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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1472 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Scientific Fact versus Interpretation | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Silent H Member (Idle past 5847 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
It may seem very reasonable from the evidence, from a certain appearance of a rock, say, to guess that it went through the stresses of mountain building or started life on a sea shore millions of years ago
Is that your guess as to how geologic assignment is done, or do you know how it is done? And your "guess" statement reintroduces the scenario edge gave you earlier regarding finding ash and determining it to be volcanic, or my scenario regarding the police with dna and fingerprint evidence linking a person to a crime no one actually saw him do. Is it just guessing? holmes "What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)
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edge Member (Idle past 1734 days) Posts: 4696 From: Colorado, USA Joined: |
In the case of the ToE and OE there is no opportunity to test an interpretation because it's all about one-time events in the distant past. Nonsense, geologists are always looking for independent verification of an hypothesis. There are many ways of doing this. One would be radiometric dating. Another would be fulfillment of a prediction. Another form of evidence might be isotopic. You are blowing smoke here. I remember a course in which my professor tested by asking what lines of evidence would support a statement. It appears that you could use such a course.
It may seem very reasonable from the evidence, from a certain appearance of a rock, say, to guess that it went through the stresses of mountain building or started life on a sea shore millions of years ago, but since ALL you have is your guess about this one time ancient event, it should never be called fact. Perhaps you have a different definition of 'guess' than most of us. But when evidence corroborates a hypothesis it is considered more than a coincidence. In fact, we then test the hypothesis further by actually treating it as a fact (a premise). If it is wrong, we will shortly know. The point is that despite what you say we do test ideas and they are, by definition, not simple guesses.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1494 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
Crash, there are a million ways to TEST those results and that is why they are accepted in courtrooms. Test how? I mean, these techniques are literally the sole evidence that is putting people in jail. There's no other test possible than the PCR-RFLP process I've described above> Exactly what results do you think can be tested? If we come upon a rape-murder and the only evidence is semen, and we bag the suspect on his DNA and convict, but he never confesses, exactly what do you think we can test?
In the case of the ToE and OE there is no opportunity to test an interpretation because it's all about one-time events in the distant past. But that's exactly what's going on here. We're using this one single proceedure to come to an interpretation - that a suspect committed a crime in the past - and there's no other way to test it. We just have our guess about this one-time event, and it's enough to put a man in jail forever or put the needle in his arm. This message has been edited by crashfrog, 03-19-2006 09:48 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1472 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
It HAS BEEN tested millions of times with KNOWN people and situations.
It is NOT "exactly the same thing" at all.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1472 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
How do you test whether or not a rock was formed in mountain building or a marine or desert environment? I KNOW how you HYPOTHESIZE that it was, I want to know how you CONFIRM your hypothesis.
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-19-2006 10:23 PM
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1494 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
It HAS BEEN tested millions of times with KNOWN people and situations. You're taking this on faith, or what? What testing are you referring to? If you put a guy in jail based on DNA evidence, how do you verify that the testing was valid?
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1472 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
YOu do it on the basis of what you KNOW from millions of OTHER situations where you KNOW the circumstances, the donor of the DNA, etc etc etc.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1494 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
YOu do it on the basis of what you KNOW from millions of OTHER situations where you KNOW the circumstances, the donor of the DNA, etc etc etc. I still don't understand. Can you be clearer? What do all those "millions" of other situations have to do with this specific situations?
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Mammuthus Member (Idle past 6503 days) Posts: 3085 From: Munich, Germany Joined: |
So if millions of experiments show identity by descent (which is what a forensic test is based on) and why you are admitting..why again is the creationist "interpretation" of the data that different populations composed of individuals who pass on genetic traits the same way, species which pass on traits the same way etc. are not showing identity by descent? Why in the case of forensics do you make an exception to your rule about us evil scientists and our propaganda? Seems you should be campainging to stop the use of DNA based forensic evidence in criminal cases if you wish to remain consistent.
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5847 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
How do you test whether or not a rock was formed in mountain building or a marine or desert environment? I KNOW how you HYPOTHESIZE that it was, I want to know how you CONFIRM your hypothesis.
Here is a link to a paper which should answer your question to some degree, if directed at the people in your OP. Is there a reason you cannot deal with it, and resort to incredulity as your only defense? holmes "What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1472 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You can't require me to read an entire article, holmes. I've merely been trying to get out of this conversation since it started, simply having to answer a few things here and there as briefly as possible. I'm not involved in it really. And I'm not going to read a whole article on geological technicalities. All I wanted to say has been said, and what people have been doing with it is irrelevant. That's my view of the situation. Sorry.
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IrishRockhound Member (Idle past 4464 days) Posts: 569 From: Ireland Joined: |
quote: Allow me, Faith, to explain this for you. Hypothesis: this rock was formed in a marine environment. a) Confirmation: the rock is grey or yellow, which means it was not exposed to the air as the ferric minerals in it have not oxidised. b) Falsification: the rock is pink or red, which means it was exposed to the air as the ferric minerals in it have been oxidised. If (a) is the case, our hypothesis has been confirmed by the evidence, so we go to another line of evidence and start again. If (b) is the case, our hypothesis has been falsified by the evidence, so we must discard it or modify it. So: let's say (a) is the case, and we can continue with our hypothesis. We could move on to: c) Confirmation: the presence of in-situ marine trace fossils d) Falsification: the presence of in-situ terrestrial trace fossils And so on. Let's say (b) is the case. We must now discard our hypothesis - the depositional environment cannot have been marine if the sediments were oxidised. We can now postulate a new hypothesis - that the depositional environment was subaerial instead - and off we go again. And that's how we test and confirm a hypothesis. We can have a lot of different ones at the start, but the only one that matters is the one that, once we have looked at all the available evidence, has not been falsified at the end.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1472 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I see my question was not thorough enough. That much I could already guess myself, no, not the details but the basic idea. What I'm really objecting to is the idea of a whole scenario of a sea that once existed for millions of years. That a rock can be shown to have been once in a marine environment I really don't dispute. It's the whole OE scenario I have a problem with. Sorry about my lack of clarity.
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-20-2006 08:49 AM
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NosyNed Member Posts: 9004 From: Canada Joined: |
I note Holmes that the summary of that paper is yet another refutation of Faiths idea about "interpretations" being offered as "fact".
In about 5 sentences we see:
quote: quote: quote: quote: quote: quote: This reaally puts the lie to the kind of nonsense that some here are spouting. And then we have this wonderful line!!! Worthy of a lite POTM and really caps off the entire debate:
Faith writes: You can't require me to read an entire article, holmes. Oh dear, an entire article.
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sidelined Member (Idle past 5936 days) Posts: 3435 From: Edmonton Alberta Canada Joined: |
Faith
It may seem very reasonable from the evidence, from a certain appearance of a rock, say, to guess that it went through the stresses of mountain building or started life on a sea shore millions of years ago, but since ALL you have is your guess about this one time ancient event, it should never be called fact. I think this hits the nail on the head Faith. Facts, in science, are not proof of an event occuring. They are the most likely scenario to explain the evidence of that which we investigate. A theory ,in science, is not a proof either but a overarching model that combines the facts of science. As Einstein said "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right. A single experiment can prove me wrong." The concept of evolution is simply the best model that explains the facts of the investigation that we perform. Greater and greater credence is lent this model the more we investigate. We find that many different fields of endevour support the model and this also lends weight to the theory. So my impression is that your are seeking proof in science which is not what science does.Better go check the math department and argue your case there. This message has been edited by sidelined, Mon, 2006-03-20 09:02 AM
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