I may have discovered the best evidence for evolution

[Zosimus]

Yes, he predicted where he might find one. As I've stated, predictions are a staple of any robust theory.

We all make three fundamental assumptions:
1. Reality exists.
2. We can know something about reality.
3. Models with predictive capabilities work better than those without.

All right, so he predicted where he might find one.

My horoscope predicted that I might come into money today. I got paid.

Does that make horoscopes scientifically validated?

 

[Loudmouth]

No it doesn't. That's neo-Darwinism or what is called the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis.

The Modern Synthesis is the theory of evolution.

I don't argue against it. I simply say that these things are unknown.

You ignore the evidence supporting all of these conclusions. Why is that?

The whole point is that they are known. We have mountains of evidence supporting these conclusions, and you ignore it.

Yes, I just don't see why it's important that you have a theory that will accommodate your data. The theory accommodates all data.

That is false. The theory could not accomodate clear and numerous violations of a nested hierarchy at both the morphological and genetic levels. This has been explained ad infinitum.

Show me where the Koran says that evolution is valid.

Your avoidance is noted.

They're not my requirements, nor are they made up. The Theory of Knowledge » The Tripartite Theory of Knowledge goes back as far as Plato.

They are not the requirements of science.

 

[Loudmouth]

All right, so he predicted where he might find one.

My horoscope predicted that I might come into money today. I got paid.

Does that make horoscopes scientifically validated?

This is evidence that you have no intention of addressing the evidence in an honest manner.

 

[Loudmouth]

Why do you think that intelligent design is not falsifiable, but natural selection is falsifiable?

I already showed you how natural selection is falsifiable.

On top of that, there is no pattern of shared features that would be inconsistent with intelligent design. There is no possible observation that would be inconsistent with a designer, especially an omnipotent designer that is proposed by some.

 

[Zosimus]

It was not presented to be evidence. Theobald was discussing the evidence and giving cites to the scientific literature backing up the discussion. Did you even bother to read any of the material?

What on earth do you mean by Darwinism? How is it different from evolution? We are talking about the current version of the Theory of Evolution as science knows it.

Again, you need to explain what you mean by Darwinism and perhaps explain how it is faith based.

Can you show me where I said this?

I don't know what you mean by Darwinism but you obviously do not know what is meant by "theory" in science.

This should be interesting. Can you give some cites. That is not listed in my Logic textbook (Copi), perhaps you can expand on this a little and explain what it has to do with testing evolution. You are quite right, so how about showing how it applies to testing evolution. Learning minds are interested.

So you took a logic course-Wow! Even better you found something out of my area that I don't know. However I suspect I know quite a bit more about evolution and the practice and philosophy of science than you at least as evidenced by your posts, but I am willing to learn so how do "Tacking of Disjuction, Goodman's paradox (how does grue and bleen apply to the TOE?) or the Raven's Paradox apply to the TOE as we know it today or to how science is done for that matter?

What relevance does any of this have to do with biology and science.

Not hardly since we are talking about biology and science. I have not studied biology all that much but I have studied the philosophy and practice of science quite a bit and that is what I normally address here. You, on the other hand seem to be unaware of much of the material involved.

So your job is to tie all this logic into evolution. I do stand by my belief that you know little about the subject of evolution and I get the idea that you don't know an awful lot of how inductive logic is used in science and scientific statistics.

So if you don't want to go down as a low information poster, I might suggest doing some research on evolution.

Dizredux

If you had bothered to follow the link, you would see that the very website that was referenced (talkorigin.org) clearly says that evolution "...evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."

If you don't know what Darwinism is, then try watching Richard Dawkins in the following video clip.

Neo-Darwinism Lecture by Richard Dawkins - YouTube

Now to answer the questions you posted (the ones I find interesting). What is tacking by disjunction? Let's suppose that you are debating with a Christian who says, "God/Jesus/YHWH created everything you see around us," and you reply "That's nice, but it's not a falsifiable scientific theory."

"Aha!" retorts the Christian, "But it is! All you have to do is find the tomb of Jesus Christ with a dead Jewish guy in it and wham! You have falsified the theory, so the theory really is a scientific theory and should be taught in schools alongside Darwinism."

Is the Christian right? Well, no, in reality he has two theories in play. The first theory states that God made the universe, and the second theory states that Jesus rose from the dead. By joining or tacking the two theories together he is generating the impression that the first theory is falsifiable and therefore scientific, but in reality it is not. The Christian could just as easily have tacked the claim "God made everything" to the claim "all diamonds are hard" and made a pseudo-falsifiable theory.

