Science vs. Creationism

[LogGrad98]

Berlinski himself prefers to be known as a writer rather than as a scientist. Why would anybody take him seriously?

So he isn't allowed to doubt, or have questions that might be valid, because he chooses to identify himself as a writer? Seems awfully dogmatic.

 

[♪alt13]

This is strictly about the choice of words. We have no theories about the beginning of life, just hypotheses. We don't want to water down the word "theory" as used in science; that just gives ammunition to the anti-science folks.

Using the definitions you offered, in what way does abiogenesis qualify as theory over hypothesis? We have several testable ideas, no centrally accepted explanation.

The theory of general relativity is a theory. Gravitational lensing was a hypothesis predicted by the theory and once observed increased the validation of Einsteins theory.

Think of an arch. You cannot see this arch until you are within inches of it. At this point no one knows what it is. You build a ladder. You observe the first stone on either side. After carefully measuring them you formulate the theory that the invisible thing is an arch with certain dimensions. Using your theory you hypothesize that if you were able to get even higher that there would be yet another stone with the same angle. I come along and build an even higher ladder. After measuring the second stone I find that it has a steeper angle. I adjust the dimensions of your arch theory.

In this example the Arch is a theory. The angle of yet unknown stones are hypothesis. The measured stones are facts. At this point we have not proven that the invisible thing is an arch and the arch theory is correct. We do however have some evidence that lends a certain level of validity to our theory.


Sorry that's the best I can do.

 

[BENTLEY]

Just pulled out my copy. This is all from Chapter 10 FWIW.

Look at it again. It's all from On the Imperfection of the Geological Record - which appears to be chapter 9.
Chapter 10 is On The Geological Succession of Organic Beings.

I have not heard any objections from you about the hominid fossils that we have found since then and that I furnished a link for. Do you doubt the validity of these fossils? On what grounds? Or did you not even bother to look at the evidence you were presented?

I thought I replied to that but maybe it was OneBrow's post I responded to. Let me go back and look at it.

 

[BENTLEY]

heyhey let's talk hominid fossils

https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html

This is the link you sent, right?

there are now thousands of hominid fossils. They are however mostly fragmentary, often consisting of single bones or isolated teeth. Complete skulls and skeletons are rare.

Ok, so we're talking about singular bones/teeth and citing them as the "missing link." I see the pictures. Let's see how they interpret them:

There are a number of clear trends (which were neither continuous nor uniform) from early australopithecines to recent humans: increasing brain size, increasing body size, increasing use of and sophistication in tools, decreasing tooth size, decreasing skeletal robustness. There are no clear dividing lines between some of the later gracile australopithecines and some of the early Homo, between erectus and archaic sapiens, or archaic sapiens and modern sapiens.

Despite this, there is little consensus on what our family tree is. Everyone accepts that the robust australopithecines (aethiopicus, robustus and boisei) are not ancestral to us, being a side branch that left no descendants. Whether H. habilis is descended from A. afarensis, africanus, both of them, or neither of them, is still a matter of debate. It is possible that none of the known australopithecines is our ancestor.

A number of new genera and species have been discovered within the last decade (Ar. ramidus, Au. amanensis, Au. bahrelghazali, Au. garhi, Orrorin, Kenyanthropus, Sahelanthropus) and no consensus has yet formed on how they are related to each other or to humans. It is generally accepted that Homo erectus is descended from Homo habilis (or, at least, some of the fossils often assigned to habilis), but the relationship between erectus, sapiens and the Neandertals is still unclear. Neandertal affinities can be detected in some specimens of both archaic and modern sapiens.

I'm shaking my head. Did you read that? This evolutionist admits the lack of consensus but you're claiming it's case closed evidence - the "missing link." This evolutionist gives no answers - just a lot of we're-not-sures.

This is not case closed evidence, dude. It's not. I'm not gonna accept evidence that even among evolutionists there's no clear consensus, and I'm sorry that you have.
Now is when some make assumptions about me - that I just can't accept that I might have descended from an ape. THAT'S why he won't join the rational side - thus making the assumption that I'm not rational about this. It's the same as the assumptions mormons make about why so-and-so stopped going to church. Because he wants to sin or he was offended by some member. Not that he did a little research into church history. I hate that people do this. But I probably do it too. Whatevs. I was an evolutionist, so I had no problem with the idea that we descended from apes. But the evidence for it is lacking. It was really eye opening to look at what was claimed as evidence. We got a buncha bones and somebody says hey this looks kinda human but also kinda like an ape - could it be? And then the imagination fills in the gaps. I'm oversimplifying, yes, but not much. People hear some scientist rattle off all this jargon and assume they know what they're talking about. Read this story:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution They found some skulls and now the scientific community is all "what?"

Analysis of the skull and other remains at Dmanisi suggests that scientists have been too ready to name separate species of human ancestors in Africa. Many of those species may now have to be wiped from the textbooks.

"What all this screams out for is more and better specimens. We need skeletons, more complete material, so we can look at them from head to toe," he added. "Any time a scientist says 'we've got this figured out' they are probably wrong. It's not the end of the story."

why do we need better specimens if the case for evolution has been closed?


I'm not going to convince you guys to be less certain of something so uncertain. Debates on internet forums are kind of a joke in themselves. My day-to-day existence doesn't really require me to know where I originated from. But the guys vehemently claiming that they know where man came from only provide evidence that requires a lot of conjecture. I won't sacrifice my reason to be part of the majority. Keep huffing and puffing, evolutionists. But rather than getting your panties in a bunch because some people still won't succumb to your gap-filled evidence, why don't you go out and find the evidence. Or maybe the lack of evidence is why you're huffing and puffing.

It's a theory. It ain't my theory, so burden of proof isn't mine.

