Posted on 11/29/2011 12:32:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Which is simply the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.
This is why theories can never be proven, only falsified. Assuming their proponents do not insist that fallacy is science, that is...
FOTFLOL!!!
Not to be pedantic, but, in my opinion, that is more of an example of the fallacy of “equivocation” than it is of “affirming the consequent”...
Where evolution is concerned, you can often apply multiple logical fallacies to any claim. Begging the question, strawman, affirming the consequent, equivocation, and negative proof fallacy are a few of the most common.
I refuse to engage him as a serious debater while he willfully misrepresents the views of his opponents.
And when he insists that he is accurately representing their/our views, he simply demonstrates that he’s too ignorant to engage in this discussion.
It is obvious that your argument is that because some features of evolution seem difficult to achieve, that God did it. Your argument is not original, you quoted Behe (IIRC) whose argument is exactly a “god of the gaps” argument.
HOW, physically, is variability “designed in”? Be specific.
For example you proposed that the difference between a mouse and a rat was a “micro” change - therefore something that could have been accomplished through change within “kinds” sometime after Noah.
What is the difference between a mouse and a rat, or more specifically, what CAUSES a mouse and a rat to be different?
HOW was the rodent “kind” differentiated into a mouse line and a rat line?
Yes “setting it all up” is “design”. The difference between our two models is I think God is a COMPETENT designer - while your guy Behe proposes an INCOMPETENT designer in his pet philosophy of ID - Incompetent design. An incompetent designer that must miraculously intervene to accomplish physical tasks - rather than a competent designer who set up physical laws that accomplish physical tasks.
So you do accept evolution - as long as I call it “micro” - and you apparently accept it at a rate many thousands of times that proposed by evolutionary biology!
And I am not at all angry. I mock that which needs mocking. Ridicule is the PROPER social response to the ridiculous.
Creationism -besides being useless (a proposition I have put forth many times here usually without even the pretext of challenge) - is ridiculous.
It is part and parcel of the ridiculousness that leads several FR posters into proposing GEOCENTRISM!!!!
Now THAT is funny!!!! ;)
Have a great day! I will pray for you.
OK. You make your assertion. From your assertion it seems reasonable to conclude that you are a physicalist, naturalist. So, taking us back to the beginning of the universe,....what caused the universe to come to be? Please be specific as a naturalist offering only a naturalistic explication. Please give me only direct scientific evidence.
Oh so very true, Texas Songwriter! Neither can be "tested" by means of the scientific method because both are metaphysical propositions, intangibles, non-observables. I gather this is what allmendream has yet to grasp.
Many scientists pride themselves on having rid their discipline of all subjective elements and especially of all metaphysics. But they are just kidding themselves. After all, materialism is a philosophical doctrine that seeks to account for the emergence and evolution of life and mind on the basis of matter alone, as if there were nothing else in the universe.
Those who argue for design at least have a way to account for intelligence (and information) in the universe. Those of orthodox Darwinian persuasion basically account for life and mind as emergent "properties" of "pure" matter, realized accidentally.
Which of these two attitudes toward basic reality is the more rational, the more sane?
Here's the problem (or so it seems to me):
...[O]ur problem is not really the emergence of life from non-life, but the encoding of information by non-information. And not just any information, but the inconceivably complex information entailed in the simplest biological system. Even a single cell "must utilize close to a million unique and adaptive structures and processes".... [Robert Godwin, quoting Michael Denton]Then, getting deeper into the weeds, Michael Polanyi points out,
Whatever may be the origin of a DNA configuration, it can function as a code only if its order is not due to the forces of potential energy. It must be as physically indeterminate as the sequence of words is on a printed page....In short, DNA is irreducible to the material of which it is composed. It has been suggested that it serves as a sort of code key that decodes "incoming info" from a non-local source. Or at least that's one of the more interesting speculations I've heard about lately....
What possible light does natural selection shed on life and information?
To which allmendream and perhaps my friend tacticalogic might object, "But Darwinism isn't about the origin of life [or mind, presumably]. It's about the the evolution of species."
And so am I to believe that Darwin's evolution theory — the preeminant theory of modern biology — is all about, not life forms themselves, but rather abstract, formal, classifiable categories of life forms, and how these categories exhibit change over time? IOW, it's about "abstract" biological groups, not "concrete" biological organism itself?
