It is amazing what evolutionists say when confronted with their own words. Perhaps the most consistent claim of evolutionists is that evolution is a fact. For centuries evolutionary thinkers have been making high truth claims, and the evolution-is-fact claim is now standard in the literature. But when confronted with this claim in light of the facts of biology which contradict their idea, evolutionists retort that you don't understand the concept of a "fact." But what is there not to understand? Evolutionists say their idea is a fact as much as is gravity. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt, and it would be perverse to doubt it.Evolutionists have made their claim of facthood quite clear. The facts of biology are also quite clear, and so there is a contradiction. The facts of biology certainly do not demonstrate evolution to be a fact. Not even close. There is biological evidence for evolution, but there is also plenty of contradictory evidence. There certainly is room for debate about how badly evolution fares in light of biology. And of course certain facets of the idea fare better than others. But a fact it is not. It may be true, but we cannot know that from the evidence at hand.
Such problems induce a curious reaction on the part of evolutionists. They say you do not understand what constitutes a fact. Just because evolution is a fact doesn't mean we understand it completely. Just as there are questions about how gravity works, so too there are questions about how evolution works. But both remain as facts. The laws of nature do not suspend themselves, as Stephen Jay Gould once explained, while scientists debate the particulars.
It is true that no one would doubt gravity just because we don't fully understand the mechanism. After all, we observe and feel gravity everyday. It is an empirical fact. But evolution is not an empirical fact. We do not observe a fish evolving into a giraffe over eons of time. It must be inferred from evidence, and this brings us back to those thorny biological facts.
But wait, evolutionists just explained that biological facts don't matter--that evolution is a fact regardless of whether we have it figured out. Their explanation is that evolution has an ontological status that transcends the scientific details. There is the fact of evolution, and then there is the theory of evolution. This fact-theory dichotomy is a key apologetic in evolutionary thought. Notice that it decouples evolution from the evidence and makes the theory immune to the facts of biology. You can point out all the evidential problems you want--they don't affect the facthood of evolution.
But if the facts of biology can't hurt evolution, then they can't help either. How then do we know evolution is a fact? If evolution is not an empirical fact, and we cannot infer it from the evidence without substantial speculation and heroics, then why are evolutionists so sure?
"But wait, evolutionists just explained that biological facts don't matter--that evolution is a fact regardless of whether we have it figured out. Their explanation is that evolution has an ontological status that transcends the scientific details."
ReplyDeleteCould you provide a quote for this hypothetical Darwinist, who when pressed, says I don't need no stinking evidence, evolution is ontologically true? What a strawman! Why is it, that the entire scientific endeavor is a search for data? Why do our textbooks provide evidences?
On the contrary, I think most would start listing the data known, referencing the scientific literature. Like here:
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution
The Scientific Case for Common Descent
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
We might also point out no biological theory has had the predictive power of evolution, nor has any evidence falsified it.
We might also discuss how evolutionary thinking is not monolithic, and has been refined by the disproof of certain sub-hypotheses, and inclusion of others, like horizontal gene transfer and endosymbiotic hypotheses.
"You can point out all the evidential problems you want"
You can, but if they are as weak as the ones here, what really, do you expect us to say--oh, catfish evolved poisons (not really convergently, since they are molecularity and anatomically distinct; not that convergence is even an issue) a few times in 250 million years-there goes the theory?
Robert,
ReplyDeleteYou say that that the theory of evolution has predictive power? What does the word predictive mean to you?
Predictive: to indicate in advance, based on scientific reason.
ReplyDeleteFor example, common descent would predict shared biochemistry. It would predict gene sequences forming phylogenetic 'trees.' It could predict finding specific transitional fossils in certain layers.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteI think that you, and talkorigins, are conflating common descent and macro-evolution. It seems to me that macro-evolution could happen with common design just as well as common descent.
"I think that you, and talkorigins, are conflating common descent and macro-evolution."
ReplyDeleteI don't see a bright line distinguishing the two. If two species share common descent, but are distinct, have they not undergone macro-evolution? I know ID and the like are constantly trying to divorce the theory of its evolution from its data by forcing distinction, but I've never heard a scientific theory that posits one without the other.
"It seems to me that macro-evolution could happen with common design just as well as common descent."
Usually design arguments go against evolution (hence "uncommon descent"). Seems like this would be a theistic evolution perspective?
