Facts for evolutionists

CACTUSJACKmankin

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Concerning nylonase. The ability to process nylonase came at the cost of being able to process many other normal bacterial foods.
it doesnt matter, the ability to produce nylonase is beneficial enough to make up the difference. nylon was an unexploited niche and these bacteria found a way to tap into it, that is beneficial.

Beneficial doesnt necessarily mean there are no drawbacks. colorful coats get the girls but are dinner bells for predators, but since it facilitates reproduction it's ultimately beneficial. beneficial only means that it improves the ability of the organism to reach reproductive age and successfully reproduce. in the case of this bacteria the benefits outweigh the drawbacks since the organism reproduces successfully.

I think I'm beginning to understand what some have been saying about speciation. You're saying that the first organism is a general organism. You're saying they don't change into a different animal but a more SPECIFIC animal. When you put the list in a heirarchy like Vene or Chalnoth did, it makes more sense. But then, putting a heirarchal list like that essentially produces a ladder system of evolution in regards to specificity but it does make much more sense.

speciation: there is an original population. there is a split and a segment of the population gets isolated. over time this new population accumulates changes to its gene pool and eventually is no longer able to interbreed with the other population.

its not a ladder system, evolution is a branching bush.

If this specialization is what you mean, then my earlier asymptote analogy is even more precise. It must be conceded that changes in organisms just aren't dramatic as say, the leap to multicellularism. Each change gets smaller and smaller. Or perhaps its more akin to a sine function, but even that is limited.
the leap to multicellularity is not as great as you think it is. i challenge you to look up the difference between a sponge and a colonial unicellular species. a sponge can be put into a blender and fully reassemble itself. the line is very blurry as most lines are.

You say we don't need to see the crime occur, but that's because we can test crime. We cannot test the origins of--say--pigeons. We can run expiriments, ballistics, DNA sequencing, fingerprinting, et cetera but we cannot reproduce evolution. We can observe the evolutionary crime scene post facto, we can record it before, but we cannot recreate it.

Evolution is actually quite predictive. we have gaps in the fossil record whose organisms were quite accurately described before the fossil was found. tiktaalik and yanoconodon are excellent examples of these. the researchers who found tiktaalik were looking specifically for that animal and knew where to look. yanoconodon's suspended auditory bones were described 30 years before the discovery of the animal, the animal carries his namesake: yanoconodon allini (Edgar Allin).
 
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Vene

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Concerning nylonase. The ability to process nylonase came at the cost of being able to process many other normal bacterial foods.

Citation? Nothing I have read about nylon-eating bacteria has said that they can only digest nylon. The addition of a new enzyme does not destroy existing enzymes.


If this specialization is what you mean, then my earlier asymptote analogy is even more precise. It must be conceded that changes in organisms just aren't dramatic as say, the leap to multicellularism. Each change gets smaller and smaller. Or perhaps its more akin to a sine function, but even that is limited.
Sort of. As evolution is the modification of previous 'designs,' then there is a limit on what can be done. This can lead to some very poor 'designs.' One example would be the human spine. As we evolved from tetrapods when our ancestors became bipedal it was not possible to rebuild the spine, only to adjust it so that it can work. And our spines do work, but the curve is also responsible for a lot of pain.

As for single-cell to multi-cell, there has been work on that (link). There are intermediate organisms like Volvox that are hard to define as multicellular or single celled. These provide a 'living fossil' and fill in an evolutionary 'gap.' Now, it is important to remember that I am not saying we evolved from Volvox, just that the first multicellular organisms were similar to Volvox.

You say we don't need to see the crime occur, but that's because we can test crime. We cannot test the origins of--say--pigeons. We can run expiriments, ballistics, DNA sequencing, fingerprinting, et cetera but we cannot reproduce evolution. We can observe the evolutionary crime scene post facto, we can record it before, but we cannot recreate it.
And we can't recreate a specific crime scene. But, we can recreate individual parts of the theory and can observe it still happening. You have already been provided some examples.

