Again, "You could believe in a created biology with a broad ability to adapt and it would serve you just as well. You are simply trying to understand the system and it's abilities and limits." Evolution is a belief supported by logical fallacy.
Apparently you have convinced yourself that a strawman leaves you with no alternative. Interesting justification.
That's correct, it's a fallacy.
Ah, another strawman that leaves you no alternative. Interesting justification.
All you have really managed to convince me of here is that you have no idea how the scientific process works. Despite that, you're completely willing to ascribe all kinds of weird beliefs and behaviors to scientists. Throughout my entire career, I have never met anyone who believes or behaves the way you seem to think scientists do.
A scientific theory is an explanation that ties together the known facts, which can be used to predict other facts. Those predictions are called "hypotheses." I realize that a large part of the effort of creationists to discredit evolution is simply to disregard the huge body of empirical evidence that led to the development of the theory and support it. However, that evidence won't go away, and neither will the theory. Despite your desires in the matter, trying to substitute a fake "theory" that excludes the principles of evolution won't work: biological science would stagnate without the theory that allows us to make predictive, testable hypotheses.
I know it won't happen, but I would highly suggest learning about the scientific method, preferably from those whose business it is to teach scientists, before you continue to try to impose bizarre beliefs and motivations on scientists.
BTW, since you prefer to portray scientists as bogeymen instead of making even a slight effort to find out anything about science or scientists, I'm not going to respond to any more of your posts.
All you have really managed to convince me of here is that you have no idea what the difference between science and philosophy really is.
"Despite that, you're completely willing to ascribe all kinds of weird beliefs and behaviors to scientists.
Name one.
" Throughout my entire career, I have never met anyone who believes or behaves the way you seem to think scientists do.
Name one.
"A scientific theory is an explanation that ties together the known facts, which can be used to predict other facts. Those predictions are called "hypotheses." I realize that a large part of the effort of creationists to discredit evolution is simply to disregard the huge body of empirical evidence that led to the development of the theory and support it."
Please show where I have ever tried to disregard any empirical evidence.
"However, that evidence won't go away, and neither will the theory. Despite your desires in the matter, trying to substitute a fake "theory" that excludes the principles of evolution won't work: biological science would stagnate without the theory that allows us to make predictive, testable hypotheses."
Please show how substituting 'a belief in a created biology with a broad ability to adapt' would make any difference. Without creating strawmen that supposedly leave you no choice, that is.
All you are doing is observing the effects of an existing complex system and then claiming that those effects actually created the system in the first place. That is a logical fallacy no matter how you look at it.
"I know it won't happen, but I would highly suggest learning about the scientific method, preferably from those whose business it is to teach scientists, before you continue to try to impose bizarre beliefs and motivations on scientists."
I know it won't happen, but I would highly suggest learning the difference between evidence and fallacy before you continue mischaracterizing those who disagree with you.
"BTW, since you prefer to portray scientists as bogeymen instead of making even a slight effort to find out anything about science or scientists, I'm not going to respond to any more of your posts."
Ah, mischaracterize your opponent, declare victory and abandon the field. Like we haven't seen that tactic used before...
