Dismissive and now evasive. You didn't answer my question about credentials.
I'm being no more evasive than you. I will answer your question about Kitty when you answer mine on the philosophy of legitimate scientists... And if all you can answer with is "I can't find any" I will happily accept that and continue to answer your thought.
Further, your grasp does not seem at all firm to me. You didn't seem to know anything about falsification…
K, first off, I asked for clarification on one piece of vocabulary you used, which I think is perfectly acceptable considering how many people that claim a dis-belief in evolution have a distorted view of terminology. And being the symbolic interactionist that I am, words only have as much meaning as we give them, so again, entirely reasonable to ask for clarification for the words meaning. I've assumed the meanings of words like that before which have lead to bigger problems than this so I figured better safe than sorry.
And I'm sorry if I care more about concepts than names… But there are too many names in science, if I had to remember them all there'd be no room for all the theologians and concepts that I care about in that head of mine. I mean every concept has had a hugely important name to back it, not knowing that name does not mean I don't understand the concept… Have you ever heard of Gregor Mendel? (without the use of wikipedia? I assume you do as the Bauer fellow below mentions him in a one-off page in his book, but maybe you forgot the name, it's not hard to do). Because without him we essentially don't have modern biology. If you don't know his name does that instantly mean you can't possibly understand biology? Cause if that's how you think, we may clash on a number of future ideas.
That is what I gave you. Other than knowing that Ms. Ferguson was once a musician you seem to know nothing about her, like, for example, the fact that she was on familiar terms with Hawking
I actually did know that, she wrote a biography, and even asked him for forgiveness in advance because she knew that she probably got a number of his ideas wrong and didn't want to make him angry or annoyed over it (he gave her his advanced forgiveness by the way).
But I further clarified my criteria by saying "no scientific journal entries"… And then gave you and example of dense material. Light does not mean lacking in credibility (or at least not for me) and if I were to source only Kitty Ferguson on a university essay I'd get docked quite a few marks for not having a credible source to back my points.
And so to avoid any further confusion here is exactly what I mean by light reading…
1) If you are going to recommend a scientific peer reviewed journal entry, at least have the courtesy to tell me what I'm looking for and maybe where in the essay it occurs.
2) Books where the writing style is not that of "use words that mean entire paragraphs to pack more material into less pages"
Even with those two criteria it is not hard at all to find credible sources that I could use in a university paper.
(These are some of the vocabulary mis-understandings I mentioned earlier, sometimes clarification is a good thing… and in this case doesn't mean that you necessarily don't understand light reading, just not my definition of light reading)
Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method by Bauer
Read the chapter on "The So-Called Scientific Method" and aside from him coming across as an immature over-achiever annoyed at his fellow classmate for excelling where he did not, he also did not source a single example (aside from a graph, but that was likely for copyright issues, not because he necessarily cared that you knew where the information originated). I'm sorry but If you want me to take these people seriously at least give me someone who understands how to be a credible source. But since I know you're going to say something along the lines of 'Just because he doesn't know how to source his material that doesn't mean his opinions are invalid' So horrendous academic procedure aside, here's what I think of this Bauer fellow.
Aside from over half his data being out of date (perhaps due to the publication date) he has this nasty habit of using sneaky literary tricks to make you think his opinions are more than just opinions. Like by saying things like "which, remember, is preconceived belief" which theories (the thing he was talking about at the moment) are not exclusively, that is just what he thinks of them. He appears to think that scientists should be able to do everything and all the work from beginning of theory to end in order for it to actually be science, which would require so much schooling and interdisciplinary understandings that any scientists interested in such a career path would die before they acquired all the PHD's and research necessary to understand ever single fast of science. And as soon as you break science down into categories such a biology, physics and chemistry as something of the same the idea of science becomes unattainable to Bauer… which simply is not so. And then he also has issues that theories actually attempt to predict instead of just explaining, I mean the more he talks about the science the more it seems he just doesn't like it. Which is a valid stance to hold, if you don't like science so be it… but that doesn't make science wrong. I don't like math, but it's got a pretty good track record, so I'm not about to write a book about how because I dislike math it must be faulty in some way.
I'm going to the library this afternoon, I'll be sure to thumb through your other recommendation while I'm there, but for now… That my first impressions.
Actually, you seem to be drifting farther and farther from the mark.
How so? Other than the little back and forth about Kitty above, how have I not stayed on topic? You asked about my beliefs on evolution and I gave them to you. You asked if I though the results were possible without God and I answered you. You asked if I thought evolution was a random process and I again gave you an answer. Other than your question about Kitty I have answered every direct question you have given me, and I have my reasons which I detailed above for not yet answering your question on Kitty.
What is it that you see? If you can see it, why can't science? The statement "guiding these seemingly random mutations" is an oxymoron. Either they're random or they're not.
first off, not an oxymoron… it would have been without that one word 'seemingly'… but luckily there it was because what appears to be random is not necessarily so. A carefully crafted computer program designed to pick random numbers may look random to someone watching these numbers occur in front of them but there is a lot of calculation going on within the computer that the viewer cannot necessarily see that actually dictates the numbers they are seeing. Is that random? No, does it appear random? yes. Looks can be deceiving.
What I see is a planet so beautiful that an artist must have sculpted it, a universe that came into being so against the odds that it seems borderline impossible for a power to have not assisted it, and so far a solar system so unique that we have yet to find any other in our entire universe. But none of that is scientific, and so to science those proofs don't matter. It's really not that hard to grasp (or at least I don't think it is, you can disagree with it, but as a concept it's pretty accessible).
But if you want me to break it down even further, God is a metaphysical concept and on top of that we have made him out to be something that exists beyond physics. Science deals in our physical reality, when something exists outside that reality science can neither confirm nor deny it and becomes useless to talk about such concepts… Again does not make science wrong, but to put it another way. Romeo and Juliet is a literary work of art, it is not a math so using mathematics to try and explain Romeo and Juliet is borderline foolish because of how useless mathematics are for explaining old english literature.
QM is good for the very small and GR for the very massive. But in the case of black holes where you have something very massive (GR) AND very small (QM) they don't agree.
And do you know how many scientists have made it their life's work to rectify this… Just because we are using what is currently the best understanding to our knowledge, that does not mean the process has ended. The most fascinating attempt at this (and the one that I would be least surprised to be heavily supported in the coming years) is the theory described in "‪An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything‬" by Anthony Garrett Lisi. Which actually succeeds in making those two seemingly contradictory theories no longer so (see what I did there… with the word 'seemingly'? not an oxymoron).
So the reason why it has yet to throw both of them out is because there is not sufficient evidence to say they are wrong and no better explanation out there exists… and if the evidence supports Lisi in the coming years there's good reason for that, because they aren't wrong. We just lack the full picture at the current moment.
But if we had to wait until our understanding of the universe was 100% complete before we could have 'science' (as Bauer seems to understand it) we would be in an everlasting bronze or even stone age due to all our scientists going mentally insane before any information could ever be gathered due to the impossible hurdle that has been laid in front of them.
