Atheists watch Ray Comfort's "Evolution vs God"

[gnostic]

Oh boy. Banana man !

Damn it! You beat me to it! ... Yes, Ray Comfort is the Banana Man.

Oh, but I like banana.

I just don't like Ray Comfort.

 

[gnostic]

well, the necessity of predetermined design, plans, blueprints to work from, to account for life as we know it- as opposed to simply random improvements. I would attribute the blueprints to God, though you wouldn't necessarily have to...

But you are still ignoring one important factor when you make claims. You need verifiable EVIDENCES to support that God, Creator or Designer is involved with the design.

You are are still making baseless claims with zero evidences to support your pseudoscience belief. Anyone can make silly claim like yours.

I could substitute "God" in this last sentence of yours, with whatever I like, but that doesn't make what I say is true, if I can't provide evidences to back it up:

I would attribute the blueprints to the fairy queen, though you wouldn't necessarily have to...

I would attribute the blueprints to unicorn, though you wouldn't necessarily have to...

I would attribute the blueprints to the Teletubbies, though you wouldn't necessarily have to...

I would attribute the blueprints to ET, though you wouldn't necessarily have to...

I would attribute the blueprints to the friendly ghost Caspar , though you wouldn't necessarily have to...

I would attribute the blueprints to Dolly Parton, though you wouldn't necessarily have to...
​

Do I need to go on?

 

[Ouroboros]

He travelled the world on the HHMS Beagle during much of the 1830s, before returning to England. All that he had written (and later published in 1859) were based on his observation of animal and plant life. His conclusions are based on evidences that he have managed to record in his travel journals, and meticulously drawing what he had observed.

Recording evidences, and directly observing what he see, make his theory on Natural Selection (in his On Origin of Species, as well as his other works) make it not merely a hypothesis, but valid experimental theory. Other biologists, including botanists can go to the places, further demonstrate that is more than hypothesis.

Also, Darwin wasn't alone in discovering evolution. He held on to his findings for a while until he realized Wallace was going to publish (if I remember it correctly from class). Darwin had to get his book finished and published. Hence there were several later corrections to the first edition. If he hadn't hurried, it would be called Wallacism (or something) today. Wallace built upon Lamarck, Saint-Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin (granddad to Charles), and Grant's findings. Darwin basically just added the last piece of the puzzle, natural selection.

 

[gnostic]

Also, Darwin wasn't alone in discovering evolution. He held on to his findings for a while until he realized Wallace was going to publish (if I remember it correctly from class). Darwin had to get his book finished and published. Hence there were several later corrections to the first edition. If he hadn't hurried, it would be called Wallacism (or something) today. Wallace built upon Lamarck, Saint-Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin (granddad to Charles), and Grant's findings. Darwin basically just added the last piece of the puzzle, natural selection.

Thank you, Ouroboros.

I knew of Wallace, but didn't know that he had followed his predecessors,in building his own theory.

And that only cement that Darwin was alone in thinking of species evolving or adapting; he was on the right track.

I just think Guy and other creationists that oppose evolution, still arguing against some 19th century works, when there are more than Darwin's own theory to NS evolution. We are living in the 21st century now, not the 19th century.

Even the official Catholic position, accept that evolution are real biological occurrence, so I find funny when many other Christians/Creationists, especially American Protestants, are still living in the dark ages.

 

[Ouroboros]

Than you, Ouroboros.

I knew of Wallace, but didn't know that he had followed his predecessors,in building his own theory.

And that only cement that Darwin was alone in thinking of species evolving or adapting; he was on the right track.

Evolution was essentially already known and accepted at the time of Charles Darwin. The big discussion was more about how it was happening. When anti-evolutionists bring up "Darwinism", they think they're arguing against evolution in its totality, which they're not.

I just think Guy and other creationists that oppose evolution, still arguing against some 19th century works, when there are more than Darwin's own theory to NS evolution. We are living in the 21st century now, not the 19th century.

