Where Do Complex Organisms Come From?

[rjs330]

I've posted this at least once in a thread you were participating in. Please actually read it this time.
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No such thing as scientific proof.
Common misconceptions about science I: “Scientific proof”
One of the most common misconceptions concerns the so-called “scientific proofs.” Contrary to popular belief, there is no such thing as a scientific proof.

Proofs exist only in mathematics and logic, not in science. Mathematics and logic are both closed, self-contained systems of propositions, whereas science is empirical and deals with nature as it exists. The primary criterion and standard of evaluation of scientific theory is evidence, not proof. All else equal (such as internal logical consistency and parsimony), scientists prefer theories for which there is more and better evidence to theories for which there is less and worse evidence. Proofs are not the currency of science.

Dr. Jay Wile, Creationist
Science Can’t Prove Anything – Proslogion
After all, science has proven all sorts of things, hasn’t it?

Of course it hasn’t. In fact, it is impossible for science to prove anything, because science is based on experiments and observations, both of which can be flawed. Often, those flaws don’t become apparent to the scientific community for quite some time. Flawed experiments and observations, of course, lead to flawed conclusions, so even the most secure scientific statements have never been proven. There might be gobs and gobs of evidence for them, but they have not been proven.

Dr. Douglas Theobald, not a Creationist
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Scientific "Proof", scientific evidence, and the scientific method
What is meant by scientific evidence and scientific proof? In truth, science can never establish 'truth' or 'fact' in the sense that a scientific statement can be made that is formally beyond question. All scientific statements and concepts are open to re-evaluation as new data is acquired and novel technologies emerge. Proof, then, is solely the realm of logic and mathematics (and whiskey). That said, we often hear 'proof' mentioned in a scientific context, and there is a sense in which it denotes "strongly supported by scientific means". Even though one may hear 'proof' used like this, it is a careless and inaccurate handling of the term. Consequently, except in reference to mathematics, this is the last time you will read the terms 'proof' or 'prove' in this article.

Then evolution can't be a fact either. Yet it is accepted as such. Same thing with human caused global warming and dating methods etc etc.

If you can't prove it stop being so adamant about its reality. For science to claim it can't prove anything or doesn't have to is a cop out and a real convenient escape hatch. It can claim whatever it wants a teach it and get everyone to try and believe it without having to prove any of it. What a great gig. Kinda sounds like a religion.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Then evolution can't be a fact either. Yet it is accepted as such. Same thing with human caused global warming and dating methods etc etc.

Sure it can. You don't seem to understand that "proof" is a specific term.

If you can't prove it stop being so adamant about its reality. For science to claim it can't prove anything or doesn't have to is a cop out and a real convenient escape hatch. It can claim whatever it wants a teach it and get everyone to try and believe it without having to prove any of it. What a great gig. Kinda sounds like a religion.

There is no valid evidence for any other explanation. How would you feel if you were debating someone that claimed there was no gravity and it was invisible pixies that made you fall? The theory of evolution has literally mountains of scientific evidence for it and there is none for creationism. You might as well be arguing for pixie gravity.

 

[rjs330]

Thank you. Ironically the errors in C14 dating were found using another method of radiometric dating. Though you are aware of the following this next comment is aimed more at the creationists. C14 in many ways is the least reliable method of dating objects that are relatively open to the surrounding environment. The problem is that the biosphere is extremely rich in carbon and items that are to be dated can be contaminated by either new carbon or old carbon. Either one will give a false date. Crystals within rocks are rather difficult to contaminate and tend to show obvious signs of contamination. That is why you can generally trust radiometric dates of rocks, though there are ways of doing that wrong too.

Yes there are and that's why it can't be trusted. There are significant problems with both dating systems.

creation.mobi/the-way-it-really-is-little-known-facts-about-radiometric-dating

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes there are and that's why it can't be trusted. There are significant problems with both dating systems.

