Question Evolution!

To be fair to the evolutionists, that's some pretty strong language, such as pseudo-science, and, "lies".Even if we don't agree with evolution, it is not a pseudo-science. It is not false science as it fall in line with qualifying as a theory according to the rules. (Obviously, personally, I don't see it as a good theory, logically.)Welcome, I like you am not evolutionist, but a lot of people here have done a lot of thinking and know all about both sides of the debate. There are a lot of ignoramuses on both sides, but generally, not here, this is a concentration of relatively informed people.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

It's hard to tell if he will aggregate wth us. I myself, in 2003, was completely ignorant and would post similar messages as I had swallowed creation without thinking. Now I have done the thought, and although I am still creationist, and disagree with the evolution, for me the interest of this debate might be to highlight the limits of science.Is evolution a pseudo-science? Might be a better topic?Personally, I am concerned with the limitations of inductive reasoning. It's not that evolution is science that bothers me but that with methodological naturalism comes methodologically removing any undesirable conclusions pertaining to an all-wise God. Those assumptions are fairly great. Science by definition exists to explain things empirically but some matters are not only empirical. If there is, truth to a designer, only we can't analyze this truth scientifically, is this a fault of science, or a limitation of it?

I would add, what is evidence? Logically speaking?It is the consequent in a modus ponen. The antecedant is represented as the theory or postulation. The falsification evidence is the modus tollens rejection of the consequent.As far as I am aware, there is an ignorance of evolution by lot of creationists, and what it says, but there is also an ignorance of what evidence is. Whether it is qualitative or quantative.An induction of confirmation evidence is inductive reasoning because unless you own 100% of the evidence, epistemologically and logically speaking, you can not know or deduce respectively, you can only proceed via abductive inference. According to your JTB, justified-true belief, you can justifiably believe evolution happened, depending upon how compelling your evidence is.But to discuss the actual evidence is something as a creationist, I can no longer do.I tried, several times, to explain what evidence is, and how complicated the logical variables are, I can't be a punch-bag for evolutionists forever.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

I do not think evolution is pseudo-science, as I believe I stated. Empirical, neutral, methodological investigation generally are the defining characteristics.Problems arise between operational science and historical science, respectively, in that you can repeat and experiment with the latter, but the former is limited.My problems with evolution are logical ones, but as I have said, it seems pointless to try and explain what I mean.

I apreciate that you apreciate they are designed. The real question is, "what is the best answer, solves the problems best, for designs?".We can see in human-designs that there are distinct advantages to planning, intuition leading to creative and original solutions good contingencies. I submit the example of the differential to stop wheelspin. The solution is relatively simple, but not and easy contingency to come up with. I don't see why two simple mechanisms answer these problems more than an incredibly intelligent mind. We can see specific design-contingencies in nature, that are greater than human designs. It seems rational to at least admit that an all-wise mind answers better than a blind and limited process.I am not having a go at your post, there are some things you have said which could open a can or worms, you allude to the problem of evil.There are evolutionary postulations, posteriori explanations for why things are a certain way, maybe against the evolutionary grain, so I think it is only fair that we also can postulate as to why there is evil in the world, and whether that is because of bad design or not.We don't actually believe that the present-day world is an example of God's design, but a remnant of it. Uniformatarian views say that the present is the key to the past.A general Theism, or religious beliefs, make a designer implausible because of the problem of evil, but the bible actually explains whey there is suffering in the world, because it is a fallen world.You have to remember that things may look very clear-cut to you from your own subjective position, but they also look clear cut from ours. We are also baffled as to why you apparently don't see the obvious.(Don't batter me, fry me, and devour me, I am not replacing Jimmy, I is giving my own squiff-piggling thoughts from my own disgustering reasonings your majester.!

Personally I am not aware of the campaign or the questions. I don't tend to put much store in those comments.I know I appear very much to be a strong creationist but I also question creationists and what they say. From the reasonings of evolutionists here at EvC, I usually, "hear" the devil's advocate in my head when a creationist is talking, I will ask him a question an evolutionist would ask to see if he would give the rhetoric many like him unfortunately rely on or whether he will try and use intelligence, like I try to do.There are lots of able creationists, like maybe that master chess player, Jonathan Sarfati is it? But of course, like anyone, creationists can fall into the trap of using poorly formed summaries that don't adequately expound their beliefs. Or propaganda. To use that word, "lies" implies evolutionary scientists are willfully lying to us, and that's pretty unnecessary terminology. Best to stick to arguing the exact information, the majority of scientists are likely just doing their sciencing.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