Yup. Hence they quote books that were written 70 years ago or before. Even "intelligent design" promotors like Behe believes in evolution, as such, only with the addition of the idea that God is helping evolution along the path. That species evolve is not a question anymore, and hasn't been for 200 years.

Even the official Catholic position, accept that evolution are real biological occurrence, so I find funny when many other Christians/Creationists, especially American Protestants, are still living in the dark ages.

It's because crazy people like Ham, Hovind, and Gish. They make money on their "criticism".

 

[gnostic]

So, what empirical evidence do you have to support this hypothesis? I've only heard you find faults with other theories, but what verifiable evidence do you have for your alternative theory that there was a "designer"?

Sadly, you will be waiting until Sun swallow the Earth.

 

[gnostic]

It's because crazy people like Ham, Hovind, and Gish. They make money on their "criticism".

Gee, I wish I was less than honest, so I could make lots of money like them...I've already got "crazy" part down pat.

 

[gnostic]

Any theory of how life got here is circumstantial. We can not repeat, observe, measure and verify a single cell morphing into a man, or verify that each significant improvement was an accident.

And this is another thing, you got wrong.

Evolution has nothing to do with the studies of how the FIRST LIFE came to be.

How many times we have to tell you this, before you learn, that - what you really talking about is Abiogenesis, not Evolution.

Evolution is not Abiogenesis!

I know that I have told you this before in other threads, but you seems to can't learn this.

Evolution is about BIODIVERSITY -

1. as the mean of adapting to changing environment (hence Natural Selection),
2. or due to new population migrating and then mixing with the current population, thereby transferring genes or all (hence Gene Flow, also known as "Gene Migration").

Either of these two evolutionary mechanism, require life to already existing, because it involved parents to pass their genes to offspring, over successive number of generations.

Abiogenesis is about determining what chemical or molecules to produce life from lifeless molecules, and under what conditions this would occur. Abiogenesis is still an ongoing and developing young theory.

You don't need abiogenesis to learn about evolution, and most practical use of evolution, don't require knowledge of abiogenesis.

Stop making the same lame claims about evolution, when you are really talking about abiogenesis, because I am quite sick of repeating the same explanations to you the differences between evolution and abiogenesis.

Man, perhaps the only way to stop reading your repeated mistakes is by putting a bullet in my brain.

 

[Ouroboros]

Gee, I wish I was less than honest, so I could make lots of money like them...I've already got "crazy" part down pat.

I hear ya'.

 

[Yorutenchi]

By which rationale, automobiles cannot have been designed either

False.

That sounds like an academic opinion!

Stephen Hawking is often cited as the greatest living, perhaps one of the greatest scientists of all time, barely ever being outside an ivy league college campus in this life. It doesn't get much more academic than that.
What's the most useful thing he ever contributed to science?

Meanwhile one of the greatest scientific achievements of Mankind, powered flight, was achieved by a couple of high school dropouts in rural Ohio.

Just one anecdote in a pretty clear pattern if you start thinking about it

Just one anecdote is incapable of creating a patter by the definition of pattern.

Everything done by the men who invented flight learned it from scholars in academics.

 

[KBC1963]

.
Evolution is about BIODIVERSITY ....
....You don't need abiogenesis to learn about evolution, and most practical use of evolution, don't require knowledge of abiogenesis.

Are you sure about that?
Suppose the first specie came front loaded with coding to manipulate itself? How would that affect the evolutionary mechanisms? Wouldn't that eliminate the random mutation part of the hypothesis and leave it with just natural selection.
I would further ask how do you know there was a single common ancestor for life? Suppose there were many first types of common ancestors that all were front loaded with coding to manipulate themselves. How might that affect the evolutionary hypothesis? wouldn't that blow the whole 'radiating upwards in a cone' out the window? (I know, I know, then it just gets asserted as a bunch of cones)

Your rebuttal to Guy is a common one which rests on so many assumptions about very important points that it's ridiculous. By not knowing anything about the first life (and assuming that there's no need to know about it) you can't properly speculate on how life actually does continue. Scientists are still making the same type of error that early scientists did. They originally assumed that life was simply “homogeneous globules of plasm” and now scientists "Believe" that the first life was simple and open to being manipulated by the random mutation mechanism which they also "Believe" in.

