Question for evolutionists

[kudzu]

It is unknown if Adam or Eve were 90 feet tall. To me it seems unlikely. Such large life forms would have great difficulty on land.

LOL.. Eve's tomb in Jedda is 90 feet tall.. Of course they giggle knowing its legend.

 

[domer76]

So by that definition: Ice skates are supernatural. We don't know why they create a spot of liquid water where they contact the ice. Bumblebees were supernatural until very recently. We didn't know how they could fly. Gravity is supernatural. We don't know what causes it. We can only describe its properties. Life itself is supernatural. We don't know how it came to Earth.

What a desperate grasp at straws!

 

[domer76]

Science isn't a 'method' or a 'procedure'. Science doesn't figure anything out. Science is a set of falsifiable theories.

Assuming that we actually DO synthesize life in a laboratory, is that indicative of the Theory of Abiogenesis or the Theory of Creation?


Where we eventually figure it out. Same difference.

Neither the twain shall meet, because they are mutually exclusive theories. One of them MUST be False.

Popper is full of shit.

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25322

 

[Mott the Hoople]

The Theory of Evolution is not a theory of science. It is not falsifiable. We can't go back in time to see what actually happened.

Well as Ronald Reagan once said "There you go again.".

If I were to go digging into a Morrison geological formation and found a nest of fossilized puppies I would have just falsified Evolutionary theory. Sorry pal but you're wrong again. Evolutionary theory is easily falsifiable in principle.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

No.The Theory of Evolution, which states that present day life evolved from more primitive life, is not falsifiable. We can't go back to see what actually happened. It is not a theory of science. It remains a nonscientific theory...and a religion.

No, that's not what evolutionary theory says. Evolutionary theory is stated as a shift in allele frequency within a population over time. Evolutionary theory predicts that all living systems had common ancestors and a vast body of fact and knowledge backs that observation up. So sorry...you're wrong.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Science isn't a 'method' or a 'procedure'. Science doesn't figure anything out. Science is a set of falsifiable theories.

Assuming that we actually DO synthesize life in a laboratory, is that indicative of the Theory of Abiogenesis or the Theory of Creation?


Where we eventually figure it out. Same difference.

Neither the twain shall meet, because they are mutually exclusive theories. One of them MUST be False.

What nonsense. The principle of falsification is just one important aspect of the scientific method. One that you obviously don't understand.

 

[Cypress]

The Theory of Evolution is not a theory of science. It is not falsifiable. We can't go back in time to see what actually happened.

This sounds like something you heard on rightwing teabag radio, rather than your own original thoughts.
Who's thoughts are you parroting?

No one ever witnessed the big bang, and no one ever witnessed the Chicxulub asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous. But multiple lines of evidence and the scientific method allow us to infer what happened - with a high degree of scientific confidence - without ever being able to actually "see what happened". Personally, I recommend you should not rely on teabag talk radio for your scientific talking points.

 

[domer76]

This sounds like something you heard on rightwing teabag radio, rather than your own original thoughts.
Who's thoughts are you parroting?

No one ever witnessed the big bang, and no one ever witnessed the Chicxulub asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous. But multiple lines of evidence and the scientific method allow us to infer what happened - with a high degree of scientific confidence - without ever being able to actually "see what happened". Personally, I recommend you should not rely on teabag talk radio for your scientific talking points.

All "falsifiable" means is testable. Something that a guy named Karl Popper came up with. As this piece sates, it's "fortune-cookie-sized motto". Science is much more than that.

"Science is not merely armchair theorizing; it's about explaining the world we see, developing models that fit the data. But fitting models to data is a complex and multifaceted process, involving a give-and-take between theory and experiment, as well as the gradual development of theoretical understanding in its own right. In complicated situations, fortune-cookie-sized mottos like "theories should be falsifiable" are no substitute for careful thinking about how science works. Fortunately, science marches on, largely heedless of amateur philosophizing. If string theory and multiverse theories help us understand the world, they will grow in acceptance. If they prove ultimately too nebulous, or better theories come along, they will be discarded. The process might be messy, but nature is the ultimate guide."

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25322

 

[Cypress]

All "falsifiable" means is testable. Something that a guy named Karl Popper came up with. As this piece sates, it's "fortune-cookie-sized motto". Science is much more than that.

"Science is not merely armchair theorizing; it's about explaining the world we see, developing models that fit the data. But fitting models to data is a complex and multifaceted process, involving a give-and-take between theory and experiment, as well as the gradual development of theoretical understanding in its own right. In complicated situations, fortune-cookie-sized mottos like "theories should be falsifiable" are no substitute for careful thinking about how science works. Fortunately, science marches on, largely heedless of amateur philosophizing. If string theory and multiverse theories help us understand the world, they will grow in acceptance. If they prove ultimately too nebulous, or better theories come along, they will be discarded. The process might be messy, but nature is the ultimate guide."

