$50 to anyone who can prove to me Evolution is a lie.

Nope. Then the rock would stay in your hand, because you and the rock are falling toward the greater mass at an equal rate.

Bugger.

Your original question was about Darwin's explanation of extinction and how one would disprove it. But this explanation represents a lengthy chapter within Origin. If you peruse the chapter (I provided a link above) you'll see the many evidences and arguments that Darwin presents. Since you think Darwin's position on evolution's role in instinct isn't falsifiable, find an argument or some evidence in that chapter that you think isn't falsifiable and let's examine it. You have clearly stated your hypothesis, now all you have to do is support it.--Percy

Hi, I've asked before about how one would disprove evolution, what it would take. Now my question is how one would disprove Darwins hypothesis that instict is related to evolution. I just figure you guys clearly seem pretty knowlegable of science, hypethesis, testing ect that you could explain it to me.thanksPS: My hypothesis isn't that Instict cannot be proved false, just that for one I'm not a scientist, so I actually struggle to understand everything Darwin writes about in Origin of Species ect..cheers[This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-23-2003]

Zealot, PLease respond to this.Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

I think I've said this before to you, that falsifying any aspect of evolution would require that many observational facts are simply wrong. I can't imagine that happening. In principle it is possible, I suppose, but not on any practical level.I think what you're asking is how you would falsify it hypothetically. The problem for you is that, in effect, the experiments verifying the hypothesis that instinct is responsive to evolutionary forces has already been performed, and they verified that the hypothesis is correct.Before Darwin you could have postulated an experiment saying that, for example, for a single species of bird we'll breed shy individuals with other shy individuals, and we'll breed brave individuals with other brave individuals, and the hypothesis is false if we find that we can't create one population of very shy birds and another population of very brave birds, as measured by their tendency to flee from humans.But the fact of the matter is that this experiment has been performed many times. If you've read widely enough from the writings of naturalists, especially those of the era of exploration, then you'll remember how often they note their surprise at the lack of fear of the local birds in a newly discovered land, that they would fly right up and land on a finger. Later they note that the birds had "learned" to fear man. Of course, they didn't learn at all. Within a few years of man's arrival into a new area, those birds with a tendency to avoid contact would produce more offspring than those that did not, and they would pass this tendency on to their offspring, and it would become stronger in each generation as long as man remained present.I encourage you to read Darwin's chapter on instinct. He has many more examples that will make clear to you that even 150 years ago there was too much evidence to realistically hope to falsify the hypothesis that instinct is responsive to evolutionary forces. This doesn't mean it isn't falsifiable, only that it has already been tested and not yet falsified, and with the result that there is now a mountain of evidence supporting it.Look at it another way. Say someone gives you a die and asks you to test the hypothesis that the die is fair. This hypothesis is falsifiable if one number or numbers come up statistically more often than others. So you throw the die one million times and find that statistically the die is fair, that each number comes up, statistically speaking, 1/6 of the time. Now that the experiment is complete, what do you think the odds are that someone could falsify the hypothesis. You'd think they were pretty unlikely, right? A million throws of the die is a lot of throws. It isn't very likely that someone could throw the die another million times and come up with statistically significant different results.The same is true of evolution. Before there existed very much evidence the possibility of falsification was probably significant. But given the amount of evidence now in our possession this is unlikely in the extreme. At least that's my view. If you want help finding falsifications of evolution then I'm afraid I can't help you.--Percy

Sorry Mark, been away for a while. Hi, from what I could gather, Darwin used the fossil record as evidence originally of evolution. I think he spent something like 27 years perfecting it (but I read that on some Christian site, so I cant verify it as unbias information). From what I've gathered, Darwin's original ToE has had its revisions and alterations to suit the evidence more, am I correct ? How you can create a logical argument for the BB theory would probably not apply to me as to be honest I just wouldn't be able to grasp the logic I've tried to read up on it, from dark energy to the event horizon, and I still cant see it.My point was that if A,B,C,D,E,F, H,I point to evolution and 'G' does not point to evolution, then there would be an evolutionary theory to explain 'G' and thus 'G' would fit in with the rest of the alphabet and the ToE. The same could be said by a Creationist really. I dont believe I claimed to be able to mathematically falsify evolution, I merely posted opinions of respected scientists in their fields on the topic of a 'random' universe. I even stated that I am not be able to understand the mathematics and that I would clearly not be able to defend Hoyle's view.PS: I dont think Christians would have much fo a problem accepting evolution (well not macro atleast, if I may use the term so loosely), if it was not so closely associated with the 'abiogenesis'.cheers

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PS: I dont think Christians would have much fo a problem accepting evolution (well not macro atleast, if I may use the term so loosely), if it was not so closely associated with the 'abiogenesis'.

