evolution?

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Originally posted by Cobra_snake:
I hate you.

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I wasn't really referring to people on these boards. I was talking about the proffessional evolutionists like Gould and Dawkins.

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I wonder, have you read any entire books by Gould or Dawkins, not just selected quotes found in Creationist literature?------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Originally posted by Robert:
[b]Greetings:

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Thank you, Moose, for that thoughtful reply. I hope you can track down that article and either send it to me or give me a good summation of its contents. I will look for it as well.

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I realize that people who have a vested interest in evolution and are honest enough to see the biochemical problems that Behe presents would like to remain "optimistic" that evolution will oneday explain the process, but I will remain skeptical.[/QUOTE]

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Do you remain skeptical, or do you have a preconcieved notion that you hold to (Creationism)?

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A mousetrap is irreducibly complex...

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When you can show me a mousetrap that can reproduce itself, you might have an interesting point.

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[QUOTE]Darwin in Origin of Species, pg. 154 writes:

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If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight, modifications, my theory would absolutely break down...[/b]

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So, demonstrate it. So far, this has not been done.Specifically, what predictions does ID make about what an IC system looks like? How do we tell the difference between an IC system and a natural system that we do not understand yet?Lack of evidence for a scientific theory doesn't constitute positive evidence for anything.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

quote:

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Originally posted by Cobra_snake:
I must admit that I have never read entire books by them, but I have read a bit of the Blind Watchmaker. I have also read Abusing Science, written by Philip Kitcher, which was supported by Stephen Jay Gould.

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What's wrong with selected quotes found in Creationist literature?

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[This message has been edited by Cobra_snake, 04-08-2002]

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Selected quotes found in Creationist literature are very often out of context and their meanings are often changed to make the scientist appear to be doubting Evolution or an old Earth, etc. This is rife in Creationist circles. Have a look at this: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/[QUOTE]What is wrong with antievolutionist arguments via quotations?"This is not to imply that we know everything that can and should be known about biology and about evolution. Any competent biologist is aware of a multitude of problems yet unresolved and of questions yet unanswered. After all, biologic research shows no sign of approaching completion; quite the opposite is true. Disagreements and clashes of opinion are rife among biologists, as they should be in a living and growing science. Antievolutionists mistake, or pretend to mistake, these disagreements as indications of dubiousness of the entire doctrine of evolution. Their favorite sport is stringing together quotations, carefully and sometimes expertly taken out of context, to show that nothing is really established or agreed upon among evolutionists. Some of my colleagues and myself have been amused and amazed to read ourselves quoted in a way showing that we are really
antievolutionists under the skin."
- Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975),"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"One of the favorite tactics of evolution deniers and other pseudoscientists is to use numerous quotations to make their case. For many people the use of quote after quote makes a very persuasive argument. However, the antievolutionist use of quotes is invalid and does not in any way provide evidence for creationism or against evolution. The reasons for this fall into several major categories: the use of quotations often is a fallacy of "argument from authority," selective quotation may be occurring, the quotations are often out-of-date, the quoted authorities are often not appropriate authorities, evolution deniers are sometimes not honest in representing who the people they quote are, and many of the quotations are misquotations."More: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/misquotes.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darrow.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.html

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Originally posted by Cobra_snake:
[b]"So, demonstrate it. So far, this has not been done."

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It shall never be done. The problem is, it is impossible to PROVE that a certain structure cannot evolve. However, when certain structures appear to be difficult to explain under a Darwinian model, one has every right to become skeptical of the notion of evolution.[/QUOTE]

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Why does a lack of an understanding of some so-called "IC" systems invalidate the entire ToE?

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We don't understand everything about the various Theories of Gravity, but do we invalidate the FACT of gravity until we understand everything about it? Of course not. Therefore, just because we don't understand every biological system YET, it is silly to throw out the entire ToE, because the ToE is very predictive and productive and, in short, IT WORKS.

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[QUOTE] It's actually pretty significant that evolutionists can't even create a just-so story to explain some structures! [/b]

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Why do you demand that scientists know all things instantly? It took us a while to figure out that lightning wasn't caused by the Gods, and it took us a while to figure out that disease can be caused by living things too tiny to see with the naked eye, and it took us a while to figure out that E=mc2.The appropriate thing to say when scientists don't know something with much certainty is, "We don't know".------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Originally posted by Cobra_snake:
[b]"Lack of evidence for a scientific theory doesn't constitute positive evidence for anything."

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Unfortunately, nothing constitutes "positive evidence" in your mind. What evidence would you accept? If you won't accept any kind of evidence for Creation, then you are purposeslessly ommitting a priori a possibility.[/QUOTE]

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Well, you have to decide if you want to do science or not.

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Remember, science is defined as the naturalistic explanation of naturalistic phenomena. Science ignores the supernatural. However, if you have claims that the supernatural has an effect on the natural world, you need to provide positive evidence for this effect.

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If you want to say that following the tennets of science is an a priori decision of what is admissable as scientific, then that's fine with me.

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It's up to the claimants to provide positive evidence for their claims.

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ID is religion and/or philosophy, not science. I have no inherent problem with either religion or philosophy, except when it pretends it is scientific.

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Obviously, such an ommission can be very beneficial for your point of view, since disregarding the possibility of evidence for creation basically means that evolution is victorious.

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No, it means that Evolution, just like any scientific theory, lives and dies on the evidence.

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If you want to do science, you have to play by science's rules, and ID doesn't do that.

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[QUOTE]However, such an ommission is not founded on any principle of science, but founded on bias.[/b]

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Like I said above, science is the explanation of natural phenomena using naturalistic explanations. Claiming that "The ID-er Didit" without providing testable hypotheses, potential falsifications, and positive evidence, is meaningless in science.It is a great philosophy, but really poor science.