There’s Only One Problem …
So the paper’s conclusion that it has “shown that natural selection has indeed exerted substantial influence on transcription factor binding sites in the human genome” is not really true. They showed no such thing since the entire exercise was predicated on the truth of evolution.
This is not to say that circular reasoning in science is necessarily worthless. Sometimes it can make sense to assume the truth of a theory. But of course one must not forget that initial assumption when advertising the results.
Furthermore, in this case, the assumed theory is that, err, the species arose spontaneously. And the resulting finding is that humans evolved from an ancient primate mostly by changing the expression levels of preexisting proteins.
That is a finding that has been contemplated for years and takes evolution’s serendipity to a whole new level.
Imagine a factory that produces automobiles. Do you think that by changing the quantities of the various parts the factory would then produce rocket ships? Those automobile parts just happened to be what was needed for a rocket ship.
What evolutionists are now forced to say is that it just so happened that the proteins required to make humans evolved millions of years ago in far less fit species. The main difference was the quantities of those various proteins. Evolution merely needed to adjust those expression levels to produce a far more capable species. Right.
So to summarize, evolutionists are now advertising a circular finding based on the scientifically unlikely idea that the entire biological world spontaneously arose and the finding has evolutionists believing in ridiculous levels of serendipity.
Religion drives science, and it matters.
Cornelius Hunter
ReplyDeleteSo the paper’s conclusion that it has “shown that natural selection has indeed exerted substantial influence on transcription factor binding sites in the human genome” is not really true. They showed no such thing since the entire exercise was predicated on the truth of evolution.
Since the 'truth' of evolution - common descent over deep time - has already been conclusively confirmed by science, what's the problem?
Oh, that's right. You've been pushing Creation pseudoscience for so long you've forgotten how real science works.
What a cretin. LOL. How does 'common descent over deep time' prove the truth of Darwinian evolution and not the truth of design evolution? Why can't intelligent design evolution use common descent? Besides, it's a lie (all Darwinists are liars) that there is strict common descent in nature. Common descent with many exceptions is what is observed. It just as much a rule of good design over time as it is a rule of your stupid dirt-did-it religion. The main difference is that we know how intelligent design works (we do it all the time) but we know doodley squat about the molecular mechanisms of evolution that supposedly turned simple cells into elephants.
DeleteI have the sudden urge to barf in a stupid looking Darwinist's face. LOL.
I really like the "dirt-did-it" part. It proves their religion has not really taken off the ground yet!
DeleteEvolution is a dirt-worshiping, elitist religion created by pompous asses who managed to convince themselves that they are smarter than everyone else. Elitism is evil because it forces its adherents to wear blinders and perform intellectual incest and masturbation in public. But it's always fun to watch. :D
DeleteAccording to the bible "God formed from the ground every beast of the field and all the birds of the sky", and "God formed man from the dust of the ground", and "God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground".
DeleteSounds like "dirt" is pretty important to 'God'. Maybe you shouldn't make fun of it. You don't want to piss off 'God' and burn in hell forever, do you?
DrHunter ,
ReplyDeleteWhat evolutionists are now forced to say is that it just so happened that the proteins required to make humans evolved millions of years ago in far less fit species
The exact wood I used just so happened to grow in a particular tree. If genetic evidence is correct humans almost proved to be less fit than our theorized ancestor, our existence a short term experiment.
Cornelius Hunter
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, in this case, the assumed theory is that, err, the species arose spontaneously.
Err no. No one in science says or thinks humans or chimps arose spontaneously. Science says both species descended from a common ancestor that lived 4-6 MYA. You've been hanging with the other ignorant Creationists too long CH.
What evolutionists are now forced to say is that it just so happened that the proteins required to make humans evolved millions of years ago in far less fit species.
Another amazingly ignorant thing to say. Evolutionary fitness is a measure of reproductive success in the local environment. No one in science says or thinks modern humans are 'more fit' in their environment that the human-chimp common ancestor was in its environment 4-6 MYA.
You must work awfully hard to come up with claims this stupid to appease your Creationist supporters.
Thorton said:
Delete"No one in science says or thinks modern humans are 'more fit' in their environment that the human-chimp common ancestor was in its environment 4-6 MYA."
That made me think about something:
Hey jeff, cornelius, louis, nat, neal, nic, etc., if humans are superior, special, more 'fit', and are the pinnacle of and the reason for 'God's creation', then why didn't humans exist right from the start of the universe or at least from the start of life on Earth?
Sponges and lizards and sharks and beetles and plants and various primates and lots of other living things have been around way longer than humans, and bacteria goes way, way back. Why is that if humans are special, superior, and more 'fit'?
Do you think that humans will last as long as dragonflies have already?
Thorton: Hey jeff, cornelius, louis, nat, neal, nic, etc., if humans are superior, special, ...
DeleteJ: Surely you don't deny that humans are unique in certain psychological attributes, huh? If so, can you provide me evidence that such is the consensus view?
Sorry, TWT, I meant to attribute the above quote to you.
DeleteGreat point. The important thing to remember is that life evolves and humans are a recent 'creation'. Where is the so called intelligent designer and why arebso many deign events flawed? Seems the deigner likes to s rew up a lot. When my mom boned my dad, impregnating her or th first time the little squirt came out deformed and he died soon after. Man, the designer could benefit from some six sigma training.
Deletejeff asked:
Delete"Surely you don't deny that humans are unique in certain psychological attributes, huh?"
Yeah, humans are apparently unique in certain psychological attributes, but the same thing can be said about other critters. You can't think like a turtle, a butterfly, a worm, or a whale, can you? Every other living thing is just as "unique" as you are.
And there's also the fact that humans vary widely in their "psychological attributes". Is that because 'God's image' is that of a monstrous psychopath, a nice person, a mentally retarded person, a brilliant person, a comatose person, a two headed person, and everything in between?
"Imagine a factory that produces automobiles. Do you think that by changing the quantities of the various parts the factory would then produce rocket ships? Those automobile parts just happened to be what was needed for a rocket ship."
ReplyDeleteExcellent analogy, very illuminating, especially for those of us that are not biology scientists. I would like to see much more of this type of heuristic.
Wouldn't the proteins in your story be more like the tools in the factory,rather than the parts? Isn't their configuration the tool which creates the individual parts?
DeleteOr at least the workers in the factory,able with the same tools create radically different vehicles for example Henry Ford turning auto plants into plants for construction of bombers.
CH: Imagine a factory that produces automobiles. Do you think that by changing the quantities of the various parts the factory would then produce rocket ships? Those automobile parts just happened to be what was needed for a rocket ship.
ReplyDeleteHere's a perfect example of how Cornelius contradicts himself.
On one hand, Cornelius claims evolutionary theory is improbable because the near universality of DNA and proteins allows its quantity and order to be varied to create the entire biosphere.
But then he turns around and compares the same near universality of DNA and proteins with non-universal parts used in factories that are specifically designed to build automobiles. In many cases, parts are designed for specific models of automobiles, so they cannot even be used other cars by the same manufacture, let alone rocket ships.
As such, you could say his analogy fails as spectacularly as, well, a failed rocket ship launch.
As such, you could say his analogy fails as spectacularly as, well, a failed rocket ship launch.
Delete"Science" by stupid non-applicable analogy: serving the Creationist community since time immemorial.
Scott: On one hand, Cornelius claims evolutionary theory is improbable because the near universality of DNA and proteins allows its quantity and order to be varied to create the entire biosphere.
DeleteJ: Where did he say that?
See just one example here. DNA is unlikely because it is unique and special. One of the ways the code is unique and special is that its order and quantity can be varied to build the entire biosphere. It's a variation of "It's too complex and purposeful to have evolved" canard.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a canard. You can't stand it because it is a solid argument against the stupid hypothesis that order can rise out of random interactions. The latter does not lead to order. On the contrary, it destroys order.
DeleteThis stuff is elementary. Why is it still being discussed? It's because a bunch of elitist A-holes have managed to use the force of law to take over a branch of science and impose their stupid religion on the rest of us.
Scott, when you can't calculate probabilities in terms of observed frequencies (as is the case in the question at hand), the only kind of probability calculation left is the number of known functional sequences divided by the total # of sequences in DNA sequence space.
DeleteThe fact that the latter doesn't prove that naturalistic UCA is improbable is irrelevant. What is relevant to scientific CLAIMS is that naturalistic UCA is not known to BE probable or possible. And yet scientists incessantly pontificate about the overwhelming evidence of naturalistic UCA. Yet, what can that even objectively mean given the human inability to calculate a probability for it? No one can explain it via hypothetico-deduction. It's MERELY a SUBJECTIVELY believed hypothesis like every one that scientists insist are "non-scientific."