Similarly when Darwinists claim that natural selection is a falsifiable (and therefore scientific) theory because you could find a half-digested rabbit in the stomach of a T.Rex, they are tacking the theory of natural selection, which says nothing about T.Rex's or rabbits, to another theory that does say things about T.Rex's and rabbits.
-----------
All the supposed "support" for Darwinism is, by nature, inductive. Things have been found, in the past, that people think support or at least do not contradict Darwinism. However, the question is: When is inductive reasoning valid? When is it not valid? How can we know when we are making a valid induction or an invalid one?

For example, imagine that we have a bus containing 8 people. All the people on the bus are going north. It is therefore claimed that if we add another person to the bus, that the new person will also be going north. I think most of us would say that this is a valid induction.

On the other hand, if we have a bus containing 8 people and all the people on the bus were born in the month of February. If we claim that any new person who gets on the bus will also be born in the month of February, I think most people would say that this is not a valid induction.

The question, then is this: How can we distinguish between a valid induction and one that is not? This is a question that few Darwinists are willing to take up. Other than saying, "Our inductions are valid because computers exist," I have yet to hear any kind of an argument that attempts to differentiate between valid and invalid inductions and provide an exact criteria to differentiate between them.

 

[Zosimus]

The Modern Synthesis is the theory of evolution.

No, the Modern Synthesis is a theory of evolution.

You ignore the evidence supporting all of these conclusions. Why is that?

The whole point is that they are known. We have mountains of evidence supporting these conclusions, and you ignore it.

I do not ignore the evidence. I simply point out that the evidence does not support your conclusion. It doesn't invalidate it either.

That is false. The theory could not accomodate clear and numerous violations of a nested hierarchy at both the morphological and genetic levels. This has been explained ad infinitum.



Your avoidance is noted.



They are not the requirements of science.

If not, then science is worthless.

 

[Zosimus]

This is evidence that you have no intention of addressing the evidence in an honest manner.

No, this is a metaphor that shows that confirmations do not, per se, support theories.

 

[Zosimus]

I already showed you how natural selection is falsifiable.

On top of that, there is no pattern of shared features that would be inconsistent with intelligent design. There is no possible observation that would be inconsistent with a designer, especially an omnipotent designer that is proposed by some.

You have not shown how natural selection is falsifiable. You have tacked the theory of natural selection, which is not falsifiable, onto another theory that is falsifiable. This demonstrates nothing. The same thing could be done for intelligent design.

 

[bhsmte]

This is evidence that you have no intention of addressing the evidence in an honest manner.

His motivation is pretty clear. Split Rock nailed it.

 

[Loudmouth]

You have not shown how natural selection is falsifiable.

Yes, I did. A mutation leading to antibiotic resistance will become prominent in a population of bacteria that are in an environment containing antibiotics. We can determine which mutations lead to antibiotic resistance independently of the population data.

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DNA gyrase inhibitors, such as quinolones, depend on the antibiotic binding to DNA gyrase and preventing the normal operation of the protein. You can do the binding assays in a test tube and determine which mutations in the protein will lead to a lack of gyrase activity. You can then look for that same mutation in bacteria using a methodology such as the Lederberg plate replica experiment or the Luria-Delbruck fluctuation assay.

All completely falsifiable.

The same thing could be done for intelligent design.

What pattern of shared characteristics would falsify intelligent design?

 

[Loudmouth]

No, this is a metaphor that shows that confirmations do not, per se, support theories.

Accurate predictions do not support theories? Seriously?

Like I said, you have no interest in honestly discussing science.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, the Modern Synthesis is a theory of evolution.

It is THE theory used by scientists.

I do not ignore the evidence.

". . . confirmations do not, per se, support theories."--Zosimus

Yes, you do ignore the evidence. Confirming the predictions made by a hypothesis with observations is what we call evidence.

I simply point out that the evidence does not support your conclusion.

Since the hypothesis predicts those observations, it does support the conclusion. That's how the scientific method works.

If not, then science is worthless.

You finally admit that you reject science. Thank you.

 

[Zosimus]

Yes, I did. A mutation leading to antibiotic resistance will become prominent in a population of bacteria that are in an environment containing antibiotics. We can determine which mutations lead to antibiotic resistance independently of the population data.

