Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,821 Year: 3,078/9,624 Month: 923/1,588 Week: 106/223 Day: 4/13 Hour: 0/2


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Darwinism Cannot Explain The Peacock
Arriba
Junior Member (Idle past 3612 days)
Posts: 22
From: Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Joined: 01-24-2013


Message 134 of 165 (690605)
02-14-2013 3:02 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by NoNukes
02-05-2013 3:23 PM


Re: Unprovable Postulates
First of all, there is no such thing as the scientific method.
If you are referring to hypothetico-deductive reasoning, that was invented by William Whewell, who is the same guy who decided upon the word scientist.
Additionally, I should like to point out that Einstein came up with his theory of relativity by imagining himself riding on a beam of light. This is not part and parcel of the so-called scientific method. In fact, it’s not empirical at all. Yet you choose to give science the credit. Why is that?

"...nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific..." - Imre Lakatos

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by NoNukes, posted 02-05-2013 3:23 PM NoNukes has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 146 by AZPaul3, posted 02-14-2013 4:19 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 149 by Drosophilla, posted 02-14-2013 5:14 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 151 by Taq, posted 02-14-2013 6:23 PM Arriba has not replied

  
Arriba
Junior Member (Idle past 3612 days)
Posts: 22
From: Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Joined: 01-24-2013


Message 135 of 165 (690606)
02-14-2013 3:03 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by Blue Jay
02-05-2013 5:54 PM


Re: And May God Have Mercy On Your Soul
As you said yourself, variation in eyespots is invariably due to damage.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that we are living some 50 years ago and we capture an ex-Nazi concentration camp director. While we are speaking to him he informs us that he has proved that Jews have big noses because of sexual selection.
While we carefully suppress our doubts even that Jews have big noses, we ask for more details and he reveals his experiment.
Step 1. He divides the male Jews into two groups.
Step 2. He amputates the noses of half of the male Jews.
Step 3. He observes their reproductive success.
Step 4. When enough control group Jews don’t mate he takes Jews from a different concentration camp.
Step 5. Noting that those with amputated noses have less reproductive success when compared to those from the other concentration camp, he feels convinced that he has proved his theory of sexual selection.
Question to you: Are you convinced? I’m not. If you don’t find that method convincing then why do you think mutilated peacocks prove sexual selection in peacocks?

"...nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific..." - Imre Lakatos

This message is a reply to:
 Message 126 by Blue Jay, posted 02-05-2013 5:54 PM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 147 by AZPaul3, posted 02-14-2013 4:28 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 153 by Blue Jay, posted 02-15-2013 12:03 AM Arriba has not replied

  
Arriba
Junior Member (Idle past 3612 days)
Posts: 22
From: Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Joined: 01-24-2013


Message 136 of 165 (690607)
02-14-2013 3:04 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by ringo
02-06-2013 11:45 AM


Re: Unprovable Postulates
One wonders exactly how one did science back in Galileo’s day.
Let’s take a look at one of Galileo’s great(?) discoveries — that of tides. You see, Galileo was riding on a barge one day that was ferrying water. He noticed that whenever the barge changed speed or direction that the water inside sloshed around. It is from this that he deduced why tides occur.
You see, he thought the Earth moved around the center of the universe (aka the Sun) and that it was also revolving. As such, he reasoned, the outer part of the Earth was invariably moving faster than the inner part. It was this difference of velocities that varied every day (as half the time the body of water will be on the slow side and the other half on the fast side) that produced the tides.
When he was criticized that his theory would only explain one high tide a day and not two Galileo was quick with ad hoc hypotheses concerning the length of the body of water in general, depth, etc., that allowed his theory to avoid falsification. He also never subjected it to any experiment to confirm or falsify it.
And that’s just one of the reasons why Galileo was such a great scientist, right?

"...nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific..." - Imre Lakatos

This message is a reply to:
 Message 127 by ringo, posted 02-06-2013 11:45 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 155 by ringo, posted 02-15-2013 11:34 AM Arriba has replied

  
Arriba
Junior Member (Idle past 3612 days)
Posts: 22
From: Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Joined: 01-24-2013


Message 137 of 165 (690608)
02-14-2013 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 128 by Theodoric
02-06-2013 12:05 PM


Re: Unprovable Postulates
Wow, NPR radio — that beacon of truth, justice, and unbiased reports.
Of course it would help if you knew how to read.
As the article says (if you can piece it together with all the technical difficulties) that no one knew what to call all of these different people doing different things and that some people were using natural philosopher whereas others were using cultivators of science.
The article goes on to say he was actually writing a book that became very well known, "The Philosophy of the Inductive Science," at this time, where he was trying to set up - how do you come up with a hypothesis? How do you prove it? Should it be universal? And you know, this all seems, you know, so basic to us today. But (technical difficulties) back in 1830s, 1840s, when real science, as we understand it, was just being laid out.
Now I know you are anxious to claim posthumously that everyone you approve of was indeed a scientist because it fits in well with your theory of the world. Unfortunately, it’s not going to work.
Great pyramids were built in Egypt without science and based on nothing more primitive mathematics — or are you one of those who claim that it must have been aliens?
My ancestors were gold plating things with a thickness of no more than a few microns more than 3,000 years ago without doing science.
Coca and tobacco was cultivated and shipped round the globe at the time of the Egyptians landing in their tombs for modern-day archaeologists to find and all without science.
Nowadays, of course, we have science which has made wonderful contributions to our lives like chemotherapy — that magical anti-cancer procedure that is all of 2.1 percent effective (see The contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies - PubMed ). Forgive me if I’m underwhelmed.

"...nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific..." - Imre Lakatos

This message is a reply to:
 Message 128 by Theodoric, posted 02-06-2013 12:05 PM Theodoric has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 138 by Tangle, posted 02-14-2013 3:21 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 143 by Theodoric, posted 02-14-2013 4:04 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 154 by bluegenes, posted 02-15-2013 6:10 AM Arriba has not replied

  
Arriba
Junior Member (Idle past 3612 days)
Posts: 22
From: Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Joined: 01-24-2013


Message 159 of 165 (726494)
05-09-2014 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 156 by PlanManStan
12-12-2013 9:58 PM


Your claim is ridiculous and was refuted within 5 seconds of using Google. As seen at Tackling peer review bias | The Scientist Magazine peer review does not eliminate bias, but is itself biased.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 156 by PlanManStan, posted 12-12-2013 9:58 PM PlanManStan has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 162 by Omnivorous, posted 05-09-2014 12:46 PM Arriba has not replied

  
Arriba
Junior Member (Idle past 3612 days)
Posts: 22
From: Miraflores, Lima, Peru
Joined: 01-24-2013


Message 160 of 165 (726496)
05-09-2014 11:25 AM
Reply to: Message 155 by ringo
02-15-2013 11:34 AM


Re: Unprovable Postulates
Galileo was not a scientist for several reasons. First of all, the word scientist hadn't even been invented by the time of his death. Second, the supposed pre-runners of scientists were known as "natural philosophers" but Galileo wasn't a natural philosopher. He was a medical school dropout turned mathematician. In fact, he gained his first teaching position by using Dante's Inferno to calculate the wingspan of Satan. After three years his contract was not renewed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 155 by ringo, posted 02-15-2013 11:34 AM ringo has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 161 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-09-2014 11:38 AM Arriba has not replied
 Message 163 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-09-2014 12:48 PM Arriba has not replied
 Message 165 by NoNukes, posted 05-09-2014 4:34 PM Arriba has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024