Posted on 11/29/2004 6:52:41 AM PST by PatrickHenry
I wondered why you brought it into a discussion about the volume of geologic data as yet unexamined.
I believe Stoke's Law, as you describe it, was in play during the formation of the earth as we know it. I also believe it does not operate alone. How does this law apply, for example, to reptiles ascending a creek bed?
So what? That's probably true, but it still doesn't make creationism a science.
I didn't know the geologic column was a "device," but then, as you mentioned earlier, I am woefully ignorant.
I have given you several predictions of the current theory of evolution. If any of these turns out to be untrue, then it is false. Note that this is not the same thing as saying that the fact that these predictions are true implies that the theory is true. Evolution will never be proven. But, then again, neither will any other theory or law in science. This is how science works. Ideas (such as evolution) are formulated. Predictions are made from these ideas as to what will be observed under given conditions. Observations are made to attempt to confirm these predictions. If the predictions are shown false, the idea is abandoned. If many predictions are confirmed, then the idea becomes a theory (or law, depending on whether it is an explanation or a description of observations). There is never any proof of it, however. If you don't like this, then stay away from studying science. However, whatever you like or dislike, evolution is a scientific theory and creationism is not. Therefore, science classes should teach evolution and not creationism. (Creationism could and probably should be taught in other settings, however.)
Predicting the future has never been a feature of any science? Why should biology be any different?
You're right, the evolutionist hardly ever addresses the FACT that his THEORY is based on assumptions.
Sigh. As are all scientific theories. As are all theories. As is all language.
Ever read any school or even college text which made this point clear? Probably not.
My, you speak so forcefully, given the lack of observation behind it. Every scientist has this drilled into his noggen just about before he stops wetting his diaper. It is a fundamental tenate of the scientific method.
However, it is an issue. That is why you had all those experiments where they tried to show that you can make amino acids using a particular atmosphere and current. Without proving that you can spontaneously generate life, evolution is dead.
Dated Creationist horsemanure. It has been pretty clear for some time now that there can be slow, non-miraculous pathways to cellular life. It is not necessary to assume the miracle this argument depends on.
However, even those experiments where amino acids were produced; huge assumptions in that they don’t really know what the atmosphere was like at the time were hand waved away.
They have some guesses, but no real certain information and an amino acid is still miles from a living cell.'
At bottom, nobody has anything but guesses, some guesses, however, are better than others. There have been plenty of trapped atmosphere observations where a chronological column was clear--as in ice and ambergris and several other such. And, at any rate, this isn't really a very telling arguement against the basic picture now emerging, which is more concerned about ambient tempererature, rather than specific atmospheric composition.
But we would rather just use (interpret) the information based on a test I won’t even discuss any further.
I wouldn't want to either, if I were you. This is a classic strawman--making up a theory that science doesn't hold, and then refuting it soundly--you must be so proud.
After a tirade about how there are no assumptions in evolution dI list them.
Show me where I said we don't make assumptions in evolution. Of course we make assumptions in evolution, just as we do in every branch of human affairs.
Then you arm wave them away.
I did not "wave them away", I pointed out that half weren't true, and I ceded the rest. Read more carefully
Just the first assumption is a MOUNTAIN.
So you say. I think that's just an ASSUMPTION, and I don't think science gives a tinker's poop about it one way or another. It is not a relevant question to biological science as presently practiced. Science doesn't care whether God-did-it or a nasty bit of lightning did it. The result material manifestations are the same, and that's all science cares for or has competence about: material manifestations.
Nonsense on stilts. All we have is a frozen picture in time about events happening billions of years ago--just as is the case for evolutionary theory. Aside from the fact that there is a great deal better ratio of observed data to potential data in biology, than there could possibly ever be in astronomy.
The Intelligent Design science is making strong headway into perspective change.
Go ahead, you old bluffer, you. I'll just suspend the conversation until you get back to me, so you don't get confused.
Meanwhile, I've also posed a question several times that never seems to get answered: How do theories of evolution demonstrate the process of evolution itself?
Nobody answers because it's a nonsensical question. How do "theories of gravity" "demonstrate" the process of gravity? Theories just sit there--clever humans demonstrate things in support or denial of them.
Just to repeat myself once more. If you can't make with a fruit fly--are you a fruit fly? Shall I repeat the fundamental biological definition of speciation within multicellular species?
Yes. Does that not make sense to you? It doesn't to me, either. You're the one saying "There's nothing to see here, folks! No hard data, just the imaginings of a few evolutionists creationists.
But Sedgwick bent over backwards to interpret the geologic data of his day as the sediments of one big flood. He was the outgoing president of the Geological Society in 1831 when he at last admitted his failure.
Bearing upon this difficult question, there is, I think, one great negative conclusion now incontestably established -- that the vast masses of diluvial gravel, scattered almost over the surface of the earth, do not belong to one violent and transitory period. It was indeed a most unwarranted conclusion, when we assumed the contemporaneity of all the superficial gravel on the earth. We saw the clearest traces of diluvial action, and we had, in our sacred histories, the record of a general deluge. On this double testimony it was, that we gave a unity to a vast succession of phenomena, not one of which we perfectly comprehended, and under the name diluvium, classed them all together.Given how you are saying he just made it up to suit his predispositions in the first place and it's not as if there's any hard evidence one way or the other, I don't see how that could have happened.
He's going to just dodge that one. Guess I did OK.
Long-windedness does not make up for lack of substance, accompanied by a bizarre allergy to the scientific method's reliance on inference as applied to biology.
I am still waiting for your detailed hydrological explanation as to how floodwaters build a columnarly stratified metamorphic rock the size of a state, and cut a big gash through it.
You don't know anything but the pig-ignorant science available on YEC sites. Don't know big rocks sinks faster than small ones. Don't know sampling error. Don't know the history you argue. Don't know squat, and nobody can stop you from coming back dumb as a stump on the next thread.
And that's a list of your strengths.
I an not baiting and switching, I am kindly awaiting the arrival of your hydrological explanation as to how flood waters created the Colorado Plateau, and cut a mile deep gash in it.
The only predictions you've given are what anyone should expect to find in a static record. You have not predicted or observed the process.
Chuggy, the reason it "sides" with "evolutionists" is because evolution is basically a fact.
Actually XP has evolved, and some would say without intelligent influence.
The current form of Windows is the result of marketlace selection rather than intelligent design. What you don't seem capable of understanding is that the source of change (whether random, lawful, planned,or the result of devine intervention) doesn't matter. What matters is selection, which determines which changes survive. The rules of selection continue to operate even if variation is "intelligently" planned.
As a conservative, you accept that economies cannot be successfully planned, you know that wealth cannot be "intelligently" distributed, you know that you cannot predict the marketplace in detail.
But somehow you believe that a designer (who for political reasons, absolutely cannot be identified as God) can plan the whole intricate web of life, with all its interactions.
If you believe it was done by God in one poof, fine. But short of this, there is no way that life can be designed without the operation of selection. Just as Windows could not have reached its present form in one poof.
I know. LOL You need to read more of my postings.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1291515/posts
Then why does science set up experiments to observe processes all the while postulating what WILL HAPPEN if a theory is correct?
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