An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

DNA gyrase inhibitors, such as quinolones, depend on the antibiotic binding to DNA gyrase and preventing the normal operation of the protein. You can do the binding assays in a test tube and determine which mutations in the protein will lead to a lack of gyrase activity. You can then look for that same mutation in bacteria using a methodology such as the Lederberg plate replica experiment or the Luria-Delbruck fluctuation assay.

All completely falsifiable.



What pattern of shared characteristics would falsify intelligent design?

So basically your argument is that bacteria that are killed by antibiotics will not survive as long as bacteria that are not killed by antibiotics?

Good thing we have natural selection here to explain that to us. My God, without that, we would never have worked that out.

You said, "DNA gyrase inhibitors, such as quinolones, depend on the antibiotic binding to DNA gyrase and preventing the normal operation of the protein."

I can't help but wonder how you knew that. Oh wait... let me guess. Scientists applied the antibiotic to bacteria, determined which ones died, and then they made the incredible leap of saying, "The bacteria that will die... will die." Again, this is very profound.

Oh, but wait. This can all be falsified by seeing whether the bacteria that will die won't die. Amazing!

But wait... there's a tickling sensation in my brain. What would have happened if, for example, scientists postulated that DNA gyrase inhibitors depended on the antibiotic binding to DNA gyrase and preventing the normal operation of the protein and they turned out to be completely wrong?

Would they have said, "Well, that's it folks... we have destroyed the theory of natural selection," or would they have said, "It appears that our theory that the antibiotic depends on binding to DNA gyrase is completely wrong. We'd better get back in there and figure out what really causes the antibiotic to work."

Of course we all know the answer to that question. The latter course would have been pursued. So we see that this "test" is not a test of natural selection at all. Regardless the outcome of the experiment, natural selection was not in the slightest manner threatened with falsification.

 

[Zosimus]

Accurate predictions do not support theories? Seriously?

Like I said, you have no interest in honestly discussing science.

First of all, it's not "Like I said..." but "As I said..."

Second, how many accurate predictions does astrology need to make before you're convinced that it works?

 

[Zosimus]

It is THE theory used by scientists.

No, it's not. More and more evolutionary is focusing on things such as horizontal gene transfers.

". . . confirmations do not, per se, support theories."--Zosimus

Yes, that's exactly right. Did I stutter?

Yes, you do ignore the evidence. Confirming the predictions made by a hypothesis with observations is what we call evidence.

Sure, it's evidence... but of what?

Since the hypothesis predicts those observations, it does support the conclusion. That's how the scientific method works.

No, it doesn't. The scientific method works by falsifying bad theories, not by confirming good ones.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, it's not. More and more evolutionary is focusing on things such as horizontal gene transfers.

That is part of the theory of evolution used by scientists.

Yes, that's exactly right. Did I stutter?

Yes, you did.
"I do not ignore the evidence."--Zosimus

Those two statements are in direct contradiction to each other.

Sure, it's evidence... but of what?

It is evidence for the accuracy of the hypothesis and the larger theory that the hypothesis was taken from. That is how science works.

No, it doesn't. The scientific method works by falsifying bad theories, not by confirming good ones.

You have just demonstrated that you do not understand how science works.

If you ask a physicist about the theory that is used to describe the atomic nuclei, will he just list the theories that were falsified and not mention the one that is being used in physics and has been confirmed by tons of experiments?

 

[Dizredux]

If you had bothered to follow the link, you would see that the very website that was referenced (talkorigin.org) clearly says that evolution "...evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."

And that is the operational definition of evolution but again, did you read any of Theobald's essays?

If you don't know what Darwinism is, then try watching Richard Dawkins in the following video clip.

I am not going to watch an hour plus video clip. You can put it into your own words unless you want to avoid the question. If you can't then I would suspect you are just blowing smoke.

Now to answer the questions you posted (the ones I find interesting). What is tacking by disjunction? Let's suppose that you are debating with a Christian who says, "God/Jesus/YHWH created everything you see around us," and you reply "That's nice, but it's not a falsifiable scientific theory."

Nope let us not suppose as that is not an argument that I would make. We are talking about science and evolution, not religion. Quit playing games.

"Aha!" retorts the Christian, "But it is! All you have to do is find the tomb of Jesus Christ with a dead Jewish guy in it and wham! You have falsified the theory, so the theory really is a scientific theory and should be taught in schools alongside Darwinism."

Is the Christian right? Well, no, in reality he has two theories in play. The first theory states that God made the universe, and the second theory states that Jesus rose from the dead. By joining or tacking the two theories together he is generating the impression that the first theory is falsifiable and therefore scientific, but in reality it is not. The Christian could just as easily have tacked the claim "God made everything" to the claim "all diamonds are hard" and made a pseudo-falsifiable theory.

