Forced versus overwhelming evidence

Há pessoas que têm razão para estar zangadas com o mundo. Richard Dawkins é uma delas.

Instead of devoting your full attention to the noble vocation of classical scholar and teacher, you are forced to divert your time and energy to a rearguard defence of the proposition that the Romans existed at all

Isto, logo no início do livro The Greatest show on Earth (O Espectáculo da vida), é, de certeza, uma confissão íntima.
Uma coisa bela mas banal e evidente e ter que lutar até à morte por ela, abdicando de todos os sonhos! Não tem pequena cruz, o desgraçado. Nem pouca razão de estar zangado.
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link:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

Exemplo:

Claim CA114:


There have been many famous scientists who believed in special creation in the past. In particular, the following scientists were creationists:

•Louis Agassiz (1807-1873; glacial geology)

•Charles Babbage (1792-1871; computer science)

•Francis Bacon (1561-1626; scientific method)

•Robert Boyle (1627-1691; gas dynamics)

•David Brewster (1781-1868; optical mineralogy)

•Georges Cuvier (1769-1832; comparative anatomy)

•Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; hydraulics)

•Humphrey Davy (1778-1829; thermokinetics)

•Henri Fabre (1823-1915; entomology of living insects)

•Michael Faraday (1791-1867; electromagnetics)

•John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945; electronics)

•Joseph Henry (1797-1878; inventor)

•William Herschel (1738-1822; galactic astronomy)

•James Joule (1818-1889; reversible thermodynamics)

•Lord Kelvin (1824-1907; energetics)

•Johann Kepler (1571-1630; celestial mechanics)

•Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778; systematic biology)

•Joseph Lister (1827-1912; antiseptic surgery)

•Matthew Maury (1806-1873; oceanography)

•James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879; electrodynamics)

•Gregor Mendel (1822-1884; genetics)

•Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872; telegraph inventor)

•Isaac Newton (1642-1727; calculus)

•Blaise Pascal (1623-1662; hydrostatics)

•Louis Pasteur (1822-1895; bacteriology)

•William Ramsay (1852-1916; isotopic chemistry)

•John Ray (1627-1705; natural history)

•Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919; dimensional analysis)

•Bernhard Riemann (1826- 1866; non-Euclidean geometry)

•James Simpson (1811-1870; gynecology)

•Nicholas Steno (1631-1686; stratigraphy)

•George Stokes (1819-1903; fluid mechanics)

•Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902; pathology)

•John Woodward (1665-1728; paleontology)



Agassiz, Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, Maxwell, Dawson, Virchow, Fabre, and Fleming were strong opponents of evolution.

Source:

Morris, Henry M. 1982. Bible-believing scientists of the past. Impact 103 (Jan.), http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=185

Response:

1.The validity of evolution rests on what the evidence says, not on what people say. There is overwhelming evidence in support of evolution and no valid arguments against it.



2.Many of the scientists in the above list lived before the theory of evolution was even proposed. Others knew the theory, but were not familiar with all the evidence for it. Evolution is outside the field of most of those scientists.



A couple hundred years ago, before the theory of evolution was developed and evidence for it was presented, virtually all scientists were creationists, including scientists in relevant fields such as biology and geology. Today, virtually all relevant scientists accept evolution. Such a turnabout could only be caused by overwhelming evidence. The alternative -- that almost all scientists today are thoroughly incompetent -- is preposterous.



3.Even if they did not believe in evolution, all these scientists were firmly committed to the scientific method, including methodological naturalism. They actually serve as counterexamples to the common creationist claim that a naturalistic practice of science is atheistic.