I looked at the ncbi link and none of them showed the production of adenine, cytosine, guanine, or uracil(again my earlier articulation may have been inadequte. Yes, they made some other organic compounds but you still need A, C, G, U to make DNA and therefore terrestrial life. Yes, proof against current abiogenesis theories would not discredit evolution. But if and since those theories don't hold much water, we are only really left with religious explanations as of present.
Hopefully this is free for you because it describes the chemistry of Adenine synthesis. And all I did was type "adenine synthesis" in Google. I'm sure you are capable of doing the same for the other nucleic acids.

In regards to me dealing with scientists, forgive me if I wasn't exactly prepared to find intelligence on a public internet forum was even less prepared to go heads up against the A Team of internet evolutionism.
This forum attracts scientists, actually, the creation-science (creationism violates laws and theories from every physical science) debate tends to attract scientists. And for somebody to come in here and expect to destroy all of modern science is pretty arrogant. The creation model is not accepted in any scientific organization, the "evolutionism" model is and it has produced results.


In regards to proof of God and rods into snakes, there is no proof. That's why the Bible is taken on faith. Many stories may not be provable by scientific/historic standards but I have yet to find anything that disproves a story in the Bible. As for the pi argument & the Bible not stating the correct value, the full diameter of the pull is 10 cubits. This is important information because this is the dimension that you need to know in order to find where to put it within the temple. The 30 cubits around is the measure of the inside ring. You need to know this measurment in order to know how much water it would hold. How assuming the circumference is 30 cubits, that would put the inside ring's diameter about 9.5 cubits. This would make the walls of the...whatever the hell this thing is (a "molten sea"?) about .25 cubits or about 4 inches thick. This makes perfect sense as its holding in about 1200 cubic feet of water (approx 9000 gallons).
Which is why you don't want it to be subject to scientific scrutiny. The Bible is simply not a science book. There is no way the Arabic people who wrote the books would know as much about the universe as we do. Of course, there is still a lot that is unknown.

The Nicean Creed says that Christianity is those who only worship God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit but the Catholic Church worships the Virgin Mary, The Apostle Peter, et cetera. Therefore, because of this violation, they are not Christian.
The Catholic Church established the Nicene Creed back in the 4th century (link). There was no other Christian Church at the time.

I have a question, is my basic explanation of chemistry of physics wrong? And yes pride is a sin. I never claimed to be perfect, just Christian. Beside, pride is a moot point in regards to science. You're right or you're wrong.
It was misleading. The charge cloud model of the atom may be more accurate than the Bohr model, but it is still possible to have a very good idea of where an electron is located. For example, this model of H[sub]2[/sub]O shows where the electrons are prodominately located (link):
200px-Water-elpot-transparent-3D-balls.png

The red area is where the atom is more negative, this is where the electrons spend most of their time. The blue area is more positive and where electrons spend very little time.

This chart (link) is used by chemists and physicists to determine where electrons are located.
quantumav8.png


As far as entropy goes, it may be easy to think of it as a measure of disorder, but that is still very simplistic. Entropy is better thought of as a measure of useful energy (link). At high entropy there is very little usable energy and it can only be used if it is raised to a higher state of entropy. A low state of entropy has more usable energy. Now, it is possible to lower entropy, but it requires the total entropy of the system to increase. And example would be photosynthesis. The molecules of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen have a higher entropy as water and carbon dioxide and a lower entropy as glucose. This makes it seem like it would be impossible to photosynthesis to happen, but the energy from the sun allows the entropy in the cell to decrease because the increase of entropy in the sun is greater.
 
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Chalnoth

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Concerning polystrate trees, the article on talkorigins only explains how the roots of the tree could have gone through layers of coal, which makes perfect sense. But what doesn't make sense is the trunks of the tree going through layers of coal.

The lower parts of the trees were buried, sometimes the dead stump. Events like mudslides or volcanic ash falls could do this easily.

Concerning nylonase. The ability to process nylonase came at the cost of being able to process many other normal bacterial foods.