Scott: On one hand, Cornelius claims evolutionary theory is improbable because the near universality of DNA and proteins allows its quantity and order to be varied to create the entire biosphere.
DeleteJ: Where did he say that?
Scott: See just one example here.
Jeff: The fact that the latter doesn't prove that naturalistic UCA is improbable is irrelevant.
It's relevant to the failed analogy Cornelius presented in this post. He's comparing the very same property which he claimed makes DNA evolution unlikely (universality) with automobile parts which are not universal. In fact, they can be so specific that they cannot be used on cars from the same manufacture.
Furthermore, it's relevant in that probability simply isn't valid criticism unless the process is completely random and you know all of the possible outcomes.
For example, we do not know the set of all functional sequences is equal to the set of all known functional sequences. So, this sort of probability isn't a valid means of determining if underlying explanation is more or less probable.
Jeff: What is relevant to scientific CLAIMS is that naturalistic UCA is not known to BE probable or possible.
Apparently, you're still confused about how science works.
That X isn't known to be probably or possible is a bad criticism because it can be applied equally to anything that isn't completely random and where all the possible outcomes are not known. IOW, it can be applied equally to anything that is not completely random and where the outcomes are not known.
To make progress, we devise criticisms that would be applicable to some conjectures, but not others. That X isn't known to be probably or possible isn't specific to any conjectures of the type we're discussing. So, it cannot be applied in a critical way.
What differentiates science, is that it includes criticism in the form empirical observations. This would include a hypothesis in the distance past that would have *necessary* consequences for the current state of the system, today, which we can test empirically.
However, an abstract designer with no defined limitations has no *necessary* consequences for the current state of the system.
See What did Karl Popper Really Say About Evolution, which expands on this further.
Scott: See What did Karl Popper Really Say About Evolution, which expands on this further.
DeleteJeff: Popper shows his confusion on the matter of the debate. The debate is not WHETHER evolution occurs. That's observable. The debate is over WHETHER there is evidence for UCA or naturalistic UCA. You have yet to provide it. Indeed, you can't even define evidence in any relevant sense since you deny that ANY hypotheses are ever known to be more probable/plausible than any other (even the rejected ones). No progress is possible if you're right. Because we never get, by your radical skepticism, epistemological warrant for voluntarily making choices based on one hypothesis over another.
. . . I see in modern Darwinism the most successful explanation of the relevant facts. [Popper, 1957, p. 106; emphasis added]
There exists no law of evolution, only the historical fact that plants and animals change, or more precisely, that they have changed. [Popper, 1963b, p. 340; emphasis added]
The latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios.
Jeff, you are off base here. Science seeks only natural explanations. The reason for this is simply that the supernatural, immaterial conscious forces, and the like are not observable and their assumed existences have never helped science progress. The supernatural is reserved for theology. So for example, there is a good amount of evidence that joe in africa, sontae in korea, bill in america, and chimps in congo share a common ancestor. Natural forces are observed to exist, so what's the problem? So within science, common ancestry has natural causes. So we all agree the appearance of design of life forms. Science explains the lack of a designer being observed in the ongoing reproduction and evolution of life by investigating natural mechanisms, while theology and i.d. Folks say there must be a designer that is unobservable or elusive or immaterial. Hell, even behe accepts, UCA.
DeleteBill: The reason for this is simply that the supernatural, immaterial conscious forces, and the like are not observable and their assumed existences have never helped science progress.
DeleteJeff: So are you an epiphenomenalist, then? And if so, how do scientists cause progress by conscious activity?
Jeff: The debate is over WHETHER there is evidence for UCA or naturalistic UCA. You have yet to provide it.
DeleteAgain, your request is unreasonable handwaving because there isn't *positive* evidence *for* any theory. However, this doesn't mean that evidence doesn't play an important role in criticizing theories or that there is significantly more or less evidence related to different theories.
To quote the article...
"What Popper calls the historical sciences do not make predictions about long past unique events (postdictions), which obviously would not be testable. (Several recent authors—including Stephen Jay Gould in Discover, July 1982—make this mistake.) These sciences make hypotheses involving past events which must predict (that is, have logical consequences) for the present state of the system in question. Here the testing procedure takes for granted the general laws and theories and is testing the specific conditions (or initial conditions, as Popper usually calls them) that held for the system.
Is there something about empirically testable, necessary consequences for the present system that you do not understand?
Jeff: Indeed, you can't even define evidence in any relevant sense since you deny that ANY hypotheses are ever known to be more probable/plausible than any other (even the rejected ones). No progress is possible if you're right.
Except I just did. This is the strawman, which I've repeatedly corrected. No progress can be made proving a theory is true or that is is more probable. But that's not the only kind of progress we can make. Progress can be made by discarding errors. It's when we stop looking for errors or assume that we have some infallible source that is exhaustively correct that no progress is possible. So you have it backwards.
Jeff: Because we never get, by your radical skepticism, epistemological warrant for voluntarily making choices based on one hypothesis over another.
DeleteFirst, rational criticism is not radical skepticism. Feel free to formulate a "principle of induction" that actually works, in practice. Should you do so, you'll be quite famous.
Second, you keep presenting the same false dichotomy. On one hand, you're correct in that we cannot achieve epistemological warrant *for* any theory. But then you mistakenly connect this with the idea that this leaves us without a criteria of what *explanatory* theory to adopt.
Apparently a recap in logic is necessary.
Arguments take the form that *if* their premises are true that something more specific would also be true. Modus ponens is one such form, but it begs the question. However, we can reformulate any modus ponens argument as modus tollans, which allows us to argue to a more specific negation, which does not beg the question.
However, we cannot actually *know* that any premises are true. We can only work with arguments in the scope of *if* they were true for the purpose of criticizing them via modus tollans. This is not rational skepticism but basic logic.
As for epistemological warrant…
"William Warren Bartley compared critical rationalism to the very general philosophical approach to knowledge which he called "justificationism". Most justificationists do not know that they are justificationists. ustificationism is what Popper called Ja "subjectivist" view of truth, in which the question of whether some statement is true, is confused with the question of whether it can be justified (established, proven, verified, warranted, made well-founded, made reliable, grounded, supported, legitimated, based on evidence) in some way.
According to Bartley, some justificationists are positive about this mistake. They are naïve rationalists, and thinking that their knowledge can indeed be founded, in principle, it may be deemed certain to some degree, and rational.
Other justificationists are negative about these mistakes. They are epistemological relativists, and think (rightly, according to the critical rationalist) that you cannot find knowledge, that there is no source of epistemological absolutism. But they conclude (wrongly, according to the critical rationalist) that there is therefore no rationality, and no objective distinction to be made between the true and the false.
By dissolving justificationism itself, the critical rationalist regards knowledge and rationality, reason and science, as neither foundational nor infallible, but nevertheless does not think we must therefore all be relativists. Knowledge and truth still exist, just not in the way we thought."
We adopt explanatory theories that have withstood the most criticism.
There exists no law of evolution, only the historical fact that plants and animals change, or more precisely, that they have changed. [Popper, 1963b, p. 340; emphasis added]
DeleteJeff: The latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios.
So what? It's unclear how you can use an abstract designer with no defined limitations in any critical way because design is perfectly comparable with any evidence. Again…
an abstract designer with no defined limitations has no *necessary* consequences for the current state of the system.
There is no "law" of evolution in the sense that is a different mode of explanation. It doesn't predict which mutations will occur because we cannot predict the impact the creation of knowledge will have, any more than people in 1900 could predict the internet or nuclear power. People in 1920 didn't consider nuclear power or the internet unlikely, they simply did not conceive of them at all.
Also, some creationists misrepresent Popper on all aspects of evolution, so that quote is to clarify Popper's position on the observations that evolution explains, whither he thought those observations were facts, etc.
Jeff,
DeleteThe latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios
Which ones exactly?
I can't think of an exception off the top of my head. Take Popper's claim and prove otherwise.
DeleteJeff: The latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios.
DeleteScott: So what? It's unclear how you can use an abstract designer with no defined limitations in any critical way
J: The whole point of positing design is to DECREASE the number of ad-hoc hypotheses. You posit of the designer what does that. Those attributes that make that work in hypothetico-deductive fashion then ARE the attributes that define the designer.
