Posted on 09/27/2005 9:10:31 AM PDT by Crackingham
That's all nice and find, but if you had this supposed rabbit fossil, how would you determine that it came from precambian time?
There are many methods of dating fossils (my sister uses her charm - rimshot), and they all have to agree. The Theory of Evolution states that an animal as advanced as a rabbit could not have existed during the Precambrian. So if the Precambrian rabbit fossil turned out to be accurately dated, it would overturn evolution, not the date. Evolution is the theory and needs to be capable of disproof. Time is not a theory, at least in the sense we’re using it here.
By definition if there were a rabbit fossil, it wouldn't be precambian, would it?
It’s not a definition, it’s a prediction based on the Theory of Evolution. If we find a fossil accurately dated as being Precambrian, and the fossil is indisputably a rabbit, then the Theory of Evolution is out the window.
Why not just say that intelligent design could be disproven by showing that life was created by an unintelligent being? Why not say that intelligent design could be disproven by showing that life evolved though a bunch of random genetic anomolies?
The first option begs the question of where the “unintelligent being” came from. There’s no evidence for this being, and, as yet, no way to test for him. BTW, a number of pro-evo posters here have posited exactly the “unintelligent designer theory” on the grounds of the indisputably sloppy design work the human body displays. Their posts are frequently pulled as being an insult to religion. But if no religion were involved, how could they be insulting to religion? The “some un-named designer” excuse seems suspicious.
If you’re comfortable with “random genetic anomalies,” why not toss in “natural selection” and “genetic drift,” and another element or two, and call the whole thing “The Theory of Evolution”? That wouldn’t actually disprove anything else, though, it would just be an explanation that a) covers all the known facts, and b) doesn’t rely on an undetectable outside force.
For you to disprove evolution with a precambian rabbit, you would have to be able to prove that the rabbit was precambian.
Right. Or at least demonstrate that with the preponderance of the evidence.
[C]onsidering Carter was given a peace prize for getting a terrorist to sit down and make a bunch of promises he clearly never considered to keep, it seems that finding a precambian rabbit fossil might be just as good of a justification for the peace prize. Maybe even a better justification if it helped cool down the war between rabid evolutionists and rabit creationists.
Or maybe because that rabbit that attacked him while he was canoeing was Precambrian … ?
You can't disprove a theory by finding something that based on another unproven theory.
“Precambrian” is not a theory. No theory disproves another theory, evidence does.
You can pull out all the theories and definitions you like. It won't change the nature of the theory of evolution. It's based on an assumption that random chance over a long period of time is the driving force for change, and you can explain anything with random chance and enough time.
A theory is not an assumption. It is both an observation that must explain all known facts, and make predictions regarding additional, as yet unknown facts. Darwin’s original theory did this with reference to fossils. Many, many more have been found, they’ve filled in gaps that existed in Darwin’s time, and not one of them has been counter to the theory. In fact, all known fossil frauds have been detected because they were inexplicable according to the Theory of Evolution. Genes were unimagined by Darwin, but thus far, genetics has completely supported the Theory of Evolution. (There have been a couple of revisions on exactly what’s related to what in exactly what way, because the genetic information is much less open to interpretation that comparing anatomy).
You keep saying ID is not science. I ask why, and you tell me a defintion of science that excludes ID. You don't show why ID isn't plausable.
Your conclusions are based on definitions that are defined to produce the conclusions you reached. It's a circular argument. It means nothing.
There is no evidence that shows that it's random rather than by design. I see no way that it can be proven.
Sorry. The definition is not circular. Anything considered scientific must be testable. What’s the test for design? Dembski’s proposed “Explanatory Filter” explains nothing. It boils down to, “If I think it was designed, it was.” The examples he uses to back it up fail to pass his own tests. It’s most unimpressive.
Here’s historian Paul Johnson in the first chapter of his book, “Modern Times.” It’s a great explanation of a scientific theory:
The modern world began on 29 May 1919 when photographs of a solar eclipse, taken on the island of Principe off West Africa and at Sobral in Brazil, confirmed the truth of a new theory of the universe. It had been apparent for half a century that the Newtonian cosmology, based upon the straight lines of Euclidean geometry and Galileo’s notions of absolute time, was in need of serious modification. {SNIP] But increasingly powerful telescopes were revealing anomalies. In particular, the motions of the planet Mercury deviated by forty-three seconds of arc a century from its predictable behavior under Newtonian laws of physics. Why?In 1905, a twenty-six-year-old German Jew, Albert Einstein, then working in the Swiss patent office in Berne, had published a paper, “On the electrodynamics of moving bodies,” which became known as the Special Theory of Relativity. Einstein’s observations on the way in which, in certain circumstances, lengths appeared to contract and clocks to slow down, are analogous to the effects of perspective in painting. [SNIP]
… it was of the essence of Einstein’s methodology that he insisted his equations must be verified by empirical observations, and he himself devised three specific tests for this purpose. They key one was that a ray of light just grazing the surface of the sun must be bent by 1.745 seconds of arc -- twice the amount of gravitational deflection provided for by classical Newtonian theory.
