Some things I just don't think most of you understand...

[crjmurray]

Axioms can still be self refuting. See http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Self-refuting_idea
Here is a quote:

'... the claim "everything is subjective" would require the statement itself be objectively true and is thus self-negating; any attempt to rescue it using logic would fall prey to special pleading by demanding one arbitrary exemption to the claim. Similarly the attempt at proving the existence of God by positing that everything must have a cause, while making one special exemption (namely, God) to the need for a cause.'

I never have any idea of what point you are trying to make.

 

[Zosimus]

I never have any idea of what point you are trying to make.

It's very simple. On this forum, there are people who claim that they can take any set of words as an axiom and use it as a starting point for their philosophy/epistemology/worldview/whatever. The argument is that since the starting point is an axiom it cannot be proved false and thus cannot be criticized.

However, some axioms are bad because they are self refuting. Here are some examples.

Axiom 1: All truth is unknowable.
Response: If all truth is unknowable, then how can you know that axiom 1 is true? Refuted.

Axiom 2: All truth is contained in the Bible.
Response: If all truth is contained in the Bible, why isn't axiom 2 contained in the Bible? Refuted.

Axiom 3: Any statement that cannot be verified (at least theoretically) true or false is meaningless and should be assumed false.
Conclusion: Since "God exists" cannot be verified, it is a meaningless statement and should be assumed false.
Response: If statements that cannot be verified are meaningless, then until you can verify axiom 3 it must be considered meaningless and should be assumed false. Refuted.

Axiom 3 is the postulate that we're focusing on now because it was the central tenet of a school of thought known as logical positivism (also called logical empiricism). In the 1920s, some reasonably intelligent atheists got together and figured that since they were smart, they could put science on a sound logical footing, defeat religion once and for all, and usher in a new area of progress for science. You can read all about it at http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_logical_positivism.html

Now Loudmouth's claim that: "All facts are demonstrable" is but a hair's breadth from the standard logical empiricism claim that all facts must be verifiable. By making this statement, he has placed himself solidly in the logical empiricism camp.

Logical empiricism is formally dead because it's last known strong adherent recanted in 1967. Among the criticisms leveled at the epistemology were:

* Logical Positivism's insistence on the strict adoption of the verifiability criterion of meaning (the requirement for a non-analytic, meaningful sentence to be verifiable) is problematic, as the criterion itself is unverifiable, especially for negative existential claims and positive universal claims.

* Almost any statement (except a tautology or logical truth) is unverifiable in the strong sense, there is a weak sense of verifiability in which a proposition is verifiable if it is possible for experience to render it probable.

* Distinctions between "observable" and "theoretical" have been challenged as well as the distinctions between analytic and synthetic truths.
------------------------
Now all of these philosophical problems have been considered unresolvable by people far smarter than you, Loudmouth, or I. However, if you want to make a novel argument, I'm certainly willing to listen.

However, Loudmouth's argument that the statement cannot be criticized because it's an axiom is hardly novel. It's an example of special pleading, which is defined as: "a fallacy in which a person applies standards, principles, rules, etc. to others while making him or herself (or those he or she has a special interest in) to be exempt, without providing adequate justification for the exemption."

 

[Jimmy D]

That's great Zosimus but this is the creation and evolution forum.

 

[Zosimus]

That's great Zosimus but this is the creation and evolution forum.

Good! So since facts need not be demonstrable, there's no reason to say that creationism isn't a fact just because it's not demonstrable.

 

[Loudmouth]

Axioms can still be self refuting.

Irrelevant.

 

[Astrophile]

what bothers me the most about evolution is the various discrepancies involved with it.

What bothers me the most about your posts is that you know enough about evolution to cite real biologists like Koonin, Noble, Ross and Oakley and modern controversies about epigenetics and HGT, and yet you dig up (metaphorically, I mean) ancient and long-forgotten canards like Piltdown man. Piltdown was exposed as a fake nearly 62 years ago, and literally nobody has used it as evidence for human evolution since then.