It doesn't matter for the bacteria as long as there is nylon available.

I think I'm beginning to understand what some have been saying about speciation. You're saying that the first organism is a general organism.

No, not at all. They just become a different sort of organism. Sometimes organisms adapt to better fit into very limited niches. Sometimes they adapt to become better generalists. It all depends upon the selective pressures and the particular mutations that the organisms happen upon.

They still maintain the properties of their ancestors, of course. Those features may become broken or diminished, but they still tend to remain for a very, very long time.

If this specialization is what you mean, then my earlier asymptote analogy is even more precise. It must be conceded that changes in organisms just aren't dramatic as say, the leap to multicellularism. Each change gets smaller and smaller. Or perhaps its more akin to a sine function, but even that is limited.

Not really. Evolvability actually tends to be something that evolves. That is to say, as time goes on, organisms tend to get more and more tools in their toolboxes to make use of, and these accelerate evolution.

One significant example is the homeobox gene. This interesting little critter is a gene which triggers the activation of other genes, and is essential in developing the body plans of nearly all animals. Basically, it initiates cascades of cellular differentiation down the body, generating the differences between the head, the torso, and the tail, and any pieces inbetween. This particular tool evolved around the Ediacaran, and resulted in an explosion of diversity in animal forms. Plants evolved their own similar gene for producing differences in plants. Sexual reproduction is an example of another adaptation that accelerates evolution, and has evolved multiple times.

We can observe the evolutionary crime scene post facto, we can record it before, but we cannot recreate it.

Not usually. But we can recreate it if we freeze the organisms every few generations in a long-term experiment. Precisely this was done in this 20-year experiment with bacteria:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/06/historical-cont.html

There was a rather interesting result: in this particular experiment, before the mutation to digest citrate came about, there was a neutral enabling mutation. When bacteria from after this neutral mutation were unfrozen, they frequently re-evolved the ability to digest the citrate. This experiment, then, provides insight into a rather interesting evolutionary mechanism: neutral mutations can enable later beneficial mutations.

I looked at the ncbi link and none of them showed the production of adenine, cytosine, guanine, or uracil(again my earlier articulation may have been inadequte. Yes, they made some other organic compounds but you still need A, C, G, U to make DNA and therefore terrestrial life. Yes, proof against current abiogenesis theories would not discredit evolution. But if and since those theories don't hold much water, we are only really left with religious explanations as of present.

Huh? What are you talking about? All bases have been produced in such experiments. We've also seen them in comets and asteroids.

Anyway, I rather think these origin of life issues are rather besides the point. If you're a biblical literalist, then looking at the origin of life is rather a red herring: the much more recent evolution of life, just in the past few hundred thousand years, is more than enough to show that you're wrong.

In regards to me dealing with scientists, forgive me if I wasn't exactly prepared to find intelligence on a public internet forum was even less prepared to go heads up against the A Team of internet evolutionism.

Christianforums.com is not exceptional in the proportion of persons well-educated in evolution.
 
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JBJoe

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Concerning nylonase. The ability to process nylonase came at the cost of being able to process many other normal bacterial foods.

I think this is another one of your hasty, incorrect statements.

The current theory on nylonase evolution is that it came as a result of gene duplication mutation and subsequent frame-shift mutation. Or as we like to refer to it "novel new information added to the genome."
 
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Split Rock

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Your arguments are going downhill. Some of your arguments are completely based off of interpretation and semantics. Evolution in it's most popular form includes many attached peripheral ideas including albiogenesis and therefore in discussions of evolution, it must be treated as a relevant topic.
Without an imperfect replicator, you cannot have biological evolution. That is why abiogenesis, while certainly an interest to many evolutionary scientists, is still not something that evolution is dependent upon. If I gave your god the responsibility for the creation of the first life form, where would that leave you and your arguments?


