that's called begging the question.Originally Posted by The Atheist
Just a quick note.
This is a thread about evolution, a subject with overwhelming hard science behind it, so let's keep our own emotions in check.
purpose of thread: finding out the "hard science" behind evolution
your premise: evolution is a subject with overwhelming hard science behind it.
your conclusion: let's keep our emotions in check, shall we?
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
Or, it was just a reminder to the other posters to keep the discussion civil.
No.
This:
...and....
...if there are questions of the science, we can answer them rationally and emotionlessly as the answers are there.
I thank Billl for his comments Re your above response to me. I'm sorry that you missed the point I made about the need of science to accept certain basic terms "on faith." Billl apparently got my point, and I'm sure others did as well. Calling my notion puerile doesn't relly help your argument.
You seem to think that I am anti-science. That's not the case. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology and medicine. I consider myself to be a scientist. I'm not a "bench researcher," but I've been working for over 20 years as a physician, and have even published peer-reviewed clinical research in my areas of specialization.
As a scientist, I understand that there are limits to what we can "prove" by rational argument. Anyone who has studied mathematics knows, for example, that we must begin our logical arguments with unproven (and unprovable) "postulates." These are usually very basic ideas, such as "number" (0, 1, 2, 3, etc), physical quantities ("mass," "space," "time"), operations (+/x), associational rules (commutivity/distributitivity), and various sorts of "relationship identities" (greater than, less than, equal, not equal), time-related identities (before, during, and after), and finally, the idea of causation, i.e. that "A causes B," or at least that "A is associated with B." These postulates are things that we agree to accept "on faith." We accept them on faith because we must, because we have to begin somewhere. Why stop at these fundamental "unprovable" postulates? We stop there because we our ability to "think" can go no further. That's the way our minds work.
Nick,
If you actually were a scientist, you wouldn't make such a big deal out of our inability to prove something. Nothing is truly ever proven in scientific endeavor. We merely formulate theories to explain observations: the strength of a theory depends on how much subsequent testing fails to disconfirm the theory.
And I stick by my claim that the type of faith involved in the assumptions of scientific inquiry is completely different from the type of faith involved in religious belief. It isn't a matter of degree, the two concepts are fundamentally different. Your argument seems to rest on the fact that the word faith can be used to describe both, and that's a woefully inadequate basis on which to equate them.
Regards,
Istvan
Historically, it's been just the opposite. Limiting the amount of variables to those which can be empirically verified is what makes up methodological naturalism, the very basis of contemporary scientific inquiry. Pasteur didn't create a revolution in biology by letting his imagination run free and theorizing about magic beings or mystery forces. He set up experiments to test his theory that there is a material cause for fermentation and putrefaction.
By all means, if you'd like to list the amount of scientific advances that have been made through postulating religious and magical concepts as the basis for natural phenomena, I eagerly await your response.
Regards,
Istvan
I'm reading this fascinating book right now: The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit by Melvin Konner. I haven't read much of it yet, which is to say I've only gotten as far as chapter 2--Adaptation. I'll come back with more on the subject; in the meantime, I highly recommend it.
com-pas-sion (n.) [ME. & OFr. <LL. (Ec.) compassio, sympathy < compassus, pp. of compati, to feel pity < L. com-, together + pali, to suffer] sorrow for the sufferings or trouble of another or others, accompanied by an urge to help; deep sympathy; pity
Dostoevsky Forum!
Regards,
Nick
I wasn't talking about religion, you goof. Try to keep up: you said that when it comes to species diversity, feelings count for nothing. With that in mind, re-read my post and try again.
On second thought, don't. Arguing with you is a waste of my time. I've schooled enough pseudo-scientist bullies in my short lifetime, and like The Atheist said, this thread is about evolution. I've already made my thoughts on that subject clear.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
Sorry, but my last response to Babba was incorrectly formatted. I should have used multiquote. My response was embedded in the large passage that appears as a quotation field.
Also, I regret that the discussion about faith and reason has strayed from the main topic of this thread, which is evolution. Let's get back on subject.
Since you either didn't read my response to you here or are trying to ignore it, maybe it's you who needs to keep up. Thanks again for the personal insult.