 

[Loudmouth]

What bothers me the most about your posts is that you know enough about evolution to cite real biologists like Koonin, Noble, Ross and Oakley and modern controversies about epigenetics and HGT, and yet you dig up (metaphorically, I mean) ancient and long-forgotten canards like Piltdown man. Piltdown was exposed as a fake nearly 62 years ago, and literally nobody has used it as evidence for human evolution since then.

It could just as easily be argued that scientists had serious doubts about Piltdown man starting with Dart's discovery of Australopithecines in 1924 and other discoveries of transitional hominids in Africa/Asia over the next decade.

It should be remembered that, at the time of Piltdown finds, there were very few early hominid fossils; Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens were clearly fairly late. It was expected that there was a "missing link" between ape and man. It was an open question as to what that missing link would look like. Piltdown man had the expected mix of features, which lent it plausibility as a human precursor.

This plausibility did not hold up. During the next two decades there were a number of finds of ancient hominids and near hominids, e.g. Dart's discovery of Australopithecus, the Peking man discoveries, and other Homo erectus and australopithecine finds. Piltdown man did not fit in with the new discoveries. None the less, Sir Arthur Keith (a major defender of Piltdown man) wrote in 1931:

"It is therefore possible that Piltdown man does represent the early pleistocene ancestor of the modern type of man, He may well be the ancestor we have been in search of during all these past years. I am therefore inclined to make the Piltdown type spring from the main ancestral stem of modern humanity... "
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/piltdown.html
​

 

[whois]

What bothers me the most about your posts is that you know enough about evolution to cite real biologists like Koonin, Noble, Ross and Oakley and modern controversies about epigenetics and HGT, . . .

and the problem with that is what exactly?
BTW, you forgot jablonka and ayala.

. . . and yet you dig up (metaphorically, I mean) ancient and long-forgotten canards like Piltdown man. Piltdown was exposed as a fake nearly 62 years ago, and literally nobody has used it as evidence for human evolution since then.

the question here is, why did science even consider piltdown man as evidence?
did you know that those in the scientific community was refused access to piltdown?
it was locked away and access to it for examination was denied.
so tell me, why did science use this "evidence" at all?
where did "peer review" run off to?

 

[Loudmouth]

the question here is, why did science even consider piltdown man as evidence?

There was a mixture of human and ape features, just as we would expect to see in a transitional fossil.

did you know that those in the scientific community was refused access to piltdown?
it was locked away and access to it for examination was denied.
so tell me, why did science use this "evidence" at all?
where did "peer review" run off to?

Science quickly abandoned Piltdown man for real fossil finds, such as Taung child, an Australopithecine specimen discovered by Dart in 1924. Those specimens continue to be used as evidence because they are transitional and very real.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

I know you're not interested, but in case anyone is, RickG did a whole topic about what Justa is talking about here and why it's WRONG.

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/my-lost-squadron-challenge.7826110/

I would suggest anyone interested in the facts to go there. I'll also post his explanation here.

What's wrong is your and Rock G's entire outlook and your refusal to accept the science you claim to follow.

According to science we live in a universe that has been undergoing faster than c expansion at an "increasing" accelerating rate since the beginning. Then Relativity tells you that clocks slow and rulers shrink with acceleration. Then you refuse to apply that - knowing it means that clocks today tick slower than at any time in the past. Meaning that as one goes backwards in time - clocks speed up and decay rates increase - making the earth appear older than it actually is.

But you will choose to ignore Relativity now, and all of modern cosmology - because you do not want to consider the implications thereof.

By the way, Justa, I would appreciate it if you could find where someone claimed that the ice layers that they found the WWIi plane in were supposed to be hundreds of thousands years old. I know you're not going to, though.

You are mistaken if you think I make any claims I can't support - unlike you.

http://www.icr.org/article/ice-cores-age-earth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet
http://www.detectingdesign.com/ancientice.html

Being warm-blooded doesn't mean that dinosaurs aren't reptiles. They still are.

And I'm still curious where you got that 98% figure from.