Did you guys hear about Francis Crick and his panspermia theory? It's pretty hilarious. But we're veering out of evolution and into intelligent design territory.
Here's Crick's theory of where the DNA molecule he discovered actually came from (if you want a laugh):
https://www.cracked.com/article_19777_5-great-scientists-who-believed-wildly-unscientific-things_p2.html

 

[BENTLEY]

Berlinski himself prefers to be known as a writer rather than as a scientist. Why would anybody take him seriously?

I can talk to heyhey and onebrow but you're only sticking your toe into the conversation to be a dou.che. Nice google of wikipedia. Your research on Berlinski is vast.

 

[One Brow]

Sorry that's the best I can do.

I understand your point, I am just accustomed to seeing the words used differently. Gravitational lensing would have been a prediction, not a separate hypothesis, in the language I am used to seeing. Do you see any difference between the prediction of a theory and a hypothesis, and if so, what would they be?

 

[One Brow]

I'm shaking my head. Did you read that? This evolutionist admits the lack of consensus but you're claiming it's case closed evidence - the "missing link." This evolutionist gives no answers - just a lot of we're-not-sures.

There is never any guarantee that any given fossil is ancestral to any other being, living or fossilized. The vast majority of populations die out. They are replaced by their cousins, descendants from closely-related, more-successful populations. Ultimately, the question is not whether any australopithecus is our ancestor. If we didn't descend from Lucy and her kin, we descend from a slightly different, undiscovered populations that greatly resembled them.

This is not case closed evidence, dude.

The case is never closed, and never will be. Science does not grant the ultimate answer. You can only get 99.99999999999999% confidence, giver or take a few degrees of magnitude.

hey this looks kinda human but also kinda like an ape - could it be? And then the imagination fills in the gaps. I'm oversimplifying, yes, but not much. People hear some scientist rattle off all this jargon and assume they know what they're talking about. Read this story:

Let's be clear on what that story does, and does not, call into question. It called into question the previously narrow limits that had been set upon early human diversity within a population. It did not call into question the ability of anthropologists to describe the additional features of a larger animal from a smaller part; that ability was *confirmed* by the finding. It did not call into question the basic lineage of men as apes.

I won't sacrifice my reason to be part of the majority.

To paraphrase Orac (the blogger), we need to keep open minds, but not so open that our brains fall out.

So far, we have discussed fossils. That's one line of evidence for evolution. This links adds 29 additional lines of evidence:

https://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Did you guys hear about Francis Crick and his panspermia theory? It's pretty hilarious. But we're veering out of evolution and into intelligent design territory.

Actually, panspermia would be an abiogenesis hypothesis, having nothing to do with evolution.

 

[One Brow]

...speak for yourself, Brow! From the standpoint of evolution, the obvious gulf between man and ape today is strange.

Every feature that is common to the other apes (gibbon, orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee), humans have. That includes you.

Evolutionary theory holds that as animals progressed up the evolutionary scale, they became more capable of surviving. Why, then, is the “inferior” ape family still in existence, but not a single one of the presumed intermediate forms, which were supposed to be more advanced in evolution?

1) Evolution does not say species advance.
2) Any given adult orangutan, gorilla, or chimpanzee is stronger enough to literally tear the limbs from your body. They are very good at surviving in their natural habitats, and much better than humans at doing so.
3) Our ancestors fought, just like we do. We are the descendants of the victors.

The evidence is clear that belief in “ape-men” is unfounded. Instead, humans have all the earmarks of being created—separate and distinct from any animal. Humans reproduce only after their own kind. They do so today and have always done so in the past. Any apelike creatures that lived in the past were just that—apes, or monkeys—not humans. And fossils of ancient humans that differ slightly from humans of today simply demonstrate variety within the human family, just as today we have many varieties living side by side. There are seven-foot humans and there are pygmies, with varying sizes and shapes of skeletons. But all belong to the same human “kind,” not animal “kind.”

In multiple ways, humans show every sign of having common ancestry with apes.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

In another thread, perhaps on another day if you don't wish to have it now, I would enjoy having a discussion with you about this. For example, I don't think we mean "observation" in quite the same way, but I would be interested to hear what you mean, rather than assuming it, when you feel like discussing it.

Am I right in observing that you are not as interested as you made it sound in this post?

See post #333.

 

[MVP]

So he isn't allowed to doubt, or have questions that might be valid, because he chooses to identify himself as a writer? Seems awfully dogmatic.

Sure he can. Just why would anybody take any of those 0.14% scientists who do not agree with evolution seriously is beyond my understanding.

 

[MVP]

I can talk to heyhey and onebrow but you're only sticking your toe into the conversation to be a dou.che. Nice google of wikipedia. Your research on Berlinski is vast.

I could talk to if you would quote more reputable sources. If Berlinski is great for you than we have nothing to discuss.

 

[One Brow]

“If enough monkeys pecked away at typewriters long enough,” the argument of evolutionists goes, “they could eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare.” Up to now they felt safe enough passing out this “scientific” pronouncement. Who could disprove it? But now this straw that they have been grasping at for so long has been demolished.

Dr. William Bennett, a professor of physics at Yale University, specializes in designing computer programs to solve unusual scientific problems. He has applied the rules of probability to the typing monkeys, and programmed computers to simulate their pecking of the keys. The report in the New York “Times,” gives the computer’s verdict. Dr. Bennett calculates that “if a trillion monkeys were to type 10 randomly chosen characters a second it would take, on the average, more than a trillion times as long as the universe has been in existence just to produce the sentence: ‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’”

The answer from the computer is, “It is not to be.”

How much selection did Bennett apply to the problem? None, because it was hack-work. If, after every letter typed, you remove all the pages with mistypes and replace them with copies of the correctly typed versions, you'll have Shakespeare in no time at all, less than a thousand monkeys.