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Author Topic:   No evolution/creation debate in Europe
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 76 of 107 (479184)
08-25-2008 10:42 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Beretta
08-25-2008 8:40 AM


Evidence, Interpretation and Prediction
No, one stems from revealed knowledge and the other stems from human efforts to do away with the need for revealed knowledge. Man's opinions versus the truth.
No. Tested conclusions versus faith based ideology.
not all interpretations are of equal explanatory value
You're right -intelligent design fits the equation while evolution is force fitted against all the odds. If it was such a sure thing, they'd stop coming with absolute final confirmation that Darwin was right but they are always desperate to justify what is unjustifiable and far from evidential.
Again you miss the point. Tested conclusions. Predicted results.
If science were simply interpretation of evidence alone it would indeed be prone to placing the conclusion before the evidence and the other methods of ideological abuse that faith based interpretations inevitably result in with regard to methods of investigation.
The thing that makes science different, reliable as a means of investigation and ultimately superior in terms of advancing our understanding and knowledge is the testing of hypotheses.
The 'All interpretations are valid' argument is wishful thinking and a complete misapprehension of what science actually is on the part of IDists. Including, it seems, you.
No it is a grand attempt to make the facts (which are the same for both sides) fit the theory.
Are the facts the same for both sides? Would the facts, such as the discovery of the existence of Tiktaalik, even have been discovered if left to the methods and devices of ID? No. Not at all. Because ID makes no predictions and as a consequence results in no new discoveries and thus finds no new evidence.
Has ID ever resulted in the discovery of anything? If not why do you think this might be?
How do you think palaeontologists go about the business of fossil discovery? Do you think they just stick pins in a globe, fly off to random locations around the world and then dig about aimlessly?
THE PROCESS OF PALEONTOLOGY
No. Of course not. Palaeontologists have some knowledge of the earlier form of life in the sequence they are studying and some knowledge of the later forms of life. They know the time period where the predicted transitional fossils should exist between these forms of life (if evolutionary theory is indeed true) and the geological conditions that relate to this time period.
They then determine the areas on the Earth where suitably fossilising rocks from the required time period might be accessible and begin the painstaking process of fossil discovery. In many cases taking years of concerted effort in often hostile conditions (deserts, Polar Regions etc.)
Lo and behold transitional forms have been discovered. Exactly as predicted. Exactly where predicted. Relating to exactly when predicted.
So using knowledge of geology and the predictions of evolutionary theory we keep finding the fossilised remains of new species. Transitional species.
Given IDs complete inability to discover anything at all and the success of evolutionary theory in predicting and discovering new species that have all the transitional qualities expected of evolutionary theory, how can you claim the following -
intelligent design fits the equation while evolution is force fitted against all the odds
It is man's attempt, via naturalistic philosophy, to remove himself from what really happened. It's called self delusion.
The only delusion going on here is your delusion that faith based interpretations of evidence are even in the same ballpark in terms of reliability and ojectivity as the predicted and tested results of truly scientific theories.
You hit the nail on the head there. Natural selection and mutation doesn't make complex biological systems except in some people's wishful imaginings. Only intelligence can produce the genetic information for life.
According to you but not according to the objective methods of prediction, testing of theories, verification and refutation.
Tested conclusions and predicted discoveries Vs faith based assertions derived from arguments of incomprehension.
No contest.
PS - Do you know if you spell check IDists it returns “idiots”

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Beretta, posted 08-25-2008 8:40 AM Beretta has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by Beretta, posted 08-26-2008 8:32 AM Straggler has replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 84 of 107 (479323)
08-26-2008 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by Beretta
08-26-2008 8:32 AM


