" 
 :You have never offended me, and have no need to apologize,though I appreciate the sentiment.  I believe Wikipedia ought to be an egalitarian environment where people's contributions should be evaluated based on the quality of the research, and not the qualifications of the researcher.  But if you are asking, I owe you an answer: I have a PhD. In anthropoogy.  I am a cultural anthropologist which one could number among the ""historical"" or ""human"" sciences.  As part of my training I had to have a fair (but by no means technical) grasp of the theory of human evulution, the fossil evidence for human evolution, and primate behavior; I also have fair knowledge of the ""scientif knowledge"" (e.g. what is the difference is between a pradigm, theory, hypothesis, and fact; some basic knowledge about sampling and the difference between precision and accuracy and validity).  My own interests have lead me to read a good deal about the Bible and Biblical history.  Really, I do not think that one's background should be an issue here, except in the most technical of cases.  The only advantage I think I have over many other contributors is that I have a fair idea of what kind of scholarly literature is out there, and how to tell the difference between good scholarship and bad scholarship ....   "