Evolution is most certainly a ladder if only because of the element of time in which there is a progression, maybe not with one species replacing another but with one species coming out of another. But this branching bush effect is still just best guess and assumption. We haven't SEEN any of this occur. We have the before and after but no one has seen the process.
There is no direction to evolution. Obviously, if you start with only simple organisms, you will wind up with more complex organisms after a given amount of time. Nevertheless, there are as many bacterial species today as there was during the Precambrian Period. How do you explain that, if evolution is a progression?


You have skeletal remains of several similar organisms and you assume from that that they are all related. That's like going to China and calling everyone Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu. Also, if evolution is not random then it is predictible and science should be able to predict a mutation before it occurs. Yes, this is like predicting the weather. But that's what the Farmer's Almanac does, maybe not exact weather patterns but general one and it has done it with great accuracy.
Common descent is inferred from the evidence, not assumed. Mutations are indeed random, though selection is not. Therefore, we cannot predict mutations. We can make some predictions about the course of evolution, but evolution is more complicated than weather patterns. The predictions we can make are predictions of what we will find in the fossil record, and what we will find when we sequence the DNA of different organisms.


As far as the experiment to make protiens goes, they weren't trying to make life. You're right. But they were trying to prove that the basics for life could occur in such an environment, and they failed at it. Even if they made all the protiens, they would have only proven one thing, that it takes intelligence to make those protiens.
No it did not fail. Organic molecules, including simple sugars, amino acids, and urea were created... and without any god's input.


My point of life being impossible without the pre-existence of necesarry protiens is valid. But apparently you're only discussing evolution and avoiding the question of albiogenesis. If you don't wish to discuss it, that's your right but it does leave a bit of a hole in your progression, especially if you believe the creation story to be factless. Furthermore, RNA cannot self replicate. That is a fallacy, there must be another mechanism besides RNA to replicate it. RNA is one of of the DNA strang. It replicates by attachign the other half to it and then tearing it apart. What, pray tell, tears it a part?
We can discuss abiogenesis if you like, but please start a new thread.



The argument ad hominen that I'm not a scientist so how dare I disagree with established scientific theory is moot. Scientific method is based off of critical thinking and asking questions of what we think we know. Many scientist and non-scientists have disagreed with popular belief and been proven right, not that popularity has anything to do with science, so you say.
You do not have even a basic understanding of the theory of evolution. How can you critisize it, even with better critical thinking skills than you seem to posess?


It was scientists that proved that piltdown man was a hoax. But Christians knew it was a hoax first.
Got any evidence of that... or are you engaging in rhetoric?


My previous argument that everything proves evolution is admitedly poorly articulated. I meant to say that anything can be fitted into the framework of evolution meaning that if it stays the same, it's in an interim period or there are no stressors forcing change. If it changes, then there's your evolution. But after this point you are arguing evolutionary history. You all say that finding a man in cambrian soil would disprove evolution. How about a tree that runs though hundreds of thousands of years worth of soil deposits? How about the fossils of chittons on top of mountain tops? Futhermore, there is no place where there has been a complete timeline in the fossil record. We only have bits and pieces and they have been ordered according to the evolutinary world view.

1. Show us an example where a tree that runs through not just a number of soil layers, but through hundreds of thousands of years worth of soil layers. You do realize that not all soil layers of a given length represent the same time frame... right? Is this perhaps an example where your lack of knowledge about the subject you are trying to critisize has betrayed you?

2. Fossil sea shells are not just on top of mountains, but inside them. Have you ever heard of Plate Tectonics?

3. There are places that have a nearly complete geological column. One of them is in North Dakota, in fact. You do realize that not all locations on earth are actually going to produce either sedimentary layers or volcanic layers during a given timeframe... right? What happens then? What happens if layers that are produced erode away before new layers are put down? Answer?.... missing layers!

4. There is no ordering of geological timeframes via "evolutionary" assumptions. This is a LIE propagated by the creation ministries you think so highly of. In fact, the ordering of the geological column and the concept of Deep Time predates the accpetance of evolution by the scientific community. Therefore, it is Impossible that "evolutionary assumptions" are to blame for them. Yet, your precious creation ministries tell you otherwise... why is that?


