A Defective Gene
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Evidence for evolution is everywhere – biogeography, embryology, anatomy, paleontology, and so on …
If you’re an evolutionist, then everything supports evolution. The beauty of evolution is that all of nature supports the theory, regardless of the details. In fact the biogeography evidence is, quite literally as well as figuratively, all over the map. Some evidences from biogeography are, as evolutionist Ernst Mayr once put it in his book What Evolution Is, “almost unbelievable.” He admitted that one example of lizard dispersal is “truly miraculous.”
Yet biogeography has always been a powerful proof text for evolutionists. Why? As usual, it is the religion behind the science that is so powerful. As one textbook explained:
Had all species been created in the places where they now exist, then Amphibian and terrestrial mammals should be as frequent on oceanic islands as on comparable continental areas. Certainly, terrestrial mammals should have been created on these islands as frequently as were bats. [Dodson and Dodson, Evolution: Process and Product, 1976]
After discussing the biogeographical patterns, Jerry Coyne was a bit more blunt when he proclaimed: “Creationism is hard-pressed to explain these patterns.” Coyne has strong religious beliefs, but religious beliefs hardly qualify as science.
Likewise the embryonic evidence has long since been discredited. Non homologous development pathways in similar species make no sense on evolution but once again, it’s all about religion.
As for anatomy, striking differences are found in otherwise similar species and striking similarities are found in otherwise different species—precisely the opposite of evolution’s narrative. But the evidence remains compelling because of the religion.
And again for paleontology. The fossil record reveals rapid explosions of diversity followed by stasis and discontinuities—precisely the opposite of the envisioned evolutionary process. But as evolutionist Ken Miller points out, we all know the fossil species would not have been created.
Over and over, in each category the evidence contradicts evolution from a scientific perspective, but it mandates evolution from a religious perspective. The absurdity is downright laughable. But that is evolution and Venema, true to form, shows that, once again, it’s all about religion:
It’s one thing to explain away biogeographical patterns or claim that anatomical similarities reflect a non-evolutionary “design” pattern – but another thing altogether to attempt to explain away why humans (and other placental mammals) have a defective gene for making egg yolk in the exact spot in our genomes where chickens have the functional version of this gene, and that humans and chimpanzees share a large number of mutations in common in our two inactivated copies.
The argument from dysteleology goes back to antiquity. Darwin refined it showed how it makes evolution true. As Stephen J. Gould put it:
Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution—paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. No one understood this better than Darwin. Ernst Mayr has shown how Darwin, in defending evolution, consistently turned to organic parts and geographic distributions that make the least sense.
Venema is, first and foremost, a religious fundamentalist. His religion dictates his science. As it was said so long ago, theology is the queen of the sciences. The age-old idea that the world spontaneously arose is of course, from a scientific perspective, absurd. The evolutionist’s insistence that said idea is now a fact beyond any reasonable doubt is beyond absurd—it isn’t even wrong.
But as Paul warned Timothy, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
Religion drives science, and it matters.
If these professors want to attack the veracity of God, why don't they just man up and come out and do so, without besmirching real scientists who work diligently to build models that actually explain things they observe.
ReplyDeleteWhat does God say about Darwinian theory?
DeleteWhat do the extraterrestrials being hunted by SETI say about Darwinian theory? If not believers, would they not be in need of conversion?
DeleteMSEE,
DeleteWhat do the extraterrestrials being hunted by SETI say about Darwinian theory?
Why are professors questioning the veracity of ET too?
y? If not believers, would they not be in need of conversion?
Perhaps they never ate the apple
Gould: Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution—paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce.
ReplyDeleteJ: That's a false dichotomy. If there is no sensible God that explains the validity of warranted belief/positive evidence, there is no reason to believe that quales have anything to do with beings at all; there is no reason to believe events are caused; there is no reason to believe any apparent memories are actual memories; there is no reason to believe that satisfaction correlates at all with criteria; and so on. In short, if there is no sensible God to explain the reality of warranted belief/positive evidence, there is an INFINITE set of conceivable histories that are equally a-plausible (and that just includes histories articulated in terms of the law of non-contradiction!), just like Scott admits prior to putting on his funny hat and pontificating wildly.
