Does 'Goddidit' constitute an explanation? (2)

[Wiccan_Child]

We have come up with a number of things that are not particularly testable, generally because they fit in with the data that we have.

Take black holes for example: we have theories about them because they work within a theory we already had, the general theory of relativity. We can't test black holes but because they fit into the theory and there are other theories that have been created based on it, we can use that as evidence.

There are other ways of finding evidence than direct testing.

Well, we can test black holes, to a degree. But the more funky stuff about them is beyond any test we have nowadays.

 

[Jnwaco]

We have video documentation amongst other empirical evidence of the existence of the Mariana Trench including radar mapping of the whole ocean floor of the earth's oceans. On the other hand the Gospels were written 300 years after the death of Christ. Hardly a first hand account of what happened and certainly not empirical evidence. Your turn

Actually, the gospels were written in the first century because people known to have written in the early 2nd century quoted nearly the entire New Testament. Something like 19,000 quotations.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Actually, the gospels were written in the first century because people known to have written in the early 2nd century quoted nearly the entire New Testament. Something like 19,000 quotations.

Source? I agree that the four gospels were written in the first century CE, but what is your source for the figure of 19,000 quotations?

 

[Nostromo]

Because they are inferred by ideas that are testable. We have never empirically detected a spacetime continuum, but its existence is inferred because it is predicted by a theory that is empirically tested. Evidence by proxy, you might say.

I'm not saying that something is unscientific if it is not directly testable. There's nothing wrong with a hypothesis that makes predictions which are conceivably testable.

To use the example above, in the early years after the general relativity was formulated, black holes were put forward as a theoretical possibility, but still just a mathematical idea. Such a thing is testable because it makes predictions about reality that we could potentially observe.

I'm not saying that you must be able to stick something in a test tube or it's not scientific.

 

[SithDoughnut]

Well, we can test black holes, to a degree. But the more funky stuff about them is beyond any test we have nowadays.

I know but I assumed that the topic was more direct testability (i.e. making a black hole or visiting one).

 

[SkyWriting]

You seem to be rocking the boat for the sake of rocking the boat. Ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?

See? Every gets to have an opinion. And thanks for the heads up about getting eaten. It shows you love me.

 

[SkyWriting]

Most people here seem to think the word skeptical means "Just say no to science, kids". Science is essentially a framework for being skeptical, so saying that people are wrong to trust science and encouraging them to be more skeptical is practically a contradiction.

Except for evolution as the mechanism for turning dust into critters.
Nobody is not allowed to doubt that. Or so say the 10 people who
write about evolution.

 

[SkyWriting]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq5j6cRtR1g
lots tiny steps make big steps Lots of micro evolution makes macro-evolution. This is a demonstrable fact that you cannot refute with science. Nor would any respectable theologian use the bible to try and refute that as well.

Not a fact. And really hard to demonstrate given the time needed. It's merely a possible model. We have tried. We've been trying to change fruit flies for years using selective breeding but run into a brick wall where they just "refuse" to change any further. The researchers defense is they aren't trying. Sure, why would anybody want to prove that evolution works?

On the other hand, my dog was created in about 100 years. No mutations needed at all.

 

[Exiledoomsayer]

Except for evolution as the mechanism for turning dust into critters.
Nobody is not allowed to doubt that. Or so say the 10 people who
write about evolution.

To doubt anything, including ToE, is fine. your just not allowed to start claiming its entirely false without providing any evidence.
<you can say you believe its entirely false, thats freedom of speech >

 

[Promethean]

Not a fact. And really hard to demonstrate given the time needed. It's merely a possible model. We have tried. We've been trying to change fruit flies for years using selective breeding but run into a brick wall where they just "refuse" to change any further. The researchers defense is they aren't trying. Sure, why would anybody want to prove that evolution works?

On the other hand, my dog was created in about 100 years. No mutations needed at all.

Evolution is already proven.

And it has taken humans 16 000 to come up with your dog.

 

[Exiledoomsayer]

Not a fact. And really hard to demonstrate given the time needed. It's merely a possible model. We have tried. We've been trying to change fruit flies for years using selective breeding but run into a brick wall where they just "refuse" to change any further. The researchers defense is they aren't trying. Sure, why would anybody want to prove that evolution works?

On the other hand, my dog was created in about 100 years. No mutations needed at all.

in science, outside of mathmatics, you cannot proof a theory. other then that, there is nothing quite as boring as preforming a expriment that serves only to add more evidence to the mountain that we already have. if you can disproof evolution, that is stuf that would be wildly exciting and something you can build your career out of.

the only people that want more evidence are not going to believe the evidence anyway because they base their disbelieve on religious grounds and have no interest in changing their mind. so there really isnt much of a reason.

 

[Skaloop]

On the other hand, my dog was created in about 100 years. No mutations needed at all.

I don't think you understand what mutations are in regards to evolutionary theory. They are not necessarily large-scale alterations that give something like out of Total Recall. A mutation may merely be a slightly shorter snout on your dog (or longer) that is selected for. It depends on the breed.

Regardless, your dog was "created" in about 100 years through selection, the underlying process of evolution. That it was directed by man rather than nature is pretty much irrelevant to the process itself.

 

[sandwiches]

How can we attain knowledge if we excise perfectly plausible (though perhaps not probable) explanations? No matter how untestable a hypothesis it may be, God may, in fact, have done it. If that is the case, we do ourselves no favours by rejecting such an idea outright.

