The Importance of Potentially Disconfirming Evidence

The fuel of scientific endeavor is evidence. Support for a hypothesis must be in the form of coherent, verifiable facts from the lab or field. The existence and interpretation of the existing evidence can determine how the hypothesis will fare in peer review. However, the most important evidence conceivable is the observation that can falsify the hypothesis.The essential difference between Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and alternative ‘theories of origins’ is the conceivable existence of evidence that could falsify the theory: if natural selection had no bearing on the frequency of alleles in successive populations, if alleles or traits were not transmitted through heredity, or if populations were never observed to change through time, the theory would lose its basis. As quoted above, Darwin himself imagined how his own theory could conceivably be falsified. Every person to have taken up Darwin’s challenge has been unable to meet it. Both his theory and his challenge still stand.The Intelligent Design creationists, in their attempt to find Darwin wanting, ended up producing demonstrations of not only the strength of natural selection and other Darwinian processes, but also the power of the concept of disconfirming evidence. In attacking what they considered the entrenched scientific orthodoxy, the IDC camp made clear the weakness of their own ‘design inference,’ namely the lack of any conceivable disconfirming evidence. Nowhere amongst the rhetoric of Behe and Dembski concerning such vague concepts as irreducible complexity and complex specified information was any mention made of evidence that could refute the design inference as a whole. Dembski’s deceptive ‘explanatory filter,’ after all, was supposed to be applied on a case-by-case basis, and the failure of any number of ‘discrete combinatorial artifacts’ to qualify as evidence for Intelligent Design would not discourage the ID creationists from proposing additional cases they feel justified in claiming are evidence supporting the hypothesis of design.The lack of any conceivable disconfirming evidence is what ultimately disqualifies creationism from being considered scientific. We should be sure to ask creationists what evidence they would consider persuasive in refuting the hypothesis of ‘divine design’ or ‘special creation,’ or their corollary hypotheses that ‘all evolutionists are atheists’ or ‘Darwinism is Nazism.’ We shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of satisfactory responses. The ICR website, for example, claims that creation is just as falsifiable as evolution by natural selection. However, nowhere on the site does it specify what observations or evidence would constitute such a falsification. Darwin was more forthright in his challenge than the creationists have ever been. Then again, he proposed a theory that warranted such honesty.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum. I have changed the topic from "Disconfirming Evidence" to "The Importance of Potentially Disconfirming Evidence". Hope that is okay...[This message has been edited AdminSylas, 05-03-2004]

Q.Mr.H&
A. IF the two proper infinte subsets of Collet's "mish mash"(a Gladyshev term) are NOT Wright's PARENTAL latitutde and longitude. This requires a level of abstraction ABOVE that provided by a Cornell education and training say from William Provine just to falisfy let alone PROOVE true. I think it would be better to work on the "zero" around spontaneous and nonspontanesou process by a one to many relation of H(shannon) entropy to various kinds of S(clausius,gibbs,gladyshev) entropy. G-Entropy(collect,picard) could be a mistake that creates the discussion referred to but I havent looked that hard in to this literature.In truth of quote Darwin might not have been MORE forthWRITE in his use of "organ" as I believe(but dont know) this may be a traceable reference to the TORPEDO's ELECTRIC ORGAN. If so I can even recompose my above particular's INTO DARWINS thought on inheritance. Certainly if one NEVER considers the SHIFTING balance INTO an ecological species from a scientfically found physiological one, the average reader will never learn that kinds of organs no matter how formed need not be gradually read nor necessarily consonant with Gould's notions but it would be easier to talk about issues of equilibriums than second guessing why Gould, Provine, and others after Darwin's cuticle refused to print obviously from Wright's THE STATISTICAL CONSEQUENCES OF MENDELIAN HEREDITY IN REALTION TO SPECIATION that there is a NECESSARY ShIfT "from the essentially physiological concept, kind, to the ecological one,to...population"Provine simply asserted the cost to abstract this was too high. This is not about money but brains. Gould only allowed reciprocal reading but vector writing while I permit it either way.

