[glenstein]

'Bias' means a lot of things to a lot of people. I'm perfectly comfortable being called biased against criticisms of the modern synthesis, which is not the dig that you seem to think it is. I would reject the idea that I'm biased in the sense of predisposed to unfairly reject a legitimate idea due to pre-existing ideological commitments, but I suppose the devil is in the details on that one.

Suffice to say I don't think critics of evolution are rehabilitated into respectability just by noting that there are other forms than young earth creationism.

[silent_cal]

Supporting the modern synthesis is the most boring thing you can do. No significant scientist has ever become famous for doing that.

[glenstein]

I don't see how that has anything to do with anything. Perfectly happy to be boring.

[silent_cal]

It's not just boring, it's almost certainly wrong. If you're going with the mainstream consensus just because it's the consensus, chances are almost 100% that you are wrong. The history of science proves this. At any given moment we only see one small facet of the truth, and we need real thinkers (not sheep who just echo "consensus") to reveal other facets. Your attitude impedes scientific development.

[glenstein]

See Wronger Than Wrong by Isaac Asimov, which is about this exact argument:

>When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

>According to John Jenkins,[4] who reviewed The Relativity of Wrong, the title essay of Asimov's book is the one "which I think is important both for understanding Asimov's thinking about science and for arming oneself against the inevitable anti-science attack that one often hears – [that] theories are always preliminary and science really doesn't 'know' anything."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relativity_of_Wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wronger_than_wrong

[silent_cal]

I agree with Asimov. And the point stands, that you are almost certainly wrong.

[glenstein]

But how wrong? And more importantly, do you understand why that is an important question?

Dismissing the achievements of present-day science by appealing to the wrongness of the past -- to imply we are just as wrong now as we were then-- is to exhibit the very form of ignorance that Asimov was criticizing.