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Author | Topic: No Witnesses | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
The mind boggles. You should try using it to see, instead.
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
And yet when a machine makes a series of measurements and, based on a theory that tells it how to interpret those measurements, synthesizes a visual representation of its data, you wish to say that someone looking at this visual representation has "seen" atoms. Let's assume that crashfrog is exactly correct about the sloppiness of the English language, and that "seeing" atoms perfectly well describes watching the visual display of a STM. Then it must be the case that "seeing" atoms is not direct evidence of atoms bonding. It doesn't even matter if there is no English word whatsoever to distinguish between varieties of seeing. No amount of arm chair lexicography, including redefining the word "direct" in Orwellian fashion, is ever going to change the character of the present evidence for atoms or atomic bounding. Regarding the Loch Ness Monster, as Uncle Jed said in The Big Chicken episode, "Ain't no such thing." So if follows that no one has ever seen one. Accordingly, a definition of seeing that requires you to say that you have seen Lochy when you have only seen the picture in your post cannot possibly be the only correct definition.
But it is English usage that is idiosyncratic. I'm suggesting that for technical purposes we should make it less so. A perfectly reasonable thing to do. It would be an appropriate thing to do even if we agreed that the definition we are using was only intended for this thread. The alternative is to give up on discussing some concepts in English.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Well, you seem to have brought your own reductio ad absurdum, which is usually my job, so I don't know what I'm meant to do here. When you yourself admit, nay, insist, that according to your definition of "see", I have seen the Loch Ness Monster, then I have supplied you with the rope, and you have been good enough to hang yourself with it. My work is done.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
When you yourself admit, nay, insist, that according to your definition of "see", I have seen the Loch Ness Monster Now everyone who's reading this post has seen the Loch Ness Monster. I don't see what's so absurd about it. You've seen the Loch Ness Monster just the same way you've seen Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. If you adamantly insisted that you had not seen Mickey Mouse, people would wonder where you had grown up because see means other things besides "direct observation, in-person." Have you really not seen Mickey Mouse? Not ever? It seems like the one in the noose is you.
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onifre Member (Idle past 2980 days) Posts: 4854 From: Dark Side of the Moon Joined: |
Are witnesses really necessary to count evolution as a legitimate theory? In their defense, evolution has not, as of yet, reached Alabama - macro or otherwise. "We want our thumbs!" - Oni
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Now everyone who's reading this post has seen the Loch Ness Monster. No ... they ... haven't.
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onifre Member (Idle past 2980 days) Posts: 4854 From: Dark Side of the Moon Joined: |
Now everyone who's reading this post has seen the Loch Ness Monster. Didn't know it was gay. Interesting. - Oni
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member
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Let's assume that crashfrog is exactly correct about the sloppiness of the English language, and that "seeing" atoms perfectly well describes watching the visual display of a STM. The word "seeing" can be used that way, but the topic of this thread is "witnessing" in the context of whether or not anyone has witnessed macroevolution. In that sense, I would think witnessing implies 1) the thing actually exists (so Mickey Mouse is out) and 2) that you're seeing it "with your own eyes" If not, then bam:
...we've all witnessed macroevolution and this thread can be closed. Somehow, I don't think that's going to work for the creationists.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
No ... they ... haven't. Have you seen Mickey Mouse?
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Somehow, I don't think that's going to work for the creationists. Well, sure, but that's because when they say that "macroevolution is fish turning into rabbits", or whatever, their mental notion is that this all happens to a single organism; that there was actually one fish that suddenly grew hair and long ears. People look at that diagram of yours - monkey to man - and if they don't think about it too hard, they see it as a single monkey standing up and turning into a man. That's why "millions of years" doesn't make any sense to them; they know organisms don't live that long. (Except when they do.) It's a fairly sophisticated mode of thought, requiring the simultaneous mental modeling of a large number of things, to view evolution not as something that happens to a single organism, or that happens in a single organism reproducing, but that happens as populations change and grow - as described statistically, stoichometrically - over long periods of time. It took me a long time to understand that, longer still to learn how to describe it to others. (I've probably not, in this post, succeeded.)
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Panda Member (Idle past 3741 days) Posts: 2688 From: UK Joined:
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Have you seen my neighbour? Edited by Panda, : No reason given.Tradition and heritage are all dead people's baggage. Stop carrying it!
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Well, sure, but that's because when they say that "macroevolution is fish turning into rabbits", or whatever, their mental notion is that this all happens to a single organism; that there was actually one fish that suddenly grew hair and long ears. Yup, and if they had a more proper image of macroevolution (like the one I linked to above from Biology Online), I still think there'd be a point that people haven't really witnessed macroevolution. As something that takes place over long periods of time, you can't point to it and say: "there, there it is, that's macroevolution". Now, I realize you might wanna count the arrival of a new species of bacteria as technically being macroevolution, and you could argue that we could point to that and witness it, but I don't really think that's what people are talking about. Its more about gross morphological change. Something that undeniably evolution in a loose sense. As you say:
quote: I don't think you can witness that happening, do you? You guys are getting hung up on what "seeing" means, when the topic is witnessing. I don't think its right to say that you've witnessed Mickey Mouse, although you can use the verb 'to see', to say that you've seen him.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
Have you seen Mickey Mouse? But Mickey Mouse is in fact, nothing more than a series of drawings. I have seen some of those drawings and that is all Mickey Mouse is. So yes, I've seen Mickey Mouse. I suppose we may also stipulate that Mickey Mouse has a certain voice, so when I hear a voice artist do the Mickey Mouse voice in the context of an officially sanctioned cartoon - I could claim to have 'heard Mickey Mouse'. However, it would be misleading to say 'I have seen King Henry VIII', when all I have seen is a portrait or three of his. Since Henry VIII is more than just a series of portraits, I could only really say 'I've seen portraits of Henry VIII'. Just as when I say 'I have seen HMS Belfast' I'm almost never referring to pictures of HMS Belfast. HMS Belfast is something more than a series of photographs. Topicwise, I've not actually seen the populations of early primates evolving into a population of human beings, even though I have used my eyes to examine some of the evidence that this is in fact what happened. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
I don't think you can witness that happening, do you? Yeah, I think you can, particularly when generational times are fairly low (like 40 minutes or so.)
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
However, it would be misleading to say 'I have seen King Henry VIII', when all I have seen is a portrait or three of his. I don't think it would be misleading, because I don't think anyone would think that you were claiming to be a time traveler. Similarly, people talking about 9/11 reminisce about what they were thinking when they "saw the twin towers fall", irrespective of whether they were actually at Ground Zero when that happened. Most people making that statement watched it happen on TV, even in New York. "See" has a pretty expansive definition that includes nearly all forms of optical prosthesis.
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