Why is it VERSUS?

An agnostic would argue that the existence of God is unknowable. This is often called the Atheist Gambit. Strangely enough, you will find that many Young Earth Creationists (YEC's) ascribe to the Atheist Gambit. The Atheist Gambit claims that if a literal interpretation of Genesis is false then so to is God, or at least the rest of the Bible. Theistic Evolutionists tend to favor the idea that if science and an interpretation of the Bible conflict that it is the interpretation of the Bible that needs to be fixed. The first thing you would need to tackle is the utility of said theories. Which is the more useful of the following two theories in describing gravity:1. General Relativity2. General Relativity along with the undetectable and inscrutable actions of a deityMost would say that the second theory is no more useful than the first, and I would agree.

If creationists were trying to get ID taught in Intellectual class I don't think there would be that heated of an argument. If creationists were marketing ID as an intellecutal pursuit I don't think any of us would have serious objections.The problem is that ID can not be understood or applied scientifically. This a common problem with many philosophical pursuits so by itself it is not a bad thing. However, creationists want ID taught in science class, or lacking that a removal of evolution from science class. This causes friction for very apparent reasons. ID is not scientific. Evolution is. ID is not used by scientists to do research. Evolution is. The appropriateness of each for science class is very apparent, and yet creationists continue to try and force ID into the science classroom, and in public schools nonetheless.After awhile the motivation of creationists becomes apparent. They are promoting evangelism, not science. They want their religious beliefs taught to students with public money. That's a big no-no. To get around this problem they have tried to dress up ID with the clothes of science, but it only makes their motivations more obvious.All of this is occuring against the backdrop of history where dominant religions have not been kind to scientific heresies (e.g., Galileo). IOW, we have seen this before.

It is factual. The DNA evidence makes it factual, such as the ERV evidence:Just a moment...I would be more than happy to discuss the specifics of this paper in another thread. However, it is simply not true that common ancestry is non-factual.Hence the versus. The ID/creationist crowd wants to throw the facts out and obscure the science which is further exemplified in this statement: The science is not contentious. The science is not unclear. The scientific consensus is based on very clear facts. ID proponents want to twist and hide these facts. It is not about improving science education. It is about doing away with science education altogether.

I will start a new thread to deal with the ERV paper in the next couple of days. I hope that you will participate. The specifics of the evidence is off topic and not what I want to talk about in this thread. I would rather talk about the approach to evaluating the evidence with ERV's only serving as an example. What I wish to show is that ID/creationism is a process by which the scientific method is thrown out. IMO, this is what leads to contentious discussions.Let's compare ERV's to fingerprints at a crime scene. When investigators see swirly patterns of oil that pick up fine dust at the scene of the crime they conclude that these swirly marks were left there by a finger. These swirls are the right size and they match the expected patterns that one sees on fingertips. Most sane people would call this evidence that a finger was once at that spot. However, you would seem to argue, via your objections to ERV's, that one can not assume that. It is also possible that the creator of the fingerprints copied the design and produced the swirly oil patterns at the crime scene. Even more, since no one observed the suspect leaving the fingerprints at the crime scene is much more probable that a deity was involved.Imagine another scenario where a woman is suing a man for paternity. The DNA results come back and the man's DNA matches the baby's DNA. Would the court take the man seriously if he said that the evidence could also indicate that God created the child since common DNA points to a common designer? Therefore, the evidence is not "proof" of anything? If you were on a jury, how would you rule?This is the nonsense that we have to endure. It is frustrating, to say the least. The conclusion that ERV's are the product of retroviral insertion is as solid as fingerprints at a crime scene, and yet the ID mindset will not allow such evidence to even be considered. They really think these insane arguments actually hold water. I guess this is what happens when you start with the conclusion and are forced to accept or reject the evidence based on this dogmatically held conclusion.With ERV's we have flanking viral promoters with several viral genes between, including capsid proteins, reverse polymerases, integrases, etc. We also know that retroviruses insert into the genome. How could one not conclude that ERV's are the product of viral insertion? For the same reasons that the swirls of oil are not from a person's fingertip? For the same reasons that DNA testing is an invalid test for paternity? Is all of this evidence thrown out because you can come up with a story about magical poofing and supernatural deities? I appreciate the degree of honesty, but your arguments are tortured.