Wrong again. There have only been relatively minor problems shown to exist in C14 dating. If one knows how to avoid or correct them there are no real problems at all. Your inability to understand does not make a method invalid.

creation.mobi/the-way-it-really-is-little-known-facts-about-radiometric-dating

Creationist sites simple are not valid in this sort of argument. Bring up any claims from them that you want to and I will gladly show you how they are wrong.

 

[rjs330]

Sure it can. You don't seem to understand that "proof" is a specific term.




There is no valid evidence for any other explanation. How would you feel if you were debating someone that claimed there was no gravity and it was invisible pixies that made you fall? The theory of evolution has literally mountains of scientific evidence for it and there is none for creationism. You might as well be arguing for pixie gravity.

You can prove a fact. It can't be fact if you can't prove it. Gravity is a fact and it can be proven as such. It is typical scientific nebulous nonsense. Make all kinds of claims of fact and then back away and say " well I can't prove any of it, but it's still true." By doing that science can then say anything they want. They can make any assumptions they want they can guess at anything they want and twist any evidence they have to fit any theory they have and claim it is true because they don't actually have to prove its true. Gravity can be proven because all you have to do is drop something. Proof it exists.
A fact can't be a fact until you prove it is real. Evolution may have facts that are present such as a fossil. You can prove it exists. Or even erv insertions because you can prove they go certain places.

But none of that proves or makes fact the larger theory. Because you can't go back in time and show it as fact. You can't duplicate it or observe it. Not as a common ancestor.
Definition of fact: a thing that is indisputably the case. (noun)
Definition of fact - Google Search

 

[Speedwell]

Yes there are and that's why it can't be trusted. There are significant problems with both dating systems.

creation.mobi/the-way-it-really-is-little-known-facts-about-radiometric-dating

You can prove a fact. It can't be fact if you can't prove it. Gravity is a fact and it can be proven as such. It is typical scientific nebulous nonsense. Make all kinds of claims of fact and then back away and say " well I can't prove any of it, but it's still true." By doing that science can then say anything they want. They can make any assumptions they want they can guess at anything they want and twist any evidence they have to fit any theory they have and claim it is true because they don't actually have to prove its true. Gravity can be proven because all you have to do is drop something. Proof it exists.
A fact can't be a fact until you prove it is real. Evolution may have facts that are present such as a fossil. You can prove it exists. Or even erv insertions because you can prove they go certain places.

But none of that proves or makes fact the larger theory. Because you can't go back in time and show it as fact. You can't duplicate it or observe it. Not as a common ancestor.
Definition of fact: a thing that is indisputably the case. (noun)
Definition of fact - Google Search

So that's what bugs you? The "common ancestor" part of it? That is reminiscent of the position of 19th century Evangelicals like Hodge & Warfield, who didn't care all that much about how old the Earth turned out to be or whether the other creatures had evolved, but absolutely required the separate creation of man.

 

[Vaccine]

And the majority of those are based on assumptive theory. None of them prove common ancestor. Once again it is not something that can be proven.

Good point about it's something that can't be proven. It's a belief to be sure.

"A formal demonstration of the Universal Common Ancestry hypothesis has not been achieved and is unlikely to be feasible in principle. Nevertheless, the evidence in support of this hypothesis provided by comparative genomics is overwhelming."
The common ancestry of life

 

[Speedwell]

Good point about it's something that can't be proven. It's a belief to be sure.

"A formal demonstration of the Universal Common Ancestry hypothesis has not been achieved and is unlikely to be feasible in principle. Nevertheless, the evidence in support of this hypothesis provided by comparative genomics is overwhelming."
The common ancestry of life

That paper discusses how universal common descent from a single abiogenesis event might be distinguished from multiple abiogenesis events which merged very early in the history of life forming the single ancestral line from which all life then proceeded to descend.
In other words, it doesn't address the general notion of common descent found in the theory of evolution, which has always accepted the possibility of more than one abiogenesis event. In particular, it has nothing to do with man sharing a common ancestor with other creatures.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You can prove a fact. It can't be fact if you can't prove it. Gravity is a fact and it can be proven as such.

Then by the same criteria evolution is a fact.

It is typical scientific nebulous nonsense.

No, I am simply being consistent.