You understood that correctly. I would define the following like this, perhaps examples are better than my attempts to explain it;Law:100% of the recorded induction is always confirming evidence.Theory:NOT 100% of the recorded induction is always confirming evidence.Because of the power of deductive reasoning, of course a law can still be falsified. It would only take one man to fly like superman to disprove a law, whereas a theory can not inherently provide such a sound induction simply because we don't have the ability to lay our hands on the evidence in such an equivalent way.That's all I mean by operational and historical really, that for logical reasons we are sometimes ignorant.For example if you posit that the planet once had the conditions x,y,z,p and y, you can evidence it, but not by any fault of your own, such evidence lacks quality.What then am I saying? That we can know nothing? No, I admit evolution is not a pseudo-science, from what I am learning it can explain the facts, scientifically speaking, if that is what you seek, alone. I am not saying you can't have the theory, I am only showing what logic tells us. Logically, evolution might not have happened, despite being a theory. Again, I am not saying, "evolution did not happen", I allow the possibility it did happen, it would be pretty arrogant to say that 150 years of science is wrong and I am certainly right because of what I think.I am trying, conciously, to learn more about it, after reading Modulous's response. I am attempting to speak less and read more. (I have read how gene flow can actually increase information in a divergent populus and how ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny is false to modern evolutionary biologists, because of forms of phylogeny present at an embryonic stage, that were not part of the phylogenic ancestry in that species).Afterall, I have said it before, it is not detrimental to my faith if evolution did happen, it's just that I do not usually share these thoughts. I am trying very hard to be fair, but it is tough to contain mad-mikey.

The antecedant, "If theory Y" then evidence P, (consequent).So if I have a theory that all balls in existence are red, then a red ball would be evidence.I am not sure what you mean, if we swap it around it would be in the following form;If there are red balls (evidence) then only red balls exist.Part of the problem is language. Logic as we talk about it, only goes from left to right.The evidence is presented as the consequent BECAUSE of the non sequitur; "there are red balls, therefore red ball theory is true".For scientific and logical reasons, because confirmation evidence is tentative, the correct place for the evidence is in the place of the consequent so that you have to continually prove your theory.So if an idiot says that only red balls exist, if he finds a red ball and says, "see, my theory is true", you can say, "no it isn't, plonker, you have just affirmed the consequent".Don't forget, I am not only talking about logic, you can use a conditional implication whatever way you want to, but because the onus is upon the person claiming a theory is true, it makes most sense to put evidence in place of the consequent.I should have explained that more.This way, the tollens can also disprove the idiot quite succinctly, so that if you show him one yellow ball, his theory is thwarted.mikey doesn't get confused, you should know that by now - he only has degrees of insanity. Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Please show where I said that a theory will become a law. Please quote.I was only showing A difference between a theory and a law, I was not saying that your quote is untrue - I would also say that a theory is more complex, my statement did not preclude this.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

I am talking about applying logical form to science for the sake of proceeding logically.I am talking about using conditional implications in a way that can be used to confirm or falsify a theory succinctly. It is not a big deal, it just shows the inductive reasoning versus the deductive reasoning. It means that if you have evidence, you can't conclude anything.Your above syllogism does not follow logically. You can't state that if there is evidence P therefore theory X, that proposal does not follow, so it can't be used as a framework. We are making an apparatus by which we can proceed completely logically by inserting ANY theory.It is NOT a non sequitur to state that If a theory is true, then certain evidence should follow, but the other way around, is ALWAY ONLY false. If there is a red ball then there are only red balls, is what your syllogism allows you to infer.The reason why the antecedant is used as the theory is obvious, because if you found a thousand red balls (induction), you could still not infer , "therefore red ball theory is true".Sure - I would also accept your form of syllogism but what about falsification?How could your proposal be falsified in a logical form?If we do "not" find evidence P, according to your syllogism, then we could not state that the theory is therefore false, because the form would be not valid.The only reason the evidence is regarded as the consequent is because of the weakness of inductive reasoning.Even if you had found evidence of 1 billion red balls, it would only take one blue ball to thwart the theory.Example;If P then Y evidence (red balls)
NOT Y (blue ball) evidence therefore NOT theory P.I am not at all confused, I am just making it so that the theorist has to eternally confirm his theory.For example in this form he could conclude nothing more if he found a red ball, but with your syllogism it can be inferred that the theory is correct.Look.Theory P, then evidence X.He finds evidence X therefore (?)Therefore nothing - which is the whole point. Science only allows him to proceed. If he had a big induction, he might have a justified true belief that his theory was true, but that is all.It's not a big deal really, it is just a way of making sure you have a sound logical proposal.If the form is right, and the condition follows, rather than being a non sequitur, then the whole point is that you are proceeding logically. You are not inferring anything from your evidence, unless you are finding falsification evidence.None of this would change what evidence is, evidence is something that should exist given a proposal, no matter which way you have it.So we can ask it like this;If this is true then we should expect to see X.There's no need for us to debate this, it is not even a debate, as we could use your form or my form, I simply think my way is more succinct, because you can use it as a blank canvas, and automatically proceed logically, in a neat way.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

