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution IS A FACT of life are great CON-MEN and the story they are telling MAY BE the GREATEST HOAX ever. In explaining evolution WE DO NOT HAVE ONE IOTA OF FACT. To advance, you HAVE TO HAVE something new. How can the progenitor pass on to his children what he himself didn't have?"
LIKE BREEDS LIKE yet evolutionists would tell us LIKE BREEDS UNLIKE. (I have yet to see a crocodile give birth to a canary.) A chemist, Edmund Carl Kornfeld, put it this way:
"The more one studies the science of molecular structure and interreaction, the more one is convinced of the NECESSITY of a PLANNER and DESIGNER of it all ... the simplest manmade mechanism requires a planner and a maker. HOW a mechanism TEN THOUSAND TIMES more involved and intricate can be conceived of a SELF-CONSTRUCTED and SELF-DEVELOPED is completely beyond me."

------------------------------------

Quote:

Theodore N. Tahmisian, a nuclear physicist with the Atomic Energy Commission, once stated:
Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact.... It is a tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure jaggling (as quoted in Jackson, 1974, p. 37).

------------------------------

"

Quote:

------------------------------

Quote:

PDF]
Enzyme-activated Irreversible Inhibitors of L-Omithine:2-Oxoacid ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
thank Dr. M. Gittos for the synthesis. of &amino-1,3-cyclohexadienyl. carboxylic ... L. G., and Tahmisian,. T. N. (1969) J. Biol. Chem. 244,2241-2249 ...
www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/253/20/7431.pdf - Similar pages

------------------------------

Quote:

Beams, H. W., Tahmisian, T. N., Devine, R. L., Anderson, E., 1956. Phase Contrast and Electron Microscope Studies on the Dictyosome and Acroblast (Golgi bodies) in the Male Germ Cells of the Cricket. Jour. Roy. Micr. Soc., 76.

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 89 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

However, I still think your dismissal of creationist sources BECAUSE they are creationist is arguing in a circle. Do you agree?

real life wrote:

However, I still think your dismissal of creationist sources BECAUSE they are creationist is arguing in a circle. Do you agree?

I think the reason they were dismissed was because Gunga promoted them as being 'evolutionists' who had nasty things to say about evolution.

Well, they're clearly not 'evolutionists'.

It's just a list of quotes from people who don't believe in evolution. So what, I can find bums on the street who say crazy things too.

Now if we take only those quotes which haven't been taken out of context, and then assume that Gunga is trying to impress us with the fact that they have Dr. in front of their names, or PHD behind them, he had better make sure their fields of study have some relationship to the knowledge they are criticizing, or we're still not impressed.

Out of that whole list, I bet Dr. Behe is one of the few who has expertise related to biology and hasn't been taken out of context. And we already know that he's biased by strong personal religious views.

I don't know where any of this is going to get us anyway. Even if you do come up with legitimate objections to evolution from a well educated, unbiased scientist with a background in biology, he's still going to be a lone voice out of thousands of equal standing who don't agree.

Evolution is scientific fact for a reason. It's valid science, tested and true, time and time again. You can nitpick with rare opinions, and play semantic games all you want, but you can't get away from it. It's reality.

Someone with a bit of extra time, go find five times as many quote by evolutionary scientists, and let's be done with it.

Then compare quotes.