No they are not reptiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile
"Reptiles, the class Reptilia, are an evolutionary grade of animals, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, lizards and tuatara, their extinct relatives, and some of the extinct ancestors of mammals."

Birds are not on the list, because birds did not come from reptiles.

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/ir_zoo/coldwarm.html

Don't try those strawmen with me please.

 

[Loudmouth]

What's wrong is your and Rock G's entire outlook and your refusal to accept the science you claim to follow.

They say they will accept ice layers from Central Greenland where precipitation is low, melting does not occur, and annual ice layers are verified by changes in isotope ratios.

Is that what we have with your example?

 

[lasthero]

What's wrong is your and Rock G's entire outlook and your refusal to accept the science you claim to follow.

According to science we live in a universe that has been undergoing faster than c expansion at an "increasing" accelerating rate since the beginning. Then Relativity tells you that clocks slow and rulers shrink with acceleration. Then you refuse to apply that - knowing it means that clocks today tick slower than at any time in the past. Meaning that as one goes backwards in time - clocks speed up and decay rates increase - making the earth appear older than it actually is.

But you will choose to ignore Relativity now, and all of modern cosmology - because you do not want to consider the implications thereof.

Okay, am I crazy, or did Justa just completely change the subject away from ice layers to radioactive decay?

You are mistaken if you think I make any claims I can't support - unlike you.

http://www.icr.org/article/ice-cores-age-earth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet
http://www.detectingdesign.com/ancientice.html

Nice links.

Doesn't really answer my question, though.

No they are not reptiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile
"Reptiles, the class Reptilia, are an evolutionary grade of animals, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, lizards and tuatara, their extinct relatives, and some of the extinct ancestors of mammals."[/quote]

Also from the Wiki.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur

Although the word dinosaur means "terrible lizard", the name is somewhat misleading, as dinosaurs are not lizards. Instead, they represent a separate group of reptiles that, like many extinct forms, did not exhibit characteristics traditionally seen as reptilian, such as a sprawling limb posture or ectothermy.

Also, if you actually read your link, you'll note that it verifies this, as well.

 

[Loudmouth]

Okay, am I crazy, or did Justa just completely change the subject away from ice layers to radioactive decay?

Does Justa even understand that it would be a change in topic?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Okay, am I crazy, or did Justa just completely change the subject away from ice layers to radioactive decay?

So are you saying you don't believe that geological time as you count it would not change as clocks increased in rate - being those ice layers would have not been deposited down on what you count as a year today - i.e. a longer period of time than in the past? Are you going to try that strawman to avoid your refusal to accept the cosmology that is preached?

Nice links.

Doesn't really answer my question, though.

Still haven't answered any of mine, so why you complaining because you didn't read it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile

"Reptiles, the class Reptilia, are an evolutionary grade of animals, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, lizards and tuatara, their extinct relatives, and some of the extinct ancestors of mammals."

Also from the Wiki.

Also, if you actually read your link, you'll note that it verifies this, as well.

So how does that include birds? Birds are not turtles which came from reptiles. Crocs - nope. Snakes - nope. Lizards - again nope. And tuatara - just another repeat of a lizard - nope. So if dinosaur were reptiles - then they can not be the predecessor to birds. But dinosaurs are now believed to be warm blooded.

You have yet to answer my question, always seek to divert. Not this time... If they were once believed to be cold-blooded with that respective genealogy - and now they are believed to be warm-blooded - how does one keep the same evolutionary tree as before? The two require different evolutionary pathways.

 

[whois]

Axiom 3: Any statement that cannot be verified (at least theoretically) true or false is meaningless and should be assumed false.

HUH?
any "axiom" that cannot be proved true or false should ALWAYS be considered unresolved.

 

[lasthero]

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]

So are you saying you don't believe that geological time as you count it would not change as clocks increased in rate - being those ice layers would have not been deposited down on what you count as a year today - i.e. a longer period of time than in the past? Are you going to try that strawman to avoid your refusal to accept the cosmology that is preached?



