Using the Scientific Method on Evolution

[bhsmte]

edit:
that's really dishonest of you Bhsmte to edit out what you said after i posted.
fraud for the course i guess.

You know, you really need to follow along and pay attention. You seem to have a habit of accusing others of not being honest, as you have done with SFS as well.

I edited my post, because it made it look like I had said something, that you had actually said and this happened because of how you quoted your post. Psycho Sarah caught this and that is why she made the comment she did in this thread.

 

[PsychoSarah]

You know, you really need to follow along and pay attention. You seem to have a habit of accusing others of not being honest, as you have done with SFS as well.

I edited my post, because it made it look like I had said something, that you had actually said and this happened because of how you quoted your post. Psycho Sarah caught this and that is why she made the comment she did in this thread.

In other words, thanks to quoting error, what he was commenting on was a mash of both what I said and what was said by you, whois. Which means he was commenting on a mix of what two people said which didn't represent what either of us said individually.

 

[whois]

You know, you really need to follow along and pay attention. You seem to have a habit of accusing others of not being honest, as you have done with SFS as well.

where have i said SFS was dishonest?

I edited my post, because it made it look like I had said something, that you had actually said and this happened because of how you quoted your post. Psycho Sarah caught this and that is why she made the comment she did in this thread.

oh, ok. sorry.

 

[bhsmte]

where have i said SFS was dishonest?

You know, you never cease to amaze me.

From post #554 of the "Why I believe in evolution thread":

i can safely say that SFS is either:
1. no scientist
-or-
2. isn't being honest.

why discuss this matter with people that aren't going to be honest.

 

[Loudmouth]

I have aspirated, smeared, stained and read bone narrows. You need my license #??

1. Observation- I look around and I see this beautiful world in which we live.

.....,,,I wonder where it came from, how it came to be, hmm?

2. Hypothesis -- I have the idea that it was created by God.

That's not a hypothesis, at least not a scientific one. Hypotheses are very narrow predictions of what observations you should and should not see in a specific set of data. Theories are groups of related hypotheses. Laws are a generalized statement of the observations.

Stephen Jay Gould wrote a very nice essay on how laws (i.e. facts) relate to theories in science, and evolution in particular.

"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air pending the outcome. And human beings evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered."
Stephen J. Gould: Evolution as Fact and Theory

If we are referring to gravity instead, then we have Newton's Laws of Gravity that are described by the equations, Newton's Theory of Instantaneous Action, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Newton's Laws do a good job of describing the facts at lower velocities and lower gravity. However, they are based in part on Newton's theory that gravity acts instaneously across all distances. This turned out to be wrong. Einstein proposed that gravity propogates at the speed of light and is due to the bending of space. It turns out that Einstein's theory is closer to how the world works, and it replaced Newton's Laws. There is no such thing as "Einstein's Laws".

The problem that sfs has discussed is that scientists no longer use the term "law" in a formal sense. "Law" is a hold over from the Victorian age of science, and it has simply fallen out of favor. It gave the incorrect notion that writing a law caused nature to follow that law, which simply isn't the case. In modern science, theory is as high as it gets. If the term law is used, it is used to describe mathematical relationships that are often idealized.

Remember (a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.)

In order to be a scientific explanation it needs to be testable and falsifiable.

 

[Loudmouth]

How come everytime I look into a microscope I see God written all over it?

What font is it in? Can you take a picture and show us?

Am I delusional believing in God. Am I to disregard my personal experiences with God that have been repeated and confirmed..

Describe the methods and materials we would need to repeat and confirm your observations.

The main problem you seem to be having is that you don't have experience on the research side of science. Have you ever had to write or help write an R21 or R01 NIH grant? Have you ever written or submitted a research paper to a peer reviewed journal? In a grant you have to be very focused on how the scientific method is applied. For a grant you have to list background information and preliminary data if you have any. From that information, you propose 2 or 3 aims that your research is focused on. For each of those aims, you list specific hypotheses and the specific experiments you will run to test each hypothesis. In a paper containing completed research, you have to describe background info, work others have done, the specific experiments and methodologies you used, your specific results, and then show how that data tests specific hypotheses. Only then can you reach a conclusion, and a tentative one at that.

What you are describing comes nowhere close to that. You claim that you see God written on things, but you really don't. That is a belief. You haven't shown how any experiment tests any of your hypotheses, or even what specific predictions your hypothesis makes. No research scientist would ever make the grand pronouncements you are making and pretend that they are scientific. Scientists may profess those same beliefs, but they are careful to describe them as beliefs and not sceintific hypotheses.

 

[whois]

You know, you never cease to amaze me.

From post #554 of the "Why I believe in evolution thread":

i can safely say that SFS is either:
1. no scientist
-or-
2. isn't being honest.

why discuss this matter with people that aren't going to be honest.

ah yes, the discussion about false statistical correlations.
i said:

like i said before, i mistrust statistical analysis, and you can't honestly blame me.

SFS replied:

Of course I can blame you. Your "distrust of statistical analysis" seems to consist of closing your eyes and humming really loud.

i replied:

hmmm . . .
you know, i'm almost tempted to ask if you graduated high school.
instead i'll ask if you ever took statistics.
you cannot possibly tell me you have never heard of false statistical correlations.
you need to reevaluate your answer.
remember, you want honesty, right?

here's the quote you referenced:

i mistrust statistical analysis for the reasons given.
there is no scientist alive that would say i am wrong for doing so.

i stand by what i said.
i mistrust statistical correlations because correlation does not imply causation and SFS knows it, but said quote "Your "distrust of statistical analysis" seems to consist of closing your eyes and humming really loud."
for SFS to state such a thing is at the very least a misrepresentation, and that my friend is dishonest.