Scott: ... because design is perfectly comparable with any evidence.
J: You're wrong because you misunderstand the only kind of designer that has any epistemological value. We need a designer to ground the logical possibility of the relative plausibility criteria that people in fact use, despite your utterly ignorant denials to the contrary. And lots of atheists agree with me that a designer that explains a relative plausibility criteria must be consistent with a theodicy. So, no, there are constraints that a designer must be consistent with.
Scott: Again…an abstract designer with no defined limitations has no *necessary* consequences for the current state of the system.
J: No one, to my knowledge, believes in a designer that has no essential attributes. You're arguing against a straw man.
Scott: There is no "law" of evolution in the sense that is a different mode of explanation. It doesn't predict which mutations will occur because we cannot predict the impact the creation of knowledge will have, any more than people in 1900 could predict the internet or nuclear power. People in 1920 didn't consider nuclear power or the internet unlikely, they simply did not conceive of them at all.
Jeff: That which doesn't predict/imply observations doesn't explain them in any sense whatsoever.
Scott: Also, some creationists misrepresent Popper on all aspects of evolution, so that quote is to clarify Popper's position on the observations that evolution explains, whither he thought those observations were facts, etc.
J: "Evolution" doesn't explain anything. "Evolution" is a description, not an explanation. It will take tons more knowledge about the phenotypical/morphological effects of mutations in various genomic and extra-organismal contexts to start explaining much at all about specific variation.
Scott: We adopt explanatory theories that have withstood the most criticism.
DeleteJ: If no hypotheses are knowably more or less plausible than one another, then it's just as knowably probable/plausible that I have no actual memories as that I have some actual memories. IOW, what you call "rational criticism" is mere deduction from absolutely UNKNOWN, A-PLAUSIBLE premises. And this is just another way of saying that what you call "rational criticism" is indistinguishable from just believing stuff for no apparent reason (and that's assuming you don't question the LNC itself). You're UTTERLY confused.
Induction and deduction is what people use day in and day out when they aren't using mere association/habit. You can say it doesn't work, but then what would it mean to "not work" by your definition?
Scott: Again, your request is unreasonable handwaving because there isn't *positive* evidence *for* any theory.
DeleteJeff: Scott, have you ever heard any anti-ID'ist deny, as you do, that there is any "positive" evidence for naturalistic UCA? I haven't. They say just the opposite. It's THOSE people that CH is exposing. He's not disagreeing with you that there is no evidence for naturalistic UCA. Nor is he arguing against research. He's arguing against LYING in the name of science.
Scott: Is there something about empirically testable, necessary consequences for the present system that you do not understand?
DeleteJ: I've asked over and over for what "observation" would falsify naturalistic UCA. No one has come up with one. Z mentioned a Cambrian rabbit, and then backed off. Think about it. Once you're committed to natural hypotheses,
what OTHER naturalistic hypothesis seems more plausible than naturalistic UCA even IF there were mammals (even humans) found in the precambrian?
Of course you say no hypothesis is more plausible/probable than any other. So you're the ultimate irrelevant defender of any hypothesis.
Liar for Jesus Jeff
DeleteI've asked over and over for what "observation" would falsify naturalistic UCA. No one has come up with one.
Jeff is lying again. He's been offered several possible observations that if made would falsify the idea of a UCA. One quick example is discovering that different animal families have very different, non-compatible forms of DNA. Another would be having the phylogenetic tree seen in the fossil record be vastly discordant with the one made from extant animal genomic analysis.
Jeff is a serial liar, and he isn't very bright. He' is however a great Creationist example of the observation "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".
Moron: One quick example is discovering that different animal families have very different, non-compatible forms of DNA.
DeleteJ: What an idiot. Darwin didn't even know about DNA.
Moron: Another would be having the phylogenetic tree seen in the fossil record be vastly discordant with the one made from extant animal genomic analysis.
Jeff: Now that we know that there is little to no "junk" in DNA, no one has a clue how concordant the two classes of data is or isn't. You're an idiot. There is plenty of discordance already with a mere paucity of analysis being yet complete.
It is a known fact that even nested hierarchies have significant discordance with the fossil record when only character data is used. The alternative is to just force fit the two classes of data. But this proves nothing except that a force-fit can be done. Geological causality is not biological causality. Only idiots confuse the two.
DeleteLiar for Jesus Jeff
DeleteT: One quick example is discovering that different animal families have very different, non-compatible forms of DNA.
What an idiot. Darwin didn't even know about DNA.
But we in the 21st century have known about DNA for 60 years. Don't you dumbass Creationists ever read a science book? We also know finding families with non-compatible types of DNA would falsify UCA in an instant. Now will you stop lying and claiming no one answered you?
no one has a clue how concordant the two classes of data is or isn't.
Geneticists have know ever since they started producing phylogenetic trees from the data over 50 years ago. Just because you're a clueless ignorant knob doesn't mean everyone else is.
Told you Jeff wasn't very smart.
Liar for Jesus Jeff
DeleteIt is a known fact that even nested hierarchies have significant discordance with the fossil record when only character data is used.
LOL! Every "known fact" you post has been just another lie pulled straight from your butt. There is no discordance at all when all the data is used, not just the occasional outlier due to convergence or LGT.
Dumbasses like you really shouldn't lie about things you know nothing about.
Jeff,
DeleteI can't think of an exception off the top of my head. Take Popper's claim and prove otherwise.
You don't need to think of an exception,Jeff. You need to pick from the lots of scenarios that are consistent.
That was your claim," The latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios" I did not claim otherwise since I have no idea what a SA scenario entails.
V, take a simple case. Take biological classes. If they all had separate ancestries, how does Popper's claim contradict that? Alternatively, how could Popper's claim imply UCA?
DeleteMoronton,
Delete1) Naturalistic UCA is a genealogical hypothesis. It doesn't depend on HOW the lineages occur so long as it occurs NATURALLY.
2) One can only wonder how stupid biologists must be to keep doing lineage studies if the one concordant tree has already been agreed upon. Just how stupid are you?
Liar for Jesus Jeff
Delete1) Naturalistic UCA is a genealogical hypothesis. It doesn't depend on HOW the lineages occur so long as it occurs NATURALLY.
Which all the evidence shows it does.
2) One can only wonder how stupid biologists must be to keep doing lineage studies if the one concordant tree has already been agreed upon.
New studies are continually being done to learn more details and refine our knowledge of things like branching times. New techniques also allow for more accurate estimates. Just how stupid are you Mr. Willfully Ignorant Creationist Dimbulb?
Moronton: Which all the evidence shows it does.
DeleteJ: No. The only evidence of regularity if for what has been observed. The UCA vs. SA debate isn't about observed regularities. It's about how one can, if at all, extrapolate known causes into the past to explain the posited lineages. This isn;t even possible at this time. And everyone admits it.
Moronton: New studies are continually being done to learn more details and refine our knowledge of things like branching times. New techniques also allow for more accurate estimates.
J: Tree-generation doesn't depend on knowledge of mutational effects. So it's absolutely irrelevant to naturalistic explanation unless you want to say that phenotypic/morphological evolution doesn't depend on sequence changes. You're an absolute moron.
LOL! Really Liar for Jesus Jeff, go buy yourself a basic biology textbook. You'd still be a lying blowhard, but at least you'd have a chance of not looking so stupid with your ridiculous Creationist claims. Like the one you made about "Darwin didn't know of DNA, so modern scientists don't know about DNA either!". That was a keeper! :D :D :D
DeleteJeff,
DeleteV, take a simple case. Take biological classes. If they all had separate ancestries, how does Popper's claim contradict that?
Was that so hard? You are correct that is consistent.
"There exists no law of evolution, only the historical fact that plants and animals change, or more precisely, that they have changed."
Alternatively, how could Popper's claim imply UCA?
Exactly the same way, instead of each class being separately created the last common ancestor was the " separate ancestor".
More importantly, it could be the result of known natural causes, per Popper, or alternately design.
However with your SA scenario, there are no known natural causes that would account for the abrupt appearance of each class, you would be forced to rely on design.
You would still have natural causes changing the first mammal into the diverse number we see today,but you would add another layer of explanation necessary to explain the designer and his actions. It would be less parsimonious
Jeff: The latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios.
DeleteScott: It's unclear how you can use an abstract designer with no defined limitations in any critical way because design is perfectly comparable with any evidence.
Jeff: The whole point of positing design is to DECREASE the number of ad-hoc hypotheses. You posit of the designer what does that. Those attributes that make that work in hypothetico-deductive fashion then ARE the attributes that define the designer.
