No, it's not. Your claim does not reflect their opinion one way or the other because you have no support for what their opinion actually is.

Post a survey of them at the very least, otherwise you can't represent their opinions either way.

It seems that you just want to make a claim about the opinions of 140,000 people with NOTHING to back you, and you continue to play word games instead.

Then next time spend an hour either backing your claim or back down on it and admit that you can't support it, instead of playing word games for excuses to avoid backing it, or playing word games to pretend that you can make unsupported claims about the opinions of 140,000 people without a single bit of evidence to support your claim.

Oh, but I tried my hardest. Unfortunately, every time I tried to continue talking about what makes a conspiracy theory more valid, certain people couldn't stop talking about the content of a sample instead of the concept it was representing.



Lovelynice, There is no possible way that you could have missed the answer to this. It was in the first paragraph of the very long post I made explaining exactly what my reasoning was, and I referenced the answer yet again in your very next post which ignored it. Here I am once again, telling you to read the very first paragraph of the response that you have been demanding for so long.

If you keep insisting on it, I have no choice but to consider this spamming. You have your answer. Don't request it again.

Now, get back on topic. Here's an assist:



Just for you, LovelyNice, I've re-written my original post. You know what, I'll even spot you, since you are unwilling to read the response you demanded, or at least unwilling to acknowledge that I responded to the demand for a source, that I was completely wrong, heck, I lied about the whole thing, made it up, there-wasn't-even-a-9/11, I was on the grassy knoll, and anything else you would like.

Now, can you actually talk about the subject of the paragraph, about the actual claim I made (for the sake of clarity, let me post it again: ...to claim that it is absolutely wrong in every way shape and form re-quires one to make that incredible leap again, that the accuser somehow is able to see something that thousands of other experts missed.) or do you want signed affidavits from the thousands of biologists the world over saying that they all agree with me (not with evolution, but with me).

Are you ready to talk about the actual topic, Lovelynice?

Yes, and then you went on and tried to support the same claim yet again. LOL

Instead of pretending that it's supportable, why not straight out admit that you can't support it when the claim was first questioned?



yes, very good but don't even try to pretend that anyone on this thread is even saying that there were no 9/11 attacks. That would be Ad Hominem, and as to the grassy knoll, very few people believe in magic bullets or that the JFK assassination was in any way a lone gunman's fault.

You really need to get better with making examples. This was another very poor way of putting things: I doubt that you can speak for thousands of biologists either - and many have pointed that there are big holes in the theory of evolution. Actullay I've run across more biologists who are willing to accept some form of "intelligent design" than the mainstream media tries to imply - although without the religious associations with Christianity (which is another one of those little distortions of the mainstream media on the subject).

The common problem that I've noticed is that whenever a sceptic who is distant from the scientific field makes claims about the majority supporting the mainstream viewpoint they tend to get it very wrong. Usually what is advertised and accepted in the mainstream media has already been nearly abandoned by the scientists in the majority at least a few years before, and perhaps never was accepted by the majority.

I'm going back to eating my mochi now.

Holy...crow...

I have been thinking the same thing...

I think the point has been made very well; this was a loose example provided to make a point, this thread is not about evolution, 9/11 or any other specific conspiracy theory but the actual concept of conspiracies and how they are represented by some. These particular conspiracies are only being mentioned to help put forward points about conspiracies in general, there are no theories being offered or claims being made; they have been brought up purely for demonstration purposes and are in themselves not what is being discussed here.

No, there aren't any "big holes" involved in the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is one of the most soundly supported scientific theories there has ever been.



Fallacious, your personal sampling scarcily constitutes any statistical validity.



Mainstream science is not the same thing as mainstream popular media/ culture. There are many scientific journals that publish what 'mainstream science' supports.

BTW, when one states what hypotheses or theories that experts (in any given field) are currently supporting this does not constitute fallacious 'circular' reasoning (aka, 'begging the question'). Such expert scientific testimony is not based on any proposition that contains an assumption (either implicit or explicit) contained in the original premise. Rather, such expert testimony is based on published scientific research, in other words actual data, not assumption.

The crux of the matter is that on one side, "facts" are cited. On the other side, "facts" are cited.