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Except that it is not associated at all with abiogenesis..this is a typical misconception. The theory of evolution does not deal with the origin of life...only the changes in allele/trait frequencies over time since life began.

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My point was that if A,B,C,D,E,F, H,I point to evolution and 'G' does not point to evolution, then there would be an evolutionary theory to explain 'G' and thus 'G' would fit in with the rest of the alphabet and the ToE.

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Well, yes, but only up to a point. The addendum which incorporates 'G' would have to be logically consistent with the rest of the series, even if it means reworking the whole series. But like I said, this only works up to a point. It might not be possible to incorporate 'G' into the series at all and the whole thing would have to be trashed. This is basically what happened to Newton's orbital mechanics-- we were seeing things that simply could not be incorporated into his theory. Einstein explained those observations not by modifying Newton, but by developing a radically different theory.

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The same could be said by a Creationist really.

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Really, I wish someone could show me how. In all these threads I haven't seen one good piece of pro-creationist evidence or logic.

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PS: I dont think Christians would have much fo a problem accepting evolution (well not macro atleast, if I may use the term so loosely), if it was not so closely associated with the 'abiogenesis'.

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It is the creationists who insist on the association. I think the reason for this is pretty simple-- the case for evolution is just about the strongest case in science. Not so for abiogenesis. No one quite knows how it would have worked. There are a lot of question marks. Thus, creationists tie a strong theory to a weak one and claim to destroy both. It doesn't work that way, and the effort is fundamentally dishonest.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

Hi Percy. My specific question was how originally the instinct part of evolution would have been a hypothesis. I suppose a hypothesis has to be based on observable facts, however I dont see forinstance the mention of a primordial pool to be observable, even testable, but I'll leave that for now.More specific to the observable facts... I think the entire concept (excuse me if I'm mistaken) is that instinct in specifically not a learnt trait. In other words a spider needs not be taught to spin a web from its parent.Your birds example to me is an example of natural selection, not instinct. And I know what you're talking about as most wild animals that come into contact with humans for the first time, are not shy of them and yes animals that are genetically programmed to be 'more cautious' will pass on their genes, however I dont see instinct involved in this.I dont associate instinct with aggression or emotions. Yes , we can breed angry dogs and passive dogs, if being angry is a benefit to surviving to reproductive age, then yes, that organisms offspring would have an advantage, same goes for certain organisms preferring to flee in danger. I'm more curious about instincts such as bees knowing exactly what to do without being told what to do. Same with spiders. These are all genetically programmed then surely ?Darwin used instinct as part of his hypothesis, but then my question is that how WAS this a testable AND falsifyable hypothesis. Is it not any of these because of the 'observable' facts ?cheers[This message has been edited by Zealot, 08-27-2003]

Yet Darwin chose to make mention of the notion of a Primordial Pool right ?

...could you give a specific cite in its context? Regardless of what Darwin may or may not have posited about abiogenesis (though he was a Christian), it was not part of his theory of evolution nor is it part of the current theory of evolution.

Sorry it was actually intended to be a question.

Hi Zealot,I think you're missing a few points. The key thing to understand is that in an evolutionary context, "instinct" - or those behaviors displayed that could not have been learned - is merely considered to be a trait that can vary within a population just like coat color or leg length. It'll vary around a mean, just like physical characteristics, but the point is there will be behavioral variation among individuals within the population. This is what Percy was talking about with his bird example. When you understand this bit, you'll see that Darwin doesn't (nor does any other evo biologist for that matter) "include instinct as part of the hypothesis". What does occur, OTOH, and what the chapter in Origins Percy linked to was discussing, is how natural selection can be used to explain the evolution of behaviors as well as physical traits. IOW, you've got the question the wrong way around.I don't know if this will help. It's a discussion of a computer simulation from California Software Labs that talks about the evolution of complex behaviors over time based on genetic algorithms and simple rules modifiable through environmental feedback, etc. It might be a bit much for you, but it's detailed enough to give you a good feel for how behaviors can evolve. I caution you that a) the discussion is simplistic compared to what occurs in nature and b) it's a bit more mechanistic than I'm particularly comfortable with. However, I think it'll give you a better place to start. Full text including really neat graphics here.

No problem...I may have missed that you were asking...in any case, the origin of life is a separate issue, as I and John have pointed out, from the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is one of the most robust theories in science with huge amounts of supporting evidence from diverse disciplines...abiogenesis is another matter. There is no theory of abiogenesis...in fact, studies of the origin of life are extremely conjectural and as a science it is in its infancy...But one does not need to know how life started to study evolution.