Just out of idle curiosity, what's the chance of any of the following happening?1) That WillowTree would provide us a figure for how many Western academics would have to testify that they do not support anti-Israeli terrorism in the Middle East before he would admit that his hypothesis in "The New Neo-Nazis" has been falsified.2) That Syamsu would give a number for the amount of primary-literature evolutionary biology papers that he could be cited (all curiously lacking the ideological agenda he considers essential to Darwinism) which would be sufficient to disconfirm his long-held belief that Darwinism and Nazism are inextricably linked.3) That John Paul would put a number on the amount of (even Nobel Prize-winning) biologists whose testimony describing the importance of Darwin's theory to their work would be enough to disconfirm his assertion that evolutionary theory is irrelevant to biology.regards,
Esteban "Wishful Thinking" Hambre

MH:
3) That John Paul would put a number on the amount of (even Nobel Prize-winning) biologists whose testimony describing the importance of Darwin's theory to their work would be enough to disconfirm his assertion that evolutionary theory is irrelevant to biology.John Paul:
I don't want testimony. Actual evidence would do. And if you are going to paraphrase what I say please make every attempt to get it right. What I am saying, and it hasn't been refuted yet, is that the notion that all of life's diversity owing its collective common ancestry to some unknown population of single-celled organisms (that just happened to have the ability to self-replicate) is not necessary for biological research- including the medical field. We could, in all reality, stretch that to any research venue.Testimony- anyone can say soemthing. Substantiating what is said is another matter.

John Paul,

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What I am saying, and it hasn't been refuted yet, is that the notion that all of life's diversity owing its collective common ancestry to some unknown population of single-celled organisms (that just happened to have the ability to self-replicate) is not necessary for biological research- including the medical field. We could, in all reality, stretch that to any research venue.

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I note you never have to substantiate your own assertions. What facts do you have to back this up?Like I said in the "RATE group" thread, people can brew beer (and did for millennia) without knowing every technical nuance of microbiology. Exhaustive study of the discovery, life cycle and activity of the Sacchomyces organisms is not necessary to an amateur homebrewer. However, if I claim that Pasteur's work is irrelevant to the practical reality of fermentation, I can be justifiably contradicted. This assumes that I am a rational person who wouldn't dismiss all evidence as unforgiveably tainted by the Pasteurist scientific paradigm.This thread is about disconfirming evidence. I outlined in the OP what specific observations or evidence would falsify the theory of evolution by natural selection. If you're not prepared to support your assertion, I'd like to know what evidence would disconfirm the assertion.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Quite a bit of biological and medical research, however, does make use of common descent, even if it doesn't require the full sweep. In human genetics, including medical genetics, the fact that we are descended from bacteria has little practical implication. The fact that we share common ancestors with chimpanzees, monkeys and mice, on the other hand, is of great practical importance, and is used every day.Steve

Getting back on topic, I'll also point out that recent efforts in genetics, including the Human Genome Project and now the sequencing of the chimp genome, held innumerable possibilities for disconfirming evolution. All kinds of things could have been seen that wouldn't have made sense in terms of evolution. What we actually see, however, all
fits quite nicely into the evolutionary framework. (In some cases modifying or extending it a little, but in ways that make sense in the overall picture.)On the other hand, neither YEC nor ID has ever given me a single useful insight into genetics.Steve

MRHambre, If you can't refute my statement just say so. Can I substantiate my claim? The fact that evolutionists haven't been able to refute it speaks volumes.

sfs:
Quite a bit of biological and medical research, however, does make use of common descent, even if it doesn't require the full sweep. In human genetics, including medical genetics, the fact that we are descended from bacteria has little practical implication. The fact that we share common ancestors with chimpanzees, monkeys and mice, on the other hand, is of great practical importance, and is used every day.John Paul:
Really? Any specifics? Would it matter if the aforementioned organisms were related via Common Creator or due to a design or does it matter only if they shared a common ancestor?Please instead of assertions try something with substance.

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Really? Any specifics? Would it matter if the aforementioned organisms were related via Common Creator or due to a design or does it matter only if they shared a common ancestor?