On the one hand, "scientific evidence" is used, which may not be evidence at all. Having been associated with science for a good many years, the absolute fact is that science is a blend of theory and, relatively speaking, selective evidence. The examples of this go back a very long time, and any amount of research into the subject will yield nearly unlimited records of same. No organization is bereft of these examples, including the Royal Society, the Smithsonian, and my own organization, the IEEE. Science, therefore, must remain open to alternatives, by its own reasoning; yet, science is used as an absolute proof of whatever. Science, by its own admission, does NOT know everything, and it is doubtful it ever will.

On the other hand, "facts" are stated. Perhaps these "facts" are anomalous, perhaps not. Research will suggest one or the other.

What bothers many of us is that such "authorities" as wikipedia are quoted as absolute knowledge, even after the originator of the device has abandoned it because of the rampant BS that is included. It is also factual that a skeptic will cite some organization that is reputably skeptic as "proof", when it is not. The same holds true for the CT side of the matter. As to this 140,000 business that's been bandied around, the individual making the statement bears the burden of proof, and if he will not provide something, then the argument is certainly suspect and should be disregarded, shouldn't it? Or is the source not required, since it's supposedly on the "science" side? After all, "proof" is required of the CTs also; why should it not be required of the side that is supposedly "scientific", or is it acceptable to simply say "science says so and so"?

Some people make some rather incredible claims here, and in some cases, their background is used as verification. I can use my background as verification also: but so what? I've spent decades in electronics, but really, what does this mean? Very little, other than I know the "laws" in my field. It is not to say that those "laws" cannot be altered; it IS to say that there are many of those "laws" that are built upon the "selective evidence" above, leaving extraneous phenomena unexplained and unaccounted. These "laws" are used because they work in our normal engineering environment, and are therefore useful. However, they don't necessarily explain anomalous phenomena. This same is true for virtually all scientific endeavors, and to make absolute statements is becoming of the amateur and not the true scientist.

Having letters behind the name doesn't mean expertise, either. If one attempts to join Mensa by virtue of PhD, MS, MA, or Captain, he will get nowhere. If he passes the test, educated or not, he can become a member. There are thousands of educated idiots roaming the world. All that is required for education is the will to do so: it does NOT mean someone can think. And yes, I am both educated and a member of Mensa. However, I will NOT necessarily accept as fact that which someone says is fact, regardless of the source; whatever it is will perhaps be accepted as viable, but certainly not as absolute. And that is scientific training.

Yet, at the same time, if a test setup is suggested to try a concept, the self-proclaimed "scientist" will, likely as not, resort to quoting some scientific paradigm, instead of making the test and judging from the results. I've seen this time after time. Like it or not, the debunkers fall into this category most of the time. Pin them against the wall by the suggestion, and personal attacks begin. Meanwhile, it's okay to claim 140,000 agree with a report, and get the support of everyone on that side. Personally, I'd like to see the sources, and must side with those who make the demands to see the sources.

In other words, making the statement does not make it so, unless one is a member of the Skeptic's Society, in which case anything goes.

Okay, maybe i wasn't clear, but did you not understand Saruman? Is the concept really so hard to understand?

Forget the 140,000. I lied about the whole thing, and I have notarized documents saying so. Use the evolution version that I posted.

If one can remove one example and exchange it for another, and the subject of the sentence has not changed in the slightest, doesn't that indicate to anyone that maybe the content of the sample isn't the relevant portion of the argument? Seriously, if I had used the evolution sample from the very beginning, would we have gone through two pages of nonsense demanding affidavits from every single biologist claiming that evolution was absolutely right?

Of course not! This absolutely ridiculous deviation stems from one source and one source only: The desire to debate 9/11.

But this is not a 9/11 thread. Nor is this an evolution thread. Nor do the numbers matter, because there were no claims about them being made. Nor does it even matter if the examples were correct or incorrect. The examples were NOT what was being discussed. The examples were illustrating the concept which WAS being discussed, but has been completely ignored.

Here is an analogy:

Argument: To claim that it is absolutely wrong in every way shape and form re-quires one to make that incredible leap again, that the accuser somehow is able to see something that thousands of other experts missed. If 10,000 train experts agree that the Coronado train wreck was caused by the brakes on a train going bad, and 1 non-train expert claims that the report showing how this happened was absolute garbage and needs to be re-evaluated from the bottom up, that is a rather large leap of logic to make.

Counter: Do you have signed affidavits from every single one of those engineers that they agree with you about the Coronado train wreck?