 

[KBC1963]

Everything done by the men who invented flight learned it from scholars in academics.

False

......the Wright brothers closely followed the research of German aviator Otto Lilienthal. When Lilienthal died in a glider crash, the brothers decided to start their own experiments with flight.

Wilbur and Orville set to work trying to figure out how to design wings for flight. They observed that birds angled their wings for balance and control, and tried to emulate this, developing a concept called “wing warping.” http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/wright-brothers

They learned how to make a wing for flight by studying birds wings. Incidentally, this is how many things get invented.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

False

......the Wright brothers closely followed the research of German aviator Otto Lilienthal. When Lilienthal died in a glider crash, the brothers decided to start their own experiments with flight.

Wilbur and Orville set to work trying to figure out how to design wings for flight. They observed that birds angled their wings for balance and control, and tried to emulate this, developing a concept called “wing warping.” http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/wright-brothers

They learned how to make a wing for flight by studying birds wings. Incidentally, this is how many things get invented.

Who was an engineer who studied in an academic setting to learn the basic physics that led him to his inventions.

Neither the Wright brothers nor Lilienthal came up with the concepts themselves. They engineered mechanisms and machines based off of already discovered physics which had been discovered in academia and passed down through academia. I think also there is a huge misunderstanding here of what Academic thought is and what is non-academic thought. There isn't a huge difference as Academic thought is simply held accountable and discussed while non-academic thoughts generally are not. If non-academic thoughts are shown to be likely they are undoubtedly taken to the academic level where the concepts and ideas are dissected and further understood. There isn't a mysterious object or organization simply called "Academia" that controls all of the minds of those within it. Its simply comprised of people who think and share ideas.

 

[KBC1963]

Neither the Wright brothers nor Lilienthal came up with the concepts themselves. .

false

Lilienthal never lived to see the concept that Wilbur discovered. Wilbur never got 'his' concept / idea from any academic.... He was the discoverer... He would be the one who teaches the academics what he learned from his own study of birds wings and experimentation.

Wright Brothers - How Wilbur Discovers Wing Warping
This "NASA Connect" video clip explains how the Wright Brothers succeeded, where other more notable people had failed, to solve the problem of powered flight. Move the video forward, to 3:58, to see how Wilbur's use of an inner-tube box led to his discovery of wing-warping (also referred to as the aileron principle of flight).

https://www.awesomestories.com/asset/view/Wright-Brothers-How-Wilbur-Discovers-Wing-Warping

If you wish to argue the point then simply provide a reference to where Wilbur got the idea about wing-warping from.

Here is the info I read back when I was studying to be an engineer;

The Unlikely Inventors
Engineering the age of flight
The Wright brothers were discovering aspects of flight that no one had known before. Would you consider them engineers or scientists?
If you look at the way in which the Wright brothers gathered data, they really weren't trying to understand precisely why a wing lifts or an airplane flies. What they were doing was gathering points of data about the forces operating on a wing at particular angles of attack, information that they could plug directly into their calculations for the design of an airplane.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/unlikely-inventors.html

 

[Monk Of Reason]

f
If you wish to argue the point then simply provide a reference to where Wilbur got the idea about wing-warping from.

Boom. Here is the concept of lift. 1799
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cayley

Lets get one thing strait. I'm not throwing out all of the good and inventive things non-academics have done. I'm just telling you and mostly by extension the person who originally argued it, that the basis for knowledge is almost always academic. Things get discovered and that's great. But the concept and science that we know about existed before it and has mostly been discovered by academics afterwards. To say that they are solely responsible by themselves for the invention of flight is moronic to say the least.