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25322

Cheers.

And that's exactly why I asked this teabagger whose thoughts he is stealing and plagiarizing.

Because whenever you see a barely educated teabagging poster start throwing around words like "falsifiable", they are undoubtedly parroting and plagiarizing someone else's thoughts and words.

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Evolutionary theory predicts that all living systems had common ancestors

prediction is not science.......prediction is hope and belief.....

 

[PostmodernProphet]

What nonsense. The principle of falsification is just one important aspect of the scientific method. One that you obviously don't understand.

I understand that if your "prediction" cannot be falsified, it is not science.........

 

[domer76]

I understand that if your "prediction" cannot be falsified, it is not science.........

Bible school did not prepare you well for the realm of science.

 

[Taichiliberal]

Science isn't a 'method' or a 'procedure'. Science doesn't figure anything out. Science is a set of falsifiable theories.

Assuming that we actually DO synthesize life in a laboratory, is that indicative of the Theory of Abiogenesis or the Theory of Creation?


Where we eventually figure it out. Same difference.

Neither the twain shall meet, because they are mutually exclusive theories. One of them MUST be False.

You display insipid stubbornness...the bottom line is that "life" has to have a point of creation. You can't "synthesize" life....you just make synthetic versions of whatever it is you're trying to copy....note the definition of the word 'synthetic'.

Science explains (or tries to) what already exists. Religious creation theories essentially offers another "mystery" to explain what already exists. When science can't readily find an answer, a theory is developed and believed to be (or will lead to) the answer. Word games non-withstanding. When religion cannot readily offer an answer, the "mystery" of dogma is offered with belief of answers upon death. (a belief in the "after life").

Bottom line: neither can offer a precise, no uncertain term answer as to how did life begin, how and when did it become homo sapien. Each believe the answers lie at the end of different paths....belief being the key word.

 

[Damocles]

How is this thread still going? I posted the study that clearly indicated exactly what he asked for.

 

[distraff]

Ok. Your body has a circulatory system. This is used to move oxygen rich blood cells through every part of your body. Now, here's a question for you. A circulatory system is useless without blood. Also, blood has no reason to exist without one. So which came first? Blood or our circulatory system? The answer is neither. They were created at the same time. There is no other rational explanation.

Actually many animals survive without blood or a blood circulatory system at all like flatworms. These animals directly transport resources to body parts without any need for blood. The simplest circulatory system is just a single loop that transports resources around the body with just muscles and no heart or lungs, and we see this in earthworms. Blood may have evolved to improve this system or even for some other purpose and then used in that system later. They only partially need it because they get a lot of oxygen through their skin because they are so small.

 

[Into the Night]

Of course. You can misuse Occam’s Razor all you want.

Occam's Razor is not something that is 'misused'. It simply is.

You’re free to define words however you want, of course, but declaring that figuring out how to synthesize biochemical molecules isn’t biochemistry like saying synthesizing organic compounds isn’t organic chemistry, when that’s actually a huge part of organic chemistry.

False equivalence. There is 'bio' until there is something living.

I don’t share your conviction that eyewitness testimony is the only way of knowing anything, or that it is even the best way of figuring things out.

Never said any such thing. Going back in time to see what actually happened is, however, the only way to test any theory about a past unobserved event. That's why science has no such theories. They are not falsifiable.

It’s true that demonstrating one way life could have come about through spontaneous processes is not the same as demonstrating that this is the way it did in fact come about, but it would demonstrate that the ID claims that life simply couldn’t have come about through spontaneous processes was in fact wrong, which is really their whole argument.

No, it wouldn't. Synthesizing a living cell in a laboratory is the act of creation. Such a scientist or scientists would be creating life.

But proof is for mathematics and baking.

Not quite. Proofs only exist in closed functional systems such as mathematics and logic. They do not exist in open functional systems like science. Science is a set of falsifiable theories, nothing more.

Science tries to hold all things provisionally, based on the best available evidence.

Science does not use supporting evidence. It is only interested in conflicting evidence.

Who said anything about ‘nothing’? I don’t know that ‘nothing’ describes the starting conditions of the Big Bang: I have certainly never asserted any such thing.

You did. Others also say the same thing about the Big Bang.

Nor do I know that you’re correct about your assertion that something can’t come from nothing.

It cannot by any theory of science that we know.

You might look at virtual particles, which seem to flit in and out of existence ‘from nothing’, by certain definitions of ‘nothing’.

Nope. They exist. They become detectable and undetectable, but they always exist.

