I like Thomas' quote, "Present some data, or show us how to understand your non-scientific perspective. I am open to (1) hearing your opinion, then (2) allowing myself enough critical thought to reject it. " I think he was being honest without even trying. He didn't say, "...allowing myself enough critical thought to accept or reject it." He said in the selfsame sentence that he would use critical thought, then reject something he has not yet examined, the very antithesis of critical thinking.
Whether debating science, philosophy, religion or the like, critical thinking involves considering whatever information is presented, no matter how ludicrous it may sound, and then coming to a conclusion based on unbiased commonly held standards of evaluation. By this standard, belief or disbelief in anything not experienced first hand is suspect to criticism. Even debate over scientific date is subjective: how was the data obtained, what was the desired outcome of the researcher, would the scientist in question dismiss credible evidence for a theory opposite to his own. As history is replete with examples of "human contamination" in the scientific process, the truer a person is to that process, the less sure he can be about another man's conclusions.
I have been reading recently in Darwin's "The Descent of Man". Having not previously read it, I anticipated a barrage of science that led to what Darwin found to be irrefutable conclusions. Instead, it was a book of philosophy and science fiction, based on a basic and unproven premise. In essence, it was a religious book filled with conclusions often so absurd as to defy any modern credulity. He took what was not so much as a needle in the haystack of available data and constructed it into a straw man of his own design. Because it had such appeal to the growing antitheistic movement of his time, it was readily received, not on its merit (I mean, really?), but on its philisophical premise and implication. In other words, to accept Darwin meant no absolutes, no religion, supernatural, no God.
Coming to the conclusion that there is no God is relatively simple: adapt a naturalistic view of everything which by definition rejects not only any possible evidence of a Creator but engaging in any philosophical debate that considers one. The irony here is that Darwin used a little science and a lot of philosophy to introduce to the world a doctrine of thought adapted by many who claim to accept nothing but "empirical evidence", a thing that Darwin's works severely lacked. Strip the rhetoric and supposition from "The Origin of Species" and what is left is mostly junk science by modern standards.
My argument, then, philosophical based on my experience with people in general, is that Darwin's works were more about a desired outcome than pure science, or what I like to call "agenda based argument". I have entered into many a discussion with individuals who draw from the most obtuse "facts" to make their case, much like my favorite scene from the TV series monk in which Randy and the chief are arguing about who the chief would save if both Randy and Monk were drowning. It went something like this:
Randy: If Monk and I were both drowning, who would you save?
Chief: Well, that's easy, because I happen to know that Monk can't swim and that you are an excellent swimmer.
Randy: But what if I were holding an anchor?
Chief: Then let go of the anchor?
Randy: What if it was a family heirloom?
Until all people, religious or not, are willing to put their own current belief systems on the line and consider whatever evidence is presented objectively, there is no real discussion, only a fruitless exchange of opinions.
The more I read and study of evolution, the more I see it as a philosophical belief system and not pure science. The ease at which people accept even the most radical ideas is one evidence to that fact, and the dogmatic intolerance of many evolutionists of alternate theories is another.