Then why isn't "design" the best explanation for everything? Any other explanation is more complex than "that's what some designer must have wanted" because design suffers from the same problem as the Aristotelian quality of heat or dryness. And I'm guessing you do not think God had to individually decide where every atom went, where cell went, etc. when designing organisms.
Jeff: You're wrong because you misunderstand the only kind of designer that has any epistemological value. We need a designer to ground the logical possibility of the relative plausibility criteria that people in fact use, despite your utterly ignorant denials to the contrary.
You claim we need design for epistemological reasons, but ignore the epistemology elephant in the room: design doesn't explain the origin of the knowledge said designer would have put in the genomes of organisms when it was adapting them. It just pushes the problem into an inexplicable realm.
It's unclear how you can actually use basic beliefs to ground non-basic beliefs unless basic beliefs are themselves grounded. Not to mention that doing so begs the question.
Furthermore, foundationalism is anti-rational in that someone can claim "basic" belief X represents a boundary where reason and problem solving cannot pass. This denies that progress has or can be made on X. The claim that design is or can be used as some kind of irreducible principle is anti-rational.
If I'm so utterly ignorant, then why don't you enlighten us by presenting a formulating a "principle of induction" that actually works in practice. Please be specific.
Also, if we use induction, all designers we've ever observe are complex, knowledge-laden, have limitations of some kind and have material brains. As such, what is the relative plausibility criteria that a designer with these proprietress existed at the right time and place to design the biosphere?
Scott: Again…an abstract designer with no defined limitations has no *necessary* consequences for the current state of the system.
Jeff: No one, to my knowledge, believes in a designer that has no essential attributes.
So what? Unless those supposed "essential attributes" are explicitly present in intelligent design theory, there are no necessary consequence for the current state of the system that we can test. I'm not against any intelligent design theory per-se, but the current crop of intelligent design, which doesn't add to the explanation we already have. A theory that aliens did it would be a better explanation than the current crop of ID, because it wouldn't be abstract or without limitations, and we could make progress regarding those aliens. Yet, I'm guessing you're not a big fan of alien Intelligent design theory.
Jeff: That which doesn't predict/imply observations doesn't explain them in any sense whatsoever.
You might want to read what I actually wrote. Not predicting which exact mutations will occur is not the same as saying it does not predict or imply anything.
Jeff: "Evolution" doesn't explain anything. "Evolution" is a description, not an explanation.
DeleteLet me fix that for you…
"Evolution" doesn't explain anything unless it's exhaustive and reductionist in nature.
But not all explanations take that form. For example…
“how do you explain the presence of a particular copper atom at the tip of the nose of the statue of Churchill in Parliament Square? Even if you could write down the entire history of all the forces acting on that atom starting from when it was created in a supernova and how it was then put into a seam below the earth and then mined and so on, that still wouldn’t explain why it is there, because the explanation should include concepts such as “this was put up to honor a human being because of certain things that he did.” And that is, in one sense, already in the description about the atoms, and in another sense isn’t there at all. So to understand all that is understood, we need higher level concepts.” - Hans Ulrich Obrist Interview with David Deutsch
Darwinism is just one such higher-level concept.
Scott: We adopt explanatory theories that have withstood the most criticism.
Jeff: If no hypotheses are knowably more or less plausible than one another, then it's just as knowably probable/plausible that I have no actual memories as that I have some actual memories.
We adopt the idea that we have memories because it has withstood the most criticism.
Jeff: IOW, what you call "rational criticism" is mere deduction from absolutely UNKNOWN, A-PLAUSIBLE premises. And this is just another way of saying that what you call "rational criticism" is indistinguishable from just believing stuff for no apparent reason (and that's assuming you don't question the LNC itself). You're UTTERLY confused.
Again, that would only be the case if we adopt guesses without subjecting them to criticism, which is contrary to what I've described.
Jeff: Induction and deduction is what people use day in and day out when they aren't using mere association/habit. You can say it doesn't work, but then what would it mean to "not work" by your definition?
DeleteIt doesn't' work because for someone to actually use induction, someone would need to formulate a "Principle of Induction" that is defined in such a way that it can be reliable applied across all problems to provide guidance, in practice. But no one has actually done this as of yet. So what you call induction is our intuitive application of conjecture and refutation.
Is there something about this comment that you do not understand?
Scott: Again, your request is unreasonable handwaving because there isn't *positive* evidence *for* any theory.
Jeff: Scott, have you ever heard any anti-ID'ist deny, as you do, that there is any "positive" evidence for naturalistic UCA? I haven't.
First, I'm not against any intelligent design, per-se Rather, the current crop of intelligent design doesn't solve the problem it claims to solve. It's a bad explanation because it conflicts with our current best explanation for the universal growth of knowledge. Again, the conflict is about epistemology, not evidence.
Second, Yes, I have. This argument is why I reject the current theory of intelligent design.
Jeff: They say just the opposite. It's THOSE people that CH is exposing.
And we can reformulate any modus ponens argument into an opposite modus tollens argument. Evoltionary theory has withstood an overwhelming amount of empirical criticism.
Jeff: He's not disagreeing with you that there is no evidence for naturalistic UCA. Nor is he arguing against research. He's arguing against LYING in the name of science.
It's not that overwhelming amount of evidence does not exist, but that it plays a different role. Furthermore, he has argued that we can only make progress about what was supposedly designed, not the designer.
Jeff: I've asked over and over for what "observation" would falsify naturalistic UCA. No one has come up with one. Z mentioned a Cambrian rabbit, and then backed off. Think about it.
DeleteI have fought about it, Jeff.
As for the rabbit, I'll again point out that when we find that observations that conflict with a theory, it's possible that the observations itself is in error, not the theory itself. Our theory of geology could be incomplete in that some kind of unknown process caused the rabbit to settle in that particular strata; or someone could have misidentified the strata; or, it could be an elaborate hoax. It even might even be the case that a rabbit like animal evolved via convergent evolution on some isolated content, which was subsequently struck by disaster, sunk all of the rest of it's history was lost. Even this is a far better explanation than "God did it" because it explains nothing. Most impotently, we could come up with a theory of why the observations were wrong, then devise testable predictions for those theories.
So, what would lead me to discard evolutionary theory? Observations that, in the light of our best, current explanations, implies that the knowledge in biological organism came about in some other way.
For example, if an organism were to undergo only (or mostly) favorable mutations, as predicted by Lamarckism or spontaneous generation, then the principle that variations were random *to any specific problem to solve* would be refuted. If a organism was born with new complex adaptations of which there were no precursors in its parent, then the gradual change aspect would be refuted along with darwinism's progress of how that knowledge was created. In addition, if an organism was born with a complex adaption that has survival value today, yet was not favored by selection pressure in it's ancestry (such as the ability to detect and use internet weather stations to decide when to hibernate) then it would also be refuted as well.
In each of these cases, a fundamentally new explanation would be needed for the origin of this knowledge.
Knowledge could have been created faster than we thought or one of our current parent child relations ship could be found in conflict with observations, but that wouldn't falsify the underlying explanation for how that knowledge was formed. Again, the conflict is about epistemology, not evidence.
J: What an idiot. Darwin didn't even know about DNA.
DeleteAgain, Darwinism fits under the umbrella of our current, best explanation for the UNIVERSAL growth of knowledge. This is why Darwin's theory is one of the greatest discoveries in human history.
The fundamental error made by Lamarck is the same fundamental error made my inductivism. Both assume that new knowledge, such as biological adaptations and scientific theories, is somehow already present in experience or can be derived mechanically from it. But knowledge must first be conjectured and then tested. This is what Darwin's theory means.
Specifically, mutations occur that are random to any particular problem to solve, then natural selection discards gene variations that are less "good" at causing themselves to be copied in future generations.
However, DNA is an implementation detail. Darwin didn't need to know the exact mechanism by which the variations (conjectures) occurred.
Popper: There exists no law of evolution, only the historical fact that plants and animals change, or more precisely, that they have changed. [Popper, 1963b, p. 340; emphasis added]
DeleteJeff: The latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios
V: Which ones exactly?
Jeff: I can't think of an exception off the top of my head. Take Popper's claim and prove otherwise.
Prove otherwise? What happened to "we can't even know if X is logically possible?"
Scott, I won't have time to respond until Saturday. Talk at you then.
DeleteAn article on Fallibalism has been published here, which addresses some of the subject matter in this and other threads.