Still haven't answered any of mine, so why you complaining because you didn't read it?

So how does that include birds? Birds are not turtles which came from reptiles. Crocs - nope. Snakes - nope. Lizards - again nope. And tuatara - just another repeat of a lizard - nope. So if dinosaur were reptiles - then they can not be the predecessor to birds. But dinosaurs are now believed to be warm blooded.

You have yet to answer my question, always seek to divert. Not this time... If they were once believed to be cold-blooded with that respective genealogy - and now they are believed to be warm-blooded - how does one keep the same evolutionary tree as before? The two require different evolutionary pathways.

So are you saying you don't believe that geological time as you count it would not change as clocks increased in rate - being those ice layers would have not been deposited down on what you count as a year today - i.e. a longer period of time than in the past? Are you going to try that strawman to avoid your refusal to accept the cosmology that is preached?

No, I'm saying you're not making much sense. You seem to be saying that radioactive decay effects how fast ice layers are made, but there's no way you or anyone is that thick, so I must be misunderstanding you.

Still haven't answered any of mine, so why you complaining because you didn't read it?

...because you didn't answer the question.

So how does that include birds? Birds are not turtles which came from reptiles. Crocs - nope. Snakes - nope. Lizards - again nope. And tuatara - just another repeat of a lizard - nope. So if dinosaur were reptiles - then they can not be the predecessor to birds.

No, that's not how it works. By that same logic, mammals can't be descended from fish because scientists don't classify them as fish. You know scientists mostly accept that mammals descended from fish, so even if you don't accept that, it should tell you that you're making a mistake, here.

But dinosaurs are now believed to be warm blooded.

So? You keep repeating this like it means something. Having warm blood doesn't mean they were reptiles.

You have yet to answer my question, always seek to divert. Not this time... If they were once believed to be cold-blooded with that respective genealogy - and now they are believed to be warm-blooded - how does one keep the same evolutionary tree as before? The two require different evolutionary pathways.

Not really. Warm blood and cold blood aren't all that different, and there's a lot intermingling between it. Certain fish have warm blooded traits, for instance. There's no hard line.

m.livescience.com/50839-first-warm-blooded-fish-found.html

By your way of thinking, the opah can't be a fish because it's warm blooded.
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[Astrophile]

and the problem with that is what exactly?
BTW, you forgot jablonka and ayala.

I'm not objecting to you knowing enough about evolution to be able to cite real biologists like Koonin, Noble, Jablonka, Ayala, etc. and modern controversies about epigenetics and HGT. The more you know about evolution the more useful your opinion is. What seems strange is that you have metaphorically dug up Piltdown man, which should have been forgotten decades ago, as if it had some relevance to present-day understanding of evolution.

I should point out that, so far as I know, Piltdown is the only actual fraud, as opposed to honest mistakes, connected with human evolution, and that the fraudster, Charles Dawson, was a solicitor, not a professional scientist. By the way, Dawson was responsible for more than 30 frauds, most of which were archaeological and antiquarian and had nothing to do with evolution. It is strange that such frauds as the Beauport cast-iron statuette, the Pevensey brick, the Uckfield horseshoe, the Norman prick-spur, the Maresfield map and the sea-serpent seen by Dawson in the English Channel aren't regarded as invalidating the whole of their fields of archaeology and history, etc., but creationists regard Dawson's fake 'ape-man' as invalidating the whole of evolution.

The question here is, why did science even consider piltdown man as evidence?
did you know that those in the scientific community was refused access to piltdown?
it was locked away and access to it for examination was denied.
so tell me, why did science use this "evidence" at all?
where did "peer review" run off to?

I don't really know why scientists believed in Piltdown for so long, but I can offer a few guesses, based on the circumstances at that time. You must remember that the 40 years when Piltdown was accepted as a genuine fossil covered the two world wars and the intervening 20 years. Most of the young men (at least in Europe) who should have been the scientists of the 1920s and 1930s had been killed or incapacitated during the Great War, and were therefore not available to study Piltdown. Also, the economies of the nations of Europe had been literally shot to pieces, and these nations didn't even have enough money to feed, clothe and house their own people, let alone for palaeontological research; from about 1930, what money was available for science and engineering went into preparing for the next war. Third, Russia, Italy and Germany, and later Spain, fell into the power of political extremists who cared nothing for real science, and of course the Americans passed laws forbidding people to learn enough about evolution to be able to show that Piltdown was a fake.