Yes agreed, but it is not merely a false dichotomy. It is also a religious claim that contradicts the science.
DeleteIndeed. Not that contradictions are even knowably problematic, in the first place, if there is no "sensible God" to explain the correspondence of human reason and its axioms to extra-ego reality. Their abandonment of the validity of reason is the explanation of the loss of demarcation criteria. But the absence of demarcation criteria renders all debates about "science" meaningless. They apparently like this state of affairs since they know the State and the Press will side with them in their propaganda efforts.
DeleteCH: Yes agreed, but it is not merely a false dichotomy.
DeleteWhich is what I've been saying all along. It's not about evidence, but ideas about the growth of human knowledge.
CH: It is also a religious claim that contradicts the science.
First, I’ll ask yet again: are you saying that someone cannot criticize a belief without holding it themselves?
To use an example, imagine someone said that a bank robbery was thwarted by Superman, but described a female highly trained in martial arts, wearing a green suit, with a big “Z” on her chest, but not before being injured by a shot in the arm by a regular bullet. Does one have to believe in Superman to point out that he is supposedly a man, who wears a blue suit with a big “S” on his chest and is immune to regular bullets? Of course, not. So, why is God any different?
Second, Science is a subset of the growth of human knowledge. Nor have you yet to actually clarify exactly what kind of empiricist you are, despite being asked to do so, directly and repeatedly. So, it’s unclear what you mean by “contradicts the science” until you disclose what exactly you’re referring to.
Evolutionary theory is the idea that the knowledge found in the genomes of biological organisms ahas genuinely created over time, which falls under the umbrella of our current, best explanation for the universal growth of knowledge. Of course, if you think that this knowledge wasn’t genuinely created, but has aways existed in some form, then of course you’d think this conflict science. But that is a parochial argument, in that it is narrow in scope.
Scott: Evolutionary theory is the idea that the knowledge found in the genomes of biological organisms ahas genuinely created over time
DeleteJ: Can you quote one mainstream, well-known scientist that says knowledge exists in genomes? And if so, can you find me that person's definition of "knowledge?"
Jeff: Can you quote one mainstream, well-known scientist that says knowledge exists in genomes? And if so, can you find me that person's definition of "knowledge?"
DeleteThis is nothing but a Red Herring.
I've already defined knowledge as I'm using it in this context at least half a dozen times. Why should I bother doing so again?
Furthermore, I've already listed several sources and books that reference the knowledge in this very same way. See Popper's Objective Knowledge (An Evolutionary Approach), for example. Or Deutsch's Beginning of Infinity (who is also a Popperian)
And what of the rest of my questions? Is asking Cornelius exactly what kind of empiricist he is unreasonable?
If so, why? If not, then why does he keep avoiding the question, despite being asked directly, over and over again?
S: This is nothing but a Red Herring.
DeleteJ: No, Scott, it's not. Because we have no reason to believe that consensus scientists are saying what you're saying. And CH is arguing with them, not you.
S: I've already defined knowledge as I'm using it in this context at least half a dozen times. Why should I bother doing so again?
J: You've never defined words like "information" in that definition. It ends up meaning something that has nothing to do with philosophical epistemology. That's why your definition is irrelevant.
S: Is asking Cornelius exactly what kind of empiricist he is unreasonable?
J: By your epistemology, yes. Because you don't think there's any such knowable thing as "reasonable" approach. Because you believe all approaches are equally arbitrary/a-plausible, meaning you have no idea whether you've ever communicated in any way with any other entity.
S: If not, then why does he keep avoiding the question, despite being asked directly, over and over again?
J: I just answered that question. He's not arguing with people who deny the existence of warranted belief and positive evidence. The real question is, why are you only arguing with CH instead of all people who believe in positive evidence or warranted belief? Oh, that's right, you don't have reasons for anything you do. What would be the point of having reasons that are utterly a-plausible as they're negation?
