...check out Ed Brayton's masterful fisking of some truly awful anti-evolution "arguments."
Note especially the way that the two bloggers who run the site, when faced with criticisms of their mangling of facts and attributing "holes" in evolutionary theory that really aren't, simply repeat the same fallacious arguments again and again in the comments and keep calling evolution a "conjecture" that is not supported by facts, even though it is arguably the best-supported theory in the history of science.
It's truly depressing to see such astonishing ignorance coupled with such overweening arrogance.
More like this
Bobby Maddex, senior editor of Crux magazine, has posted a response to my article (posted here and at Panda's Thumb) pointing out several false claims in a couple of blog entries associated with Crux, one by him and one by John Coleman. John Coleman responded both rationally and graciously in a…
We now continue our discussion of Ian Hacking's wide-ranging essay on evolution and ID. We left off with Hacking having just completed several paragraphs on the uses of tree metaphors in human history. So far my main criticisms have been with the style, not the substance, of Hacking's essay. His…
Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House is moved to complain about the declining understanding of science in our country, which is a good start. Waking up the wingnuts to the fact that science is doing poorly in the US is a good thing, far better than the usual science denial we get from that side of…
You know, I'm really tired of this.
I'm tired of my fellow physicians with a penchant for spouting scientifically ignorant "attacks" on or "doubts" about evolution. It embarrasses the hell out of me around ScienceBlogs, and I really wish they would stop it. Sadly, it seems to be an increasingly…
Orac:
You write that the theory of evoloution is "arguably the best-supported theory in the history of science." Is this hyperbole or genuine statement.
Now I believe in the theory of evoloution to an incredibly high degree of probability. And I see NO competing theory even worth discussion. But can evoloution ever be as well supported as our theories on electromagnetism, gravity, etc.?
I don't think it's hyperbole at all. For one thing, I said "arguably" and not that it definitely is.
Since I am on record with similar statements concerning the support for evolutionary theory, I support Orac's statement. Physical theories have fewer (and better understood and controlled) variables. A physical theory can be precisely confirmed with dozens of "key" measurements.
The complexity of biology gives rise to less precision with so few studies. Evolution is so important to biology that there are mountains of articles in the field (in fact, in many fields (paleontology, genetics, molecular biology etc.).
In short, to achieve the same, impressive reliability in confirmation of biological theories, you need a lot more data than in physics.