 

[lasthero]

Dude.

Stop digging yourself in a hole.

 

[Loudmouth]

ah yes, the discussion about false statistical correlations.

Ah yes, the discussion where you failed to show that any of the statistical correlations under question were false.

i stand by what i said.
i mistrust statistical correlations because correlation does not imply causation

Then why do you accept any of McClintock's work that rests on the same correlations?

It seems that you reject data based on the conclusion it leads to.

 

[whois]

i don't know, maybe she won a nobel prize for it?

 

[Loudmouth]

i don't know, maybe she won a nobel prize for it?

That work was based on statistical correlations which you reject out of hand. According to you, she didn't deserve a Nobel Prize.

 

[lewiscalledhimmaster]

I have aspirated, smeared, stained and read bone narrows. You need my license #??

1. Observation- I look around and I see this beautiful world in which we live.

.....,,,I wonder where it came from, how it came to be, hmm?

2. Hypothesis -- I have the idea that it was created by God.

Remember (a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.)

That is as far as we can go with the scientific method.

In my thread: The Scientific Method & Macroevolution, I was asked the following question:

'...."religion" is a global and recurring theme in relation to humanity?
there has to be some kind of "science" that explains this. ....'

To which I replied:

'....In fact, there are a number of branches of study which explore that, however tests for divinity, deity and such are not within the province of science.

Some of those branches of study fall into the following categories:

a. Brain/biological functioning
b. Genetics
c. Evolution
d. Psychological factors ....' ( post 39 )

 

[Kristen.NewCreation]

ADMIN HAT ON

This thread is full of posts that are addressing each other instead of the content of the posts and the topic of the OP.

It's time to get back on topic and to address the content of the posts - not posters.

The OP Says:

The scientific method has four parts:
1) Observation
2) Hypothesis
3) Prediction
3) Testing
4) Conclusion

Observation:
We find a bone in the dirt.

Please use the scientific method USING the observation above to prove that birds come from dinosaurs or everything in the universe came from nothing.

Continued issues with flaming or OT posts may result in the thread being closed. I'm sure that it would be better to keep the discussion going, so please take note of this.

ADMIN HAT OFF
​

 

[ViaCrucis]

Except my conclusion matched the conclusion of scientists, didn't it?

Magical pink fairy unicorns poop rainbows, therefore the world is round.

Yes, it's the same conclusion as what science says, it's the journey to get to that conclusion which is wrong.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Subduction Zone]

ADMIN HAT ON

This thread is full of posts that are addressing each other instead of the content of the posts and the topic of the OP.

It's time to get back on topic and to address the content of the posts - not posters.

The OP Says:

Continued issues with flaming or OT posts may result in the thread being closed. I'm sure that it would be better to keep the discussion going, so please take note of this.

ADMIN HAT OFF
​

The first person to respond to the OP nailed it. The situation proposed by the OP was a strawman. The conclusion that birds evolved from dinosaurs was not based upon one bone. It was based upon the findings of thousands of fossils that can only be explained by using the theory of evolution. And the idea of proving the universe came from nothing from that data is far worse than a strawman. The approach of the OP was one designed to goad people and goading almost always results in personal attacks.

 

[loveofourlord]

It's a hypothesis.



Not even sure what you're implying. Are you saying that the geologic column doesn't really exist, or that what people say about it isn't true? Both of those are insane position, but the latter less so than the former.



Just for fun, try and look up a paper written about Piltdown Man. You won't find a signle one. At all.



Dolly has nothing to do with evolution, but it was a real thing. Saying you don't believe its possible to clone animals doesn't make it impossible to clone animals.



This doesn't even make sense.



If they're missing, how can they be a fraud?



I know you think this is the case, but you need this trifling thing called 'evidence'.



So far as I'm aware, most ancient civilizations haven't cared to dig extensively to find dinosaur bones. On top of that, it's not like you can just dig in any random place and expect to find a fossil.



If you believe most of history is 'created/fake', how do you know the stuff about dinosaurs is true?

I go with the usual theory that dragons and such were people finding the bones of dinosaurs and thinking they were something else. What would someone 4000 years ago think if they saw a t-rex bone.

 

[lewiscalledhimmaster]

The first person to respond to the OP nailed it. The situation proposed by the OP was a strawman. The conclusion that birds evolved from dinosaurs was not based upon one bone. It was based upon the findings of thousands of fossils that can only be explained by using the theory of evolution. And the idea of proving the universe came from nothing from that data is far worse than a strawman. The approach of the OP was one designed to goad people and goading almost always results in personal attacks.

Succinctly stated. It's hard to talk to (those who claim to be) scientists about the scientific method, for it touches the heart of where science is going wrong in our time. It's got too many agenda driven people, shouting out angry statements which misrepresent real science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7XUsgat1j0
National Center for Science Education

 

[True Scotsman]

The scientific method has four parts:
1) Observation
2) Hypothesis
3) Prediction
3) Testing
4) Conclusion

Observation:
We find a bone in the dirt.

Please use the scientific method USING the observation above to prove that birds come from dinosaurs or everything in the universe came from nothing.

Well this is ridiculous. We don't just find a bone in the dirt and then extrapolate from that that birds evolved from dinosaurs. You ought to be ashamed.

 

[lewiscalledhimmaster]

Well this is ridiculous. We don't just find a bone in the dirt and then extrapolate from that that birds evolved from dinosaurs. You ought to be ashamed.