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::: Oh, how I cling to the views of others! Yes, which is why I have an accountant and an attorney and a doctor and a statistician and an architect - I accept that other people have greater experience and knowledge in certain areas than I do. If I want to charge my lawyer with malpractice, it behooves me to check with another lawyer to see if my complaint has merit, or if I'm even articulating the complaint correctly before I show up in a courtroom.--[[User:Brossa|Brossa]] 10:39, 28 July 2008 (EDT)
::: Oh, how I cling to the views of others! Yes, which is why I have an accountant and an attorney and a doctor and a statistician and an architect - I accept that other people have greater experience and knowledge in certain areas than I do. If I want to charge my lawyer with malpractice, it behooves me to check with another lawyer to see if my complaint has merit, or if I'm even articulating the complaint correctly before I show up in a courtroom.--[[User:Brossa|Brossa]] 10:39, 28 July 2008 (EDT)
::::I wasn’t planning on making any more comments, but in perusing other articles on this site I found that part of the Atheism article reminded me of Brossa’s comment:
:::::“Christian apologist JP Holding rightly states that Bible exegesis and Bible exposition is a multi-disciplinary pursuit, and often critics of the Bible have not done a fraction of the due diligence required to make an allegation regarding the Bible. Holding states the following:
:::::““Having now been engaged in apologetics for eight years actively and more years than that on the side, I have long since come to a conclusion that I have shared with others, but will now present in a systematic form here for the first time. My conclusion is a warning that is appropriate for any new readers (hence I link this article from my front page) and will be familiar to veteran ones.
:::::"I'll sum it up to begin: Whenever you run across any person who criticizes the Bible, claims findings of contradiction or error -- they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. They have to earn it from you. Here's why.
:::::"It doesn't take very long to realize that a thorough understanding of the Bible -- and this would actually apply to any complex work from any culture -- requires specialized knowledge, and a broad range of specialized knowledge in a variety of fields....
:::::"Not even most scholars in the field can master every aspect -- what then of the non-specialist critic who puts together a website in his spare time titled 1001 Irrefutable Bible Contradictions? Do these persons deserves [''sic''] our attention? Should they be recognized as authorities? No, they deserve calculated contempt for their efforts. (By this, I do not mean emotional or behavioral contempt, but a calculated disregard for their work from an academic perspective.) They have not even come close to deserving our attention, and should feed only itching ears with similar tastes.””
::::Now let’s change the academic subject (I leave out the introductory paragraph of Holding’s quote):
:::::“Whenever you run across any person who criticizes ''scientific reports'', claims findings of contradiction or error -- they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. They have to '''earn''' it from you. Here's why.
:::::"It doesn't take very long to realize that a thorough understanding of ''microbiology and evolutionary biology''-- and this would actually apply to any complex work from any ''field of science'' -- requires specialized knowledge, and a broad range of specialized knowledge in a variety of fields....
:::::"Not even most scholars in the field can master every aspect -- what then of the non-specialist critic who puts together a '''website in his spare time''' titled ''7 Richard Lenski Study Flaws''? Do these persons deserve our attention? Should they be recognized as authorities? No, they deserve calculated contempt for their efforts. (By this, I do not mean emotional or behavioral contempt, but a calculated disregard for their work from an academic perspective.) They have not even come close to deserving our attention, and should feed only itching ears with similar tastes.”
::::I do not post this as satire or mockery, but as another serious attempt to provide perspective. Ironic that Holding’s quote is in an article on Conservapedia, which at the same time is rightly concerned about double standards.[[User:Kallium|Kallium]] 22:38, 28 July 2008 (EDT)
::Brossa has made several excellent points. I would add that there is a disconnect between your primary claim and the list. You should rethink your thesis statement or choose different "flaws" that fit it better, since your primary claim that the flaws "negate [the paper's] claim that E. Coli bacteria underwent an evolutionary beneficial mutation" does not follow from those listed. With your flaws, with the possible exception of #4 depending on interpretation (and even then, where did the undetected Cit+ cells come from?), you are arguing against historical contingency, not whether or not Cit+ cells evolved. In other words, the flaws you claim are questions of mechanism, i.e. the dynamics of how the Cit+ cells arose, but your thesis statement questions whether or not they arose at all from Cit- populations. So even if those flaws were true, they would not negate the "evolutionary beneficial mutation" as you say but rather just historical contingency as a path to it. [[User:Kallium|Kallium]] 21:23, 27 July 2008 (EDT)
::Brossa has made several excellent points. I would add that there is a disconnect between your primary claim and the list. You should rethink your thesis statement or choose different "flaws" that fit it better, since your primary claim that the flaws "negate [the paper's] claim that E. Coli bacteria underwent an evolutionary beneficial mutation" does not follow from those listed. With your flaws, with the possible exception of #4 depending on interpretation (and even then, where did the undetected Cit+ cells come from?), you are arguing against historical contingency, not whether or not Cit+ cells evolved. In other words, the flaws you claim are questions of mechanism, i.e. the dynamics of how the Cit+ cells arose, but your thesis statement questions whether or not they arose at all from Cit- populations. So even if those flaws were true, they would not negate the "evolutionary beneficial mutation" as you say but rather just historical contingency as a path to it. [[User:Kallium|Kallium]] 21:23, 27 July 2008 (EDT)