Well, the scientific method ain't exactly rocket science, exDemMom. It all boils down to seven steps:
(1) Make observation(s);I'm scratching my head trying to see what the scientific method has to do with Darwin's theory.... The question reminds me of something Bacon said:
(2) Ask a question about what is observed;
(3) Do research (background);
(4) Formulate a hypothesis;
(5) Test the hypothesis;
(6) Analyze the results;
(7) Communicate the results.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects [e.g., as "no data," as Stephen Jay Gould put it]; in order that by this great and pernicious predeterminism the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.... [W]hat a man had rather be true he more readily believes....Sir Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626, English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, literary artist — an absolutely brilliant, amazing personality) is usually credited as the originator of the scientific method, an inductive method based on empirical observation, rather than a deductive one; i.e., one based on logical reasoning. He opined that Aristotle "made his natural philosophy a mere bondservant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless." Purely logical processes are ineluctibly "subjective" ones. On the one hand, Bacon wanted to expunge "subjectivity," indeed all of "metaphysics," from science. On the other, he also recognized this:
The sciences which we possess come for the most part from the Greeks. For what has been added by Roman, Arabic, or later writers is not much nor of much importance; and whatever it is, it is built on the foundation of Greek discoveries.Arguably Bacon's own method was built on the Greeks, specifically including Aristotle's theories of causation. There are four Aristotelian causes: formal, material, efficient, and final. Bacon retains the first three, but banishes the fourth — final cause. Of final cause, Bacon wrote: "...final causes...have relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of the universe, and from this source have strangely defiled philosophy." Thus, he suggests, they are "subjective" — that is, relating to the human sphere exclusively.
Formal cause in science refers to "initial conditions"; material cause to "matter"; efficient cause to "energy." Final cause has been banished, on the ground that it clearly relates "to the nature of man," and presumably not to the nature of the universe.
But this is a rather sweeping claim. In Aristotle, final cause is "the cause for which all the other causes exist." Translation: Final cause refers to purposes, goals. While I agree with Bacon that a scientist must be ever aware of how his own preferences and presuppositions shape his science, he seems to reject out of hand the notion that nature is purposeful in its operations. Yet I for one cannot conceive of a biological function absent the idea of final cause — to purposes, ends, goals to be met.
You yourself, exDemMom, point to just this problem:
To me, what is absolutely mind-boggling is that life is maintained in every single organism through the process of countless gadzillions of chemical reactions, and those reactions occur when and where they are needed without any conscious input at all. The fact that gadzillions of chemical reactions can coordinate so well in such a manner that seems so unlikely, however, does not suggest to me that God is up there in Heaven directing all those reactions... I'd think that even for God, that would get boring.A couple of observations. (1) You cannot show/demonstrate that "all those reactions" occur "without any conscious input." (I'm not talking about God's consciousness here.) (2) Absent direction toward a global purpose, how do you explain how "gadzillions of chemical reactions can coordinate so well" in biological situations? Does DNA bark out the orders here, or what?
I have read that DNA is not directly "information," but an encoding of information from a non-local "source." A set of mechanical processes is too information poor to account for the staggering complexity, cooperation, and "success" of the astronomical number of biological processes that must be dynamically coordinated at all levels of the bodily system in order for the "global" organism to maintain its existence.
But we know from Newton that there are no such things as "non-local" causes in nature.... Generally, objects have to be in close proximity in order to affect each other.
However, quantum theory puts non-locality at center stage — along with the critically important (subjective) observer....
Well, enuf for now. I'd love to do a little turn re: Sir Isaac Newton. Maybe another time!
Oh just one more thing before I sign off: You wrote —
The premise of creation is that it is a perfect creation made by a perfect God. It therefore has no need to adapt because it is perfect. I see no evidence that that is the case. What I see is that biological systems are full of features that make no sense unless one accepts that they arose through random events (which aren't as random as creationists try to portray them; they do conform to physical laws which are quite constraining).I'm afraid I have to agree with Gourmet Dan that this is a total strawman. For God did not create a "perfect" creation at all, just a "good" one. Had God made creation "perfect," everything would be determined; there'd be no room for human free will in it.
Plus where do the "quite constraining" physical/natural laws come from? Do they not fall into the category of "non-observables," intangible, immaterial entities?
Among the "bizarre beliefs and motivations of scientists" seems to be the idea that only that which can be directly observed — material objects — can be said to truly exist. So how does science account for the existence of the physical laws?
In closing, the scientific method can give you "fact"; but it cannot give you "value" — what the facts actually mean. And this is why I do not share your belief that "expert science" is an adequate or desirable guide to public policy.
Thank you so much for writing, exDemMom!