No, that's a misunderstanding. If all of the available evidence supported evolutio, you would be making a LAW of evolution. You would be able to show, APRIORI, that every single piece of evidence was predicted, there is no way that every single piece of evidence was predicted by evolution without even one anomaly. You would also be making the following logical statement;"all evidence dealt with is evidence of evolution,".It is not fair to simply say that 100% of the induction of evidence has favoured evolution, that's not logical or scientific.So you would be able to state that evolutionists would expect a Cambrian explosion to follow if evolution were true. But that was not consistent with evolution. (I am not stating evolution is therefore false, I am stating that to say that every piece of available evidence supports evolution posteriori, when you already know what all the evidence is, and have then given modified evolutionary explanations, is simply not true)Even evoutionary scientists admit that not every piece of evidence favours evolution. While this does not apparently, make evolution false, you do nevertheless have to accept posteriori, after-the-fact explanations. So you might then modify the theory, by saying, "infact there is a way around this", but the more you do that, the more tenuous the theory grows because again and again and again, anomalous evidence is being explained away rather than accepted for what it actually is, which is not favourable evidence, at the very, very least.What you actually have is an induction of evidence. Evidence should be regarded, not as the final say, but as something that makes a theory viable. You can continually proceed with the theory.Science doesn't deal in truth or absolutes, or certainly not full truth.I see confirmation evidence in a completely objective fashion. It is something tentative. It is easy to find confirmation evidence. Sometimes if you are looking for something to be true, it's a strange thing in life but you will find many things you would expect to find if it was true. But that doesn't make it true.I, personally am not intellectually satisfied by an induction of confirmation evidence, especially when there is falsification evidence not consistent with a theory. But I am trying to shut up more, and read more about evolution, to see if there are amazingly good pieces of evidence that scream, "evolution", as obviously those types of evidence are going to have more weight and value.For me personally, the ToE is the greatest claim of all time, so the evidence must be correspondingly great in quality. No, I would say of you as an evolutionist, that you have a justified true belief that evolution is true, as far as the evidence can help you on thatparticular path of knowledge/truth.Don't forget, we know a lot, but what we also do not know, could be an even greater induction.For me personally, I can't truthfully find peace from what science can show, in my own mind. It is not a voluntary matter, I can't make persuade myself against what I know.It is the same for creationism, there is evidence which would fit with creation being true, but it's not enough to come anywhere near making it true, that is largely taken on faith.75% of my creation position is faith alone. That faith also INCLUDES the possibility of evolution but nobody ever actually stops to ask me anyway, so it kind of doesn't matter at places like this. If it helps, according to my statistics, as a 9 year member, I have spent 6% of debating in the science forum.

No offense guys, but I am getting sick of the sound of my own voice. I am bailing, it seems we are splitting hairs here and there is no real beef between us at this stage.I think it is enough that I have said that I will try to learn more, and maybe try not to debate evolution, it seems you are not allowed to without being an avid reader of the science.Personally, I am not an intensely intellectual person, I am a lazy thinker except when things really really interest me, academic information is exceedingly hard going and it takes a lot of motivation for me to go and read about things like gene flow when I could be reading James and the Giant Peach to be amused by the centipedes cheeky attitude. Thanks for the debate, goodbye for now, too much of this gives me a headache! There is only so much wiz-power in my mega-irrefutability matrix.

You haven't understood what I am getting at. Just leave it.

I did not state that a theory becomes a law, I was only highlighting one element, one difference.If I am wrong, then taking a leap off a building would one day break the law of gravity. With a law, you can't have a falsification evidence such as that, all know examples are consistent with gravity, in that sense.You are looking too deeply into a simple statement I made. It was only a musing, I am not arguing with any information you provide of the differences between law and theory.

I wouldn't disagree with that quote. I don't think my original statement would preclude an explanation such as that from being true.If anything I am stating that a law can not have conflicting evidence, such as an example of a man flying like superman, but such an example could still falsify a law, it's just that there are never any such examples.I did not give an explanation or an articulation.