DeleteThe related video interview by the author is also relevant.
To quote the article...
"Fallibilism, correctly understood, implies the possibility, not the impossibility, of knowledge, because the very concept of error, if taken seriously, implies that truth exists and can be found. The inherent limitation on human reason, that it can never find solid foundations for ideas, does not constitute any sort of limit on the creation of objective knowledge nor, therefore, on progress. The absence of foundation, whether infallible or probable, is no loss to anyone except tyrants and charlatans, because what the rest of us want from ideas is their content, not their provenance: If your disease has been cured by medical science, and you then become aware that science never proves anything but only disproves theories (and then only tentatively), you do not respond 'oh dear, I’ll just have to die, then.'"
J: V, take a simple case. Take biological classes. If they all had separate ancestries, how does Popper's claim ("There exists no law of evolution, only the historical fact that plants and animals change, or more precisely, that they have changed.") contradict that?
DeleteV: Was that so hard?
J: So simple you could have thought of it yourself, to apply all the relevant reasoning, too, huh?
V: You are correct that is consistent.
J: Yes, obviously so.
J: Alternatively, how could Popper's claim imply UCA?
V: Exactly the same way, instead of each class being separately created the last common ancestor was the " separate ancestor".
J: Wrong. Popper's statement can't imply both because that would be a contradiction. It implies NEITHER. Again, the ONLY thing implied by a true, single proposition is the falsehood of it's negation. In this case, that would be, "plants and animals DON'T change."
V: More importantly, it could be the result of known natural causes, per Popper, or alternately design.
J: Yes, so long as what we mean by "could be" is merely that we don't KNOW that it "can't be." And that applies equally to "known causes" and "design." IOW, that's just another way of saying that both hypotheses are not falsifiable by anything we know or can even imagine once you allow (as the consensi DO) for uncaused events and other counter-inductive event sequences. Inductive criteria is all that ever was meant by "falsifiability." But once you reject inductive criteria, even, you can't reject any hypothesis non-arbitrarily. And that's just another way of saying that science can not be demarcated from non-science. As I've said before, categories are what condition DISTINCTIONS. Your approach eliminates precisely those distinctions that allow the demarcation of science.
V: However with your SA scenario, there are no known natural causes that would account for the abrupt appearance of each class, you would be forced to rely on design.
J: Apparently you're completely ignorant of the fact that there is no naturalistic explanation for any ultimate ancestor. And it may be that we never do discover a naturalistic explanation that doesn't require the positing of tons of ad-hoc hypotheses. Relatively few ad-hoc hypotheses may be required for the creation of SA ancestors. This is what you never stop to consider. And this is why you have NOTHING. You're merely assuming what you need to demonstrate, but can't.
V: You would still have natural causes changing the first mammal into the diverse number we see today,but you would add another layer of explanation necessary to explain the designer and his actions. It would be less parsimonious
J: Wrong. I don't have to explain the designer and his actions. I ASSUME the actions once I ASSUME the relevant motivational nature. This is all hyothetico-deductive explanation IS. It's ASSUMING postulates and then explaining/deducing therefrom. We do this in court all the time in terms of ID. You, on the other hand, can't even enumerate all the hypotheses necessary to imply that mutations generated life's diversity in the posited time-frame. You have to posit, for millions of mutations (and, therefore, sequences), certain properties having to do with possible degrees of attainable phenotypic plasticity in particular time-frames that SA'ists don't have to posit. That's MILLIONS of additional assumptions RIGHT THERE, never mind the additional assumptions about the OCCURRENCE and VIABILITIY of those additional mutations/sequences! No one has done the count for either side. That's why it's epistemologically warranted to make the simple teleological, analogical inferences that people irresistably do in the meanwhile.
Jeff,
DeleteAgain, Popper is saying that evolution is not a "law" in the sense that is a different mode of explanation. It doesn't predict which mutations will occur because we cannot predict the impact the creation of knowledge.
You're making the same mistake outlined here.
Jeff: Apparently you're completely ignorant of the fact that there is no naturalistic explanation for any ultimate ancestor.
DeleteEven if that were the case, so what?
For any explanation provided, you could always claim there is no explanation for it as well, ad nauseam. It's a bad criticism because it's applicable to any explanation, so it cannot be used in a critical way.
Not having an exhaustive reductionist explanation for anything doesn't mean we have made no progress at all. Most importantly, it doesn't mean that we cannot use that explanation *to solve problems* using that progress.
Jeff: The latter quote is perfectly consistent with lots of SA scenarios.
DeleteScott: It's unclear how you can use an abstract designer with no defined limitations in any critical way because design is perfectly comparable with any evidence.
Jeff: The whole point of positing design is to DECREASE the number of ad-hoc hypotheses. You posit of the designer what does that. Those attributes that make that work in hypothetico-deductive fashion then ARE the attributes that define the designer.
Scott: Then why isn't "design" the best explanation for everything?
J: Teleology, by definition, requires "natural" means for the production of ends. Induction is how we infer means as well as ends. In either case, we're trying to maximize the SPECIFICITY of our knowledge. Once we explain in terms of "means," those means can be extrapolated analogically in some cases (when consistent with "observation") to increase BREADTH of explanation. When that works, it's NON-parsimonious to ad-hoc'ly introduce libertarian causality.
Scott: Any other explanation is more complex than "that's what some designer must have wanted."
J: Not at all. See my last response just above.
Scott: And I'm guessing you do not think God had to individually decide where every atom went, where cell went, etc. when designing organisms.
J: If ultimate ancestors were not caused naturally, it only stands to reason that the designer would have had to have do some VERY specific work to get an ancestor "going." But it doesn't follow that, e.g., certain atoms might not have been interchangeable, consistent with design requirements.
Scott: You claim we need design for epistemological reasons, but ignore the epistemology elephant in the room: design doesn't explain the origin of the knowledge said designer would have put in the genomes of organisms when it was adapting them. It just pushes the problem into an inexplicable realm.
J: All explanation has finality. There is no infinite regress of explanation possible for humans. So this argument is just so much non-sense. Explanation is hypothetico-deductive.
Scott: It's unclear how you can actually use basic beliefs to ground non-basic beliefs unless basic beliefs are themselves grounded. Not to mention that doing so begs the question.
J: On the contrary. It's unclear how infinite regresses are possible in explanation. It's perfectly clear that explanation HAS to have finality to it if explanation exists at all.
Scott: Furthermore, foundationalism is anti-rational in that someone can claim "basic" belief X represents a boundary where reason and problem solving cannot pass.
J: Again, there is finality to explanation. One can say that if they choose. But if some one can explain more parsimoniously or with greater explanatory breadth without the putative "basic" belief, the "basic-ness" of the belief is in question. We criticize our critical criteria INDUCTIVELY. I.e., if we can explain our experience with fewer "basic" beliefs, we reject the "basic" status of those beliefs that fail that criteria. But all deductive argument REQUIRES premises. There is no other ultimate source for voluntarily, discursively-derived beliefs than naturally-formed beliefs.
Scott: This denies that progress has or can be made on X. The claim that design is or can be used as some kind of irreducible principle is anti-rational.
DeleteJ: What is anti-rational is saying any idea/hypothesis/belief is no more or less plausible/probable than any other. No progress is ever recognizable that way. You're saying that positing that apparent memories are sometimes actual memories is no more plausible/probable than positing than no actual memories occur.
Scott: If I'm so utterly ignorant, then why don't you enlighten us by presenting a formulating a "principle of induction" that actually works in practice. Please be specific.
J: There is no principle of induction articulable in one proposition. Some beliefs form naturally. We voluntarily apply the NATURAL, inductive, relative plausibility criteria TO those naturally-formed beliefs. We end up with beliefs that we naturally believe, per induction, to be MORE plausible than OTHERS.
Scott: Also, if we use induction, all designers we've ever observe are complex, knowledge-laden, have limitations of some kind and have material brains. As such, what is the relative plausibility criteria that a designer with these proprietress existed at the right time and place to design the biosphere?
J: Your view can't even render the belief that there is such a thing as "knowledge" more plausible than it's denial. And since there is an infinite set or merely logically possible (if you allow for arbitrary explanation combined with uncaused events) wherein "knowledge" most of what we call "knowledge" is illusory, the existence of "knowledge" is highly improbable per your approach.
THAT we know is a NATURAL belief. As such, it's PART of foundationalism, which you deny.
Scott: Unless those supposed "essential attributes" are explicitly present in intelligent design theory, there are no necessary consequence for the current state of the system that we can test.
