Item — HN Reader

>>It's sad to see how someone, even scientists, are considered to be anti-science for even doubting evolution.<<

There are no viable alternative scientific models that compete with the theory of evolution in terms of explaining change across successive generations of biological organisms. There are theological models, but those by definition do not have any scientific evidence. Which is why doubting evolution is considered anti-scientific - rightly so, in my opinion.

The amount of hard evidence we have for the theory of evolution is so overwhelming at this point that doubting it has two possible reasons: the person either does not understand science in general and evolution in particular, or they are driven by a religious agenda. Incidentally, both of these are very common in America due to shoddy science education (esp. with regards to imparting critical thinking skills in children) and the influence of religion in politics (and therefore education).

I don't want to go into an evolution/something else debate. But beware of your "there is no"'s. That usually smells like fundamentalism. On any side.

It would be fundamentalism if I was close-minded about it. I am not. If there are any alternative scientific theories that are supported by as much evidence as the theory of evolution is, I would love to hear about them.

A prerequisite for a theory to be scientific is to be built on a naturalistic background. The mere fact that one asks for a scientific explanation, says much about their _ideological_ background.

But _a priori_ we can not impose any restrictions on what will explain something. We are part of what exists. We can have no expectation on what exists, why and how it works.

Some things may have a scientific explanation, some others may not. We don't get to decide. We can't restrict ourself to accepting only one kind of explanation.