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You can find 50 people to disagree with anything. Using that fact to dismiss the opinion of the vast majority of experts is...stubborn.

So it is an opinion poll then?! that doesn't sound like science! Besides, the vast majority has been wrong in the past. When we're talking about science I don't see why I gotta have faith in thousands of people I will never meet. I just happen to have noticed that people will say as true what they want to be true. You think it only happens to religious folk? they are the same species as everyone else! Athiests do it too! and I've personally talked to people who believe ASBE and AFN (All From Nothing) for whom such a belief is a faith and no more -- so it stands to reason that if a majority of people are like them, then yes, a majority of people could have ASBE and AFN as a faith -- sort of an unintentional conspiracy. And speaking of conspiring, it's been my observation that the US government readily funds research aimed at proving evolution. So one has to ask them selves -- how much government money can be thrown behind a theory before it's impossible to tell whether the theory lives off of the evidence or both the theory and the "evidence" lives off of the government money?

Oh, I don't know. I bet you believe in neutron stars and quarks, and that the earth's core is made of iron, ...

To me, these are all theoretical -- I don't know whether they are true or not, or just how true they are, and whether there is significant details missing.

... and that viruses cause disease by taking over cells. Have you seen any of those things for yourself? Or are you just taking the word of people you've never met?

I've never seen a virus but I do have at least a meager practical understanding of how life works, and have spent many pleasure filled hours watching a few different bacteria with the simple 700x video microscope I made. I've seen paramecium dividing, of course rotofers eating, one amoeba, and a number of things I was never able to identify. Furthermore, I understand how an electron microscope works and have seen photos of viruses taken with electron microscopes. Of course they could be fakes, but it all makes sense so while it is an area of belief I have a high level of certainty. And besides, if I were motivated enough I could build an electron microscope and study viruses and "see" them for myself.

For your graph example to apply, you'd have to accept a vast conspiracy among thousands of scientists in different fields to only talk about the dots that fall along the line.

Like I said - I've seen that people tend to do things. And people tend to believe in ASBE and AFN and argue that it is true even though they don't know for a fact that it is. Remember -- the question is "How can I, an ordinary person, know these things to a better level then the Christians know that God created the universe -- by faith." And I know enough about how people behave to know that the fact that 99% of professors argue for ASBE and AFN that such a thing still is not evidence -- unless I wish to just go out on a limb of faith.

All those scientists who found the dots at the top and bottom would have to be silenced,

Yup. and does it happen? every now and then a well known proponent will reject ASBE and AFN (all species by evolution, and all from nothing) and the "scientific community" is outraged. There have been news articles of tenured professors being fired over the creation/evolution issue then under court order re-hired and other incidences. Of course the universities or bodies who eject the professor say he's crazy or whatever -- but the professor says it's because he was being critical of evolution. Like I said - I've seen how people behave, and it would not at all surprise me to find out as a fact that scientists who discover dots that don't fit the evolutionary line are suppressed, fired, told to shut up, etc, or that research that doesn't find evidence for evolution loses its grant money. This is all possible and it looks to me like it is happening. Does that mean that it is happening? nope - but neither does that mean that it isn't happening. How am I, as an individual, supposed to know whether ASBE and AFN are true without taking it purely on faith? I have to choose to believe one set of people and disbelieve another set of people.

even though their discoveries might make them famous for overturning the accepted line. Do you really believe that's what's going on?

It's entirely within the realm of possibility, it is consistent with my observation of human nature, and it appears to be going on. How am I to know for sure whether it's going on?

Besides, drawing a line through a bunch of dots is not necessarily misleading:

well yeah if all the data forms a line then by all means draw a line through it! But my point is that as average individual, I don't have access to all the data. All I have access to is what has been selected and displayed by people who do believe ASBE and AFN. And I know human tendencies well enough to know that some people who believe in ASBE will stretch the truth to further their cause! Remember my example of the writer on WP -- claiming basically that the change in ratio between dark and light moths could lead to new species? Changing a ratio back and forth doesn't create a new species.

So it really is a matter of faith; very theoretical, and yet unlike obscure information about neutron stars and so on, evolution is hammered into innocent students at tax payer expense from the earliest possible age -- with a religious fervor!

No, there is something special about ASBE and AFN: they have moral implications and that is why people (on both sides!!) fight them with a religious fervor.

-Jesse