And yet you feel comfortable stating that common ancestry between humans and other apes is not factual. Is there any wonder why there is friction between scientists and ID/creationists? Please stop being reasonable, you are ruining my thesis.For the purpose of comprehension I would suggest that you skip to the "Results and Discussion" section and read the first three paragraphs. They outline the 3 different phylogenetic signals found in ERV's which is genomic position, overall ERV divergence, and LTR divergence. This relates back to my fingerprint and DNA paternity test analogies. Do you think a supernatural deity is the best explanation for swirly oil marks at a crime scene that exactly resemble the patterns found on the fingertips of the subject? Could a defense attorney make this argument and not expect to be laughed out of court?

Actually, that would falsify common ancestry since 5 million years is more than enough time to accumulate lineage specific mutations in orthologous ERV's.

Message 32:"Sure - teach the facts, natural selection, mutations, even speciation, but to then apply a common ancestor to humans is not factual, IMO. "Message 34:"Any paper you can produce will have a set of inferences that will not necessarily lead to a sound inference and a solid syllogism.""For my own complicated reasons, not what people have told me, I do not agree with inferences pertaining to macro-evolution and DNA, which I knew you would mention because of things like pseudo genes, and correlations between chimps etc... does not strike us as solid reasoning.Thanks. (I will read the paper to the best of my ability, but the point is it doesn't matter if, all of the scientists say it is proven, I do not believe a person is obliged to agree with that conclusion because scientific values give me the right to not agree with WHATEVER your claim or conclusion is, no matter how absolutely solid it is, and however utterly understood by top scientists.) "Message 35:""the proviral remnants of ancient viral infections of the primate lineage"That is a conclusion right there. So first of all, not an encouraging opener. Secondly, I can tell you I have read about HERVs before, and the other potential explanations given in places such as AIG. "Need I go on? We must be using different definitions of factual then. Here is the definition from Merriam-Webster online:

quote:

---

Definition of FACTUAL
1: of or relating to facts
2: restricted to or based on fact

---

The sequence, divergence, and genomic placment of ERV's are the facts, and the conclusion derived from these facts is factual by definition.

​

Perhaps you meant to use a different word?

​

I feel comfortable saying it is not factual, because I do not regard convoluted explanations of experiments to show direct proof. Direct proof is almost always as obvious as a smack on the face.

​

ERV's is direct proof in the same way that DNA and fingerprint evidence is direct proof in a court of law.

​

The confidence of saying common ancestry is not a fact is that there is never any concrete, hyper-deductive sound syllogism that proves it.

​

ERV's are that proof. Genetics as a whole so overwhelmingly indicates common ancestry that it is accepted as fact in biology.

​

Think of it likes this. Let's say I collect artwork. Let's say the style of the artwork is the same but I have no signature.

​

You are saying that the artwork came from the same source, because the style is the same. But does that mean that is ABSOLUTELY MUST have come from the same artist?

​

ERV's are the signature, the fingerprint, and whatever other analogy you want to draw.

​

With macro-evolution, you are saying ERVs MUST, and ONLY CAN show common descent NO MATTER WHAT. (Dogma).

​

False. It is the pattern of orthology, overall divergence, and LTR divergence which indicate common ancestry and evolution. The presence of ERV's in the genome in and of themselves do not indicate common ancestry. A designer could very well have put an ERV in humans and orangutans that had zero LTR divergence but then given the chimp an ERV at the same location with 5% LTR divergence. This would falsify common descent. However, we don't see that. We see the DNA fingerprint patterns that scream evolution and common descent.

​

Just because the real facts of such genes are inexplicable to me at this time does not mean evolution is true.

​

I agree. The point is that they are explicable through common ancestry and common descent. The patterns of orthology, overall divergence, and LTR divergence are exactly what we would expect to see if humans shared a common ancestor with other apes.

​

You are PICKING A fight with someone that freely admitts he does not enter war without weapons.

​

You mean the same someone who claims to have conquered evolution already, declaring that common ancestry is contentious and not based on facts? Perhaps you shouldn't walk into a gun fight with bare hands.

But it is factual, contra your objections. Common ancestry is not contentious, also the opposite of what you claim. Common ancestry is as evidenced as random mutations and natural selection. The only way that you try and counter this is to make up a story about magical poofing and supernatural deities. You are evoking Leprechauns to explain how your client's fingerprints ended up at the crime scene. This entire argument is an argument from ignorance, the very opposite of how science is done. The very opposite of how ERV's evidence common ancestry. The entire argument comes down to "evolution can't explain it, therefore God". You claim that "organisms are extraordinary beyond belief" and then immediately explain it through your religious beliefs. Surely you can see how frustrating this can be. And yet out of this ignorance you felt justified in claiming that common ancestry was not factual. As I have shown, it is factual.