Nice but that is not the claim being made by science.

Similarly when Darwinists claim that natural selection is a falsifiable (and therefore scientific) theory because you could find a half-digested rabbit in the stomach of a T.Rex,

Do you understand the subject at all? That has nothing to do with natural selection.

they are tacking the theory of natural selection, which says nothing about T.Rex's or rabbits, to another theory that does say things about T.Rex's and rabbits. -----------

And neither has anything to do with natural selection. Do you somehow think that natural selection "is" the theory of evolution?

All the supposed "support" for Darwinism is, by nature, inductive.

As is all of science. Do you not understand this? I thought you had some background in logic.

Things have been found, in the past, that people think support or at least do not contradict Darwinism. However, the question is: When is inductive reasoning valid? When is it not valid? How can we know when we are making a valid induction or an invalid one?

In the sense you are using it, never. You are using valid as a binary term as in deductive logic. It does not apply to inductive logic. In science, the best we get is probabilities of a hypothesis being supported, in otherwords, the results are not likely to be a result of randomness with different statistical degrees of certainty.

I have seen this game played before on the forum. It was probably from you. It did not apply then and doesn't now. We are talking about how science deals with data.

For example, imagine that we have a bus containing 8 people. All the people on the bus are going north. It is therefore claimed that if we add another person to the bus, that the new person will also be going north. I think most of us would say that this is a valid induction.

On the other hand, if we have a bus containing 8 people and all the people on the bus were born in the month of February. If we claim that any new person who gets on the bus will also be born in the month of February, I think most people would say that this is not a valid induction.

That has nothing to do with science and hypothesis testing.

The question, then is this: How can we distinguish between a valid induction and one that is not? This is a question that few Darwinists are willing to take up. Other than saying, "Our inductions are valid because computers exist,"

Where on earth did you hear this? You are just being silly again.

I have yet to hear any kind of an argument that attempts to differentiate between valid and invalid inductions and provide an exact criteria to differentiate between them.

I have already addressed this. Logicians do not use the terms valid and invalid for inductive logic but only for deductive logic.

Again, I thought you had studied logic. This is pretty basic. From this I can only conclude that you are playing Nihilist games using points you have picked up somewhere without a real understand of the basic principles involved.



Dizredux

 

[Loudmouth]

Second, how many accurate predictions does astrology need to make before you're convinced that it works?

Why don't you put the predictions side by side and show us. Evolution has accurately predicted a nested hierarchy for the entire field of comparative genomics and paleontology. Show us what predictions astrology makes, the mechanisms that it includes, and show us how it stacks up to evolution.

Convince me that astrology makes as many accurate predictions as evolution does. Let's see you actually back up your claims for once.

 

[Smidlee]

False. The phylogeny is constructed independently of any assumption of common ancestry. You don't have to assume common ancestry to observe that the LTR's of an ERV shared by all primates have more differences than the LTR's of an ERV shared by just chimps and humans. You don't have to assume common ancestry to observe that an ERV occurs at the same position in two genomes.

I disagree . No matter how much you try to deny it it's an assumption.

Then show me an observed mechanism other than common ancestry that produces a nested hierarchy of ERV's.

Intelligent design can do it with ease.

You can still change your own DNA at random. What Shapiro ignores is that the mechanisms he references also produce neutral and deleterious mutations. Those mutations are random with respect to fitness.

The only thing I see Shapiro ignoring is a butch of nonsense that doesn't fit what he knows to be true. Even though he's against ID(and creationism) he make a lot more sense than Neo-Darwinist. When asked how the cell gain this ability he doesn't make up a story but honestly say he doesn't know.

 

[Split Rock]

Why do you think that intelligent design is not falsifiable, but natural selection is falsifiable?

From what I have seen of ID arguments, they are not falsifiable. Basically, if they don't think it can happen naturally, then ID wins by default. Some have attempted to use positive arguments, but these also fall short. I just recently attended a talk by Casey Luskin from the Discovery Institute. He used the hypothesis that I.D. requires that there is no junk DNA, or that all of the DNA would have a function. Then he used ENCODE to show a positive test result, which is problematical in itself. I asked him if I was designing an organism, why I couldn't use non-functional spacers between functional sections of the organism's genome. He didn't have an answer. There is nothing that dictates I couldn't do it that way if I wanted, which defeats the functionality of DNA as a test for I.D.