And of course common descent or evolution can fit in a design paradigm. Anything can fit within a creationist design paradigm, as it is wholly unscientific.
Robert -- do a little research on the disparate views within ID regarding common descent. There's plenty of voices in the room regarding descent. You'll find that common descent in no way disallows design. For example, you'll discover folks that believe "front-loading" is likely responsible for what you term common descent.
ReplyDeleteYour comment that "anything can fit within a creationist design paradigm" is somewhat ironic. The point of this post is that evolutionists are so convinced of the "fact" of evolution that contrary evidence is irrelevant. It's the evolutionists that are committing the logical fallacy.
Macro-evolution is a belief system and will remain a belief system until actual evidence is discovered that demonstrates the suitability of random chance mutations to achieve *anything* interesting in biology (anything beyond what has been observed with viruses, for example). All the evolutionists have right now (as clearly indicated in the post we are discussing) is an inference and a guess.
Evolutionists are kidding themselves when they claim to have answered the ID arguments regarding specified complexity, irreducible complexity, etc. No objective scientist would accept the hand-waving stories offered up as responses to these very real challenges. What you have in the church of "macro-evolution as fact" is a belief system that, like all belief systems, cannot be challenged because it is a faith position. To challenge it is heresy.
Let me be the first to welcome all the evolutionists to the fundamentalist camp.
Could you provide a quote for this hypothetical Darwinist, who when pressed, says I don't need no stinking evidence, evolution is ontologically true? What a strawman!
ReplyDeleteNothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution? Or perhaps:
It is time to turn the burden of proof around, the way Darwin did when he challenged his critics to describe some other way--other than natural selection--in which all the wonders of nature could have arisen. [All?!] Those who think that the human mind is non-algorithmic should consider the hubris presupposed by that position. (Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life by Daniel Dennett :451)
Or perhaps:
We might also point out no biological theory has had the predictive power of evolution, nor has any evidence falsified it.
Well, what evidence would falsify "evolution," whatever it is? After all, how could you falsify a "fact"?
All distinction and definition seems to merge in the Darwinian mind, so right after pointing out that no observation has falsified it you say:
We might also discuss how evolutionary thinking is not monolithic, and has been refined by the disproof of certain sub-hypotheses, and inclusion of others...
So what are some of the defining characteristics of evolutionary thought and theory which are open to falsification? What is the structure of evolutionary theory?
Predictive: to indicate in advance, based on scientific reason.
ReplyDeleteFor example, common descent would predict shared biochemistry. It would predict gene sequences forming phylogenetic 'trees.'
Predictions and falsifiability are generally an illusion when it comes to "evolution," whatever it is. So if phylogenetic trees are not observed is that advanced as a falsification of "evolution"?
Not at all:
For much of the past 150 years, biology has largely concerned itself with filling in the details of the tree. "For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life," says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. "We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality," says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change.
So what happened? In a nutshell, DNA.
[...]
…it is clear that the Darwinian tree is no longer an adequate description of how evolution in general works. “If you don’t have a tree of life, what does it mean for evolutionary biology?” asks Bapteste. “At first it’s very scary… but in the past couple of years people have begun to free their minds.” Both he and Doolittle are at pains to stress that downgrading the tree of life doesn’t mean that the theory of evolution is wrong – just that evolution is not as tidy as we would like to believe. Some evolutionary relationships are tree-like; many others are not. “We should relax a bit on this,” says Doolittle. “We understand evolution pretty well – it’s just that it is more complex than Darwin imagined. The tree isn’t the only pattern.”
Why Darwin Was Wrong About the Tree of Life, New Scientist
It could predict finding specific transitional fossils in certain layers.
ReplyDeleteAnother illusion, if that supposed prediction were falsified then evolution, whatever it is, would still be true in the minds of many. Even if the primary signal of the fossil record falsified mental illusions of that sort, "evolution" would still tend to overwhelm the intellects of many:
Stasis is data.