You might want to rethink that one. You are conflating fact and factual. Look at the definitions some time.

I guess you never heard of a factual claim?"Factual claims assert that a condition has, does, or will exist. These claim are called factual claims since they are supported (are proven) by factual, verifiable information such as statistics, specific examples, and personal testimony (also called anecdotes). "
http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/comp2/factual.htm Those are two separate issues. Another scientist, Stephen Jay Gould, puts it this way:"Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
Top Cash Earning Games in India 2022 | Best Online Games to earn real moneyThe fact of common ancestry is still be true even if Darwinian evolution is shown to be false.Or we can go to yet another of my well credentialed peers, Dr. Douglas Futuyma:"Any statement in science, then, should be understood as a HYPOTHESISa statement of what might be true. Some hypotheses are poorly supported. Others, such as the hypothesis that the earth revolves around the sun, or that DNA is the genetic material, are so well supported that we consider them to be facts. It is a mistake to think of a fact as something that we absolutely know, with complete certainty, to be true, for we do not know this of anything. (According to some philosophers, we cannot even be certain that anything exists, including ourselves; how could we prove that the world is not a self-consistent dream in the mind of God?) Rather, a fact is a hypothesis that is so firmly supported by evidence that we assume it is true, and act as if it were true."
Top Cash Earning Games in India 2022 | Best Online Games to earn real moneyInstead of playing the Descartian doubt game we can proceed from extreme confidence to fact. That is what scientists do. We don't spend our time verifying ideas that have decades of solid science to back them up. Common ancestry between humans and other apes is one of those facts. It is so well evidence and supported that it is considered to be fact within biology. If we were comparing this to the current debate you would claim that the dishes were cleaned by a supernatural deity because you just can't see how a machine could do the job. But then you would claim that there is an invisible person for which there is no evidence who cleaned the dishes using an unknown method at an unknown time in an unknown place. This is what you claim competes with evolution as a better explanation. And now the self proclaimed tyro proceeds to tell all scientists that real science is broken down into operational science and historical science. Another ploy that creates friction.Science is science. Period. Actually, I think I claimed that common ancestry was fact, not ToE. Besides, chihuahuas have a new morphology that no previous dog had so that should fulfill your criteria. Also, evolution doesn't cause species to evolve into something else. We are still apes, as were our ancestors. We are still mammals, still vertebrates, and still eukaryotes, as were our ancestors. And now we can add taxonomy to the things you don't understand. Evolution can no more produce new phyla than evolution can produce new grandparents. Increases in diversity increase the diversity of the phyla. They don't produce new phyla.

I have often found that the ideas worth understanding are the ideas that are the most frustrating. Food for thought.

Those lights turned on for me in my comparative vertebrate anatomy class. In the 100 level zoology class it was just too much information. It was like drinking from a fire hose moving between cnideria to mollusca to whatever taxonomic class. When I got to sit down and really study vertebrates, from urochordates on through, it all clicked. I could actually follow the evolutionary history of arteries, bones, muscles, nerves, digestive systems, gonads, kidneys, etc. Dobzhansky hit it on the head. Without the theory of evolution picking through those smelly corpses would make no sense. With the theory of evolution it all comes together in a very amazing way.

This assumes that an unplanned universe would be irrational. I don't see how these two features are related. In order for us to figure out our origins all we need is a rational universe, one that is consistent in how it behaves. In a rational universe we can trust our findings because what we see today is the same as it was yesterday and all the days before that.

A rational universe would be one that can be understood through reason. Planned and rational are not synonyms. If you want to claim that an unplanned universe would be irrational (i.e. incapable of being understood through reason) then you must show why this would be the case.

Based on what reasoning? That's not entirely it, but I have never really spelled it out so you aren't to blame for getting it wrong.For all we know there could be irrational universes out there, universes where laws are not stable and change in both time and space. I would argue that such a universe could not produce life, much less intelligent life. You first need a rational universe in order to have intelligent life. Therefore, if there are a plethora of universes then the rational ones are candidates for producing life, and even intelligent life.In my opinion, your argument suffers from a confirmation bias. Of course we find intelligent life in a rational universe, it can't be any other way (according to my argument above). However, a rational universe is but one of many outcomes from an unplanned (i.e. unintelligent) process that creates universes.