Sunday, June 24, 2007

Transitional Fossils

The following is from on a continuing discussion about evolution arising from a post dated July 1, 2006.

The comment concerned trasitional fossils.

I could not find information about transitions between trilobite species found in Pennsylvania or Lake Tureana mollusc species. Are you saying trilobites are the ancestors of molluscs?

However, the bottom line of this comment seems to be that, since many scientists believe in the accuracy of various dating methods, then they must be true. There is a huge problem with this. Historically the majority of scientists believed in whatever was the currently accepted scientific "facts" at that time. Why do new scientific textbooks need to be written periodically? Because the scientific facts keep changing. We keep learning and the majority is continually revealed to be wrong. What was accepted as fact 100 years ago, is no longer true today.

At one time the majority of scientists believed the world was flat. They were shown to be wrong.

At one time the majority of scientists believed that letting out blood with leaches was needed to heal saicknesses caused by having too much blood. They were shown to be wrong.

The key question is, what is true? No what does the majority believe?

Yes, what the majority believes is worth investigating. But majority does not equal truth.

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