The counter misses the entire point of the argument. The whole subject of the argument concerns the validity of the argument. The counter is focusing solely on the specific example of the Coronado train wreck. The specifics of the example are irrelevant. The example is not what is being discussed. What is under discussion is what the sample is illustrating: The case of one non-expert claiming that they have found a fatal flaw that a vast majority of experts completely missed.

Fallacious, your opinion scarcily constitutes any valid support for that claim

No, dear, the reality is that there are some great big holes in the theory of revolution. Just a quick example; the development of the human eye and the ability to recognise what is being seen. Evolution has great problems trying to explain such things. It's a big chicken-and-the-egg problem there. I've seen many theories, none provable either way, and the "big hole" remains.




Sorry, but you could just politely ask for me to support my claims, and I can. Why bother with the silly attack?



Yes, and they are often in dispute with what the typical sceptical so-called "rationalist" claims about what is allegedly "mainstream" and accepted science. Your claim above in the first paragraph that there aren't any big holes in the theory of evolution is a perfectly good example of you demonstrating what I was talking about.

Before you try and lecture people, go to the trouble of checking that what you're going to claim is actually true.

I can understand quite well, but since you made a claim and then carried on like a propagandist without supporting it, that lack of support had to be pointed out.

The same is still true of your claim about evolution and the biologists - again, you make a claim and don't support it.

As I said already, and you seem to have ignored completely, you need to choose your examples better.

Um- actually you did make claims, and you didn't support them. If you wanted to avoid making claims that you can't support, simply stop making them.

You...you really don't understand, do you. All this time i think you are just trying to wind me up...but no, you really don't understand...

Not really. Science is not dependent on consensus just for starters. Your "10,000 experts" might not have all studied the report, despite what might be claimed about them by others. I've often seen people make a claim that something must be true simply because "thousands of experts" didn't come out and publicly disagree with it, which doesn't prove a damn thing because those "thousands of experts" might never have even looked at the subject in detail, and have not even thought much about it. The claim of popularity of agreement is most often used in error and is often a logical fallacy.

It only takes one person to prove all the others wrong, if it turns out that the one person has noticed a detail which the others have not.

And quite often the alleged "non-expert" does indeed notice things that supposed "experts" didn't notice. Many scientific discoveries have been made by supposed "non-experts" because their thinking was not constrained by a particular dogma.

As a famous case of this, there was the Piltdown Man fraud. The skeletal remains of a primate were artificially modified with modern hand tools which left their marks and fooled about 200 Ph.D. students and their thesis committees. The specimen, initially was accepted by English scientists, nationalistic pride was part of the reason for the rapid acceptance. Piltdown Man affirmed many scientists' hypotheses, they were reluctant to put it under scientific scrutiny that might have proved it wrong. Museums prominently displayed casts of Piltdown Man as scientific fact. Many researchers not associated with the forgery simply saw what they wanted to see in Piltdown. Publications on the "ape-like qualities" of the cranium of Piltdown were not uncommon, and these were authored by trained anatomists looking at a fully modern human cranium. Almost no one publicly raised the possibility of a deliberate hoax. It took science four decades to look through a microscope to see that the teeth had been filed and painted.

The fraud was discovered by a layman.

The hoax shows two pitfalls to be wary of in the scientific process. Firstly, the danger of inadequately examining and challenging results that confirm the currently accepted scientific interpretation. Secondly, that a result, once established, tends to be uncritically accepted and relied upon without further reconsideration.

No, I understood quite well. I'm not trying to wind you up either. Just pointing out a problem.

Perhaps if you acted with less paranoia about others intentions, and weren't so defensive about always being "right" and inflexible about not backing down on a claim that you couldn't support, you would have less problems.

When you say that science is not dependent on consensus, the implication is that we are still working on the merits of the theory. In this case, that is not the situation. When you get to the stage that the information is being disseminated, the theory has already been found to be valid.



You won't agree that, out of sheer probability, the chances of 10,000 experts in the field looking over a report are more likely to find a significant and fatal flaw to a theory (even if a few inexplicably never look at the subject in detail or think about it much..what made those people experts in the first place?) than a single non-expert?

I certainly hope you aren't proposing that one should entertain the notion that all 10,000 experts failed to look at the report or bothered to think about it. That is an even larger leap to make.

If there is something that does tie all those experts together, something that pretty much assures that the theoretical thousands did look through the report and did think about it, should that not be taken into consideration?