Scott: This is nothing but a Red Herring.
DeleteJeff: No, Scott, it's not. Because we have no reason to believe that consensus scientists are saying what you're saying. And CH is arguing with them, not you.
And I’m pointing out Popper’s argument that many of these same scientists are confused about the details about how human knowledge grows. This is in contrast to arguing that human knowledge hasn’t grown in the case of evolutionary theory.
Specially, both you and CH are claiming that we cannot make progress in this area. These same scientists are not and neither am I.
Jeff: You've never defined words like "information" in that definition. It ends up meaning something that has nothing to do with philosophical epistemology. That's why your definition is irrelevant.
From http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/08/bells-number-interactome-and-peek-at.html?showComment=1375708825499#c1185878156869335492
Scott: Knowledge is information that tends to remain when embodied in a storage medium.
The genome contains the knowledge of how to adapt air, water, etc. into the biological features of organisms, encoded into DNA. That's what happens when an organism reproduces, right?
And it's these very features that you're claiming that needs to be explained, right?
So, the question is: what is the origin of this knowledge? How do you explain it?
And from http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/08/minor-spliceosomes-as-real-time-sensors.html
Jeff: I don't think anyone cares about what knowledge is if it has nothing to do PER SE with conscious beings.
First, I didn't say knowledge had *nothing* to do with conscious beings. Where do you come up with this stuff? Second, see Popper's book Objective Knowledge, which provides a though experiment that illustrates this. From this summary of the book…
To demonstrate the existence and significance of objective knowledge, Popper considers two thought experiments. Firstly, he asks us to imagine that "all our machines and tools are destroyed and all our subjective learning, including our subjective knowledge of machines and tools, and how to use them. But libraries and our capacity to learn from them survive. Clearly, after much suffering, our world may get going again." Secondly, he asks us to imagine the same situation, except that "this time, all our libraries are destroyed also, so that our capacity to learn from books becomes useless." It can be seen that the existence of information in books makes a crucial difference. This is a clever and beautifully simple argument on the distinction between subjective and objective knowledge, and the singular importance of the latter.
Would this first group not care that, due to knowledge being objective, they could rebuild? Do we not care that bacteria create the knowledge of how to become resistant to antibiotics? I sure do. Doctors do, when they only prescribe antibiotics when absolutely necessary, etc.
Furthermore, we do care about the creation of knowledge independent of conciseness because what we care about its content, not its source or providence. We care about solutions to problems that end up getting solved due to unintended consequences. We care about how knowledge grows because we want to solve problems. However, if you assume that knowledge in specific spheres comes from authoritative sources, then it would come as no surprise that you're not interested in knowledge created independent of authoritative, conscious beings.
S: Is asking Cornelius exactly what kind of empiricist he is unreasonable?
DeleteJ: By your epistemology, yes. Because you don't think there's any such knowable thing as "reasonable" approach.
I don’t think rational criticism is a “reasonable” approach, given the yet to be addressed criticisms of foundationaism, justificationism, etc?
Cornelius doesn’t have to give a specific definition of “science” when he says “evolution isn’t scientific” because he holds different ideas about how knowledge grows? Huh?
Do I not have to answer any of your questions because I disagree with you about your idea about about how knowledge grows?
Jeff: The real question is, why are you only arguing with CH instead of all people who believe in positive evidence or warranted belief?
Because he’s the one claiming we cannot make progress, as are you. Also, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, any modus ponens argument can be transformed into a modus tollens argument. In which case the same overwhelming amount of “positive” evidence becomes an overwhelming amount of criticism that darwinism has survived.
Scott: I don’t think rational criticism is a “reasonable” approach, given the yet to be addressed criticisms of foundationaism, justificationism, etc?
DeleteJ: Scott, you can't be so stupid as to not realize that it doesn't follow from the falsity of foundationalism that there is such a thing as "reasonableness." And you can't provide positive evidence for its existence. So you're a bona-fide known-nothing.
Scott: Because he’s the one claiming we cannot make progress, as are you.
