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I think you have it all wrong.
The conversations go more like this:
Zosimus: Darwinism suffers from the tacking paradox. Natural selection, one component of Darwinism, is not testable.
The most important thing for you to understood is simple: Correlation does not imply causation. Just because two things happen together does not mean that one causes another.Well, given that you're speaking to someone on the other side of the planet via the same machine you can use for research, work, entertainment, recreation, nourishment, and mindless self-indulgence, I'm more than at a loss what you could be talking about.
Science works. This epistemology has shaped every single aspect of our modern world, largely for the better, to the point where to claim otherwise is simply absurd.
And yet:
Huh. Weird. It's almost as though the fact that we can spot a whole lot of errors and problems in research doesn't invalidate the strength of the research which does hold up, and in fact allows us to self-correct.
Of course, as is the case 9 times out of 10 this study is brought up, you don't seem to understand it.
Oh, by the way - this failing research? It's substantially increased cancer survival rates and survival durations for almost every cancer in the last 40 years.
But ultimately, I think that explaining the paper is a bit besides the point. I could take your interpretation of it at face value, and it still would be a very weak argument. After all, if this is how badly science is working now, and it still managed to build essentially every part of the world around us, what would happen if we got our act together? No, I'm sorry, the claim that some theoretical research does not pan out does nothing to diminish the fact that the scientific method works, works better than anything else anyone has proposed, and that as a result, your argument completely fails.
EDIT: misunderstood what you mean by falsification of natural selection. My bad. That said, if you want a criteria of falsification for natural selection: how about species evolving away from traits that would help them survive in their environment for multiple generations (for example, bacteria becoming less resistant to antibiotics in their immediate environment)? Get this happening to a significant degree, and it would be a fairly clear falsification of natural selection.
...Of course, that doesn't happen, because mutations that negatively affect survival tend to get weeded out of the population very quickly, but the fact that a theory is not false does not mean it is not unfalsifiable.
I think you need to get a dictionary and look up the meaning of the word tautology.It completely is. When I spread a mixed population of bacteria on an agar plate containing specific levels of antibiotic, I can predict that the bacteria carrying the mutations conferring antibiotic resistance will quickly outnumber those without those mutations.
I can give you other examples, if you want. For example, we can look at Ka/Ks ratios in exons and introns.
I see that you are still ignoring the math. Why ask for these things if you are just going to run away from them when presented?
I understand that perfectly well, thank you. It's just that in almost every case where life has become better, we can point directly to one of the many, many fruits of science and say, "That. That's what caused it." To accuse me here of mistaking correlation with causation is absurd; akin to wondering if there's any correlation between being hit by a baseball bat and feeling pain.The most important thing for you to understood is simple: Correlation does not imply causation. Just because two things happen together does not mean that one causes another.
I think you need to get a dictionary and look up the meaning of the word tautology.
The most important thing for you to understood is simple: Correlation does not imply causation.
A nested hierarchy is nothing more than a well-defined super set which consists of and contains the lower levels. A good example would be the US army, which is broken up into field armies, which are further broken up into Corps, which consist of divisions, which consist of brigades, which consist of batallions, which consist of companies, which consist of platoons...
Perhaps a better question would be this: Why do you think that data are important? The answer to this will necessarily be that you are an empiricist. You believe that sense data are the key to understanding the world around us. How can you justify this claim?
Incorrect. The probability may be rationally updated, but that updating process will depend entirely on the prior probabilities. It is entirely possible that confirmations may result in a theory being less true.
Sure. Data can reduce you from an infinite number of theories to an infinite number of theories. Some infinities are larger than others. What's your point?
When we look at the distribution of characteristics between those groups we find clear and numerous violations of a nested hierarchy. For example, we can find the same airplanes in a Marine and Navy unit while finding two different airplanes between two Navy units. Nested hierarchy violated.
If the matter is critical to you, can you afford to be agnostic?
Nor do I. That's why I don't dispute natural selection. It's not a scientific theory. I simply remain agnostic.
Can you show that either creationism or intelligent design would predict a nested hierarchy?
I don't have to disprove unfalsifiable hypotheses.
Given a sufficiently imaginative creator, anything is possible, even likely.
What he is referring to is how soldiers are organized in units, which does follow a nested hierarchy pattern. Soldier A is in, say, squad B, Platoon C, Company D, Battalion E, etc. While soldier B might be in squad A of Platoon C, Company C, Battalion E, etc. These two soldiers are in the same battalion, but not the same company, platoon, or squad.
Given a sufficiently imaginative creator, anything is possible, even likely.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Please make your case.
The problem is that those are names. The phylogenies in biology are based on observable characteristics. In those military units, the characteristics are tactics, weapons, vehicles, and so on. You can make anything into a nested hierarchy by simply naming them so. It gets a bit tougher when you have to use the objective characteristics of each group.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Please make your case.
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