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Re: Bipedalism and theorizing... was Re: Morgan and creationists

 In article <835696434snz@crowleyp.demon.co.uk> Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk writes:
 >In article <4qmu48$aea@kira.cc.uakron.edu>
 >           david8@dax.cc.uakron.edu "david l burkhead" writes:
 >
 >> In article <835621643snz@crowleyp.demon.co.uk> Paul@crowleyp.demon.co.uk writes:> >In article <4qd32r$13v@kira.cc.uakron.edu>
 >
 >> >Again, again, no one has suggested that laymen were the driving force
 >> >behind any revolution in knowledge.  It's individuals who make them,
 >> >but the last people to recognise the truth are the professionals.
 >> 
 >>      Please cite some examples.  You keep making this claim and it is,
 >> patently, wrong.
 >
 >Take any revolution in any field of knowledge - one where the basic
 >textbooks had to be re-written - and you will see its truth.  Why do
 >you find it so hard to accept?   None of us finds it easy to have to 
 >change our minds from what we learnt at school or college.
      "Why do [I] find it so hard to accept?" Because it's wrong, plain
 and simple.  You keep making this same assertion and it's as wrong now
 as when you first made it.  I ask for examples and you repeat the same
 assertion.
      Also, _you_ may find it difficult to change your mind once you
 get the bit in your teeth (and your posts on this group tend to
 confirm that impression) regardless of whatever facts might contradict
 your beliefs, but don't project your inflexibility onto others.
 >The extraterrestrial cause of the K/T and other extinctions is now 
 >generally accepted -- except by some professionals.  I used to know 
 >a number of pre-revolution (1967) geologists;  even those who 
 >accepted the change never adapted to it.  The resistance to past 
      Halleluiah!  An example!  Will wonders never cease.  However,
 this example, like so many other things, shows that you don't know
 what you're talking about yet again.  Many geologists consider the
 impact hypothesis quite probable but the evidence is far from
 conclusive and there are other hypotheses that fit the data fully as
 well--in some ways better.  For instance, fossil records show
 declining populations of dinosaurs long before the KT boundary.  While
 soundings show a buried crater at something close to the right level
 to be the KT "smoking gun" it hasn't been accurately dated yet.  OTOH,
 the Deccan traps in India _have_ been dated to the right period,
 producing a definite smoking gun for the volcanic hypothesis.
      Sure, there are geologists who don't accept the impact
 hypothesis.  That's because the issue hasn't been settled yet.
 >revolutions is usually forgotten;  there was intense opposition to 
      "Forgotten"?  And you with gifted clairvoyance were able to
 ferret out "forgotten" things?
 >Relativity.  I knew a highly respected physicist (Prof. Alfred 
      Hah!  You fell for it.  I'd hoped you'd bring up relativity as
 one of the "revolutions" not accepted by the "establishment."  It's a
 popular case, and completely, totally wrong.  Sure there were a few
 disgruntled types who never liked it (much like Einstein himself never
 fully accepted quantum theory--a theory he helped create), but it was
 swiftly accepted by the physics community at large because it
 explained the available data better than anything else around.  Sure,
 there was criticism.  Folk questioned the conclusions, the
 observations that led to them, and the methods used to get from one to
 the other.  However, that's the whole point of science.  It's part of
 the process.  It's the means by which solid theories that flow from
 the available data are separated from the crackpot nonsense.  If your
 theory can't stand up to that kind of scrutiny then it's almost
 certainly a piece of fluff, not worth the paper it's printed on.