J: You can't test teleological inferences about biology any more than you can yet test abiogenesis or naturalistic UCA. So that's a moot point.
Scott: I'm not against any intelligent design theory per-se, but the current crop of intelligent design, which doesn't add to the explanation we already have.
J: You don't have any natural explanation for that for which ID'ists infer teleological causality. That's the point.
Scott: A theory that aliens did it would be a better explanation than the current crop of ID, because it wouldn't be abstract or without limitations, and we could make progress regarding those aliens.
J: You're not making progress now. No one is yet commited to the validity of any particular tree. But more importantly, no one has naturalistically explained ANY tree.
Scott: Yet, I'm guessing you're not a big fan of alien Intelligent design theory.
J: Of course not, because it just begs the question. God doesn't beg a question. God is posited precisely to explain the FINALITY of explanation consistently with our NATURAL relative plausibility criteria. Naturalism can't do that. That's why it can't get past the "tie" of ideas that you keep preaching. Because per naturalism, all belief is BLIND since all criteria used to distinguish between warranted and unwarranted belief is ABSOLUTELY ARBITRARY! It's claimed to be NEITHER naturally known (i.e., foundational) NOR voluntarily derivable.
Scott: Not predicting which exact mutations will occur is not the same as saying it does not predict or imply anything.
Jeff: But it doesn't imply ANY naturalistic UCA tree. And that's all that CH is arguing against. He's not arguing against "change over time," Scott! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
I'll have to finish the rest of my response later. Too busy for a while.
DeleteBut again, CH is arguing against the incessant claims of "fact" about things that are UTTERLY unknowable at this time. He is NOT claiming that naturalistic UCA is KNOWABLY impossible. The mere naming what you choose to believe "knowledge" or "science" is fair for BOTH the gander and the goose. You constantly prove too little or too much in your arguments.
Jeff: J: Wrong. I don't have to explain the designer and his actions. I ASSUME the actions once I ASSUME the relevant motivational nature.
DeleteAs an intelligent designer, I'd like to tour our entire solar system over the weekend. Does my motivation nature mean that I can build a spaceship capable of actually making the trip because I want to? No, I lack the knowledge of how to build such a ship. IOW, you're vastly underestimating the role of knowledge.
Jeff: This is all hyothetico-deductive explanation IS. It's ASSUMING postulates and then explaining/deducing therefrom. We do this in court all the time in terms of ID.
Then explain the knowledge that said designer would have put in the genomes of organisms when it was arranging them? In the absence of such an explanation, you've added nothing to the explanation. One could more efficiently state that organisms, just appeared, complete with this knowledge, already present in their genome.
When looking for murder suspects when a victim was shot from some vast distance, we start with individuals that have knowledge and experience of how to setup, operate, conceal and obtain high powered sniper riffles. This is in contrast to just anyone who had the motive and happened to be in the vicinity. Nor do we include demons in the possible list of suspects in unsolved murders, etc.
Jeff: You, on the other hand, can't even enumerate all the hypotheses necessary to imply that mutations generated life's diversity in the posited time-frame. You have to posit, for millions of mutations (and, therefore, sequences), certain properties having to do with possible degrees of attainable phenotypic plasticity in particular time-frames that SA'ists don't have to posit.
For every one of these corresponding steps, you have to posit that the designer had the necessary knowledge of which instructions would actually bring about those unique adaptations when they were copied, as opposed to which instructions would not.
Even if we assume a designer could will the first organisms into existence, it still would have put the knowledge of how to make copies of itself in it's genome when it supposedly created it. As such, The more complex an organism is, the more knowledge you must posit said designer possessed.
Again, you're assuming a multitude of things, include that the designer is simple, despite every designer we observed being complex with maternal brains, etc., that the known set of functioning sequences is equal to the possible set of functioning sequences and the diversity of life we observe was intended to turn out in just that specific way from the start.
This is why probability arguments are only valid regarding a specific subset of known outcomes inside a theory, as opposed to the "likelihood" or "probability" of the theory itself.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJeff: It's perfectly clear that explanation HAS to have finality to it if explanation exists at all.
DeleteThere you have it folks. Jeff's rejection of evolution is based on his very narrow view of epistemology, which has been refuted at length by Popper, etc.
Nor has he presented a "principle of induction" that we can follow, step by step, to reliably obtain guidance using observations alone. Apparently, we use induction because we've induced that we use it, which is circular.
Since I'm the one saying that induction doesn't work, I would be unable to present such a series of steps that represented induction. That would be your job.
What we have so far is….
01. Sense data
02. ????
03. Inductive conclusions
Fill in the blank with something other than conjecture and criticism.
Jeff: The mere naming what you choose to believe "knowledge" or "science" is fair for BOTH the gander and the goose. You constantly prove too little or too much in your arguments.
DeleteI see you haven't read the referenced article yet.
The theory of knowledge is a tightrope that is the only path from A to B, with a long, hard drop for anyone who steps off on one side into “knowledge is impossible, progress is an illusion” or on the other side into “I must be right, or at least probably right.” Indeed, infallibilism and nihilism are twins. Both fail to understand that mistakes are not only inevitable, they are correctable (fallibly). Which is why they both abhor institutions of substantive criticism and error correction, and denigrate rational thought as useless or fraudulent. They both justify the same tyrannies. They both justify each other.
This is the false dichotomy I'm referring to.
Jeff: THAT we know is a NATURAL belief. As such, it's PART of foundationalism, which you deny.
DeleteBecause we are fallible, it's unclear how we could know if something is a basic belief or not. For example, one only need look at the history of foundationalism and see it is littered with such errors.
Furthermore, I've already provided an example of how we can rationally criticize a basic belief using empirical tests: the illusion of twin tables.
Despite the fact that the illusion returns when the measuring lines are removed, we need not uncritically accept that the tables are different sizes.
The claim that any specific belief is the sense that it cannot be rationally criticized is anti-rational
Jeff,
DeleteJ: So simple you could have thought of it yourself, to apply all the relevant reasoning, too, huh?
You want me to make your argument for you?
Wrong. Popper's statement can't imply both because that would be a contradiction. It implies NEITHER
So then I was correct when I said " exactly the same way" and depending on which "SA scenario"one adopted ,UCA and SA are not contradictory.
I did wonder why you asked if Popper's statement " implied" UCA rather than was consistent with it. I guess I got my answer.
Man oh man, you sure can spew a huge load of gibberish, jeff. Among other things, you said:
Delete"Relatively few ad-hoc hypotheses may be required for the creation of SA ancestors. This is what you never stop to consider. And this is why you have NOTHING. You're merely assuming what you need to demonstrate, but can't."
In other words, saying 'God-did-it' is so much simpler than doing science and figuring out what really happened. But wait! Why would separate ancestry (separate "creation") be any simpler to figure out or explain, from a scientific point of view?
And you creobots are the ones who are merely assuming what you need to demonstrate, but can't. At least scientists are trying to find real answers, while you thumpers just spew lies, distortions, and gobbledegook from a mish mash of old, absurd, contradictory, impossible fairy tales from your so-called 'holy book'.
You also said:
"I don't have to explain the designer and his actions. I ASSUME the actions once I ASSUME the relevant motivational nature. This is all hyothetico-deductive explanation IS. It's ASSUMING postulates and then explaining/deducing therefrom. We do this in court all the time in terms of ID. You, on the other hand, can't even enumerate all the hypotheses necessary to imply that mutations generated life's diversity in the posited time-frame. You have to posit, for millions of mutations (and, therefore, sequences), certain properties having to do with possible degrees of attainable phenotypic plasticity in particular time-frames that SA'ists don't have to posit."
In other words, ancestry and evolution and billions of years are so complex! I don't like complex! Complex is too much for my creationist pea-brain! Assuming that my imaginary sky-daddy-did-it all within six days six thousand years ago is so much simpler! Plus, it makes me feel exceptional and superior to assume that I'm 'specially created' and ain't no monkey! Praise my sky daddy!
J: So simple you could have thought of it yourself, to apply all the relevant reasoning, too, huh?
DeleteV: You want me to make your argument for you?
J: No. I want people who have NOTHING to expect NOTHING of others. The alternative is unfair hypocrisy. Don't get me wrong. I know it will never happen. So I'll just keep pointing out the absurdity and hypocrisy of your position. It's the next best thing.
V: So then I was correct when I said " exactly the same way" and depending on which "SA scenario"one adopted ,UCA and SA are not contradictory.