J: I've explicitly denied that progress is impossible. Surely you remember. I say it's done inductively. You can't account for it at all since you don't believe you know you can remember.
Scott: In which case the same overwhelming amount of “positive” evidence becomes an overwhelming amount of criticism that darwinism has survived.
J: By putting the word "positive" in quotes, you've made the relevant admission. You're admitting that there is no such THING as positive evidence. Thus, there is no such THING as positive evidence that a darwinian hypothesis has ever been MADE, let alone that criticism of it has occurred, and let alone a large AMOUNT of criticism of it, and let alone a survival OF it. Dude, you need to get a grip on how deduction works.
Jeff: And you can't provide positive evidence for its existence. So you're a bona-fide known-nothing.
DeleteCan you provide positive evidence of that claim?
Jeff: I've explicitly denied that progress is impossible.
I'm referring to progress on the designer, Jeff, not just what the designer supposedly designed. That's the equlvelent of what evolution explains and supposedly cannot make progress about.
Jeff: By putting the word "positive" in quotes, you've made the relevant admission.
Are you denying that any modus ponens argument can be transformed into a modus tollens argument? Yes or no?
Otherwise, this is nothing more than hand waving.
Scott: I'm referring to progress on the designer, Jeff, not just what the designer supposedly designed.
DeleteJ: Who's arguing for teaching courses on the designer, Scott?
Scott: That's the equlvelent of what evolution explains and supposedly cannot make progress about.
J: Scott, evolution is a description, not an explanation. Evolution HAS an explanation if events are caused. But there is NO explanation of any hypothetical UCA tree.
Jeff: By putting the word "positive" in quotes, you've made the relevant admission.
Scott: Are you denying that any modus ponens argument can be transformed into a modus tollens argument? Yes or no?
J: No.
Scott: Otherwise, this is nothing more than hand waving.
J: On the contrary. This shows how oblivious to basic logic you are. If the LNC is not known to be true, deduction has no knowable relation to knowledge. And you INSIST that the LNC is not known to be true.
Moreover, even IF the LNC is true, deduction never implies conclusions that can be KNOWN to be true if the premises are not KNOWN to be true. This is why denying the existence of self-evident PROPOSITIONS renders deduction UTTERLY worthless, epistemologically. Oh, and BTW, any logic book will tell you this if you'd just pick one up and read it.
There's another way to think about "self-evident" propositions having to do with human categories and criteria. We could say they are sentiently-irresistable in the sense that folks can't live inconsistently with them for any significant duration of time, since the resulting pain will deter them right back to the use of those propositions/categories/criteria. Of course, entailed in even this way of looking at them is the idea that those categories were just NATURALLY believed before they were able to be subsequently "challenged."
DeleteThis was a great and important thread.
ReplyDeleteNotice Mr Hunter that BIOLOGY is not the word used for evidence for evolution.
Its fossils, genetics, biogeography, fetus, anatomy, etc.
Surely a biological theory demands biological evidence and this based on scientific principals.
These off-broadway subjects decry evolution is a theory of biology.
If it was not true there cOULDN't be biological scientific evidence to back it up.
There isn't. Its these other unrelated subjects.
Darwin made the same mistakes as I read him.
Creationists need to just demand from evolutionists scientific BIOLOGICAL evidence for evolution if its too be more then a hypothesis lightly supported.
Its sad almost to see this old "theory" be shown to have never been about biology evidence.
Its like its a religion or something?!!
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
ReplyDeleteThat cuts both ways, pard.
Yes, agreed. ... I'll take the way with science.
DeleteI like the way which actually explains, too. It is more interesting . So tell me how did life arrive at its present form, in your opinion.. What does true science say? Thanks
Delete"What does true science say? "
DeleteSo far true science can say for sure that:
1) only life begets life,
2) the fossil record shows either stasis or extinction of the various "kinds" of life, and
3) the information within a living cell can only come from an intelligent agent.
So far true science can say for sure that:
Delete1) only life begets life,
Is the designer not alive?
2) the fossil record shows either stasis or extinction of the various "kinds" of life, and
Why do extinctions tell us about design goals or methods?
