Author: niiicholas
Date: Feb. 17 2003,15:41

This thread is devoted to the Argument from Ignorance and what happens to various sciences if it were allowed the same free reign that IDists give the Argument from Ignorance in biology.

E.g.:

http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin....#000018

Quote

BTW, since the Steves have no serious scientific doubt that natural selection was the major mechanism behind the origin of the bacterial flagellum, have them drop me an e-mail providing some of this evidence. The evidence must be immense, given there is no serious doubt. Oddly enough, it seems to be secret evidence. SShhh.

Similarly, because the origin of the rings of Saturn is still unknown except for some general models and scraps of data, we should have "serious doubt" that current physical theory can account for it.

Any schmoe in any field can go dig up something unexplained (or only generally explained, as in the cases of both the flagellum and the rings of Saturn) in any field, that is old enough or otherwise "distant" enough to make evidence hard to come by.  None of this justifies "serious doubt" in a well-established theory, especially for problems that are routinely brought up and solved within the field ("complex adaptive structure #1241" in biology, evolutionary theory has already explained a number of complex adaptive structures so what difference does one more make?).  

On Mike Gene's logic these mysterious, highly symmetrical structures should put mainstream geology into "serious doubt":



...and these should put mainstream anthropology/archeology into doubt:

The "Bahgdad Battery" -- apparently a 2200 year old battery.


And yes, both of these puzzles have been invoked in support of radical theories like, oh I don't know, alien intervention in the history of life.

I guess we should be teaching this "serious doubt" about mainstream science in school earth sciences and history classes also, just to be fair.

Post your favorite mysteries here!!

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