Strange you should mention that because I do have a fuzzy recollection that, but I got so mad I hit it right back.
Science is not a democracy. As much as we would like it to be, the truth is not up to the consensus. Of course expert opinion is important, and needs to be considered. But it is also wrong quite often. One would need to be ignorant of the history of science to think otherwise.
The reasons why scientists accept theories are many and complex, with the empirical evidence being just one of many factors. Even more so with a theory with as many implications as evolution. So no, I’m certainly not saying that all scientists who accept common descent are doing so for an ideological agenda. I have not talked to all of them. I have not even talked with a fraction of them.
Nor did I ever imply any such thing. What you are doing is engaging in a strawman argument. When I became interested in evolution, my first step, and it was a long, time-consuming step, was to collect all the arguments for evolution. I wanted to understand why it was known to be a fact. I wanted to get that argument in front of me, in all its strength. I wanted the strongest data, evidences, and arguments for evolution. I wasn’t exactly sure how we knew evolution was known to be a fact, and my curiosity was growing. I have always wanted the strongest arguments, and always wanted to avoid the strawman trap. If it was a fact, then great, I’m on-board. I read the literature, and I talked with the experts.
Now these evidences and arguments can be complicated. You will often see a fairly general, or vague, claim made. So you need to follow up, looking at the references, the data, and so forth, to reconstruct the claim. So it took some time. But what I discovered is that there are no scientific supports for this claim. There are a great many supports, and it certainly is true that evolution is a fact. But that claim needs to be understood in the context of the premises and assumptions the support it. What I found is that it always comes down to the underlying metaphysics. Evolution is a fact, but not a scientific fact.
Well not from my perspective. But I have found that when religion is involved, it is very difficult to change ones mind.
Strange that you would find that to be “unjust” since you yourself, earlier in this thread, made just such an assertion. You wrote:
That is what I refer to as the “Greater God” argument. It traces all the way back to the 17th and 18th centuries. It was a powerful argument and foundation for a strictly naturalistic origins narrative and was popular with Lutherans and Anglicans (Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus also used it!).