So if stasis could not be explained away as missing information, how could gradualism face this most prominent signal from the fossil record? The most negative of all strategies-a quite unconscious conspiracy of silence-dictated the canonical response of paleontologists to their observations of stasis. Again, a “culprit” may be identified in the ineluctable embedding of observation within theory. Facts have no independent existence in science, or in any human endeavor; theories grant differing weights, values, and descriptions, even to the most empirical and undeniable of observations. Darwin’s expectations defined evolution as gradual change. Generations of paleontologists learned to equate the potential documentation of evolution with the discovery of insensible intermediacy in a sequence of fossils. In this context, stasis can only record sorrow and disappointment.
Paleontologists therefore came to view stasis as just another failure to document evolution. Stasis existed in overwhelming abundance, as every paleontologist knew. But this primary signal of the fossil record, defined as an absence of data for evolution, only highlighted our frustration-and certainly did not represent anything worth publishing. Paleontology therefore fell into a literally absurd vicious circle. No one ventured to document or quantify-indeed, hardly anyone even bothered to mention or publish at all-the most common pattern in the fossil record: the stasis of most morpho-species throughout all their geological duration.
(The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Harvard College) by Stephen Jay Gould :759-760)
The tree of life falsified by the evidence, gradualism generally falsified, are these not the central pillars of Darwinian theory? If proponents are still seeking to define its structure while others seek its "edge" and so on is there even a "theory"? The irony is that if there was actually a highly specified theory of evolution with general and verifiable application it might undermine or do away with progressive creation myths. As it stands, there is generally nothing but hypothetical goo and mental illusions which apparently seem like overwhelming evidence to limited intellects.
As it stands, there is generally nothing but hypothetical goo and mental illusions which apparently seem like overwhelming evidence to limited intellects.
ReplyDeleteHi mynym
With your less limited intellect, have you come across a better explanation? If so, could you tell us about it?
Punctuated equilibrium disproves what?
ReplyDeleteAnd are you seriously arguing there are no transitional forms found in appropriate layers?
Wow.
And phylogenetic trees are readily observed in "higher organisms." Blast your favorite protein, and cluster the results. It is do it-yourself phylogeny!
From your favorite article:
"Nobody is arguing - yet - that the tree concept has outlived its usefulness in animals and plants. While vertical descent is no longer the only game in town, it is still the best way of explaining how multicellular organisms are related to one another "
That they have been complicated by HGT and endosybiosis does not disqualify evolution. It merely shows microbes were doing it different. Which, by the way, should really accelerate evolution...
Well, what evidence would falsify "evolution," whatever it is? After all, how could you falsify a "fact"?
ReplyDeleteCambrian rabbits.
With your less limited intellect, have you come across a better explanation?
ReplyDeleteThan what? Evolution is hypothetical goo based on numerous explanations that can hardly even be specified as "Darwinian theory" anymore. It is receding into the hypothetical goo from which it arose yet it is still assumed to be a fact, therefore hypothetical goo will always be with us.
If so, could you tell us about it?
It would be up to me to specify the so-called "theory" and then point to a better one, as even its proponents have hardly specified anything. For example, it apparently explains a tree of life as well as no tree of life equally well. There is no specification there for another theory to be better than in the first place. Better than what, precisely? The notion of a tree of life?
Cambrian rabbits.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Gould the primary signal of the fossil record is generally not recorded, yet you expect that anomalies like that would not and could not be explained away and discarded? Numerous anomalous fossils have already been found in the Cambrian and elsewhere but like the "primary signal" of the fossil record they are not consistent with most evolutionary creation myths. And if that has not been recorded then why should a few anomalies* be studied by the scientific community? If the primary signal of the whole fossil record can be missed then why would a rabbit in the pre-Cambrian supposedly be recorded and studied?
*E.g.The following report, titled "A Relic of a Bygone Age," appeared in the magazine Scientific American (June 5, 1852):
"A few days ago a powerful blast was made in the rock at Meeting House Hill, in Dorchester, a few rods south of Rev. Mr. Hall's meeting house. The blast threw out an immense mass of rock, some of the pieces weighing several tons, and scattered fragments in all directions. Among them was picked up a metallic vessel in two parts, rent asunder by the explosion. On putting the two parts together it formed a bell-shaped vessel, 4-1/2 inches high, 6-1/2 inches at the base, 2-1/2 inches at the top, and about an eighth of an inch in thickness. The body of this vessel resembles zinc in color, or a composition metal, in which there is a considerable portion of silver. On the side there are six figures or a flower, or bouquet, beautifully inlaid with pure silver, and around the lower part of the vessel a vine, or wreath, also inlaid with silver.