If you want to deny all the lines of evidence pointing to the Big Bang,

I don't. The Theory of the Big Bang is not falsifiable. It is not science.

and the testable predictions that have come out of that theory,

Theories are incapable of prediction. So is science. Science can only explain, not predict. The power of prediction only exists in closed functional systems. It comes with the formal proof.

you can do so, but I don’t think you burying your head in the sand is evidence that any particular Cosmological theory is a religion.

Never said it was. A religion is some initial circular argument with arguments extending from it.

But they do render prior supernatural explanations superfluous: an unwarranted multiplying of causal agents.

Define 'supernatural'.

Thunder from Thor’s hammer, lightning from Zeus’s spear, hail kept in storehouses by the Queen of Heaven, to pick a biblical example, etc. pick up any decent tome on mythology and you can find dozens more.

Thunder may be the result of superheated air from lightning, and lightning itself may be the result of excess charge building up between the ground and a cloud, but who is to say Thor and Zeus and their spear and hammer isn't responsible? You can't prove Thor and Zeus do not exist. Personally, I don't believe they do, but it is not a thing you can prove.

Nope. I have no idea what your definition of faith is,

I gave it to you several times. Faith is just another word that describes a circular argument.

other than that you seem to declare eyewitness testimony as the only thing not faith based.

You are mixing arguments together. Contextomy fallacy. You are also failing to understand the problems of phenomenology.

I don’t think your definition of religion as ‘anything with a scrap of faith in it’ is reasonable, either.

Never said it was. It is faith, coupled with arguments extending from that faith.

Nor do I see how an inductive argument to a probability is the same as faith, even if it can’t produce 100% certainty.

Too bad. It is.

You have all sorts of assumptions in your definitions I don’t see any reason to accept.

The 'assumptions' you are making are wrong.

If I get in my car, I have a certain amount of ‘faith’ that other drivers are not going to try to hit me.

Fine. Not a religion.

This is based on their own self-interest, and on the inductive argument that no one has tried to hit me in the past.

Not an argument extending from that faith.

But I drive defensively in case this is my unlucky day and I encounter some attempted suicide by car.

Because you realize that it's faith.

By your definitions, I don’t see how driving my car isn’t a religion, since it involves ‘faith’ and inductive reasoning.

Nope. Just faith. Rewording the same argument is not extending the argument.

I don’t think this is a useful definition of religion,

Since religions do not require a god or gods, and it is not possible to define what is 'supernatural' or 'natural' with any consistency, it is indeed a useful definition of a religion.

and I don’t think it reflects how anyone else uses the word ‘religion’.

Argument of ignorance fallacy. Many view atheism as a religion.

I don’t know why it’s so important to you that atheism be a religion or faith based.

Because you treat it as a fundamentalist. You are trying to prove a circular argument. That's a fallacy.

It seems like some desperate need to level the playing field.

No, it's YOUR desperate need to unlevel the playing field. It is the same with all fundamentalists.

 

[Into the Night]

Well that's because is science there is no such thing as "just a theory". You're using the term theory in its colloquial tense and not it's scientific one. That's why Scientist cringe when neophytes do that. When you have reached the theoretical stage in science you are in heady waters supported by factual observations and often, as is the case in evolutionary theory, by laws of nature.

Science does not use supporting evidence. Observations are not a fact. Facts are not observations. Observations are subject to the problems of phenomenology. They are not a proof.

Science is nothing more than a set of falsifiable theories.

 

[Into the Night]

That's correct but I am using "theory" in its strict scientific definition and not it's common usage as you are. They are indeed compatible belief systems but they are not compatible as science. One is science and the other is not.

There is no change in the meaning of 'theory' in any scientific sense. The meaning of 'theory' remains the same, whether used to describe a scientific theory or any other.

 

[Into the Night]

Well as Ronald Reagan once said "There you go again.".

If I were to go digging into a Morrison geological formation and found a nest of fossilized puppies I would have just falsified Evolutionary theory. Sorry pal but you're wrong again. Evolutionary theory is easily falsifiable in principle.

Nope. It would only falsify the claimed order of appearance. A new order of appearance would have to be created. You can't falsify a theory by falsifying a different theory.

 

[Into the Night]

No, that's not what evolutionary theory says. Evolutionary theory is stated as a shift in allele frequency within a population over time. Evolutionary theory predicts that all living systems had common ancestors

Correct. The Theory of Evolution, states that present day life evolved from more primitive life.

and a vast body of fact and knowledge backs that observation up. So sorry...you're wrong.

Learn what a 'fact' is. A 'fact' is not a Universal Truth.
Learn what knowledge is. Knowledge is not a Universal Truth.
Observations are not a proof. They are subject to the problems of phenomenology.
Supporting evidence is not a proof. Literally mountains of it proves nothing. A single piece of conflicting evidence will nullify all of it. Science only uses conflicting evidence.

The Theory of Evolution is not a theory of science. It is not falsifiable. There is no possible way to test it other than going back in time to see what actually happened.