3) the information within a living cell can only come from an intelligent agent.
Where does the designer's information come from then?
Sorry,should be " What do extinctions tell us about design goals and/or methods?
DeleteJust curious, what is your guess about the age of the earth?
"Is the designer not alive?"
DeleteThat's not the point. The point is that true science can't say where life comes from, it can only say it doesn't come from chemistry and/or physics.
"What do extinctions tell us about design goals and/or methods? "
True science tells us there used to be designed kinds of life that aren't around any more, which just confirms that life in all its glory seems to be depreciating, not appreciating over time.
"Where does the designer's information come from then?"
True science can't answer that because it has no way of observing the designer. Just as it can't tell us what preceeded time and space, should the big bang theory be true (which it isn't, imho)
"Just curious, what is your guess about the age of the earth?"
DeleteMy guess about the age of the earth matches what the Bible seems to imply. That the earth itself is relatively young although matter from which it and planets and stars were made may have been around longer. But that is a philosophical axiom, not a scientific axiom. Science tells us that the earth can't be much older that 10,000 years based on the rate it's magnetic field is decaying, or the rate the moon's distance from the earth is increasing, or the fact that carbon-14 can be found in diamonds. But my belief is a religious belief. I'm just pointing out the scientific findings that happily support that belief.
V: What do extinctions tell us about design goals and/or methods?
DeleteJ: What do they tell us about the necessary and sufficient conditions of posited historical lineage trajectories and their posited time-frame?
V: Where does the designer's information come from then?
J: Define information. Then tell me how you know it exists.
"Is the designer not alive?"
DeleteThat's not the point. The point is that true science can't say where life comes from, it can only say it doesn't come from chemistry and/or physics.
If science doesn't know how life came to be,then science doesn't know that it doesn't come from chemistry or physics. If you don't know how,you don't know how.
"What do extinctions tell us about design goals and/or methods? "
True science tells us there used to be designed kinds of life that aren't around any more, which just confirms that life in all its glory seems to be depreciating, not appreciating over time.
Ah,the Fall. Man's actions trump design, isn't that the rationale for Global Climate Change? After all if man's actions can result in the extinction of the dinosaurs then raising the global temp seems trivial.
"Where does the designer's information come from then?"
True science can't answer that because it has no way of observing the designer.
Then how do we know if he exists or not thru science?
Just as it can't tell us what preceeded time and space, should the big bang theory be true (which it isn't, imho)
Actually the are some theories that that may be possible
Jeff,
DeleteJ: What do they tell us about the necessary and sufficient conditions of posited historical lineage trajectories and their posited time-frame?
That they have a basis in fact?
But since you believe your beliefs are warranted and you can therefore make inferences, tell me what they mean from a design viewpoint, please.
Define information
Ask Awstar , he brought it up.
Then tell me how you know it exists.
QED
V: That they have a basis in fact?
DeleteJ: What has a basis in fact? Extinctions or necessary and sufficient conditions for the genealogical histories posited by UCA'ists?
Z: But since you believe your beliefs are warranted and you can therefore make inferences, tell me what they mean from a design viewpoint, please.
J: What do extinctions mean? That certain phenotypes ceased to produce offspring for one reason or another. Do you disagree?
V: J: Define information
Ask Awstar , he brought it up.
J: You and Scott are quite the pair! LOL!
Then tell me how you know it exists.
QED
Awstar: 3) the information within a living cell can only come from an intelligent agent.
DeleteThat some designer "just was" compete with the knowledge of how to build biological adaptations, already present, doesn't serve an explanatory purpose. This is because one could more economically state that organisms "just appeared" complete with the knowledge of how to build biological adaptations, already present. Neither are good explanations. Nor is the later evolutionary theory.
And I've just defined knowledge in the sense I've been using it: the knowledge of how to build biological adaptations from raw materials. ID proponents claim existing in was merely moved from one place to another: from some designer to the genome of organisms.
On the other hand...