 

[KBC1963]

Boom. Here is the concept of lift. 1799
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cayley

Lets get one thing strait. I'm not throwing out all of the good and inventive things non-academics have done. I'm just telling you and mostly by extension the person who originally argued it, that the basis for knowledge is almost always academic. Things get discovered and that's great. But the concept and science that we know about existed before it and has mostly been discovered by academics afterwards. To say that they are solely responsible by themselves for the invention of flight is moronic to say the least.

You can boom all you want but I don't see anything about wing warping or controlling it attributed to Cayley and I would also point out that I never asserted that there were not "other" known aspects of flight already existing. I said that Wilbur didn't get or build on a previous concept from academia for his solution to flight. Wilbur invented the warped wing and its control strictly from examining how birds use their wings because in his own words;

My brother and I became seriously interested in the problem of human flight in 1899 ... We knew that men had by common consent adopted human flight as the standard of impossibility. When a man said, “It can’t be done; a man might as well try to fly,” he was understood as expressing the final limit of impossibility. Our own growing belief that man might nevertheless learn to fly was based on the idea that while thousands of the most dissimilar body structures, such as insects, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, were flying every day at pleasure, it was reasonable to suppose that man might also fly... We accordingly decided to write to the Smithsonian Institution and inquire for the best books relating to the subject.... Contrary to our previous impression, we found that men of the very highest standing in the profession of science and invention had attempted to solve the problem... But one by one, they had been compelled to confess themselves beaten, and had discontinued their efforts. In studying their failures we found many points of interest to us.
At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.

Civil-suit deposition against the Herring-Curtiss Company (1909)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright

The real academia in this world is in the designs already existing that came from no academic in human history.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

You can boom all you want but I don't see anything about wing warping or controlling it attributed to Cayley and I would also point out that I never asserted that there were not "other" known aspects of flight already existing. I said that Wilbur didn't get or build on a previous concept from academia for his solution to flight. Wilbur invented the warped wing and its control strictly from examining how birds use their wings because in his own words;

My brother and I became seriously interested in the problem of human flight in 1899 ... We knew that men had by common consent adopted human flight as the standard of impossibility. When a man said, “It can’t be done; a man might as well try to fly,” he was understood as expressing the final limit of impossibility. Our own growing belief that man might nevertheless learn to fly was based on the idea that while thousands of the most dissimilar body structures, such as insects, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, were flying every day at pleasure, it was reasonable to suppose that man might also fly... We accordingly decided to write to the Smithsonian Institution and inquire for the best books relating to the subject.... Contrary to our previous impression, we found that men of the very highest standing in the profession of science and invention had attempted to solve the problem... But one by one, they had been compelled to confess themselves beaten, and had discontinued their efforts. In studying their failures we found many points of interest to us.
At that time there was no flying art in the proper sense of the word, but only a flying problem. Thousands of men had thought about flying machines and a few had even built machines which they called flying machines, but these were guilty of almost everything except flying. Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.

Civil-suit deposition against the Herring-Curtiss Company (1909)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright

Which you still don't seem to understand is BASED off of the already known science. They didn't just look at a god damned bird and say "bet I can make a plane" and then went to circle jerk till they made the world's first mock 5 jet.

The real academia in this world is in the designs already existing that came from no academic in human history.

Academia is nothing more than discussing and sharing knowledge. As things are invented and exist they are brought to the floor of people who are scholars whose whole job in life is to learn, discuss, discover and teach. They then pass on that knowledge that they learn and discover at a fundamental level. Without academia you would not have the advancements that we have. The wright brothers would never have invented the plane ect.

Again. All of this seems to stem from people not knowing what academia is. Unless someone invented something purely out of a vacuum I highly doubt there is no role of academia.

