Originally Posted By: TheFallibleFiend
Look up Robert Proctor at Stanford. Agnotology. There is genuine ignorance and their is cultivated ignorance. Creationism is a prototypical example of the latter.

OK, I agree there are those two types of ignorance and, of course, I agree that creationists are an examples of the latter. In the vast majority of cases. Many were cultivated by fundamentalist parents and friends but, some were just born idiots. And, I'll give you a point on your comment that I'm only half right in the statement to which you referred. But, when you talk about "scoffing", you're referring to someone else's comment, not mine. I said many of the great discoveries were made by those who "went against" the conventional wisdom of their time. And scoffing was not and is not exactly rare in elite scientific circles. Due to my experience in geophysics, Alvarez pops into my mind. He was virtual run out of the discipline for his idea that the K/T Boundary was the result of a big-assed rock from outer space. Continental drift? That one still crops up. Arizona crater? That one got pretty damned hot. I knew, very well, a scientist who was ridiculed internationally for his ideas that amplitude versus offset calculations could provide enhanced definition in seismic data. Thirty years hence, AVO is now standard throughout the industry. And fraud was not that rare. Fraud that made it all the way to the textbooks like the Piltdowners and Sigmund Freud.

To get any further in this discussion, you and I would have to agree on some terms. And some rules of logic. First, and we may agree on this, I don't consider paleontologists, psychologists, geophysicists, MDs, geologists - the list is lengthy - to be scientists. I consider them to be professionals who are extensively trained to use the tools developed by scientists. I was one of those. Scientists are the ones who develop those tools. Many discoveries have been made by scientific experiments conducted by people like me but only by using the tools developed by scientists.

As for logic, proof via negation is a logical fallacy. You aptly pointed it out to Curtis Mohomed and then committed the same proof by negation fallacy when you argued there was no proof that directed evolution was impossible. A meaningless and unnecessary statement. As for your reference to "real" scientists, I'm reminded of the all too common retort of many fundamentalists: "Well, 'real Christians' know better than that." When you pin them down, "real Christians" are the ones who agree with them.

Last: As for your geophysicist friend, there are people who abandon reason the world over and join cults - $cientology, Hare Krishna, the religion of the week.

What's this? Argument by agreement? It's what I said.

I doubt we disagree on much of any substance. You pointed out some things I could have said better and you were correct. I'm just trying to return the favor.

When you talk to me like I'm five, I want to write on you with a crayon. -- Joanna Hoffman