Perhaps, also, the Piltdown fossils were kept under lock and key because they were rare and therefore, supposedly, of particular scientific value; scientists could not take risks with them. After all, Raymond Dart left the original Australopithecus skull in a London taxi, and it was only recovered by good luck; and the Peking man (Homo erectus) fossils were lost altogether. If the Piltdown bones had been lost or destroyed, they would never have been shown to be fakes.

 

[whois]

I'm not objecting to you knowing enough about evolution to be able to cite real biologists like Koonin, Noble, Jablonka, Ayala, etc. and modern controversies about epigenetics and HGT. The more you know about evolution the more useful your opinion is.

thank you for the positive support.

What seems strange is that you have metaphorically dug up Piltdown man, which should have been forgotten decades ago, as if it had some relevance to present-day understanding of evolution.

maybe.
OTOH, just how many frauds should we dismiss?
one?
three?
ten?
these things should ALWAYS be remembered.
granted, one mistake does not bring down the entire edifice.

I should point out that, so far as I know, Piltdown is the only actual fraud, as opposed to honest mistakes, connected with human evolution, and that the fraudster, Charles Dawson, was a solicitor, not a professional scientist.

well, i reserve judgement in this area, because i seriously doubt if piltdown was/ is the only fraud in connection with evolution.
it's gotten to the point that you cannot question the staus quo of evolution without being scorned or ad hommed to death.
barbara and her transposons are a classic example of this sort of thing.
the dyed in the wool evolutionists just didn't want to hear it, even though she had the nobel winning research that proved it.
this garbage with ayala is another typical example of this kind of nonsense.

I don't really know why scientists believed in Piltdown for so long, but I can offer a few guesses, based on the circumstances at that time.

the answer to this is really simple, because it made sense, that's why.
face it, as a man of science, are you going to actually believe that animals just poof into existence?
OTOH, science should have screamed foul the moment they found out the fossils could not be examined.

 

[Astrophile]

maybe.
OTOH, just how many frauds should we dismiss?
one?
three?
ten?

I'm sorry; I misread your post. I thought you had written 'how many frauds should we discuss?' Of course we shouldn't dismiss any frauds; we should examine them and learn from them.

Well, i reserve judgement in this area, because i seriously doubt if piltdown was/ is the only fraud in connection with evolution.
it's gotten to the point that you cannot question the staus quo of evolution without being scorned or ad hommed to death.
barbara and her transposons are a classic example of this sort of thing.
the dyed in the wool evolutionists just didn't want to hear it, even though she had the nobel winning research that proved it.
this garbage with ayala is another typical example of this kind of nonsense.

Can you please stick to the point? We were discussing Piltdown. I'm not a biologist, and I don't know anything about Barbara and her transposons (sounds like the name of a pop group), or about 'this garbage with Ayala'.

You have ignored my point about Charles Dawson (1864-1916) having been responsible for more than 30 fakes, most of them of archaeological and antiquarian interest. Most of these fakes were accepted as genuine at the time; it was only after the exposure of Piltdown that people started looking more carefully at Dawson's other 'discoveries'. There was no great outcry or accusations that archaeologists and historians were fools, knaves or liars because they had taken Dawson's 'discoveries' in their fields at face value, nor did anybody say that the fact that these 'discoveries' were fakes invalidated the whole of archaeology or all historical research.