You all seem to think that you're the only ones who knows what he's talking about. I've resisted arguments ad hominem but this takes it too far. My facts about gene replication and mutation, while incomplete, were accurate. We understand evolution but you choose to use a very narrow definition of the word as opposed to the broader general usage. Again, it's an argument of semantics rather than actual fact. By that logic everyone who's ever used the term Creation v. Evolution has no idea what they're talking about and that would include pretty everyone who found the data to help prove evolution/abiogeneis and certainly creationism.
Look... we are all supposed to be talking about Biological Evolution here. That is what creationists like yourself really hate. That is what contradicts your interpretation of Genesis and the idea that Man was created as he is today by a divine act. There are many things covered by the term "evolution", from chemical to stellar evolution... but none of them has any bearing on whether or not chimpanzees are related to Man.



Yes, there is nothing random about chemistry. But there IS something random about the physics that governs chemistry. Ever hear of the electron cloud, entropy, fluid dynamics, or fission. All of these involve a factor of chance and all are necessary to the study of Chemistry. While the Chemistry itself may be predictible, the physics behind it is not. However, the chemistry of abiogeneis, as I have proved in my first post, is impossible, unless my science is incomplete which it very well may be.
Indeed it is incomplete. Show us the calculations that make chemical evolution impossible.


The only difference between atheism and religion is atheism starts witht he belief in nothing and religion starts with the belief in an everything. The only difference is the starting points. Science assumes that God isn't there while relgion does. The important thing is that we should all be using the same logic and factual awareness to arrive at the truth.
Correction...Science Makes No Assumptions about God At All. You can be a scientist and still be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, etc.
 
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DJ_Ghost

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Except science comes back with a resounding "not bloodly likely" for the proposal that there exist ineffable entities (i.e. the supernatural).

The idea that science has nothing to say on the matter is declared by fiat by those that want to believe otherwise. There is no rational reason whatsoever to take this position.

Actualy it isn't, it is embeded in the sceintific method, the demarcation criterion and the methodological naturalism of science, and has been for a very long time.

Ghost
 
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Chalnoth

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Actualy it isn't, it is embeded in the sceintific method, the demarcation criterion and the methodological naturalism of science, and has been for a very long time.
If you look careful at what is meant, all that it means is that scientific explanations must use specific definitions. There is no demarcation between "natural" and "supernatural" within the definition of the scientific method, so terms that have traditionally been considered "supernatural" can easily be examined through it. We just have to define them in naturalistic terms. That is, we have to be specific about our definitions.

The conflict only comes in once it is claimed that a particular entity is, by its very nature, ineffable. This claim is that it is by definition impossible to nail that entity down with a specific definition of its properties. Then science can't specifically say anything about that entity because nothing can say anything specifically about an entity that isn't specifically defined!

This is not a limitation of science. This is a limitation of basic logic. All you need to do to bring a "supernatural" entity under scientific scrutiny is to define it explicitly.

And whenever you do so, you find that it, inevitably, becomes either impossible or obscenely unlikely. So the religious avoid this by simply resorting to not bothering to actually say what they mean by the word "god". Obviously when you don't bother to actually say what you mean, nobody can prove you wrong. But then you're failing to say anything at all, so what's the point?
 
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DJ_Ghost

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OK, after reviewing some of the points brought up, thoughts are still lingering….

You say we don't need to see the crime occur, but that's because we can test crime. We cannot test the origins of--say--pigeons. We can run expiriments, ballistics, DNA sequencing, fingerprinting, et cetera but we cannot reproduce evolution. We can observe the evolutionary crime scene post facto, we can record it before, but we cannot recreate it.

We don’t re-create the crime either. The way we interrogate evidence at a crime scene and the way we interrogate evidence for evolution are very similar.

Any action leaves behind evidence, and we examine that evidence. Evolution leaves behind considerably more evidence than just the fossil record. ERVs for example, amongst others. It is becase all of the strings of evidence point the same way that we accept evolution.

