Your argument is basically that you can't argue away evolution. I'm not interested in arguing it away. It's a theory or rather a huge collection of hypotheticals that are grouped to a larger theory. Regardless of belief, I have to look at evidence myself - which is why Catholics here largely detest me. Because given the evidence and the popular story, if the evidence routes the popular story, I'll take the evidence all week long and 10 times on Saturday.
As an example, I'll give you the notion that Peter spent 25 years in Rome preaching primarily to israelites and wrote his 1st epistle there. Paul cleans this argument's clock with two statements - one that by the time Pete should have been in Rome preaching for 14 years, the Jews had only heard rumors of Christ - nothing solid - they in fact invited Paul to come fill them in. And two, at the time when Mark was assisting Peter in writing his first epistle, Paul was writing a letter to Timothy in Ephesus and bidding him to go gather up Mark and bring him to Rome. I'll let you look at a map for the distance between Rome and Ephesus - it's in another country. One doesn't much need Occam's Razor here. But it can be employed. And I don't mind blowing up sacred cows by employing facts. The point isn't to merely find one to blow up, it's to find the facts and if the cow get's in the way of the facts, it's a casualty.
Where there's a genuine controversy, as say currently there is in the evolution of birds, it's solved not by polemic, but by collecting more data. For various reasons I was a proponent in the minority view (as an enthusiastic amateur, not a researcher) that birds did not descend from dinosaurs. What has changed my mind is not the arguments of Feduccia on the one hand or Ostrom on the other, but the recent fossil discoveries in China.
What get's me is the fact that evolution is theory. It is not fact. But it is treated like fact. Unless it can be proven sound, the field is open to competing theories. The one which fits the facts, can be tested, etc. must be preimmenent. My faith doesn't hinge on the creation story. But as my faith in scripture has been proven, I have faith in the creation story. That isn't the same as saying I set out to prove it true. That is impossible. I didn't buy Evolution in elementary school. I didn't buy it in middle school. And I didn't buy it in High school. Too many holes and inconsistancies. And it sounded like charlatanism.
An objection to an existing theory carries with it a responsibility to be totally familiar with the existing body of data, and a willingness to collect new data which may resolve the controversy. In general, this can't be done in front of a computer terminal.
True. Computer's may be employed; but armchair soldiers don't fire weapons till the fort is overrun. Pretty well sums up the situation in the sciences till recent times. Enough people unconvinced of evolution are flooding into the field now that it is upsetting evolutionists. Evolutionsists largely are elitist snobs in my experience and are largely atheists as well. Not saying all are, just noting my experience. But, there is little difference between the way they approach things and the way traditional archeologists aproach things. Their theories are sacred cows. If they say something happened a certain way, never mind what the facts show, and never mind common sense. What they say is the way it will be portrayed come hell or high water and no matter how wrong they can be shown to be.
A good example of this is the instance in which a 22nd dynasty Pharaoh died and was enterred. His tomb was later modified and cut into to make room for a tomb constructed for a 21st dynasty Pharaoh when he later died. Now, this isn't even an arguable thing. One can go to the tombs where they are adjoined and see where the newer tomb was constructed to cut into the older. But the happenstance is that the 21st dynasty ruler died last. Now because it was theorized that the rulers followed one another, the sacred cow stands for those who created it. And they stubbornly refuse to look at or consider the evidence standing against their theory. That is not science; but it is common practice in the community.
Scientific revolutionaries, like Einstein, for example, were able to accomplish their work largely because they were great physicists who knew the existing theories and experimental results and were able to reconcile their new ideas with what was already known. Very few creationists, in my experience, know a substantial amount of descriptive biology or geology; and without that, current ideas about the age of the earth or the lineage of its current life cannot be overturned. (And I'd argue that if you knew the observational work, you wouldn't be creationists or whatever anyway).