Make all kinds of claims of fact and then back away and say " well I can't prove any of it, but it's still true."

That is not what we have said. You keep misusing the word "proof".

By doing that science can then say anything they want. They can make any assumptions they want they can guess at anything they want and twist any evidence they have to fit any theory they have and claim it is true because they don't actually have to prove its true. Gravity can be proven because all you have to do is drop something. Proof it exists.
A fact can't be a fact until you prove it is real. Evolution may have facts that are present such as a fossil. You can prove it exists. Or even erv insertions because you can prove they go certain places.

Do you have anything at all to support your claims? Let's try to stick to the observable evidence. Something that almost no creationist understands either.

But none of that proves or makes fact the larger theory. Because you can't go back in time and show it as fact. You can't duplicate it or observe it. Not as a common ancestor.
Definition of fact: a thing that is indisputably the case. (noun)
Definition of fact - Google Search

You seem to have your priorities mixed up. Theories explain facts. Scientific theories are not theories until they have been tested many many times. That does not "prove" them. But the theory of evolution is as well "proven" as the theory of gravity. And they both explain facts. The theory of gravity explains the fact of gravity and the theory of evolution explains the fact of evolution.

Instead of trying to base a fallacious argument on your misunderstanding of terminology, why don't you try to learn a little?[/quote][/quote]

 

[Astrophile]

Gravity can be proven because all you have to do is drop something. Proof it exists.

If it was as simple as that, we shouldn't have had to wait so long for Newton to work out the inverse square theory of gravitation (g = (M1×M2)/r²) and for Einstein to work out the theory of relativity. In fact, Aristotle (who was no fool) and his followers thought that heavy objects fell to the ground because it was their natural place, not because there was a universal force of gravity. Also, modern geocentricists (people who think that the Earth is stationary at the centre of the universe with everything else revolving around it) and flat-Earthers would probably disagree with you.

A fact can't be a fact until you prove it is real. Evolution may have facts that are present such as a fossil. You can prove it exists. Or even erv insertions because you can prove they go certain places.

But none of that proves or makes fact the larger theory. Because you can't go back in time and show it as fact. You can't duplicate it or observe it. Not as a common ancestor.

Can you prove that you had ancestors who lived at the time of Aristotle, by showing us a list of your ancestors back to the 4th century BC? Is it a fact that you had ancestors who lived at the time of Aristotle?

 

[rjs330]

Then by the same criteria evolution is a fact.



No, I am simply being consistent.



That is not what we have said. You keep misusing the word "proof".



Do you have anything at all to support your claims? Let's try to stick to the observable evidence. Something that almost no creationist understands either.



You seem to have your priorities mixed up. Theories explain facts. Scientific theories are not theories until they have been tested many many times. That does not "prove" them. But the theory of evolution is as well "proven" as the theory of gravity. And they both explain facts. The theory of gravity explains the fact of gravity and the theory of evolution explains the fact of evolution.

Instead of trying to base a fallacious argument on your misunderstanding of terminology, why don't you try to learn a little?

[/quote][/QUOTE]

No evolution from a common ancestor has not been quite well proven. You can show how a particular creature may evolve in order to survive. But you cannot show that spiders, monkeys, birds, snakes and humans all came from the same creature. It's all guesswork and assumptions. It cannot be shown to be fact.

 

[rjs330]

If it was as simple as that, we shouldn't have had to wait so long for Newton to work out the inverse square theory of gravitation (g = (M1×M2)/r²) and for Einstein to work out the theory of relativity. In fact, Aristotle (who was no fool) and his followers thought that heavy objects fell to the ground because it was their natural place, not because there was a universal force of gravity. Also, modern geocentricists (people who think that the Earth is stationary at the centre of the universe with everything else revolving around it) and flat-Earthers would probably disagree with you.



Can you prove that you had ancestors who lived at the time of Aristotle, by showing us a list of your ancestors back to the 4th century BC? Is it a fact that you had ancestors who lived at the time of Aristotle?