Another question is the motive behind Dawson's fakes. Did he want his 'discoveries' to make him famous, and possibly to bring him a knighthood or a Fellowship of the Royal Society, or did he actually want people to believe that the Romans could make cast iron, that the Roman fort near Pevensey was part of the town of Anderida and that it was occupied during the time of the Emperor Honorius (395-423 AD), that sea-serpents lived in the English Channel, and that ape-men and ape-women lived in Sussex during the Pliocene epoch? If he was simply looking for fame and a knighthood, then he did not fake Piltdown in order to convince people of the truth of evolution; if it had that effect, that was a mere by-product of his ambition.

The answer to this is really simple, because it made sense, that's why.

Perhaps you're right, and I will tell you why it made sense; people believed in Piltdown because they had read the story or had seen it performed on stage. Observe: Piltdown does not have a church and is technically in the hamlet of Fletching. On Dawson's own account, the story of Piltdown began when he visited Barkham Manor and found two farm hands digging gravel. So Dawson encountered two gravel-diggers in a hamlet; and, of course, they found a skull. 'That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once.' Dawson was a solicitor; 'Why, may not that be the skull of a lawyer?' 'This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the King's jester.' Everybody knew the story, they had seen it acted, and now it was happening in real life.

Face it, as a man of science, are you going to actually believe that animals just poof into existence?

No.

OTOH, science should have screamed foul the moment they found out the fossils could not be examined.

Which branches of science? Edwin Hubble, who was measuring galactic distances and redshifts, or Lemaître and Einstein who were working out the theory of the expanding universe? Eddington and Chandrasekhar, who were studying stellar structure? Niels Bohr and Max Planck and others, who were studying quantum theory, atomic structure and nuclear physics? Geologists, who were establishing the first geological time scale? Even palaeontologists, who were finding Australopithecus in South Africa and Homo erectus in China? Why should any scientist outside Britain think that a small number of hominid skull and jaw bones from Sussex were important? Even Teilhard de Chardin, who had been a member of the excavation team, lost interest in Piltdown and hardly ever mentioned it after the excavations ceased; perhaps he already suspected that it was a fake.

By the way, I could say 'Tu quoque', or I could remind you of Jesus's warning against seeing the mote in one's brother's eye (Matthew 7:3). During the Middle Ages Christian churches and cathedrals vied with each other for the possession of fake relics of the saints and apostles, and even of Jesus himself. Very few of us think that the existence of these fakes proves that Christianity itself is false. Also, even in modern times, the Catholic church was not very keen on submitting the so-called Shroud of Turin to scientific examination, and some Christians have been unwilling to accept the scientific evidence that the 'Shroud' is a 14th-century fake.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

No, I'm saying you're not making much sense. You seem to be saying that radioactive decay effects how fast ice layers are made, but there's no way you or anyone is that thick, so I must be misunderstanding you.

No, I am saying if clocks tick faster as we go backwards in time - then both ice layering AND decay rates would be affected. You can not use how time progresses today to calculate how things occurred in the past - as the clocks rate is different. Stop avoiding the logical conclusion. If clocks tick faster in the past - then using slower clock rates to count ice rates deposited when time was faster would give you exponential errors - it would appear older than it is. As would decay rates be affected - as samples would appear older than they are - having decayed at a faster rate when time was faster.

Either relativity is wrong and clocks don't change as acceleration increases or they do. Since it is experimentally verified that they do change - then refusing to change the rate of your clocks as you calculate backwards in time is an error of colossal magnitude.

So? You keep repeating this like it means something. Having warm blood doesn't mean they were reptiles.

Don't complain to me - you were the one insisting they were reptiles - now suddenly you switch your stance because you don't want to discuss how lineages can't be the same for both at the same time?

Not really. Warm blood and cold blood aren't all that different, and there's a lot intermingling between it. Certain fish have warm blooded traits, for instance. There's no hard line.

m.livescience.com/50839-first-warm-blooded-fish-found.html

By your way of thinking, the opah can't be a fish because it's warm blooded.
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Because you have the Opah classified incorrectly. Simple as that. But of course they are not going to correct their mistake in classification - we already know how they refuse to ever admit mistakes until forced to. Or do we need to discuss Darwin's Finches again? The prime claimed example of speciation that is the biggest lie ever told.