> Have scientists learnt anything from this episode? It doesn't seem
> so. They are still arrogant, they still think they know the Truth,
> the only Truth and nothing but the Truth, and simply because they
> can't think of any other explanation. They think they can go back
> millions of years and see what happened, and thus their theory must
> the the only Truth, and anyone who doubts it is nuts and deserves
> ridicule. Over a hundred years ago scientists assumed that they could
> simply deduce what happens at atomic levels, extremely high speeds,
> etc, without actually "going there". They were wrong. Nowadays
> scientists assume that they can simply deduce what happened millions
> of years ago, without actually going there. But this must be the
> Truth.
> 
> History tends to repeat itself. People never learn from past
> mistakes. People are arrogant and think they are omniscient and that
> they know the Truth. Anyone who doubts that deserves ridicule.
> 

The problem is that you cannot do a research about something without
being at least a bit convinced that indeed your ideas are right... It
does not prevent from being open-minded but at some point it will be a
matter of opinion, if two theories explain the facts.

If you go back two centuries earlier, and announce you have a new theory
called relativity that explains everything about the motions of planets
and stars, you will rightfully be told that there is no need for all
these complications because Newton's theory works just as well for what
can be observed. You will have to bring up new facts that show the
limits of the current theory, new experiments where your theory predicts
the observed result and the old one does not.

Of course everyone will shout you down at the beginning, the
establishment will not be happy to see their own theory disturbed (the
older the less happy ;-) ), but in the end if it is convincingly linked
to the facts it will be accepted. And it will be so only because
yourself were convinced that your theory is closer to the Truth... So
when someone else comes to challenge your theory, you will be part of
the establishment...

Creationists do not take that approach at all. We are not discussing
about people bringing new evidence to the table, that is best explained
with their new theory. They are taking the existing facts and building
an extraodinarily twisted explanation just to satisfy their religious
belief.

So yes, at first some will try to explain the current theory, in case
there was a misunderstanding. At some point, when everything answered is
based on false logic and religious belief passed as science, I can
understand the need to finally take a good laugh about it :-)

I tend to think of it like I do of violence: at first you do everything
to avoid it, to settle the things calmly, but then there is a point
where discussing is not the solution anymore. It takes two reasonable
people to end something reasonably.


-- 
Vincent

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