Re: Evidence, Interpretation and Prediction
You are obviously thinking of the wrong sort of science - historical science is not the sort of thing you can do repeatable tests on.
But you can make predictions and you can repeatedly verify them. As has been demonstrated by evolutionary theory and as is notably lacking from ID.
The scientific method is about testing hypotheses. The precise methods of doing this will depend on the nature of the investigation and the evidence available.
However predicted results are key to this as they ensure a level of objectivity that interpretation alone just cannot match.
Evolution is a philosophical material worldview into which man attempts to fit the facts. So evolution is the faith based ideology.
You again fail to appreciate or explain why it is that the methods of science as applied to evolution (when combined with a knowledge of geology) result in ongoing discovery?
Meanwhile ID remains a philosophy of ignorance that has a long and undistinguished history of discovering nothing whatsoever.
Why is that?
Again you miss the point. Tested conclusions. Predicted results.
Again, you’re dreaming, that might be the ideal but that’s not actually how it works.
Then how do scientists keep discovering new fossils, new transitional forms and new evidence entirely consistent with that predicted by the theory of evolution?
Why do IDists continue to discover nothing new?
What is the worth in a form of investigation that purports to call itself scientific but which results in no discoveries or new evidence?
Except when the ideology clouds the results.
If evolutionary theory is the ideology why is it that the methods of science in the form of predicted results and discovery continue to reveal new evidence?
If ID is true why is it that no predictions are ever made and no discoveries have ever resulted?
It is a question of faith based ideological desire to find a role for God/gods Vs the results of the scientific method.
Much has been written on the Cambrian explosion and its inconsistency with the Darwin’s theory.
Could you be more specific?
To use the Cambrian explosion as some sort of evidence against evolutionary theory you must first accept geological dating methods. Do you accept these methods or not?
Secondly the Cambrian explosion hardly gives rise to "the major animal groups" as we know them now. Mammals, reptiles, amphibeans, insects etc. etc. etc. all came later.
If ID is true and all animal forms exploded onto the scene simultaneaously the very obvious prediction would be that mammals, fish, reptiles, trilobytes, humans etc. etc. would be found throughout geological time? This is patently not the case.
Something is true and all the rest are false. Whatever happened happened and any other story is false because it just did not happen.
What they are actually saying is that there are facts and there are interpretations of facts - ”facts’ don’t speak for themselves.
Yes. But predicted facts, facts discovered as a result of theory, speak with a lot more objectivity and authority regarding the veracity of the theory in question (i.e. evolutionary theory). Equally the complete inability of ID to predict or discover tells us everything we need to know about the reliability of that theory.
Evolution is a faith-based interpretation of the evidence and it is a delusion. You believe therefore you find. Lets have some evidence that the sort of change you imagine has happened is actually capable of happening at all. How do we know that mutation and natural selection is capable of producing biological complexity? You can’t just assume, we need some proven positive beneficial genetic change producing morphological change - we can’t just assume it’s happened based on our philosophical premises.
It's called tested evidence.
Evolution has fossil evidence of change with geological time that is completely in line with genetic predictions of relationships between species. Predictions that have led and will continue to lead to new discoveries and new evidence (both genetic and fossil).
Predictions and tested results. The basis of any valid scientific theory.
ID makes no predictions, tests no theories and makes no discoveries. That surely is as weak a position as it is possible for a supposedly scientific theory to have. Would you not agree?
If there is any truth to ID whatsoever IDists have done a piss poor job of demonsterating it. This at least you must admit.
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by Beretta, posted 08-26-2008 8:32 AM Beretta has not replied

  
Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 102 of 107 (480054)
08-31-2008 6:14 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Beretta
08-31-2008 8:31 AM


Re: the evolution indoctrination
all they are proposing is presenting the competing hypothesis in terms of scientific evidence that supports it and allowing Darwinism to be scrutinized more closely than has been allowed in the past.
Which competing hypothesis?
The ID "hypothesis" that makes no predictions, undergoes no tests and which has never ever led to a single discovery. That "hypothesis"?
I don't see how even the term "hypothesis" can be justified never mind the concept of it being a "competing hypothesis".
To get back to the OP however......
Maybe the concept of a scientific "hypothesis" and the scientific method generally are more widely understood in Europe than the US?
I remember some fantastic lessons on how to go about testing things scientifically and the scientific method in general. I was about 11 and the lessons were my first experience of secondary school science. The ideas were simple (e.g. the use of a control group in an experiment to see if plants grew better in sunlight) but I have never forgotten them.
Are such lessons still taught? Either in European or American school science?
Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Beretta, posted 08-31-2008 8:31 AM Beretta has not replied

  
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