Yes, proof against current abiogenesis theories would not discredit evolution. But if and since those theories don't hold much water, we are only really left with religious explanations as of present.

I don’t agree that abiogenesis does not hold water, I find it a very plausible and well supported theory. Don’t get me wrong, I am a theist who believes in a God, but I am perfectly willing to be wrong.

In regards to me dealing with scientists, forgive me if I wasn't exactly prepared to find intelligence on a public internet forum was even less prepared to go heads up against the A Team of internet evolutionism.

You have conducted yourself very well, give how little support you have received from other creationists and how many opposing points you have had to try and wade through.

I have a hard time seeing how I said something dishonest when I was stating that there is a huge difference between what Christians believe and what the Bible teaches? I have never been dishonest. Hasty, yes. Incorrect, yes. But not dishonest.

Fair enough, perhaps dishonest was too strong a term, I will settle for mistaken in your earlier statement that all Christians are creationists rather than dishonest about it, because you are right, dishonest was an unfair assumption on my part.

The Nicean Creed says that Christianity is those who only worship God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit but the Catholic Church worships the Virgin Mary, The Apostle Peter, et cetera. Therefore, because of this violation, they are not Christian.



I think that is a misunderstanding of what Catholics do in venerating Virgin and the apostles. Remember that the Catholic church convened and presided over the council of Nicea, so they hardly violate its creed, they are in large part, responsible for it.

Ghost
 
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DJ_Ghost

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If you look careful at what is meant, all that it means is that scientific explanations must use specific definitions. There is no demarcation between "natural" and "supernatural" within the definition of the scientific method,

I have looked at it carefully, I rather had to since I specialised in the methodology of science, the philosophy of science and the history of science as a post graduate. The has always been a demarcation criterion in science between what is and is not science. The currently accepted demarcation criterion lies between Natural and Metephysical, and has been established since the crisis of Positivism and the introduction of the falsificationist alternative by Karl Popper.

Again, I point out that there is a difference between Ontological and Methodological naturalism and there is a reason why Popper, Feyerabend and others argued against Ontological naturalism as a useful philosophy and why their arguments won through and lead to the adoption of Methodological naturalism instead.

You seem to have convinced yourself that the only reason to accept the argument that science has nothing to say about metaphysics is a theists wish for it to be true, so can you explain why we have an agnostic making the same point in the same thread? Or will you concede there may be more than wishful thinking at work?

Ghost
 
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Chalnoth

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I have looked at it carefully, I rather had to since I specialised in the methodology of science, the philosophy of science and the history of science as a post graduate. The has always been a demarcation criterion in science between what is and is not science. The currently accepted demarcation criterion lies between Natural and Metephysical, and has been established since the crisis of Positivism and the introduction of the falsificationist alternative by Karl Popper.
Yeah, and why don't you define what is meant by metaphysical specifically, as opposed to natural? What makes it different? What makes it special?

I am aware of the history of science, and I see this aspect of it as nothing more than pandering to religious ignorance, giving religion special status where it simply has none.

You're also making the mistake of assuming that science has some sort of fixed, immutable method. This is simply not the case: every single aspect of science is open to revision, including the very methods by which science is performed. The only reason to support any method of science is because it works. Tradition is a completely irrelevant point to make.

You seem to have convinced yourself that the only reason to accept the argument that science has nothing to say about metaphysics is a theists wish for it to be true, so can you explain why we have an agnostic making the same point in the same thread? Or will you concede there may be more than wishful thinking at work?
Many of the non-religious have also bought into this exact same pandering. I can't say I understand it, but the only reason that comes to mind is that these people just don't want to get in an argument about religion. They'd rather [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] foot around that emotional issue in order to deal with easier arguments. It simply strikes me as appeasement.
 
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DJ_Ghost

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Yeah, and why don't you define what is meant by metaphysical specifically, as opposed to natural? What makes it different? What makes it special?