"“The fundamental error being made by Lamarck has the same logic as inductivism. Both assume that new knowledge ([biological]adaptations and scientific theories respectively) is somehow already present in experience, or can be derived mechanically from experience. But the truth is always that knowledge must be first conjectured and then tested. That is what Darwin’s theory says: first, random mutations happen (they do not take account of what problem is being solved); then natural selection discards the variant genes that are less good at causing themselves to be present again in future generations.”
Excerpt From: David Deutsch. “The Beginning of Infinity.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/F1G6A.l
David Deutsch: But the truth is always that knowledge must be first conjectured and then tested.
DeleteJ: Oh me oh my. Define "tested." Scott, there's no way to know you're testing if you have no knowledge prior TO testing. Your epistemology doesn't ground the intelligibility of the distinction between knowledge and the absence of knowledge.
Define "tested?" Here is an example, Jeff.
DeleteThe Eightfold Way model in particle physics (1962) not only explained the existence of dozens of "elementary" particles discovered by then, it also predicted the existence of a hitherto unknown particle, the Ω− hyperon. It gave specific predictions for its quantum numbers (charge −1, strangeness −3) and for its mass (1.68 Gev).
In a successful test of this theory, the particle fitting these predictions was discovered in Brookhaven in 1964.
That's what we mean by testing, Jeff. You know lots of difficult words, but you can't wrap your mind around such a simple concept.
Oleg, Scott won't grant that we can know that causality is a real relation. If events are uncaused, predictions don't exist. If events are uncaused, predictions/explanations are illusory. Uncaused events could just as easily fit a predictive model as caused events by pure chance for the next few days and then cease to thereafter.
DeleteOh yeah, Scott doesn't grant that you could know whether you ever remember anything. Thus everything you said, per Scott, could be sheer BS. And you could be utterly oblivious to it. You could be pontificating wildly and never have a clue.
Jeff, you can fight your fight with Scott separately. Did you get what we mean by "testing?" Or do I need to smack you up the head with another obvious example?
DeleteZ: But since you believe your beliefs are warranted and you can therefore make inferences, tell me what they mean from a design viewpoint, please.
DeleteJ: What do extinctions mean? That certain phenotypes ceased to produce offspring for one reason or another. Do you disagree?
Yes that describes it, since you have the ability to make warranted inferences, what is your inference about the goal of that design ? Design as commonly understood has a goal, else it ceases to be design. Or is your inference that it is a non design feature?
V: J: Define information
Ask Awstar , he brought it up.
( Awstar,"So far true science can say for sure that:
...
3) the information within a living cell can only come from an intelligent agent.")
J: You and Scott are quite the pair! LOL!
While I would always go for the cheap laugh,the humor eludes me.
My answer was both responsive and accurate, the only definition of information relevant was his. I hope that is informative
Of course people know testing is, O. That's not what the debate is about. Testing is the application of criteria, though. Atheists love to remind us that all such criteria, by virtue of the fact that they can't BE tested, are arbitrary. This means science, even if demarcated by specific test criteria, has nothing to do with generating warranted beliefs or discerning plausibility in any proposition whatsoever. Thus, science, however demarcated, has no discernable value to the atheist. When all premises of all inferences are mere pontifications, then all conclusions therefrom are mere pontifications as well. And if you go further and deny the knowable validity of the law of non-contradiction, well, science is unintelligible conceptually.
DeleteV: what is your inference about the goal of that design ?
DeleteJ: Are you saying extinction per se is an end? I'm not convinced it is. I think its possible it's a side-effect of means unto other ends. Now, the physical regularities that were entailed in the causes of extinction were designed if our belief in such regularities is warranted at all, on the other hand. But the extinctions per se may not have been intended.
V: While I would always go for the cheap laugh,the humor eludes me.
J: I assure you I wasn't intending to get a laugh out of you. I was merely laughing to keep from crying.
You had asked Awstar, "Where does the designer's information come from then?" Not understanding what you meant, I asked "Define information." And then you didn't. So how am I, or anyone else, to make sense of your questions if you don't even know what they mean yourself? So, no, it is not true that your "answer was both responsive and accurate."
