If 95% all doctors agreed on an germ theory, would you call that religious fervor as well?
No, of course not. But at minimum I would expect them to actually be able to prove their theory.
I think you’re looking at some theories that are not well proven, and using those to assume other related theories must be based on evidence that is just as flimsy. Here, watch this:
youtube.com/watch?v=WqznURlEWI0
I’m not touting any of those theories on your film. They’re all passingly interesting, but nobody can prove any of them, so to me, they simply remain passingly interesting. To academics who wrestle with one another in journals, it’s a more serious matter. Some become famous and get lecture invitations, tenure and all that, and some don’t. To others, it’s important to overstate what the actual evidence demonstrates for ideological reasons. So, for example, it may be philosophically important for a certain kind of religious believer to overstate the evidence for “intelligent design”. It can be equally important for an atheist to overstate the evidence that human nature is molded by survival strategies in the process of natural selection.
I don’t think anyone would really claim that the various evolutionary conclusions reached by some are demonstrated with the same sort of scientific rigor that, say, the existence and nature of certain germs has been demonstrated. Part of the reason, of course, is that no one has figured out a way to actually reproduce evolution in a way that is persuasive to all. Part of it is that the evidence is so wonderously thin that it would be laughable to a forensic pathologist who actually has to prove things. That doesn’t mean we therefore should not believe in evolution or at least grant it some credence. It simply means that it’s not a “science” in the same sort of way that, say, microbiology is a “science”.
Sometimes science reaches out into the thin air out of necessity. Its demonstrable theories have borders beyond which it is difficult to reach. I remember, for example, my brother telling me about his masters’ thesis in engineering. Apparently, so many theses have been written that it’s very difficult to write an “original” thesis nowadays without positing premises that cannot be demonstrated physically. So, they end up making assumptions that are simply mathematical models that cannot possibly be demonstrated physically, packing a bunch of them together and demonstating the “point” mathematically. Astrophysicists, it appears, are out in the “thin air” in some ways as well. They posit “branes” and “strings” and all kinds of things that arguably work out mathematically, but which are not demonstrable and are almost certainly never going to be demonstrable.
I don’t have a problem with people who promote theories regarding evolution any more than I have one with those who promote engineering theories about how some theoretically possible metallic atoms might interact with some other theoretically possible thing under theoretically possible pressures and temperatures, none of which can be demonstrated to actually exist.
But, just as with the more radical versions of creationism, some of those to whom evolutionary theory is personally important, make leaps as well, sometimes, though not necessarily always, for the very same reason as the radical creationists do. I do read, for example, that the much-heralded “mashed lemur”, touted as the remote ancestor of men and apes, is now viewed skeptically by evolutionists. In my mind, the conclusions drawn about the “food carrying ape man” is no more established as a scientific certitude than were those surrounding the “mashed lemur”.
Now and again, there will be an argument among researchers regarding whether Neanderthals died out or whether they simply interbred with Homo Sapiens. There are all sorts of sub-theories about the former. Did they die out because they were murdered by Homo Sapiens? Did they die out because the ice sheets receded? The “die out” people believe DNA evidence negates the possibility that they interbred with Homo Sapiens. Others argue that it does not. But nobody really knows, and probably never will know.
Now, when it comes to all that, again, its interesting stuff and kind of fun, really, in the same sort of way that the theories about “why Rome fell” are interesting. But when it comes to the hardened “this is science in the same sort of way that germ theory is science” assertions, I cannot help but suspect the assertions are ideologically motivated, just as I suspect the “young earth” theories, with all their anecdotal “evidence” are ideologically motivated.
Now, to me, it is of no great importance whether the “food carrying ape man” walked upright because he had become more socialized (which smacks of Lamarckian evolutionary theory just a bit) or whether it was a DNA glitch that did not bring disaster with it.
It’s a big deal to both religiously-motivated creationists and young earth promoters to argue their theories. Whether they overstate their evidence (and I think they do) is not important to my life or to my beliefs, but their insistence is at least mildly irritating. It is a big deal to atheists to find “missing links” and argue that somehow they explain human nature fully. I think some of those folks overstate their evidence as well. In both cases, the insistence that they are “scientifically right” is, in my mind, philosophically motivated, and isn’t “scientific fact” at all. It’s “evidence”. The fact that some innocent people have been jailed or executed based on “evidence” should give us pause when considering whether we should hang our hats on mere “evidence” of any kind.
Actually, for me it is easy to accept some form of evolution, i.e., adaptation, founder effect, etc., within the animal kingdom.