Why are thinkers so rare?

     I'm not talking about people of any particular intellectual caliber, here. I'm talking about people who actually bother to think. Anybody can do it. By analogy, fuzzy vision does not mean that one cannot open one's eyes; it only limits the perception. But it seems that most people just let some "leader" do their thinking for them. Then, with the strength of numbers, they declare that they have "demontrated" that dissenting positions are ridiculous. Obviously, religions do this. That's to be expected. It is the nature of religion. But this behaviour extends much farther than that.

Has a supporter of evolution decreed that it is false?

Pvblivs,

I forgot this bit:

(In what follows, "it" refers to "universal common descent")

"Lateral tranfers of information (which occur in bacteria) are consistent with it."

Nope, Lateral gene transfer is NOT consistent with it.

[Name withheld]


     Well, Wikipedia has an article on lateral gene transfer. Lateral gene transfers are a known reality. This poster says they are inconsistent with universal common descent. Logically, that would mean that universal common descent is false.
     In all likelihood, he probably meant to claim that lateral gene transfer among macroscopic life forms is inconsistent with universal common descent. Of course, that's not true either. That is just taking something we believe not to occur and declaring it a "potential falsifier" for that which is intrinsicly untestable.