Einstein himself refused to accept the results until all three tests had been passed.
Why do I bring this up? A scientific theory needs a way of being disproved. Einstein said, “Unless you find all of these three things happening, my theory is wrong.” All three things were observed, but that’s not what I’m getting at. Even if all three things had not been observed, Einstein’s theory would have been scientific (although wrong), because it was capable of disproof. ID is not.
You keep repeating yourself, but you're not willing to question what you're saying, which means you're not open to learning.
If you allow a theory that rests on an undetectable, unseen force into science, then anything at all is science. I’m not so open-minded that my brain fell out. (I forget who said that, but it seems apropos here).
You're falling into the trap of the Luddite. The whole purpose of the scientific process is to learn things we don't currently understand. It's to question what we believe, look for contradictions, and look for explanations for those contradictions.
Where is it stated that the purpose of science is to “look for contradictions”? What is contradictory about the Theory of Evolution?
I don’t see how the statement “This must have been designed” adds anything to knowledge. It explains nothing. It leads to nothing. What good is it? I get the feeling that if biology textbooks were salted with phrases like “As the designer intended,” “It was the will of the designer that,” and “The designer willing,” this whole thing might blow over. Unfortunately, it would make them about a third longer, and read uncomfortably like a missive from Jihad central. (Substitute Allah for the designer and it‘s obvious).
Actually you might have your falsification criteria through the law of entropy that you were so quick to dismiss.
Entropy only applies to a closed system. Because the earth receives energy from the sun, life on earth is not a closed system.
We do have flightless birds and some other good examples of such things. I'm not trying to prove or disprove evolution. I don't believe I am capable of doing either. What I'm trying to point out is that it's simply not settled fact. We have a lot to learn, and we need to keep questioning things in order to learn.
Why would you assume a flightless bird is somehow flawed? The Theory of Evolution is a theory. It’s the accepted theory. Theories are not settled facts. You keep attempting to drag that back in.
I'm more questioning it to get a reaction. Now you need to ask yourself, are you reflexively defending the theory as if it were an established fact, or are you considering that there energy from the sun might not be enough energy to not only support life, but to support the inefficient and random process of evolution and natural selection?
No, I’m defending the theory “as if it were an established fact,” I’m defending it as science. I’m rejecting ID because it’s non-science. That’s all. If the energy from the Sun supports life, it supports evolution. I don’t see what you’re getting at here. And if it’s insufficient to support life … we’re not having this e-conversation.
[S]aying that the THEORY of evolution explains thing better than ID requires faith, because it's not proven.
No theory is ever proven, so you might as well say that things don’t fall because of gravity -- no one has ever proven the Theory of Gravitation -- they fall because angels push them to the earth so that heaven doesn’t get cluttered with earthly stuff. Call it the Theory of Directed Gravitation. Prove it wrong. Go ahead.
The Theory of Evolution is, at present, the only scientific theory we have that explains all the facts. ID is not a scientific theory because it assumes, as the lawyers like to say, facts not in evidence. There’s no evidence for the designer, there is no way to detect a designer, and saying there is one nothing to scientific knowledge.
G: A human defense mechanism being used to defend our understanding of things because we don't like having our beliefs shaken by things we don't understand is a better description of religion than science. Science adjusts to the evidence. Religion remains unchanged. That's the nature of science, and that's the nature of religion.
Has the Catholic church not changed since the days of the inquisition? Many discoveries that you may consider philosophy but have shaped the way we learn have been discovered by monks and theologians.
Are you talking about articles of faith or techniques to keep the faithful in line? I’d be astonished to read an official Catholic document stating something about after having thought things over, the Pope really isn’t infallible after all. Speaking of whom, you are aware that Pope John Paul II issued a statement noting that The Theory of Evolution didn’t necessarily conflict with Catholic doctrine.
It’s interesting that some of the most die-hard creationists here -- probably ones who reject ID, too, on the grounds that ID doesn’t necessarily reject evolution -- are willing to use the internet. It’s not mentioned in the Bible. That science, and medical science are okay. But somehow, the bits of science that support evolution are anti-Bible.