I believe that you are referring to the Argument of Authority, and you are correct, it is both a logical fallacy and is often used incorrectly, such as you are doing here. The Argument of Authority means that you are relying on the testimony of an authority figure without regard as to what the where the authority of the person lies. That means listening to a physics professor when you should be listening to a structural engineer when speaking of a building collapse, or listening to a movie star instead of a security specialist when speaking of security measures.

In this particular example, it was made clear that we were speaking of train experts, making them relevant to the argument.



Yes, and when that does it is an incredible thing. And incredible things, as everyone knows, require incredible evidence. Anything less is, not surprisingly, less than credible.



And far, far more have been made by experts who dedicated their lives to studying that "dogma" and surpassing it. We are, however, not talking about scientific research. We are talking about the investigations that go into conspiracy theories, and I cannot, off the top of my head, think of any conspiracy researcher who has come up with a break-through discovery by virtue of not having enough knowledge of the field.

Can a single non-expert prove all the experts wrong? Sure, watch The Lifetime Channel and you'll see a movie about it every week. Is it as equal and likely a probability as the 10,000 experts being right, and the non-expert being wrong? No, it is not, and I find it difficult to think how one could support such a stance with a serious face. It seems, however, that to the average conspiracy theorist, it makes absolute sense.

While completely ignoring both the topic and the problem that I pointed out.



It isn't paranoia when you are right. You did, and remained, focused solely on 9/11. To the point of not even noticing when I said that being correct and incorrect was irrelevant and explained about the support for the alleged claim. It took a moderator coming in here and telling you to move along to break you out of it.

That's it for a bit. Tomorrow is a travel day for me.

"established" is not the same as being proven or true.

Sorry, but I was still writing my post and adding more detail to back what I was saying.

Piltdown Man had reached the stage of the information being "disseminated" and went on for nearly forty years before the hoax was blown.

The theory of evolution is a strongly supported scientific theory based on facts. A theory is simply not 'proven' in the manner that you are alluding to. There is no "big hole" in the theory of evolution, were there a "big hole" evolution would be considered as being only a hypothesis, not a theory.




This is a discussion forum, I was "attacking" your argument, not you personally. One's personal observations regarding scientists they "know" are of little use statisitically speaking as to the conclusions of the majority of scientists. This is why attempting to use such reasoning to support your argument is considered fallacious.





Once again, these "big holes" simply do not exist.



My claims are indeed valid. I understand quite well the difference between a scientific theory and a scientific hypothesis.

NO, I was referring to the argument of popularity.

I can also counter your other strawman claims by citing structural engineers when debating about a building collapse, and pointing out that physicists have very often been the ones who pointed out when structural engineers have got it wrong as well - and resulted in the structural engineers re-examining the subject of the building collapse and learning a bit more about structural engineering in the process. I can also cite many security specialists when speaking of security measures for that particular building. The movie star might also be a former security guard, or know more than the derogatory put-down tries to imply. Most people know more than one field; I don't work in the IT industry for example, yet I know more about many aspects of computers than the company's IT specialist.

This may prove helpful, it's from Evolutionary Biology by Douglas Futuyma:





Like I said, evolution is a very strongly supported scientific theory. Now, this doesn't mean that every little miniscule point of this natural process has been catalogued to a gnat's posterior, nor does it mean that many aspects of this theory may not change and/or be added to in the future.

No, probability has got nothing to do with it because in the example I was giving, someone comes along and "claims" that the "10,000 experts" agree with a particular version of events simply because they didn't appear to "disagree" - while ignoring that the claimant has no evidence that the "10,000 experts" even studied the subject being debated, that they studied it in detail, or only accepted the alleged mainstream opinion simply because they never studied it for themselves and it lay outside their immediate needs to do so, or to question it.

Your little strawman argument in changing the parameters of the example; "(even if a few inexplicably never look at the subject in detail or think about it much..what made those people experts in the first place?)" - - - ignores the problem that the claimant could not show that majority had studied the subject in detail, and trying to change the claim to saying only "a few" inexplicably didn't look at the subject in detail doesn't get around the problem that the claimant can't show how many did study it in detail, nor to what degree.

Nice writing, not necessarily a true statement however.