Metaphysical is usually defended as “without material form or substance”. This includes both the idea of the supernatural, but also of the philosophical, the speculative and to a lesser extent the study of social construction phenomenon (although personally I am not of the camp that holds the last one to be metaphysical) and so on. I assume, you are only really interested in the supernatural part of this, since that seems to be the sticking point.

I am aware of the history of science, and I see this aspect of it as nothing more than pandering to religious ignorance, giving religion special status where it simply has none.

Then your understanding of the history and philosophy is incomplete, because this part of it had nothing what so ever to do with religion at all, but with the crisis of positivism, the collapse of Nomanalism. The notion that abstract concepts had no validity was seen as chocking off the expansion of human understanding.

You're also making the mistake of assuming that science has some sort of fixed, immutable method.

Clearly I am doing nothing of the sort, since in the very post you are replying to I talked about the crisis of positivism and Karl Popper’s response and how this changed the scientific method. I also discuss how the method changed when Ontological naturalism was rejected. Really, how does my discussing how the method changed give you the impression I think the method is immutable?

The only reason to support any method of science is because it works. Tradition is a completely irrelevant point to make.

I tend to agree, and yet you are arguing from the old Nomanalist viewpoint, which was abandoned because it didn’t work.

Many of the non-religious have also bought into this exact same pandering.

And many others have accepted the limitations of Nomanilism and the changes to the method that Karl Popper and others brought in.

Ghost
 
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Vene

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Ghost, let's assume that the supernatural does exist for the purposes of argument. If the supernatural has no effect on the natural, does it even matter? It would be unable to do anything regarding us and our life. If the supernatural is able to have an effect on the natural, wouldn't we be able to measure that effect and observe it? I will agree that science is agnostic in the sense that nothing is ever completely ruled out (this includes a god), but is it not atheistic in the sense that there is no god in any of the models? After all, the supernatural has been ruled out in the past. There is a phenomenon called fairy rings. Fairy rings are rings of mushrooms:
800pxfairyring0004qq9.jpg

It was thought that fairies (a supernatural entity) would dance and the mushrooms formed the border. This is an example of a supernatural entity influencing the natural world. Science and scientists reject it completely. I know that it is a bit blasphemous to compare your god to fairies, but you state that science doesn't deal with the supernatural, this is science dealing with the supernatural.
 
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Chalnoth

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Metaphysical is usually defended as “without material form or substance”. This includes both the idea of the supernatural, but also of the philosophical, the speculative and to a lesser extent the study of social construction phenomenon (although personally I am not of the camp that holds the last one to be metaphysical) and so on. I assume, you are only really interested in the supernatural part of this, since that seems to be the sticking point.
You can't define something by what it's not, though. And you also haven't defined what is meant by "material".

Do you honestly think I'm wrong when I state that something that is "material" can be adequately described as something that can be defined explicitly? That something that is supernatural is so precisely because it contains an ineffable quality, that it can't be described explicitly?

Then your understanding of the history and philosophy is incomplete, because this part of it had nothing what so ever to do with religion at all, but with the crisis of positivism, the collapse of Nomanalism. The notion that abstract concepts had no validity was seen as chocking off the expansion of human understanding.
The primary problem with strict positivism is that it neglects mathematical and logical truths. There are two sorts of possible truths: tautologies and contingent truths. Tautologies like valid mathematical and logical statements need not directly connect to any particular observation or experience, because they are merely true or false by the definitions used. They are, in effect, self-consistent systems of thought that do not need to be related to anything.

The other sort of truth is an accurate description of reality. Any time we attempt to make an accurate statement about something that exists in any meaningful sense, that statement has meaning if and only if there is some potentially-observable consequence depending upon whether it is true or false. Else it is just an exercise in mental masturbation: a claim to talk about reality, but a failure to say anything of any actual meaning. In this sense, the positivists were absolutely correct, though they went too far in demanding verification. This is unnecessary: all that is necessary is for there to be some observable differences if the proposal is true versus if it is false.