I consider falsifiability to be extremely useful, both pragmatically and theoretically, but I don't consider it vital for something to be considered scientific. If science is the pursuit of knowledge, then it should be open to knowledge no matter what it is.

I have to side with Nostromo here. Science has a very specific method of gathering information and your use of the word 'knowledge' is extremely broad and vague. I could do LSD or make up random words and gain 'knowledge' that way, as well. However, science isn't about just plain ol' knowledge; It's about gathering verifiable, useful information that explains our universe. So, no. I do not think you can remove verifiability from science and that includes testability, falsifiability, or verifiability through independent lines of evidence.

 

[BananaSlug]

Not a fact. And really hard to demonstrate given the time needed. It's merely a possible model. We have tried. We've been trying to change fruit flies for years using selective breeding but run into a brick wall where they just "refuse" to change any further.

That is because of two reasons.
1. Anything the fruit flies evolve into will still be fruit flies. We have observed speciation in the lab with fruit flies. Speciation does not require an organism to become a totally different type of organism. An species still belongs to the group it evolved from.

2. When organisms become fundamentally "different" organisms is usually after a major extinction event due to adaptive radiation. After the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct it left many different niches open. The mammals, which were for the most part generalist insectivores were able to move out and occupy these different niches. In the Paleocene we find mostly dog-sized or smaller mammals that were not particularly specialized. As time passed, mammals began to differentiate and specialize more and more. The more specialized a species is, the less it will be able to evolve due to changing environmental conditions.

The researchers defense is they aren't trying. Sure, why would anybody want to prove that evolution works?

We have "proven" it beyond reasonable doubt. We use our knowledge of evolution to create better medicines and in agriculture. Evolution is one of the best supported theories in science.

On the other hand, my dog was created in about 100 years. No mutations needed at all.

What breed? Many dog breeds have mutations acquired over the many thousands of years of artificial selection.

The only difference between artificial and natural selection is that one is done by man and the other by the environment.

 

[Nostromo]

Except for evolution as the mechanism for turning dust into critters.
Nobody is not allowed to doubt that. Or so say the 10 people who
write about evolution.

Evolution isn't a mechanism, it's a description of what happened, natural selection is the mechanism.

Biological evolution is a change in life. If you want to look at the 4 billion years of life trapped in the rocks from billions of years of only single cells up to the diversity of the present day and tell me that life has not changed on this planet then be my guest, but don't act incredulous when people treat you like a nutcase.

Do you have a German Shepherd by the way?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Not a fact. And really hard to demonstrate given the time needed. It's merely a possible model. We have tried. We've been trying to change fruit flies for years using selective breeding but run into a brick wall where they just "refuse" to change any further.

Source? Fruit flies have already been speciated dozens of times. If you think we're trying to change them from one thing into another, pre-determined thing, you severely misunderstand what they're actually doing, and how evolution works.

The researchers defense is they aren't trying.

Source?

On the other hand, my dog was created in about 100 years. No mutations needed at all.

Your dog contains many new mutations. That's simply a fact.

 

[Jnwaco]

Source? I agree that the four gospels were written in the first century CE, but what is your source for the figure of 19,000 quotations?

Ravi Zacharias Who Made God p. 146

Following them, the church fathers of the second to fourth centuries made some 36,289 citations from the New Testament, including every verse except for eleven of them! This included 19,368 citations from the Gospels, 1,352 from Acts, 14,035 from Paul's Epistles, 870 from the General Epistles, and 664 from Revelation.

Study done by Geisler and Nix, A General Introduction, p. 431

The church fathers in the second century alone cited from every major book of the New Testament and all but one minor one (3 John, which they simply may have had no occasion to cite.

We can know that the writings were early because they are quoted by people writing just after the turn of the first century, such as Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clement, etc.

e-Catena: Compiled Allusions to the NT in the Ante-Nicene Fathers

I just want to point something out. We do a lot of digging and citing things because of hyperskepticism. I spent about 10 minutes digging out the citations for you. Bear in mind that not everything that is to know about the NT is posted online. I have a pretty extensive library of NT books, and if I say something about them, it's usually because I've read it in a few different places.

 

[Doveaman]

How can we attain knowledge if we excise perfectly plausible (though perhaps not probable) explanations? No matter how untestable a hypothesis it may be, God may, in fact, have done it. If that is the case, we do ourselves no favours by rejecting such an idea outright.
I consider falsifiability to be extremely useful, both pragmatically and theoretically, but I don't consider it vital for something to be considered scientific. If science is the pursuit of knowledge, then it should be open to knowledge no matter what it is.

I have to side with Nostromo here. Science has a very specific method of gathering information and your use of the word 'knowledge' is extremely broad and vague. I could do LSD or make up random words and gain 'knowledge' that way, as well. However, science isn't about just plain ol' knowledge; It's about gathering verifiable, useful information that explains our universe. So, no. I do not think you can remove verifiability from science and that includes testability, falsifiability, or verifiability through independent lines of evidence.

And here I am thinking that "reality" was the same for all Atheists who rely so heavily on "evidence".

My bad.

 

[Doveaman]

No. I&#8217;m asking you to provide a single instance, ever, where &#8220;God did it&#8221; has been tested and verified as the true explanation for anything at all.

And like I said before:

Rapid expansion of the universe = "Dark-Energy did it".

Creation of the universe = "God did it".

One explanation is just as valid as the other, scientifically speaking.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

And here I am thinking that "reality" was the same for all Atheists who rely so heavily on "evidence".

My bad.

Indeed. Hopefully you won't make such demonstrably false presumptions and stereotypes in the future.