[_ Old Earth _] "98% of Scientists Agree.."

[Pard]

I cannot stand these claims people use, like "98% of scientists agree that evolution is real" (I made it up, don't get your panties in a bunch!) (And it also a tactic used by Al Gore and his global warming zombies, but for this post I will use evolution as an example)

MY problem with these claims (even if they are true)?

The fact is that even if 98% of scientists are in agreement that evolution is the truth, it doesn't matter because 98% of scientists are not biologists or geologists. Why a physicist or meteorologist as any creditable say in the field of evolution is beyond me.

The same goes for global warming. Why does it matter if a biologist agrees in global warming? Is he a meteorologist? No, he is a biologist, so he should keep his nose out of other people's conspiracies!

Any comments?

 

[Evointrinsic]

Whenever I use a statistic like this, I realize the issues you've brought up. There for I only use statistics which apply to the scientists that are within that field that accept the evidence that specific theory/law/hypothesis has shown.

Let's take the claim that many scientists reject evolution and support Creationism for example

I would quote something along these lines

Of the scientists and engineers in the United States, only about 5% are creationists, according to a 1991 Gallup poll (Robinson 1995, Witham 1997). However, this number includes those working in fields not related to life origins (such as computer scientists, mechanical engineers, etc.). Taking into account only those working in the relevant fields of earth and life sciences, there are about 480,000 scientists, but only about 700 believe in "creation-science" or consider it a valid theory (Robinson 1995). This means that less than 0.15 percent of relevant scientists believe in creationism. And that is just in the United States, which has more creationists than any other industrialized country. In other countries, the number of relevant scientists who accept creationism drops to less than one tenth of 1 percent.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA111.html

Unfortunately, I have seen an abundance of creationists who assume that numbers mean everything, or that 300+ scientists have signed a paper that says that they don't accept evolution.

Often, claims that scientists reject evolution or support creationism are exaggerated or fraudulent. Many scientists doubt some aspects of evolution, especially recent hypotheses about it. All good scientists are skeptical about evolution (and everything else) and open to the possibility, however remote, that serious challenges to it may appear. Creationists frequently seize such expressions of healthy skepticism to imply that evolution is highly questionable. They fail to understand that the fact that evolution has withstood many years of such questioning really means it is about as certain as facts can get.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA111.html

and then for further proof I'll usually post something like this.

[youtube:2w018kqq]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty1Bo6GmPqM[/youtube:2w018kqq]



None-the-less both sides have accidentally, knowingly or wrongly shown misleading statistics.

 

[Pard]

Unfortunately, I have seen an abundance of creationists who assume that numbers mean everything, or that 300+ scientists have signed a paper that says that they don't accept evolution.

Just have to say... that argument would be a good one, since many people on this board (and even more int he real word) have stated that no real accredited scientist believes in creation or denies evolution...

And yes I was just reading some atheist's post a few minutes ago where he said just that!

 

[Evointrinsic]

try watching the video in it's entirety. You'll find out it's not the best argument ;)

And I've stated that there are people of both sides that do this. not specifically atheists.

 

[jasoncran]

please start the thread in the appropriate forum, or i will delet the topic and i'm moving to the science forum.