Any time the religious define their god so that there are such observable differences, they invariably turn out to be false. Any time they define god such that there is no such possibility, they fail to say anything at all.
 
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MarcusHill

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In regards to me dealing with scientists, forgive me if I wasn't exactly prepared to find intelligence on a public internet forum was even less prepared to go heads up against the A Team of internet evolutionism.

This is hardly the A Team, though. There are plenty of places you can find regulars who are similarly well informed. Many of us are scientists and/or educators, and we'll tend to want to help people to learn about the reality that they've been "protected" from by those pushing creationism.

There's a reason you find yourself alone on this thread. There's also a reason why any forum such as this has a few success stories of people who have come along saying the same kinds of things you are and have been persuaded to look at some actual scientific sources rather than AiG, and who have realised that they had been wrong. I have yet to see anyone on a forum such as this who has come in on the side of reason and been converted to creationism.
 
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DJ_Ghost

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Do you honestly think I'm wrong when I state that something that is "material" can be adequately described as something that can be defined explicitly? That something that is supernatural is so precisely because it contains an ineffable quality, that it can't be described explicitly?

No I don’t think that is wrong, which is why I never argued it was wrong. Where we differ, is that you seem attached to Ontological naturalism, and seem to think it is still universally accepted. As if the work of Popper and Lakatos changed nothing.

Ghost
 
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Split Rock

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This is hardly the A Team, though. There are plenty of places you can find regulars who are similarly well informed. Many of us are scientists and/or educators, and we'll tend to want to help people to learn about the reality that they've been "protected" from by those pushing creationism.

Not hardly an A Team????

OOOOOOHHHHH I PITY DA FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
I PITY DA FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! ^_^
 
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Chalnoth

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No I don’t think that is wrong, which is why I never argued it was wrong. Where we differ, is that you seem attached to Ontological naturalism, and seem to think it is still universally accepted. As if the work of Popper and Lakatos changed nothing.
Oh, I don't really care whether or not it's accepted. I care whether it's correct. And as near as I can tell, it is.

Since we agree on what is meant by naturalism, then I will simply state again the rest of the argument:

The proposal that there exist anything that is supernatural is the proposal that there exist an entity or entities that are in some sense ineffable. They cannot, by their nature, be described in any explicit sense.

This sort of claim fails on two grounds:
1. There is no evidence whatsoever that there can possibly be anything which is fundamentally ineffable. It makes no sense whatsoever for this to be the case, and there's no reason to believe it's anything but dreams.
2. By proposing the ineffable, you're refusing to state what you mean by the words you use. That means you aren't actually proposing anything. Therefore it makes no sense to even say that the supernatural exists, because anything that has this ineffable quality is downright meaningless.
 
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DJ_Ghost

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Oh, I don't really care whether or not it's accepted. I care whether it's correct. And as near as I can tell, it is.

I’m not interested in your opinion on weather science should be Ontologically rather than methodologically naturalist, I am interested in what science is, and science has not been ontologically naturalist for half a century.

Ghost
 
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Chalnoth

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I’m not interested in your opinion on weather science should be Ontologically rather than methodologically naturalist, I am interested in what science is, and science has not been ontologically naturalist for half a century.
But the point still stands. The scientific process, as it is used, states pretty strongly that the supernatural does not exist, the moment it is applied to the supernatural. As near as I can tell, resorting to the "methodological naturalism" stance is nothing but a strategic move to protect science from religious opposition, while at the same time having the effect of protecting religious beliefs from scientific inquiry. It's an arbitrary edifice that has no reason supporting it other than strategy.

Of course, it's also reflected in the minds of scientists and those well-educated in the sciences who are also religious. They erect a barrier within their own minds: on one side of the barrier, all claims are investigated with rigorous scrutiny and skepticism. On the other side, the theist doesn't bother with any of this, and just arbitrarily believes in a variety of unsupported, and often completely unsupportable, claims about the nature of reality. The whole NOMA edifice, when used by theists, is just a codification of this inherently irrational way of thinking in an attempt to give it a false sense of respectability.
 
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