Einstein relied not on what was established; but, what was proven. Or did you not realize that formulae require extensive proofs before agreed to. The reason the quadratic equation is used in Math is because it is proven to work. It is testable. If einstein's theories were not proveable, they would remain theory. Einstein didn't say 'well, so and so said x so y must then be true.' No, he said ' so and so proved x, so y must then be true.' There is a difference. And that's why I enjoy math and physics so much. I can not only observe that something works when employed either in the software I write, the designs I build, or in whatever other way it is implemented.
The biggest sticking point I had early on was the realization that there is too much water on this planet. There is not enough land mass to displace what exists, yet, at one point, portions of land that are now 1900 feet below ice and sea level were once above sea level. The evidence is there for it. So where did the excess water and glacial ice come from. An Asteroid large enough to account for it would destroy this planet. There is no evidence of such an asteroid striking, nor is there a landscape existing that demonstrates a massive number of smaller strikes capable of depositing the excess water. Anywhere you look, there is no explanation of this that floats (pardon the pun) until you start looking at the fact that there is water trapped beneath the continents that has double the saline content of sea water. Not a hypothesis, Drilling bears it out. And it was found out by accident. We look and see huge forests burried 1900 feet below sea level and everyone clams up. And when we find man made structures 80 feet below sea level in Japan, the scientific community goes bonkers. Not the guys recording the evidence, the sacred cow makers who don't like what they hear no matter the facts.
So my approach is predictable. If the makers of sacred cows get in an uproar over facts because they don't like them, can't explain the observable and won't address the observable in many circumstances, it's just like news, you look for alternate sources that will deal with facts. If you go to a shop knowing you're low on brake fluid and they tell you your brakes don't work because the pads are bad, though they look brand new, if you have any brains at all, you look for a shop that isn't trying to con you. when science stops trying to con me on the basis that they don't like my religion or religion I won't be any more open to what they have to say. I don't judge based on the messenger; but based on the message. If your story don't match the facts, then tell it walkin. I don't care if you're Christian, Atheist, Conservative, Liberal, male or female. Makes no difference. If you're full of it, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. We spend the majority of our lives gathering and acting on information. I've got little use for garbage information.
I'll leave you to consider something as a further example - T-Rex. Dual theories say that he could be either warm blooded or cold blooded. Because he was a large lizard and God only knows what assumptions, the prevailing theory became that dinosaurs were cold blooded and therefore T-Rex was a cold blooded animal. When a percieved radical challenged that and did so with evidence that is not disputeable, that the t-rex moves at a warm blooded pace and therefore must be warm blooded, how long do you think it took to convince science that it was wrong because it liked it's theories more than what the observeable could prove. He's still looked at as somewhat of a radical nut. This isn't an exception to the rule. And again, this is the kind of thing that gives me little confidence in these people. But guys like you who can actually carry on a civil conversation, regardless of where you stand, I can respect.
Oh, so you're anti-Catholic as well. Wonderful.
(Then he proceeds to try and argue it away)
Enough people unconvinced of evolution are flooding into the field now that it is upsetting evolutionists.
Into what field? Biology? Genomics? That's simply not true; as I've posted before, if you search for 'Intelligent Design' in any reputable scientific search engine you come up with a few polemics from Behe et al, but no research papers. There is almost nobody in mainstream biology challenging evolution. Don't take my word for it. Look for yourself.
Evolutionsists largely are elitist snobs in my experience and are largely atheists as well.
I am one of several Catholics who post regularly here and are evolutionists. And no, I don't want to hear your arguments. My family's charming prod neighbors in Northern Ireland gave us ample doses of this stuff, when they weren't burning us out of our homes.
And as for elitists, why yes, I am. I have nothing but contempt for people who pontificate windily on biology and know no biology, particularly when you can get a damn good biological education with a few field guides and some time out in the woods. Show me a creationist with even a passing familiarity with the American fauna, and I'll at least consider him worth the time spent in an argument. Ditto geology.