Yes, obviously you've "schooled" plenty of people with the careful attention you pay to the details of a debate. This is why you continue to misrepresent my position on how relevant feelings are to the subject of assessing the validity of a scientific construct such as the evolution of species by natural selection.On second thought, don't. Arguing with you is a waste of my time. I've schooled enough pseudo-scientist bullies in my short lifetime, and like The Atheist said, this thread is about evolution. I've already made my thoughts on that subject clear.
Whether this misrepresentation is deliberate or not, it seems you're not inclined to engage with what people are actually saying. Please read a book like Abusing Science by Philip Kitcher or Tower of Babel: Evidence against the New Creationism by Robert Pennock if you want to develop a working knowledge of what science and species evolution truly are and aren't.
Regards,
Istvan
Saying it again and again doesn't make it true, Nick. Scientific endeavor doesn't involve faith, it employs a completely different approach to knowledge (and to the unknown) than religious belief.
Empirical evidential inquiry works in an inductive, cumulative fashion to give us a certain statistical reliability to the theories whose validity we affirm. Nothing is ever proved, and we're never certain. A person with this perspective realizes that additional information can change or even refute what he currently believes.
Religious belief is merely certainty for free. It makes people affirm the validity of claims that are often times nonsensical, and to do so enough times so that the believer finally stops doubting it. A person with this perspective only recognizes new information that seems to confirm what he already believes, and ignores anything that may change or refute it.
Regards,
Istvan
Keeping civil - fine. I agree with you. But the above isn't quite what you originally said. You said evolution has hard evidence behind it....if there are questions of the science, we can answer them rationally and emotionlessly as the answers are there.
(I want to post more, but I'm about to jump into finals at college. I'll post more over break...
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."
It does. The post you quoted was just about keeping an interesting and informative thread on track.
Good luck!(I want to post more, but I'm about to jump into finals at college. I'll post more over break...
I have not read the twelve pages of post before this but I have a pretty good idea of how the discussion went because I have been there before. I [B]used to be a creationist. First of all evolution happens...I cannot deny this fact. It is just as clear to me as pouring vinegar on baking soda. I have done a lot of study (informal as it is) on this subject.
If you throw your bias away and study a little biology you will realize that life is simply chemistry. The argument that life formed then...therefore it should be forming now is a fallacy. The conditions on earth are much different now than they were then. Therefore life will not come into existence now. Even if anything evolved toward life were formed it would be eaten by the life the is already here.
You would also know that bacteria (in rare cases) even exchange genetic material. Bacteria have sex!
Life does not evolve from one form to another as in white to gray to black. It can evolve from white to black. It does not move in a straight line from simple to more complex in all cases. It is selected because it "fits" in its environment. Being more complex or less complex is not considered. Evolution does not think.
If you are a creationist...just open your eyes...what about Australia? How did the animals move all over the world and "adapt" so quickly? How did they get from place to place?
Last edited by altheskeptic; 08-29-2010 at 01:14 PM. Reason: spelling
So here's a question: let's say you take some metallic ore (iron, copper, zinc, etc.) and pile it up in some dusty corner of the universe and let it sit about a gazillion years: would it eventually evolve into a Swiss watch?
Answer: no.
Why? Two reasons: (1) the Laws of Thermodynamics wherin the energy of a body tends towards less and never more; wherein there is no 100% energy-efficient chemical reaction; wherein you can't evolve up without energy input; wherein everything devolves down, energy of a body is 'lost' in chemical exchange (i.e., transformed into other matter) and (2) without information input (i.e., design) nothing can be built up.
This is the fallacy devised originally (I think) by Lecomte du Nouy . And it rests in the assumption that pure chance is the guiding factor and that atoms can fit together in any fashion at all. We don't depend on chance alone, but on chance guided by the laws of nature.
In the 1920s a biologist named Haldane suggested that since coal was of plant origin, and plants obtain their carbon dioxide from the air, there must have been much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before life evolved on earth.
Furthermore, the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by the same reactions that absorb the carbon dioxide and places it in the plant tissue.
In the primordial atmosphere there would be no oxygen in the air and no ozone either. It follows then, that the ultraviolet radiation from the sun (much stronger than today because of lack of ozone) would serve to combine molecules of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water into more and more complex compounds that would, finally, develop the attributes of life.
The energy is supplied by the sun. And chemical reactions happen all the time.
Your thermodynamics argument is moot... and nonsensical.
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