The chasing, carving, and inlaying are exquisitely done by the art of some cunning workman. This curious and unknown vessel was blown out of the solid pudding stone, fifteen feet below the surface. It is now in the possession of Mr. John Kettell. Dr. J. V. C. Smith, who has recently traveled in the East, and examined hundreds of curious domestic utensils, and has drawings of them, has never seen anything resembling this. He has taken a drawing and accurate dimensions of it, to be submitted to the scientific. There is not doubt but that this curiosity was blown out of the rock, as above stated; but will Professor Agassiz, or some other scientific man please to tell us how it came there? The matter is worthy of investigation, as there is no deception in the case." cf.
(The Hidden History of the Human Race by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson)
Punctuated equilibrium disproves what?
ReplyDeleteDarwinian gradualism for one, although you shouldn't be worried because the hypothetical goo known as "evolution" can comport with all possible observations. Darwin at least specified some theories but even he liked to wallow around in the hypothetical goo typical to evolution:
Charles Darwin surely ranks as the most genial of history’s geniuses-possessing none of those bristling quirks and arrogance that usually mark the type. Yet, one subject invariably aroused his closest approach to fury-the strawman claim, so often advanced by his adversaries, that he regarded natural selection as an exclusive mode of change in evolution. (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen J. Gould :147)
And are you seriously arguing there are no transitional forms found in appropriate layers?
Even if the skeletal remains being observed were transitional, imagining things about the past would not be scientific evidence that they actually were. If the main goal of paleontologists was to document evolution by finding transitional forms to the point that they did not record the primary signal of the fossil record then there is also an element of confirmation bias to consider. And on the rare occasions when what many imagined about living organisms based on skeletal remains can be put to the test their imaginary organisms have been falsified.*
*E.g.
ReplyDeleteA particularly interesting case which illustrates both the problem of convergence and the danger of judging overall biology on skeletal grounds is that of the rhipidistian fishes. For nearly a century these ancient lobe finned fishes, as they are often known, have been generally considered to be ideal amphibian ancestors and have been classed as intermediate between fish and the terrestrial vertebrates. This judgment was based on a number of skeletal features including the pattern of their skull bones, the structure of their teeth and vertebral columns and even the pattern of bones in their fins, in all of which they closely resembled the earliest known amphibians. It was assumed that their soft biology would be also transitional between that of typical fish and amphibia. But in 1938 fishermen in the Indian Ocean, off Cape Province in South Africa, hauled to the surface a living relative of the ancient Rhipidistia - the coelacanth. It was an astonishing discovery, as the coelacanth had been thought to be extinct for a hundred million years. Because the coelacanth is a close relative of the Rhipidistia, here at last was the opportunity to examine first hand the biology of one of the classic evolutionary links. Its discovery provoked considerable excitement. Peter Forey comments:
'We had to wait nearly one hundred years before discovery of the recent coelacanth. During that time many fossil coelacanths were described and, on the basis of osteological features, their systematic position as near relatives of the extinct rhipidistians and as tetrapod cousins had become part of "evolutionary fact", perpetuated today in textbooks. Great things were therefore expected from the study of the soft anatomy and physiology of Latimeria. With due allowance for the fact that Latimeria is a truly marine fish, it was expected that some insight might be gained into the soft anatomy and physiology of that most cherished group, the rhipidistians. Here, at last, was a chance to glimpse the workings of a tetrapod ancestor. These expectations were founded on two premises. First, that rhipidistians are the nearest relatives of tetrapods and secondly, that Latimeria is a rhipidistian derivative.'
But examination of the living coelacanth proved very disappointing. Much of its soft anatomy, particularly that of the heart, intestine and brain, was not what was expected of a tetrapod ancestor.
[....]
If the case of the coelacanth illustrates anything, it shows how difficult it is to draw conclusions about the overall biology of organisms from their skeletal remains alone. Because the soft biology of extinct groups can never be known with any certainty then obviously the status of even the most convincing intermediates is bound to be insecure. The coelacanth represents yet another instance where a newly discovered species, which might have provided the elusive evidence of intermediacy so long sought by evolutionary biology, ultimately proved to be only another peripheral twig on the presumed tree of life.
(Evolution: A Theory In Crisis by Michael Denton :179, 180)