Did gravity exist before Newton's theory? Of course it did. No one needed to know the inverse square theory to know gravity existed. All you had to do was jump off a building and you knew gravity existed. Newton just explained what it was and made a formula to represent it. It was observable and testable without the theory. Einstein also explained relativity, but it too existed before him. He was able to show how it worked.

Evolutionists who claim a common ancestor can't do that. They throw out a theory but can't show that it's a fact because they cannot duplicate it, observe it or test it. It's not a fact. It's an assumption. Once you locate the common ancestor and then test out the theory and reproduce it and observe it then you'll have something. Not until then. It's only an assumption, not a fact.

 

[Speedwell]

Did gravity exist before Newton's theory? Of course it did. No one needed to know the inverse square theory to know gravity existed. All you had to do was jump off a building and you knew gravity existed. Newton just explained what it was and made a formula to represent it. It was observable and testable without the theory. Einstein also explained relativity, but it too existed before him. He was able to show how it worked.

Evolutionists who claim a common ancestor can't do that. They throw out a theory but can't show that it's a fact because they cannot duplicate it, observe it or test it. It's not a fact. It's an assumption. Once you locate the common ancestor and then test out the theory and reproduce it and observe it then you'll have something. Not until then. It's only an assumption, not a fact.

"Assumption" is the wrong word. Universal common descent is an inference, not an assumption.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

You can prove a fact. It can't be fact if you can't prove it. Gravity is a fact and it can be proven as such. It is typical scientific nebulous nonsense. Make all kinds of claims of fact and then back away and say " well I can't prove any of it, but it's still true." By doing that science can then say anything they want. They can make any assumptions they want they can guess at anything they want and twist any evidence they have to fit any theory they have and claim it is true because they don't actually have to prove its true. Gravity can be proven because all you have to do is drop something. Proof it exists.
A fact can't be a fact until you prove it is real. Evolution may have facts that are present such as a fossil. You can prove it exists. Or even erv insertions because you can prove they go certain places.

But none of that proves or makes fact the larger theory. Because you can't go back in time and show it as fact. You can't duplicate it or observe it. Not as a common ancestor.
Definition of fact: a thing that is indisputably the case. (noun)
Definition of fact - Google Search

In science, the use of terms like 'fact', 'evidence', and 'proof' are used with more care than in colloquial speech. Where 'proof' is concerned, we can only ever be certain of analytic proofs (in the Kantian sense, e.g. mathematics and logic), so science doesn't use the term about demonstrations of real-world states-of-affairs (facts).This doesn't, of course, stop PR departments and popular science media from abusing the term...

For a full explanation, check out Popperian philosophy of science; for a simple explanation, you may find this article helpful.

 

[Astrophile]

Did gravity exist before Newton's theory? Of course it did. No one needed to know the inverse square theory to know gravity existed. All you had to do was jump off a building and you knew gravity existed. Newton just explained what it was and made a formula to represent it. It was observable and testable without the theory. Einstein also explained relativity, but it too existed before him. He was able to show how it worked.

No. As I have already explained, people before Newton's time didn't know that there was a universal force of gravity. Aristotle thought that objects like stones fell to the ground because they were seeking their natural place with the element of earth, and that smoke rose because it was seeking its natural place with the elements of air and fire. Predictions of the movements of the Moon and the planets were empirical; they were intended to 'save the phenomena' rather than being based on general theories of motion and gravitation. Even Galileo and Kepler didn't have the idea of a universal force that controlled the movements of both terrestrial and celestial bodies, although they were moving in that direction.

Evolutionists who claim a common ancestor can't do that. They throw out a theory but can't show that it's a fact because they cannot duplicate it, observe it or test it. It's not a fact. It's an assumption. Once you locate the common ancestor and then test out the theory and reproduce it and observe it then you'll have something. Not until then. It's only an assumption, not a fact.

I'm not a biologist, so I shouldn't try to answer this part of your post. However, subject to correction from real biologists, it seems to me that the strength of the theory of evolution by natural selection is that it explains the observed facts of biology, of anatomy, genetics, biochemistry, embryology, biogeography and palaeontology. Darwin made exactly this point in The Origin of Species, that the fact that his theory explained so much meant that it was unlikely to be entirely wrong. Of course the theory has been refined, but so far no scientific theory, based on natural processes, has given a better explanation of the observations.

