I only make 'assumptions' in the sense of working assumptions; a better phrase might be hypotheses or best explanations. I see something that doesn't quite add up and I try to come up with a best explanation, and if that best explanation still doesn't quite work, there's a problem. For example, my working assumption is that, because of that scene in the miniseries, Cylons actually do have spines that can glow, and I proceed from that point. But someone else (you?) mentioned the possibility that the 'glowing spine' was just for the TV viewers' benefit. I agree that's a possibility too! But it's a subpar explanation and just leads to a new critique. Another example is your explanation here, that the glowing spine results from something like two tiny 'enzyme sacs' that are nearly impossible to find - but that forces me to think that Cylon robots made their humanoids identical to humans in every way except for two tiny unfindable enzyme sacs whose only purpose is to make the spine glow during sex, which is even more stupid.
The point being that I'm not wedded to my 'assumptions' at all, it's just that if/when my 'assumption' (best explanation) is wrong, that's fine, but it tends to only raise new and more unresolvable questions. It's not that I think it's literally not possible for the glowing spine to be the result of what you describe, it's just that if I really thought 'unnoticeable enzyme sacs' were the best explanation, I'd have gone ahead and 'assumed' it, in which case my objection here would be how stupid it was for the writers to be telling us that the Cylons made their skinjobs identical to humans except for the enzyme sacs.
Finally, more generally I find it odd when I have a list of things, someone picks ONE item from the list (in your case the 'glowing spine'), ignoring the others, labors for a dozen posts to pick their chosen item apart, and then triumphantly declares all my points debunked. As if my entire critique against BSG was the glowing spine! This isn't even my main critique (which at this point centers on how little sense it makes for the final 4-out-of-5 to be suddenly, randomly Cylons).
Who has the time to find them? Remember to the best of our knowledge (going by characters introduced and mentioned) the fleet had at its peek 3 actual medical doctors and one of them is a shrink. 50,000 people at war, 3 doctors, exactly who do you think has the time to go dissecting every single organ in a Cylon corpse to find the most minute difference? Remember they wound up putting a programmer in charge of a biological study, a clearer statement that they don’t have the people for this kind of stuff couldn’t be made.
You’re not looking for best explanation, you’re looking for the explanations that create inconsistencies. Which by their very nature are the WORST explanation. I just threw out it’s for TV as one of many possibilities, because to the best of our knowledge no humans have seen it, so that possibility remains open. Is that a good explanation? No. But until a human sees the glowing spine it is an open possibility. There are a lot of open possibilities, that’s how these kind of story mysteries work, there’s a long list of open possibilities and slowly but surely things happen that closes them.
But you ARE making an assumption, and your entire complaint comes from that. You assume that when Adama tells Roslin that the medical staff on Galactica couldn’t find any differences that was a world defined declaration of their being no biological differences. Much like how you assumed after Baltar decided to fake the results he would still keep doing the tests.
You seem to assume the characters have greater knowledge/ desire/ opportunity for study than the show generally depicts them as having. I think people tend to forget the timeline and the resource level in Galactica. Most of the problems people see with the level of knowledge the humans have disappear if you remember that their primary source of medical/ scientific equipment is an ancient ship that was about to be turned into a museum and there tends to be very little time between episodes. Remember the election, last event of season 2 before the jump forward, was less than a year after the attack. They had very little equipment, very few skilled people, and very little time, and thus their knowledge grows very little.
Actually if you’ll look at the thread I discussed every single item on your list. The discussion has since then devolved to the glowing spine thing as you’ve dropped topics. I’ve attempted to answer every point you raise, I try to play fair like that.