 

[KBC1963]

Which you still don't seem to understand is BASED off of the already known science. They didn't just look at a god damned bird and say "bet I can make a plane" and then went to circle jerk till they made the world's first mock 5 jet.

They looked at how a bird "USES" its wings for "CONTROLLED" flight and believed they could make a similar structure to mock the "CONTROL" they had seen. They weren't trying to invent a wing that could provide lift, that had already been done. You seem to think their accomplishment was for the totality of flight all around. Gliders and kites (they themselves used kites to try and help solve the real problem) had already been in operation for awhile so they had nothing to do with inventing a wing shape simply prove lift. They invented "CONTROLLED" powered flight. Part of being able to argue a point is the necessity of understanding what is being argued about.

Academia is nothing more than discussing and sharing knowledge. As things are invented and exist they are brought to the floor of people who are scholars whose whole job in life is to learn, discuss, discover and teach. They then pass on that knowledge that they learn and discover at a fundamental level. Without academia you would not have the advancements that we have. The wright brothers would never have invented the plane ect.

The Wright brothers didn't invent the plane. Gliders are planes without a control system and power existed before they tried to solve the problem of "powered and controlled" flight.

Again. All of this seems to stem from people not knowing what academia is. Unless someone invented something purely out of a vacuum I highly doubt there is no role of academia.

The Wright brothers invented the "CONTROL" system of "WARPING" (note that warping is a verb) the wing purely from observing how birds "USED" their wings and got no academic input for the design of such a control system. All of it stemmed from an intelligent designer seeing a need for something that had not been addressed in academia and using their intelligence to reverse engineer the "CONTROL" they observed birds using with their wings so that they could make a plane with a similar "CONTROL" system to allow for controlled powered flight.

Maybe this article will open your eyes;

o simply say that the Wright Brothers invented the airplane doesn't begin to describe their many accomplishments. Nor is it especially accurate. The first fixed-wing aircraft -- a kite mounted on a stick -- was conceived and flown almost a century before Orville and Wilbur made their first flights. The Wrights were first to design and build a flying craft that could be controlled while in the air. Every successful aircraft ever built since, beginning with the 1902 Wright glider, has had controls to roll the wings right or left, pitch the nose up or down, and yaw the nose from side to side. These three controls -- roll, pitch, and yaw -- let a pilot navigate an airplane in all three dimensions, making it possible to fly from place to place. The entire aerospace business, the largest industry in the world, depends on this simple but brilliant idea. So do spacecraft, submarines, even robots.

Inventing the Airplane
In 1896, the newspapers were filled with accounts of flying machines. Wilbur and Orville noticed that all these primitive aircraft lacked suitable controls. They began to wonder how a pilot might balance an aircraft in the air, just as a cyclist balances his bicycle on the road. In 1899, Wilbur devised a simple system that twisted or "warped" the wings of a biplane, causing it to roll right or left. They tested this system in a kite, then a series of gliders.

The Aileron Hypothesis
"The thought came to me," wrote Wilbur, "that possibly [a bird] adjusted the tips of its wings…so as to present one tip at a positive angle and the other at a negative angle, thus…turning itself into an animated windmill, and that when its body had revolved…as far as it wished, it reversed the process."

The Elegant Solution
In July of 1899, Wilbur had just heard from the Smithsonian and his mind was full of aeronautics and aerodynamics. While talking to a customer at the bike shop, he picked up a long, slender cardboard box that had once held an inner tube and idly began to toy with it. He happened to place the thumb and forefinger of one hand on diagonal corners at one end of the box, and the other thumb and forefinger on the opposite diagonal corners at the other end. He noticed that when he squeezed his thumbs and forefingers together, the box twisted. The surfaces at each end rotated in opposite directions. In his mind’s eye, Wilbur saw the Chanute-Herring glider. The biplane was essentially a box with open sides. With a set of cables, he could twist the wings just as he twisted the box. When one wing tip turned turned up, this would increase the lift at that end. Where the other tip turned down, the lift would decrease. The difference in lift would cause the biplane to roll to the right or left.

