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To: ml1954
How utterly clueless can someone be?

What do you expect? Most creationists think that just because they define "theory" as something they thought up after being drunk all night, that scientists do things the same way, when in reality it takes years, decades of work 'round the clock to reach results that press articles only highlight.

The creationist vision of science is a bunch of Harvard "elites" wearing suede jackets, smoking pipes and drinking brandy making wild speculations, when in reality it involves thousands of man-hours of painstaking work in labs using the most cutting-edge technology available, with adamant conclusions being drawn only after making completely sure, through multiple avenues of inquiry, that the data is solid, and hypotheses are cycled through the ruthless grinder of peer review, which is hundreds of times harsher than any of the light-hearted discussions you find here on FR or any other forum.

People think they can hear a few quotes by Stephen Gould or read a few chapters from a book by Stephen Hawking and suddenly have the expertise to draw conclusions from a .gif image of the cosmic background radiation, or look at a few skull pictures and think they're competent to act as an armchair paleontologist.

While they can provide amusement, these people grossly overestimate their own level of knowledge, and don't realize how ridiculous they are making themselves look. Such persons should learn about the difference between cranks and real scientists and take a long hard look at themselves, and perhaps have a little more respect for those who actually put in the years of time and hard work into their fields.

1,589 posted on 10/05/2006 7:46:10 AM PDT by Quark2005 (Religion is the key to knowing the spiritual world; Science is the key to knowing the physical world)
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Drunks with Bibles Placemarker


1,590 posted on 10/05/2006 8:36:22 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo (The best theory is not ipso facto a good theory.)
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To: Quark2005
in reality it involves thousands of man-hours of painstaking work in labs using the most cutting-edge technology available, with adamant conclusions being drawn only after making completely sure, through multiple avenues of inquiry, that the data is solid

You do explain the ideal, but individual mileage may vary.

See for example John Darsee, Hwang Woo-Suk; and of course for waters muddied for a long time see David Baltimore.

For other sniping read Gary Taubes' Nobel Dreams about Carlo Rubbia...

Cheers!

1,602 posted on 10/05/2006 9:00:52 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
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