Young earth creationism, far from offering an alternative naturalistic explanation, invokes a supernatural Creator, whose existence cannot be observed or tested by the scientific method. The debate is not between alternative scientific theories but between a scientific theory that can be and has been tested and a supernatural explanation that cannot be tested by the scientific method, or by any method available to human beings.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No evolution from a common ancestor has not been quite well proven. You can show how a particular creature may evolve in order to survive. But you cannot show that spiders, monkeys, birds, snakes and humans all came from the same creature. It's all guesswork and assumptions. It cannot be shown to be fact.

Of course it has. Your denial of the obvious does not make it so. And you don't seem to understand evidence. We are not making "guesswork and assumptions" . Whenever a creationist makes that claim it is the same as them admitting that they are wrong. The evidence clearly supports our claims. It does not support your claims. You are merely projecting your sins upon others.

Perhaps you would like to learn what is and what is not evidence so that you do not keep repeating such basic errors.

ETA: Since rjs used a colloquial version of "proof" I did too in this post of mine. I should have corrected him at the start, but I forgot to do so.

 

[sfs]

The debate is not between alternative scientific theories but between a scientific theory that can be and has been tested and a supernatural explanation that cannot be tested by the scientific method, or by any method available to human beings.

For me, at least, the problem with creationism is not that it's supernatural. One problem is that it makes few predictions: a creator is compatible with almost any observation about life, and thus nothing can rule out the idea. That also means that it doesn't really explain much of anything. It doesn't tell you why living things are one way rather than another. Common descent, on the other hand, make an abundance of predictions, predictions that are borne out by the data.

More importantly, what predictions creationism, at least of the young-earth variety, does make are wildly wrong.

 

[rjs330]

Of course it has. Your denial of the obvious does not make it so. And you don't seem to understand evidence. We are not making "guesswork and assumptions" . Whenever a creationist makes that claim it is the same as them admitting that they are wrong. The evidence clearly supports our claims. It does not support your claims. You are merely projecting your sins upon others.

Perhaps you would like to learn what is and what is not evidence so that you do not keep repeating such basic errors.

ETA: Since rjs used a colloquial version of "proof" I did too in this post of mine. I should have corrected him at the start, but I forgot to do so.

I know what the evidence is. I've read heard it been linked to it, but though there are facts contained within the evidence none of it confirms the fact of a common ancestor. All of it is used and an assumption is made that it means all things have a common ancestor. Once again and this is my last post on the subject.

A common ancestor cannot be shown because it can't be observed, tested or reproduced. It's an assumption, a belief, it is not a fact.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I know what the evidence is.

You clearly don't. That is why I made a helpful offer to you.

I've read heard it been linked to it, but though there are facts contained within the evidence none of it confirms the fact of a common ancestor. All of it is used and an assumption is made that it means all things have a common ancestor. Once again and this is my last post on the subject.

And there you go admitting that you are wrong again. Scientists are not allowed to use that sort of assumption. And though given the evidence it is rather clear that you did not understand it.

A common ancestor cannot be shown because it can't be observed, tested or reproduced. It's an assumption, a belief, it is not a fact.

That is clearly wrong. Once again, just because you don't know how to do something does not mean that others cannot do so. But thanks for admitting that you are wrong again by misusing the word "assumption".

 

[Speedwell]

I know what the evidence is. I've read heard it been linked to it, but though there are facts contained within the evidence none of it confirms the fact of a common ancestor. All of it is used and an assumption is made that it means all things have a common ancestor. Once again and this is my last post on the subject.

A common ancestor cannot be shown because it can't be observed, tested or reproduced. It's an assumption, a belief, it is not a fact.

It's an inference, not an assumption. I can only conclude that your continued use of the term in this context is an attempt to insinuate that universal common ancestry is a position taken a priori by evolutionary biologists.