Wing warping also solved the weight problem. The control cables would weigh very little. And the wings could be lightly built; the rigging would provide the strength and stiffness needed. Wilbur's idea was what engineer's often refer to as the "elegant solution" – a design or idea that appears remarkable for its simplicity and the number of problems it solves. The elegant solution is to a scientist or engineer what an inspiration is to an artist, and is just emotionally satisfying and intellectually captivating.
http://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Wright_Story_Intro/Wright_Story_Intro.htm

 

[Monk Of Reason]

They looked at how a bird "USES" its wings for "CONTROLLED" flight and believed they could make a similar structure to mock the "CONTROL" they had seen. They weren't trying to invent a wing that could provide lift, that had already been done. You seem to think their accomplishment was for the totality of flight all around. Gliders and kites (they themselves used kites to try and help solve the real problem) had already been in operation for awhile so they had nothing to do with inventing a wing shape simply prove lift. They invented "CONTROLLED" powered flight. Part of being able to argue a point is the necessity of understanding what is being argued about.



The Wright brothers didn't invent the plane. Gliders are planes without a control system and power existed before they tried to solve the problem of "powered and controlled" flight.



The Wright brothers invented the "CONTROL" system of "WARPING" (note that warping is a verb) the wing purely from observing how birds "USED" their wings and got no academic input for the design of such a control system. All of it stemmed from an intelligent designer seeing a need for something that had not been addressed in academia and using their intelligence to reverse engineer the "CONTROL" they observed birds using with their wings so that they could make a plane with a similar "CONTROL" system to allow for controlled powered flight.

Maybe this article will open your eyes;

o simply say that the Wright Brothers invented the airplane doesn't begin to describe their many accomplishments. Nor is it especially accurate. The first fixed-wing aircraft -- a kite mounted on a stick -- was conceived and flown almost a century before Orville and Wilbur made their first flights. The Wrights were first to design and build a flying craft that could be controlled while in the air. Every successful aircraft ever built since, beginning with the 1902 Wright glider, has had controls to roll the wings right or left, pitch the nose up or down, and yaw the nose from side to side. These three controls -- roll, pitch, and yaw -- let a pilot navigate an airplane in all three dimensions, making it possible to fly from place to place. The entire aerospace business, the largest industry in the world, depends on this simple but brilliant idea. So do spacecraft, submarines, even robots.

Inventing the Airplane
In 1896, the newspapers were filled with accounts of flying machines. Wilbur and Orville noticed that all these primitive aircraft lacked suitable controls. They began to wonder how a pilot might balance an aircraft in the air, just as a cyclist balances his bicycle on the road. In 1899, Wilbur devised a simple system that twisted or "warped" the wings of a biplane, causing it to roll right or left. They tested this system in a kite, then a series of gliders.

The Aileron Hypothesis
"The thought came to me," wrote Wilbur, "that possibly [a bird] adjusted the tips of its wings…so as to present one tip at a positive angle and the other at a negative angle, thus…turning itself into an animated windmill, and that when its body had revolved…as far as it wished, it reversed the process."

The Elegant Solution
In July of 1899, Wilbur had just heard from the Smithsonian and his mind was full of aeronautics and aerodynamics. While talking to a customer at the bike shop, he picked up a long, slender cardboard box that had once held an inner tube and idly began to toy with it. He happened to place the thumb and forefinger of one hand on diagonal corners at one end of the box, and the other thumb and forefinger on the opposite diagonal corners at the other end. He noticed that when he squeezed his thumbs and forefingers together, the box twisted. The surfaces at each end rotated in opposite directions. In his mind’s eye, Wilbur saw the Chanute-Herring glider. The biplane was essentially a box with open sides. With a set of cables, he could twist the wings just as he twisted the box. When one wing tip turned turned up, this would increase the lift at that end. Where the other tip turned down, the lift would decrease. The difference in lift would cause the biplane to roll to the right or left.

