(September 17, 2014 at 2:28 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:(September 17, 2014 at 2:18 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Huggy, you don't get to make assumptions of that nature either. I didn't respond to your question about dark matter because it had no relevance to the question at hand. That you're trying to sell it as though it does speaks volumes about your honesty. Thankfully, everything here is a matter of record so we can all evaluate it.
The fact that you can't see the relevance speaks volumes.
your question:
"do we accept the truth of the claim purely on the credentials of the claimant?"
the answer is yes when it comes down to matters of science and an expert in that particular scientific field.
so the relevance was that you having never observed dark matter, accept it's existence based upon the "credentials of the claimants"
No, we accept claims in matters of science because those claims have, by the time they are adopted into the literature, passed through and been tempered in the crucible of peer review. If a renowned scientist, such as George Hale, starts spouting about elves or the Great Pumpkin, then they will expect to attract scepticism and criticism. It's not the credentials of the scientists in question that determine the validity of the evidence; it's that the work they produce has been tested and what remains found to be compelling.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
