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So what is your best evidence that all species came from one? -- that is to say, your best evidence which I can see and KNOW -- without having to place undue amounts of faith in people I've never met about things I've never seen?

I can't imagine what would possibly fill the bill to your satisfaction. I remember someone once pointed you to a vast library of articles on evolution, and you complained that there were too many. I think I've offered you the fossil sequence for the evolution of the horse--I forget what your objection to that was. And I'm sure you've been reading these threads long enough to have read about the pattern of ERV insertions seen in gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans. It's all these things and thousands more taken together--and, more importantly, working together--that is the evidence for evolution.

So let me turn the question around: what kind of evidence that you can see and know, that wouldn't require you to have confidence in the work of people you've never met, would you accept? Do you really expect to be able to watch a dog give birth to a goat? Or what?

I can't imagine what would possibly fill the bill to your satisfaction. I remember someone once pointed you to a vast library of articles on evolution, and you complained that there were too many.

First of all, I may be no genius but some things are obvious: People tend defend what they believe in and pretend it's scientific and state it as true when they don't know for a fact that it is true.

Remember, my question is "How can I know without having to practice undue faith.."
93,000 articles written by people who believe in evolution as their world view is not proof in and of itself. Now maybe some of them report on actual findings that I can go verify and would find do indeed prove ASBE -- but most of the articles don't provide any such evidence -- and nobody will show me which one does provide the evidence. I looked over several of them but I don't have time to go read 93,000 articles because some of them might contain the evidence. It's your side of the argument you're trying to support, why don't you show me which one contains some good evidence! I'm working already too solid/real to prove your point. You're supposed to prove your point!

Remember: It's religious folk who just take as gospel what their leaders or priests or teachers say. As scientists, that's not how we do things -- I need to be able to know that something is true because I can verify it for myself, if I am going to say that I know it and if it is to be scientific. It doesn't matter whether there is evidence or not that all species came by evolution -- if I believe it without knowing it, I am merely practicing a faith! Maybe the faith would be correct, maybe it wouldn't -- but it's not science, it's faith and belief! You see, if you don't know, then at best you can believe. If you know, then you don't need to believe.

So try to put yourself in the shoes of an objective young scientist who has a clear distinction between the concept of knowing and believing, and explain to me how he would come to know that ASBE is true (all species by evolution) -- without it just being a faith! Remember, how sincere a faith is does not have anything to do whether it is a faith or not.

So let me turn the question around: what kind of evidence that you can see and know, that wouldn't require you to have confidence in the work of people you've never met, would you accept? Do you really expect to be able to watch a dog give birth to a goat? Or what?

Do your best and we'll discuss it. On the farm we had an animal that barked give birth to a goat. ha ha ha. But seriously, why would it matter what I need to see in order to believe? Is the evidence a product of the belief? No! That's the neat thing about science - we can discuss the evidence even before we know what it all means!

This is my main point: Just what does it take for me to know? Do I have to study evolutionary biology for 4 years in just the right school to know? Do I have to do some rite of initiation? or is the only way to "know" to believe in people I've never met about things I've never seen?

Perhaps I'm handicapped, having grown up learning about the solid/real sciences - electronics, computer programming, mechanics, even a touch of chemistry and math -- I'm used to science being well demonstrable. If I say "A transistor behaves in such and such a way" and you doubt me, all I've got to do is say "well here watch I'll show you -- or you can do the experiment yourself."

You see, I'm used to being able to understand things and observe them. Nobody expected me to take electronics or mechanics by faith - and I don't see why any other science should be different.

Now I realize that some sciences are very complicated and may require years of study to understand them well enough to be able to know them. But so far nobody's told me that such is the case with ASBE. So what am I missing? Is ASBE an exercise in faith? or does it just take years of training in the right schools before I too can know it?

What exactly is the roadmap to me knowing that ASBE is true?

Given enough time and bribed with enough dried apricots, I could lay out a "roadmap" of things to read and experiments to try that would teach you how a transistor worked or how any of the other gazillions of science work. By the end of the "course" you would not only know that transistors or whatever worked the way they did, you could demonstrate it to anybody who doubted you! Who can lay out such a roadmap for me so I too can know that ASBE is true?

Thanks,

-Jesse