Wing warping also solved the weight problem. The control cables would weigh very little. And the wings could be lightly built; the rigging would provide the strength and stiffness needed. Wilbur's idea was what engineer's often refer to as the "elegant solution" – a design or idea that appears remarkable for its simplicity and the number of problems it solves. The elegant solution is to a scientist or engineer what an inspiration is to an artist, and is just emotionally satisfying and intellectually captivating.
http://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/Wright_Story/Wright_Story_Intro/Wright_Story_Intro.htm

YES THAT IS JOLLY FRIGGING GOOD. HOW DOES THIS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM MAKE AN ARGUMENT THAT ACADEMIA IS NOT LEGITIMATE? HOW DOES THIS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM ARGUE THAT ACADEMIA HINDER'S PROGRESS AND SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT RATHER THAN ENHANCE IT?

Sorry for the caps. Not originally intended but the effect seems nice so I left it.

You still don't seem to understand the very fundamental thing I was arguing.

 

[KBC1963]

YES THAT IS JOLLY FRIGGING GOOD. HOW DOES THIS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM MAKE AN ARGUMENT THAT ACADEMIA IS NOT LEGITIMATE? HOW DOES THIS IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM ARGUE THAT ACADEMIA HINDER'S PROGRESS AND SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT RATHER THAN ENHANCE IT?
Sorry for the caps. Not originally intended but the effect seems nice so I left it.
You still don't seem to understand the very fundamental thing I was arguing.

I don't believe I stated that academia is anything good or bad. I simply showed by the evidence that they did not use academia to solve the problem of controlled flight. Stored information such as academia has, can and does serve many purposes but academia also houses bad information that can hinder its usefulness as well which I referenced here;

Thousands of pages had been written on the so-called science of flying, but for the most part the ideas set forth, like the designs for machines, were mere speculations and probably ninety per cent was false. Consequently those who tried to study the science of aerodynamics knew not what to believe and what not to believe. Things which seemed reasonable were often found to be untrue, and things which seemed unreasonable were sometimes true. Under this condition of affairs students were accustomed to pay little attention to things that they had not personally tested.
Civil-suit deposition against the Herring-Curtiss Company (1909)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilbur_Wright

If in your experience most everything you needed from academia turned out to be crap then I'm sure you would feel the same way as Wilbur did. You can't take what others say at face value regardless of their titles nor can you assume that institutions house information that can be counted on.

Example;

Airfoil Lifting Force Misconception Widespread in K-6 Textbooks
http://amasci.com/wing/airfoil.html

and here is a site that looks at many of the misinformations coming from academia;

K-6 Textbooks and "Science Myths" in Popular Culture
©1996 William J. Beaty

The complex and abstract nature of Science makes the subject hard to understand. But complexity is not the only reason that Science is confusing. The subject is made much more difficult by the presence of numerous misleading "Science Myths" which circulate in the popular culture, which are handed down from parents to children, and which have become so common and widespread that they even appear in science textbooks and are taught as facts in elementary school.

These "science myths" or "urban legends of science" present major barriers to students because the kids must un-learn the misleading materia before they can make further progress in their understanding. Unfortunately, this process of unlearning happens rarely. After all, the myths are supported by so many teachers, and they appear in so many textbooks. Most people never suspect their presence. If a particular concept in science seems impossible to understand, students won't blame their books. Instead they'll blame themselves, or perhaps will blame the new concept for being too complex/abstract. Teachers won't suspect that errors are present in the books, reasoning that if several books teach the same concept in exactly the same way, how could all those books be wrong?

Why do textbooks spread misconceptions? Because there are very strong forces preserving the mistakes. Any attempt to fix the problems will trigger a vigorous backlash. Tolstoy says it well:

"I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to collegues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."

Or less kindly: "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth."
http://amasci.com/miscon/scimyths.html