J: UCA and SA are mutually-exclusive, by definition. But neither is inconsistent with Popper's claim. Indeed, the vast majority of SA scenarios are not inconsistent with Popper's claim.
TWT: At least scientists are trying to find real answers...
Delete... In other words, ancestry and evolution and billions of years are so complex! I don't like complex! Complex is too much for my creationist pea-brain!
J: We don't know that UCA is complex, because we don't know that it's possible. Indeed, we have no inductive EVIDENCE that it's possible as we do for other inferences. And neither CH nor I am arguing against research. We're arguing against lying in the name of science about what is currently known.
You see, TWT, I wouldn't argue if biologists said something true, like:
Delete"We have no idea whether what we mean by 'nested hierarchy' is the result of naturalistic UCA or not. But we're going to assume it as a working hypothesis and see if we can generate a falsifiable (by some agreed upon criteria) approach that will withstand novel observations over time. Currently our approach is non-falsifiable, as we are still in the infancy of this research project."
Liar for Jesus Jeff
DeleteYou see, TWT, I wouldn't argue if biologists said something true, like:
"We have no idea whether what we mean by 'nested hierarchy' is the result of naturalistic UCA or not. But we're going to assume it as a working hypothesis and see if we can generate a falsifiable (by some agreed upon criteria) approach that will withstand novel observations over time. Currently our approach is non-falsifiable, as we are still in the infancy of this research project."
But that's not true LFJJ. That's merely your own ignorance and stupidity manifesting itself one more time in the ridiculous things you claim.
Reality doesn't go away just because you don't like it LFJJ.
No, moron. It not only IS the truth, but the non-moronic UCA'ists already HAVE admitted it.
DeleteAnd by the way, Moron, why don't you argue with Scott when he says the "scientific" epistemology can never render the hypothesis of naturalistic UCA more plausible/probable than SA?
DeleteLiar for Jesus Jeff
DeleteIt not only IS the truth, but the non-moronic UCA'ists already HAVE admitted it.
LOL! Poor ignorant LFJJ. Reality scares you so badly! I bet your laundry bill for clean underwear must be staggering.
Jeff,
DeleteNo. I want people who have NOTHING to expect NOTHING of others. The alternative is unfair hypocrisy. Don't get me wrong. I know it will never happen. So I'll just keep pointing out the absurdity and hypocrisy of your position. It's the next best thing
Relax,buddy.you claimed there were " lots of SA scenarios", I asked which ones exactly. Don't get upset if someone asks you to back up your own claim. You could just say it is super secret and we can only talk about the one theory which actually put forward a theory.
UCA and SA are mutually-exclusive, by definition.
You keep making claims about SA, I say I can come up with one that is not mutually exclusive.
But neither is inconsistent with Popper's claim. Indeed, the vast majority of SA scenarios are not inconsistent with Popper's claim.
We agree,especially since is off limits to inquire what exactly those SA scenarios posit.We just have to take your word for ir
V, this is so simple it's mindboggling. Popper says organisms have changed and are changing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the VAST MAJORITY of ways of conceiving of SA's is consistent with that claim and what little predictability is entailed in current theory.
DeleteLet me help you, here, V. Evolution/change INCLUDES cyclical change that doesn't amount to much plasticity over time. It takes MILLIONS of ad-hoc hypotheses to IMPLY what you believe blindly.
DeleteJeff,
Deletethis is so simple it's mindboggling. Popper says organisms have changed and are changing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the VAST MAJORITY of ways of conceiving of SA's is consistent with that claim and what little predictability is entailed in current theory
Never claimed that unknown ways of conceiving of something could not be consistent with Popper's observation. For instance how many SA conceptions are there? You are the expert, share your knowledge of SA conceptions.Perhaps you might expound of the non consistent conceptions of SA, if hose are fewer.
Let me help you, here, V. Evolution/change INCLUDES cyclical change that doesn't amount to much plasticity over time. It takes MILLIONS of ad-hoc hypotheses to IMPLY what you believe blindly.
Blindly,hardly. Without any alternative explanation it is the most reasonable. Do you have a specific alternative? Oh no that's right,you don't. Just lots of potentially conflicting scenarios
Jeff, again, you're making the same mistake outlined here.
DeleteSpecifically, the quote you keep referencing was from 1963, which was before Popper changed his mind regarding the historical sciences.
Like all authors pushing this rhetoric, they don’t quite realize what has to be given up if we were to stop assuming the past is like the future. Therefore, they speak about ‘singularities’ as though any event beyond direct perception is off-limits for scientific inquiry – misunderstanding that the entire program of scientific inquiry is to guess patterns to predict one’s future perceptions!
Popper is not in this group. Rather, he took on the distinction, not for the purpose of straying from methodological naturalism, but to highlight that ‘historical science’ often has different goals from the main aim of our inquiries:
“…[W]hile the theoretical sciences are mainly interested in finding and testing universal laws, the historical sciences take all kinds of universal laws for granted and are mainly interested in finding and testing singular statements.”
Out of context, this might seem to be pushing a philosophy of science that is somewhat bias towards theoretical physics. For, if we suppose that only universal hypotheses qualify as ‘scientific’, then we are left with the conclusion that most other fields (from archeology to zoology) are not ‘science’.
This was never what Popper was advocating, as he clarified in 1981:
It does appear that some people think that I denied scientific character to the historical sciences, such as palaeontology, or the history of the evolution of life on Earth. This is a mistake, and I here wish to affirm that these and other historical sciences have in my opinion scientific character; their hypotheses can in many cases be tested.
Instead, Popper’s motivation for categorizing evolution in a group he defined as ‘historical science’ was in to argue against a type of thinking he called ‘historicism‘ – the supposition that it is possible to prophecize the future historical developments of humanity.
Do you always keep misquoting people?
V: For instance how many SA conceptions are there? You are the expert, share your knowledge of SA conceptions.
DeleteJ: The number of SA and UCA scenarios are so large that it matters not what the numbers are. Both are rendered UTTERLY improbable on those grounds alone. That's why that whole aspect of the debate is absolutely irrelevant.
V: Perhaps you might expound of the non consistent conceptions of SA, if hose are fewer.
J: There are none if you allow for uncaused events and/or counter-inductive views of history.
V: Blindly,hardly. Without any alternative explanation it is the most reasonable.
J: Naturalistic UCA isn't reasonable because it's inexplicable without positing millions of ad-hoc hypotheses, which no one yet has dared to attempt to articulate.
V: Do you have a specific alternative? Oh no that's right,you don't.
J: That's right. I don't have a specific one, and you don't have a specific one. You're just confused enough to think you do, whereas I'm not confused at all.
Scott: Do you always keep misquoting people?
DeleteJ: I'll try to find time to respond to all your non-sense, but seriously, Scott, what difference does any belief make to the PROPRIETY of any voluntary human action/thought if NO proposition can be known to be more probable/plausible than any other? You're a radical skeptic, pure and simple.
How do you change CH's mind when you don't believe his current views are less plausible/probable than your own? Alternatively, if you're not trying to change his mind, what are you trying to do?
Deletejeff, do you believe that the christian god created the entire universe and that 'he' separately and specially created 'man' in 'his' image?
DeleteDo you believe that the christian god did all that in six 24 hour days about 6,000 years ago?
Jeff: I'll try to find time to respond to all your non-sense...
DeleteIf it's non-sense, then you might want to stop quoting Popper, as he didn't think we could use observations to prove anything is true or probable either.
Jeff: How do you change CH's mind when you don't believe his current views are less plausible/probable than your own? Alternatively, if you're not trying to change his mind, what are you trying to do?
So, your strategy is to not even acknowledge the criticism I've presented at all?
I'm pointing out that it's a unreasonable, unproductive and unnecessary expectation.
Again, what does the question of whether some statement is true or not have to do with the question of whether that statement can be established, proven, verified, warranted, made well-founded, made probable, grounded, supported, legitimated, etc,, based on evidence?
How does this actually work, in practice? Please be specific
jeff said:
ReplyDelete"The debate is not WHETHER evolution occurs."
Actually, whether evolution occurred/occurs is what "the debate" is about. There's more to evolutionary theory than just the subject "UCA", and cornelius and the rest of you IDiot-creationists attack pretty much everything about evolution and evolutionary theory, not just UCA.
"That's observable."
So you admit that evolution occurs and is observable. Good.
"The debate is over WHETHER there is evidence for UCA or naturalistic UCA."