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This is a paper on current Multiple Sclerosis research:Chavanas S, Mechin MC, Takahara H, Kawada A, Nachat R, Serre G, Simon M. Comparative analysis of the mouse and human peptidylarginine deiminase gene clusters reveals highly conserved non-coding segments and a new human gene, PADI6. Gene. 2004 Apr 14;330:19-27.This research group is using equivalent genes in mice to try and find the root cause of MS. The reason we pick mice, and not reptiles or birds, is because we share a more recent common ancestory with mice. Also, I could point you in the direction of human-chimp-mouse pseudogene and gene comparisons that could lead to major breakthroughs in a host of genetic diseases. To say that common ancestory is not needed in medical research is like saying a wing isn't needed for flying.Also, evolutionary mechanisms are used to guide research in epidemiology and infectious diseases:Bredenbeek PJ, Snijder EJ, Noten FH, den Boon JA, Schaaper WM, Horzinek MC, Spaan WJ. The polymerase gene of corona- and toroviruses: evidence for an evolutionary relationship. Adv Exp Med Biol. 1990;276:307-16.Karlsson AC, Younger SR, Martin JN, Grossman Z, Sinclair E, Hunt PW, Hagos E, Nixon DF, Deeks SG. Immunologic and virologic evolution during periods of intermittent and persistent low-level viremia. AIDS. 2004 Apr 20;18(7):981-989.As you can see, evolution is a vital part of biological and medical research. You might want to look into what people are actually researching. A good place to start is http://www.pubmed.com (where I got the above citations BTW). Of course, we are moving quickly away from the topic. I am hoping these few examples out of many are enough to pique your curiosity about what scientists are actually studying and how they use common ancestory and evolutionary mechanisms to better our health and further our knowledge of the natural world.

John Paul says,

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MRHambre, If you can't refute my statement just say so. Can I substantiate my claim? The fact that evolutionists haven't been able to refute it speaks volumes.

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JP, it only speaks volumes about your ability to close your eyes, stick fingers in ears, and whine "I don't see or hear any evidence, la la la..."If you won't provide support for your claim, and you won't tell us what evidence or observations could possibly disconfirm the assertion, then I guess your airtight argument speaks for itself. As I mentioned in the OP, Darwin laid out precisely the evidence that would refute his theory. That's what separates responsible scientific endeavor from the sort of shit-flinging you call debate.regards,
Esteban Hambre

Sure, here's one example. It would be nice to know where in the genome selective sweeps have taken place in recent human evolution. A selective sweep occurs when a variant undergoes positive selection (i.e. is favorable compared to other variants) and therefore becomes much more common in the population, bringing along with it its immediate chromosomal neighborhood. Selective sweeps within the last few hundred thousand years should leave traces behind in the genetic variation in their area; very recent ones -- the sweep that brought lactose tolerance to high frequency in parts of Europe, for example -- are easy to spot. One test for such a trace of positive selection is the presence of an unusually large number of high frequency derived alleles at neutral sites. Derived alleles (that is, the variant that arose recently due to mutation) are usually at lower frequency, and a statistically significant number of high frequency ones in a region is evidence for selection. You can't tell just by looking at position, however, which allele is derived and which is the original -- you can only tell by looking at the sequence for a closely related outgroup, usually chimpanzee for humans. Thus the actual test is to look for a variant site at which the allele that's different from the chimp allele is at high frequency. This assumes, of course, that the site started out having the same allele in chimps and humans, which is obviously the case if humans and chimps share a common ancestor.There's another example here: No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.broad.mit.edu/personal/sfs/correlation.pdf
Key to the analysis is the assumption that humans and other primates share a common ancestor. There are plenty of other examples. (Surprisingly enough, I do actually have some idea of what I do for a living.) I don't know. I haven't been able to find anyone who can tell me what predictions the hypothesis of a common creator makes about genetic similarities and differences. Common descent makes quite specific predictions, and is therefore useful. Can you give me any predictions based on your hypothesis?

Lets say a million testified against terror without qualification.My wrath was and still is against the ones who justify Palestinian suicide bombings.Why are these university elites given a free ride from the stain of Nazis and skinheads ?

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Lets say a million testified against terror without qualification.

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My wrath was and still is against the ones who justify Palestinian suicide bombings.

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Why are these university elites given a free ride from the stain of Nazis and skinheads ?

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Why are you giving Israeli's a free ride for indiscriminate bombings that kill civilians? Black kettle meet black pot.If you are lumping the "university elites" into one group, I could just as easily lump "christians" together with the Aryan Nation Church and proclaim that "christians" are racist, fascist pigs and that they to carry the stain of Nazism.