That monks and priests may come up with scientific discoveries is why we don’t reject theories for reasons other than the theories themselves. We got some nutter on FR who likes to carry on about how ill Darwin was for most of his life. What possible bearing does that have on his theory? Father Julius Nieuwland was involved in the discovery of artificial rubber. Does it only work for Catholics?
People have used the scientific process to try and understand their faith throughout time.
Yes. So what?
It's not science or religion that cause some people to resist change or dislike having their beliefs questioned. To some extent we all resist change and dislike having out beliefs questioned. It's human nature.
And the Theory of Evolution is not a matter of belief. If facts emerged tomorrow demonstrating that the theory is in error, science would drop it. Until such time, science has no reason to drop it.
G: Yes. It's so they understand that science is composed of testable theories and not convenient assertions utterly without a scientific basis masquerading as science. (Please forgive the rhetoric, but I'm afraid it's warranted)."
We already covered this. Didn't we already agree that theories need not be provable?
Theories cannot be proven. They must be testable.
G: convenient assertions utterly without a scientific basis.
Such assertions are merely assertions to be considered based on if they are possible or not. You can try and qualify them based on which you believe to be more credible, however you cannot discount them if you cannot disprove them.
You must discount them if you cannot test them.
G: ID only makes sense if one uncritically accepts that "there's something out there" that we can't test for, so anything we don't know must have been done by that something out there. What kind of science is that?"
You're missing the point. ID is a theory.
It’s not a scientific theory.
You're not supposed to uncritically accept theories. You're supposed to consider theories based on their merits. You look at their strengths and their weaknesses and you form an opinion about the theory based on what you know, then you try and learn more.
So I’m not uncritically accepting ID. I consider theories scientific if they can be tested and whether they have predictive ability, and whether they’ll lead to new lines of inquiry. ID does none of these. It will teach nothing.
You're caught up in the argument of either teaching evolution or teaching ID. Your missing the point. The point is that you should teach both and teach the students how to question the theories. Theories teach us something very important. They teach us that there are a lot of things we don't know.
ID is not a scientific theory. There is no scientific controversy. Why not teach the controversy about my Theory of Directed Gravitation.
Good morning. I thought a little more about our discussion.
I’m back a couple of days late, but good morning, afternoon, or evening to you … depending on when this gets posted and when you read it.
It seems to me that you're feeling is that ID is a solution to everything, and therefore not as valid as the more narrow theory of evolution.
Actually, I think ID is a solution to nothing.
It is hard to make a viable comparison between a wide ranging and rather nebulous theory and a more narrow one.
So let's narrow the discussion.
Let's compare the theory of evolution which is a theory that species evolved through random chance with a theory that species evolved through an intelligent design.
Why is one of those two theories more valid than the other. Why is one more provable or disprovable than the other.
Because one (the ToE), adheres to the rules of science, while the other doesn’t. Based on your question, why isn’t my Theory of Directed Gravitation science?
Please avoid jargon in the discussion. It's two easy to hide circular arguments in jargon.
You can’t test for this designer. You can’t measure the effects of this designer. There is no evidence for this designer. How is ID falsifiable … in the sense that Einstein proposed three tests for his Special Theory? What does ID predict that we’ll find? What new avenues of study does ID open to us?
My answer to the above questions is that there are no tests for ID, it makes no predictions, and it leads to no new areas of knowledge. It fails all tests. That was as jargon-free as I could get it.
I also want to throw out a theory of mine on the nature of religion for you to consider.
Not my strong suit by any means, but what the … heck.
We all know that there are things we are unable to prove. Religion accepts that fact and compels us to have faith and believe the unproven.
Science does not compel faith. Science questions.
I have quibbles about that last statement, but let them go.
I'm not suggesting that we attempt to teach religion in public schools. I suggest we teach science.
I’ll go further … I think it would be beneficial to teach a course or courses in comparative religion. It would be difficult, but I think it should be done. Any ignorance is a bad thing.
I further theorize that the exclusion of teaching about the theory of ID is the exclusion of science, not the exclusion of religion.
I don’t.
If ID were taught as fact, not a theory, that would be religion.
If it were taught as science that would be wrong.
Teaching the theory of evolution exclusively as the only credible theory is closer to a religious teaching than a scientific one.
The Theory of Evolution should be taught as the only scientific theory. It is not religion, it is not supposed to be religion, and if it ever becomes religion, I will demand that it be removed from science class.
"Making up an answer of "an all-powerful supernatural entity did it" is a cop-out, not an explanation. Just because you can explain absolutely anything with it doesn't mean that it's really "better"."
****Einstein did, and he is a whole lot smarter than you are. if you don't explain it that way, you are living a comfortable life, but living a lie as well.
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