Looks pretty artificial to me, and relentlessly reductionist to boot — as fine an example of Whitehead's Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness as I have ever seen.
If biology isn't about life (and mind), what is it about? Why are so many modern biologists closed to questions regarding life and mind?
Oh well.... nowadays certain physicists and mathematicians are having a field day with such questions.
Thank you ever so much, dear brother Texas Songwriter, for your outstanding observations, and for pinging me to your fine essay/post!
Care to accept the challenge and tell me all the innovative and useful applications that proposing supernatural causation to explain physical phenomena has led to?
Science is of use.
Creationism is useless.
Did you even read my post to you? It is a simply question. Please answer the question. You made assertions. Now, please convince me with your facts.
Are we talking about evoloution or abiogenesis?
There has been a long history of proposing supernatural causation for physical phenomena. In all that time it has led nowhere in terms of useful applications, further discovery or prediction.
There has also been a long history of proposing natural causation for physical phenomena. It has led to a wealth of useful applications, further discovery and predictions.
Natural causes are predictable measurable and understandable and subject to experimentation.
Supernatural causes are unpredictable, immeasurable, not understandable and not subject to experimentation.
That is why science is of use.
Creationism is useless.
How would you characterize the evolutionary distance between a mouse and a rat - as a “micro” change or a “macro” change?
It is a simple question. Please answer the question.
:)
Now that you attempted your diversion, please answer my requestion regarding yourl assertion which I put to you in post 297 or 298..I don't remember which number. You are the one who made assertions about creationism. I am asking you to give me the facts regarding your assertion. How did the universe come to be? It is not a question difficult to understand. I do understand why you attempt to evade answering the question. Please enlighten me by you justifying your statement....or was it simply your opinion. You will not be marked off for answering honestly.
We are talking about BIOLOGY — the study, or knowledge, of LIFE. It seems to me that life both begins and evolves. To understand life, you have to understand both these things.
Abiogenesis is an ontological dead end: Life from non-life didn't happen because it couldn't have happened, for the reason I mentioned in my last post — i.e., there is no way for information to "evolve" from non-information.
Unless you believe that a hundred monkeys, with a hundred typewriters, sitting in a room will eventually (given enough time) — collectively, collaboratively —grind out the works of William Shakespeare.
So let's dismiss abiogenesis altogether; let's not discuss it anymore if it bores you. Rather, let us ask the far more interesting question: What is it that is "evolving," in Darwinian evolution?
I gave you the facts regarding my assertions which had nothing to do with how the universe came to be - but with how human knowledge is gained and useful application made of it.
Presuming natural causes for physical phenomena leads to useful applications discoveries and predictions.
Presuming supernatural causes for physical phenomena leads to no useful applications discoveries or predictions.
So would the change between a mouse and a rat be a “micro” evolutionary change - or a “macro” evolutionary change?
Please enlighten me! ;)
You WILL be marked off for refusal to answer!
I entertain the proposition that it’s entirely possible that life was created with the ability to evolve. That doesn’t seem to fit nicely into the carefully constructed “either/or” paradigm you’ve constructed.
Opinion, not fact.
There has also been a long history of proposing natural causation for physical phenomena. It has led to a wealth of useful applications, further discovery and predictions.
A statement but a generalized statement. Opinion.
Natural causes are predictable measurable and understandable and subject to experimentation.
A statement but no epistemology. Opinion.
Supernatural causes are unpredictable, immeasurable, not understandable and not subject to experimentation.
Statement, although I do agree with this statement. But regarding decent how is decent predictable, measureable, and subject to experimentation.
That is why science is of use.
Why implies causation. Yours is simply a statement of opinion.
Creationism is useless.
Opinion. >
I made no assertions about how the universe came to be.
What do you define as creationism?
Creationism is the notion that all living species came about nearly simultaneously through miraculous creation rather than having developed/ changed/ evolved through natural selection of genetic variation.
That has little to do with how the universe came to be - but a lot to do with how the modern species that inhabit the Earth came to be.
So would you characterize the differences between a mouse and a rat as a “micro” change or a “macro” change.
:)
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