Testing Theories of Origins

Whereas the ancient Greeks just lounged about eating olives. That's why the Renaissance was such a great leap backwards in western thought.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If this is the example given, the example is wrong. The precession of Mercury's orbit was well known before Einstein was born (1879), and had been measured fairly accurately by 1860. Emotionally yes, but designtheorist claims far more than that.

Parsimony is a useful concept, but one has to be careful applying it. The question one needs to ask is whether the same predictions can be made by a proper subset of the things one thinks is true.

There are no "Darwinian priests." The editors of journals and conferences are responsible for keeping the focus on science. People like Caroline Crocker, who you mentioned earlier, would be unable to contribute because they would be unable to provide any scientific support for their ideas. It isn't enough to have opinions - one must have scientific support for one's opinions.For example, Crocker's statement that "No one has ever seen a dog turn into a cat in a laboratory" as a criticism of evolution is not only a misrepresentation (because evolution not only doesn't think this should happen but absolutely thinks it should not) but is also horribly confused and simpleminded. This view of what is wrong with evolution would never make it into a scientific journal or conference simply because it not only has no scientific support whatsoever but even worse shows the claimant to be at best horribly confused and at worst terribly ignorant.--Percy

I don't think we are quite ready for that yet. We have spent most of our time discussing the minor tests. I did not think we would have any real disagreement on the major tests, but it appears we do.I will try to develop a more complete explanation of the two major tests and how they are to be applied. For now, it is important to realize that explanatory power is about explaining the data we currently have and predictive success is about making predictions about the data we will be discovering. Einstein's theory was successful because it made predictions that were later confirmed by observation. If a prediction is not related to the future, then it is not a prediction.Ross published a series of predictions in his 2009 book. He claims to have made a number of predictions before that also and he claims his predictions did well. I have not had time to evaluate those claims as yet.

You know that "documentary" is full of lies, right? Since I haven't seen the clip, I don't know what you're misrepresenting.

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If a prediction is not related to the future, then it is not a prediction.

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I think this is an important point which is not generally agreed upon in this context.For those who disagree it would perhaps be a good idea for them to practice their explanatory talents in making their point clear.

I agree that fewer assumptions are better than more. Can you think of any examples were this was used as a test in evaluating models or theories?

Well, if you wish to change the vocabulary of the scientific method, then I would say that "prediction", in your sense, is also not necessarily a good test of a theory, and at best is only a subset of the ways in which a theory can be justified.I instead propose the following comprehensive test: the comparison of the logical consequences of a theory to the data presently available to us.I would also wonder why it is necessary for you to alter and/or obfuscate the scientific method, but I think that will become clear when you start actually discussing Ross's stuff. Really, if you can't play the game by the same rules as everyone else, this suggests that the cards in your hand aren't that good.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

What are you saying about Dawkins here? That he rejects endosymbiosis, whose discovery he calls a great achievement, or lateral gene transfer? That he doesn't accept "Darwinism in the light of genomics", even though he wrote The Selfish Gene.I'm a fan not of Dawkins (whose non-scientific views I detest) but of accuracy. Whatever it is you're trying to say, since Dawkins is a scientist who follows the evidence where it leads I very much doubt that he is in denial about anything supported by evidence. He understands that it is current evidence that theory explains and future evidence that it predicts, and I'm sure none of the five irrelevant tests you're pushing enter into his scientific thinking.--Percy

I saw the Ventner/Dawkins exchange on a youtube clip of the ASU Origins Symposium. I forget the year but think it was 2010. The other panel members included Paul Davies, a guy from NASA who agreed with Dawkins, and a couple of Nobel laureates whose names escape me and Lawrence Krauss who hosted the event. I have looked for the clip so I could give you a link but without success.The Koonin paper can be found here. Ventner has not published on the topic but is obviously aware of the same data as Koonin.

I'm saying that Darwin does not accept the recent rejection of Darwin's LUCA. Koonin published on this. Ventner is obviously aware of the same genomic data and has reached the same conclusions as Koonin.

Actually it's necessary because you can always add assumptions to any theory to save it from falsification (the Duhem-Quine thesis) - for instance the idea that phlogiston had negative mass, or the addition of epicycles to planetary orbits to keep geocentrism (the latter was a highly successful model of planetary motion).

The important point about prediction is that the ANSWER is not known at the time that the prediction is made. Ross would agree with that, I'm sure.

Maybe we need to get some things I let go by earlier squared away. I think someone already mentioned that the precession of Mercury was already well known before Einstein developed his general theory of relativity. Einstein used it to confirm to himself that his theory was correct before he published. Mercury's precession was therefore not something the general theory of relativity successfully predicted, but rather something already known that it explained.The bending of light by gravity *was* a prediction, a successful one as it turns out. The fact that the prediction and the successful outcome now lie in the past is a non-factor, and I don't understand why it keeps coming up as an issue of confusion. (Someone earlier alluded to the fact that perhaps the Eddington confirmation should be eyed skeptically and that true confirmation only came later, but that's a separate issue.)At the time it is made, a prediction has to be about the future. I don't see how context could change this.--Percy