Science has no discernible value to the atheist, Jeff? What have you been smoking?
DeleteHere's a few definitions of information. Pick one. True science says no matter which definition you use, information requires a mind to create.
DeleteInformation:
1. The communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence
2. the attribute inherent in, and communicated by, alternative sequences or arrangements of something that produce a specific effect
But I'll make up a new definition based on Werner Gitt's book "In the beginning was information"
Information: 3. the abstract representation of three dimensional reality with a one dimensional sequence of symbols
How would you discern it, O? Are there self-evident propositions or not? And if so, what necessary and sufficient conditions cause that to be the case?
DeleteJeff, you're using a very flowery language, but what comes out is word salad.
DeleteI am an atheist. I value science not only because I am employed in it, but also because it provides very reliable knowledge about the world in which we live. Your meanderings, not so much.
Jeff: Oleg, Scott won't grant that we can know that causality is a real relation.
DeleteApparently, Jeff’s only response is to misrepresent me. Repeatedly. Despite making numerous clarifications.
For example, Jeff is confusing our inability to see causes with not having adopted the idea that causes are best explanation for effects.
Apparently, Jeff thinks we cannot make progress unless some form of foundationalism is true. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t seem to think foundationalism itself is itself an idea that is subject to rational criticism, either.
Jeff: Oh yeah, Scott doesn't grant that you could know whether you ever remember anything.
Again, I’ve clarified this at length and pointed to references of criticism of foundationalsim, including criticisms by Popper. Jeff’s personal disagreement with this clarification doesn’t make this any less of a misrepresentation.
Furthermore, Jeff has yet to indicate what problem foundationalism solves, how it actually solves it and his criteria for discerning between where are basic and non-basic views.
Scott: For example, Jeff is confusing our inability to see causes with not having adopted the idea that causes are best explanation for effects.
DeleteJ: Effects, by definition, are caused. To say an event is an effect is just to SAY that it's CAUSED!
You're confused, as usual. You can't find positive EVIDENCE for causality, Scott. That's what you agree with. And that's all I'm saying.
Scott: Apparently, Jeff thinks we cannot make progress unless some form of foundationalism is true.
J: But you insist there's no POSITIVE evidence for the past occurrence of progress. Nor can there be positive evidence for it in the future. So what difference does it make if there HAS been progress. You wouldn't know anything about it.
Scott: Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t seem to think foundationalism itself is itself an idea that is subject to rational criticism, either.
J: Only in the sense that if foundationalism is false, the criteria we use are a-plausible. And therefore have no knowable value.
Scott: Furthermore, Jeff has yet to indicate what problem foundationalism solves
J: You can only have POSITIVE evidence for the EXISTENCE of problems IF foundationalism is true. Why this is hard for you is beyond me. If you want to stand before Congress and argue for funding for some specific research while also insisting that ALL propositions are a-plausible and equally so, I say GET BUSY! We'll all have a good laugh.
While Jeff is arguing for the impossibility of doing research unless scientists accept his dogmas, science proceeds at its usual pace.
DeleteO, real scientists still use inductive criteria quite frequently. What's different is that more and more of them claim those criteria are no more knowably valuable than any other criteria. So now we have even Z contending that we merely "ADOPT" the belief that we remember. But of course by that approach, he never knowably ACTUALLY remembers adopting anything. IOW, atheists adopt the view that all belief is absolutely blind--even the belief that they've adopted any such a view. If this isn't quintessential know-nothing-ism, what the heck is?
DeleteYes, evolutionists are very good at proclaiming their 'evidence' but when asked to present it, they seem to have trouble locating it (unless the person first ASSUMES evolution as a given)
ReplyDelete"We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;' but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists."
Wolfgang Smith
Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
BTW, loved the Bible passage Dr Hunter!
And I love the Wolfgang Smith quote as well.
DeleteCH: Venema is, first and foremost, a religious fundamentalist. His religion dictates his science.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone should complain about religious fundamentalism, someone employed by Biola University would be the last person to do so.