You're the one who keeps making a big stink about common ancestry and separate ancestry, and of course the reason you keep doing that is because you will not accept that you are descended from or related to what you believe are 'lower' life forms. And now you're throwing in the word "naturalistic". In scientific evolutionary theory, everything is considered to be naturalistic.
If you have a scientific supernaturalistic inference, hypothesis, or theory of UCA or SA, or overall evolution, let's see it, and your evidence that supports it.
Are you one of the kids in this video?
http://screen.yahoo.com/gorilla-shows-kids-whos-boss-104751530.html
TWT: And now you're throwing in the word "naturalistic". In scientific evolutionary theory, everything is considered to be naturalistic.
ReplyDeleteJ: It there was an explanation for naturalistic UCA, it might be scientific. But no one has come up with one yet. And in the meanwhile, everyone talks as if biological function is teleological (even UCA'ists).
Let me fix that for you, Jeff...
DeleteIf there was an foundationalist explanation for naturalistic UCA, it might be scientific. But no one has come up with a foundationalist one yet.
You're argument is parochial because it assumes there is only one mode of explanation: reductionism.
There is one kind of explanation: hypothetico-deduction. There is also mathematical modelling prediction done on the assumption that the temporal sequencing, implied by using a time unit, holds for the future as well as the past, regardless of what specific causes are at work. What you call explanation is not explanation at all. It's just believing without evidence that there is a naturalistic explanation and then pontificating that your blind belief is a fact or better than others even though you turn right around and deny that your blind belief is knowably more or less plausible than any other belief.
DeleteTWT: Actually, whether evolution occurred/occurs is what "the debate" is about. There's more to evolutionary theory than just the subject "UCA", and cornelius and the rest of you IDiot-creationists attack pretty much everything about evolution and evolutionary theory, not just UCA.
DeleteJ: CH isn't even addressing evolution as defined by change over time. He's addressing pure speculation about lineages which are not known to be possible or probable given the paucity of current knowledge about the effects and relative frequencies of various kinds of mutations.
Liar for Jesus Jeff
DeleteHe's addressing pure speculation about lineages which are not known to be possible or probable given the paucity of current knowledge about the effects and relative frequencies of various kinds of mutations.
Why do you keep posting these incredibly stupid claims when any halfway decent high school biology book will prove you wrong?
My word but you're an ignorant Fundy dimbulb.
Jeff: There is one kind of explanation: hypothetico-deduction.
DeleteThen you should have no problems explaining how hypothetico-deduction works, in practice. Go ahead and walk us through it, step by step. Please be specific.
Jeff: There is also mathematical modelling prediction done on the assumption that the temporal sequencing, implied by using a time unit, holds for the future as well as the past, regardless of what specific causes are at work.
We do not think the sun will rise every 24 hours because we have observed it rise time and time again in the past. We think the sun will rise because of a multitude of explanations, including geometry, optics, nuclear fusion, etc. From orbit, you might see the sun rise every 40 minutes or never at all. In the north pole, the sun does not rise for six months. We know the sun is behind the clouds even though we cannot see it, etc. No one has observed the core of the sun, but our current, best explanation is that the sun is a main-sequence star that burns to convert hydrogen into helium, which will explain to over 200x in size 4.5 billion years from now when it turns into a red giant. Unless gravitational tides push us father out into the solar system, it will consume the earth completely. But, long before that, its luminosity will increase to make the earth uninhabitable.
However, if our explanation for how the sun works indicated that it would run out of fuel after 4.57 billion years of operation, rather than 11.7 billion years, and in doing so it would wink out abruptly, we wouldn't assume it would continue to rise every tomorrow, even though it had done so for all of recorded human history. Our expectations are based on explanations not observations.
Jeff: What you call explanation is not explanation at all. It's just believing without evidence that there is a naturalistic explanation and then pontificating that your blind belief is a fact or better than others even though you turn right around and deny that your blind belief is knowably more or less plausible than any other belief.
Except, I've already clarified this this several time, which means you're now knowingly presetting a falsehood. My position is less wrong than foundationalism, induction, etc. It's withstood the most criticism. That's it. But, by all means, feel free to provide a better explanation for the growth of human knowledge. Your objections to date are misrepresentations.
Why don't enlighten us as to what an explanation is and provide a list of its required components?
jeff said:
Delete"CH isn't even addressing evolution as defined by change over time. He's addressing pure speculation about lineages which are not known to be possible or probable given the paucity of current knowledge about the effects and relative frequencies of various kinds of mutations."
cornelius is "addressing" evolution and evolutionary theory in ways that he thinks will discredit and disprove them, in an attempt to establish his religious beliefs as fact.
You, cornelius, and other god pushers obviously believe that you're fooling rational, intelligent people with your dishonesty and your distortions of science and reality, but you're not. Your agenda and tactics are glaringly obvious to anyone with a clue.
jeff said:
Delete"It there was an explanation for naturalistic UCA, it might be scientific. But no one has come up with one yet."
If by "explanation" you mean something that is cast in stone, is proven beyond any doubt, is accepted by everyone on Earth, and will never change in any way, then you're right. However, there is a lot of evidence that supports universal common ancestry (at least here on Earth).
"And in the meanwhile, everyone talks as if biological function is teleological (even UCA'ists)."
I wouldn't agree that everyone does so but I notice that too sometimes and in some cases it could be because the speaker/writer has an underlying teleological/religious belief and/or agenda, but I also think that it's often because humans have a tendency to speak/write in that manner. I think that just about any creature that gets parental/family/group care would have the same tendency if they could speak or write.
From the moment of birth we humans are taken care of and directed by someone and as we grow we see that there are many other people taking care of and directing us, such as doctors, nurses, cops, politicians, teachers, babysitters, friends, the media, and a long list of others.
Life can be scary, especially to some people, and some people create or adopt something imaginary to take care of and direct them. Insecurity is a bitch.
We're also programmed from birth to see and think that most things are 'made', 'invented', 'designed', or 'created' by something or someone. Food is 'grown, processed, packaged, shipped, shopped for, prepared, cooked, and served', houses and cars and rockets ships and many other things are 'built', and just about everything that we want or use is 'manufactured'. Plus, we're told by parents, teachers, politicians, etc., that we have a purpose and that we're working toward some goal or at least should be.
We humans also see nature (including other humans) as vast, complex, often scary and threatening or even deadly, and hard to understand or control, and many people want to believe that they have a permanent, full time protector and/or that there's a teleological/divine reason for the negatives of life.
Even if or when people speak/write in a teleological manner, it doesn't support or prove that any so-called god that anyone has ever thought up actually exists.
Scott: No one has observed the core of the sun, but our current, best explanation is that ...
DeleteJ: There is no such knowable thing as a "best" explanation if there is no such thing as an explanation that is more plausible than another. Why is this hard for you?
I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that my view could be wrong, though it hasn't been proven wrong or even proven contrary to how people actually explain and why they believe they can predict. But your view is literally sheer non-sense. You question every thing and then turn around and talk about "best" explanations as if that's even knowable after considering all premises equally a-plausible. You're UTTERLY confused.
Jeff: J: There is no such knowable thing as a "best" explanation if there is no such thing as an explanation that is more plausible than another. Why is this hard for you?
DeleteWhy do you keep ignoring the specific differentiations I've made regarding this same claim you keep making?
plausible |ˈplôzəbəl|
adjective
(of an argument or statement) seeming reasonable or probable: a plausible explanation | it seems plausible that one of two things may happen.
Again, probability isn't valid unless you know all of the possible outcomes and the process is random. So, it's unclear how you can calculate the probability of UCA in a way which fits this aspect of definition.
Nor is there *positive* evidence *for* anything because any argument argues from a less specific proposition to a more specific proposition. Modus Ponens begs the question.
See the Agrippa's Trilemma.
Jeff: I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge that my view could be wrong, though it hasn't been proven wrong or even proven contrary to how people actually explain and why they believe they can predict.
It's been refuted by arguments by Popper, Bartley, etc.
But by all means, please formulate a "principle of induction" that defined in such a way that it can be reliable be applied to provide guidance, in practice.
01. Sense data
02. ???????
03. Inductive conclusion
Fill in 02. with something other than conjecture and refutation.
Jeff: But your view is literally sheer non-sense. You question every thing and then turn around and talk about "best" explanations as if that's even knowable after considering all premises equally a-plausible. You're UTTERLY confused.
Which is a blatant misrepresentation of what I've presented here, over and over again. Again, the best explanation is the one that has withstood the most criticism.
Is there some reason you omitted this?