The theory of evolution still has numerous holes in it. I pointed out one of them, There are many others. To claim it as a "fact" while ignoring the flaws is akin to claiming that it doesn't matter about the flaws, these contradictions are not contraduictions, they will somehow magically be explained at a later date - somehow - and therefore it's right no matter what happens in the future.

That line of reasoning is fallacious.



And as I pointed out, it still has some big holes in it, All you've done is cited an "opinion".

Here's some opinions that go against your cited opinions:

"Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts.
This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views. In all this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species." Dr. Etheridge, world famous palaeontologist of the British Museum

Darwin's prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservatism. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record. Niles Eldredge Chief Curator at The American Museum Of Natural History, The Myths of Human Evolution (1982) p.45-46

No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting of cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change -- over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang and often with no firm evidence that the organisms did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on someplace else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution. Reinventing Darwin (1995) p.95

The flaws with evolution are real, and anyone can follow the arguments.

Ah yes, the expert issue (ie, are experts really of any use?). I would propose an interesting analogy in this regard.

Let's say that you begin to feel ill... really, really ill. You experience a crushing pain in your chest, you begin to sweat, your left arm is hurting as well. Your friend suggests that these are the symptoms of a heart attack. Now, do you go to the hospital and seek the advice and assistance of a Cardiologist, or do you contact another friend who happens to be a really smart guy, but he's an Electrical Engineer. Now, both of these guys are very smart people, whose analysis (regarding your chest pain etc.) would you seek out in this situation?


Also,




I said that evolution is a theory that is supported factually, this is far more than being just an opinion.

No, what I'm saying certainly is not a fallacious argument.

BTW, do you know who Douglas Futuyma is?

Just saying it doesn't make it so.

Sorry dear, but the big holes in the theory of evolution do exist. Like that chicken & egg problem of the human eye. Theories abound, proof either way does not.

I'm not a creationist by the way, I'm just pointing out that what is often called "mainstream" science is often wrong, and not necessarily as "mainstream" or "fact" as many so-called "sceptical rationalists" like to claim.

Nup, never heard of him. He's probably not Japanese.

Are you trying to push an Argument of Authority by name-dropping? All you posted was a quote of his OPINION, not any evidence to support it.

There are a lot of famous scientists out there who write books, and still get it wrong. Fame is not proof of being right. I can easily cite a whole bunch of famous scientists who got things WRONG.

That depends on the electrical engineer and the cardiologist.

The electrical engineer may have been a paramedic for years, the cardiologist might not have dealt with a patient since he was made administrator of a hospital and lacks recent experience.

Exactly, claiming something doesn't make it so....like the so-called human eye problem. I think you should read this article.

I suspect that nothing I could ever say will dissuade your beliefs regarding evolution (or the scientific method) anyway.

Check out the history of inventions and discoveries. The best stuff has been more often than not, that made by so-called "laymen", despite the huge budgets in corporate and government research. It's perhaps because they don't have any dogma to surpass

Already read it - ages ago. It's all based on a theory, again no real evidence either way. The problem of the human eye remains

No, you won't do very well if you keep up with your faith-based argument that "science is always right" without understanding the science involved,

Priceless response. Like I said, "I suspect that nothing I could ever say will dissuade your beliefs regarding evolution (or the scientific method) anyway."

And with this I'm opting out of this discussion...IMO it's destined to go nowhere productive.

Rats! All those years that I taught science, and me not even understanding what was involved!

So you taught the same lessons over and over again...

Also arguing that a knowledge of general science makes you smarter than everyone else on the subject of a particular science is a little silly, nor does a background in a subject necessarily equal to perfect knowledge of it. Bits will be missed.

Scientists frequently can't judge the reliability of scientific claims outside their fields of speciality, and have to take the word of recognised authorities on faith...and that faith has often proved to be misguided.

I suspect that you're more stubborn in your mindset than you consider yourself to be. Never mind. Maybe you'll start playing devil's advocate sometime and take the opposite POV from the mainstream - you'll learn from the experience. It's an intellectual exercise that I like to play often.

Lil,

You did a hell of a job for not knowing what the heck you were talking about (That's part of it, no? Faking it. I mean, we did Apollo the same way, right?)



I had a shot (OK, two!) of Jack Daniels while watching a Jarred White Apollo Hoax video clip (I was advised to do so, to mellow the pain of watching it). It made it not only tolerable, but comical to the point of side splitting laughter!

I think it's time for you to have a glass of merlot!

whoo....