Posted on 05/12/2006 12:13:47 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
In his op-ed "Evolution's bottom line," published in The New York Times (May 12, 2006), Holden Thorp emphasizes the practical applications of evolution, writing, "creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does," and citing several specific examples.
In places where evolution education is undermined, he argues, it isn't only students who will be the poorer for it: "Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?" He concludes, "Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school."
Thorp is chairman of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina.
By the standard of your link, ID has been falsified. I'm glad to hear you admit this. Most people would try to move the goalposts.
You're changing the subject.
Even evo scientists call evolution a theory - NOT a scientific law.
Both ID and evolution are the principal THEORIES, so BOTH should be TAUGHT or NEITHER should be taught.
Neither THEORY has been proven.
I'm sorry that I shook your blind faith in evolution, which is why you could only respond with a put-down.
(The Discovery Institute would not be the first place I would look for accurate information on science.)
Different posters, same talking point; therefore, same link.
Discovery.org is my first choice.
btw, I couldn't access your last ping.
It isn't a putdown. It is a statement of fact. ID officialldeclares that an irreducibly complex mechanism cannot perform its function with any elements removed.
This is falsified by numerous existing blood clotting mechanisms that are simpler than what ID proponents called irrducible.
If ID cannot correctly identify when a mechanism is irreducible, it has no explanitory power at all.
Please read and learn these definitions (from a google search, with additions from this thread).
We can't have a meaningful discussion if you continue to use "theory" and "law" and "proven" as a layman would, rather than as a scientist would. I know you would like to rewrite all of evolutionary science, but lets at least keep the language, and its proper usage, intact!
Theory: a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "THEORIES can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses." Addendum: "Theories do not grow up to be laws. Theories explain laws." (Courtesy of VadeRetro.)
Theory: A scientifically testable general principle or body of principles offered to explain observed phenomena. In scientific usage, a theory is distinct from a hypothesis (or conjecture) that is proposed to explain previously observed phenomena. For a hypothesis to rise to the level of theory, it must predict the existence of new phenomena that are subsequently observed. A theory can be overturned if new phenomena are observed that directly contradict the theory. [Source]
When a scientific theory has a long history of being supported by verifiable evidence, it is appropriate to speak about "acceptance" of (not "belief" in) the theory; or we can say that we have "confidence" (not "faith") in the theory. It is the dependence on verifiable data and the capability of testing that distinguish scientific THEORIES from matters of faith.
Hypothesis: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; "a scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory"; "he proposed a fresh theory of alkalis that later was accepted in chemical practices."
Proof: Except for math and geometry, there is little that is actually proved. Even well-established scientific THEORIES can't be conclusively proved, because--at least in principle--a counter-example might be discovered. Scientific THEORIES are always accepted provisionally, and are regarded as reliable only because they are supported (not proved) by the verifiable facts they purport to explain and by the predictions which they successfully make. All scientific THEORIES are subject to revision (or even rejection) if new data are discovered which necessitates this.
Law: a generalization that describes recurring facts or events in nature; "the laws of thermodynamics."
Model: a simplified representation designed to illuminate complex processes; a hypothetical description of a complex entity or process; a physical or mathematical representation of a process that can be used to predict some aspect of the process.
Speculation: a hypothesis that has been formed by speculating or conjecturing (usually with little hard evidence). When a scientist speculates he is drawing on experience, patterns and somewhat unrelated things that are known or appear to be likely. This becomes a very informed guess.
Guess: an opinion or estimate based on incomplete evidence, or on little or no information.
Assumption: premise: a statement that is assumed to be true and from which a conclusion can be drawn; "on the assumption that he has been injured we can infer that he will not to play"
Impression: a vague or subjective idea in which some confidence is placed; "his impression of her was favorable"; "what are your feelings about the crisis?"; "it strengthened my belief in his sincerity"; "I had a feeling that she was lying."
Opinion: a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty.
Observation: any information collected with the senses.
Data: factual information, especially information organized for analysis or used to reason or make decisions.
Fact: when an observation is confirmed repeatedly and by many independent and competent observers, it can become a fact.
Religion: Theistic: 1. the belief in a superhuman controlling power, esp. in a personal God or gods entitled to obedience and worship. 2. the expression of this in worship. 3. a particular system of faith and worship.
Religion: Non-Theistic: The word religion has many definitions, all of which can embrace sacred lore and wisdom and knowledge of God or gods, souls and spirits. Religion deals with the spirit in relation to itself, the universe and other life. Essentially, religion is belief in spiritual beings. As it relates to the world, religion is a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life.
Belief: any cognitive content (perception) held as true; religious faith.
Faith: the belief in something for which there is no material evidence or empirical proof; acceptance of ideals, beliefs, etc., which are not necessarily demonstrable through experimentation or observation. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.
Dogma: a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without evidence.
[Last revised 2/23/06]
I don't understand this. Clarify?
Coyoteman, I guess your forgot. You sent me a ping, and the page could not be accessed. I guess a fluke in the system for that page. No matter.
Guess there's two sides to every story (or maybe twenty-two)
FALSIFIABILITY:
7b. Is intelligent design falsifiable? Is Darwinism falsifiable? Yes to the first question, no to the second. Intelligent design is eminently falsifiable. Specified complexity in general and irreducible complexity in biology are within the theory of intelligent design the key markers of intelligent agency. If it could be shown that biological systems like the bacterial flagellum that are wonderfully complex, elegant, and integrated could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process (which by definition is non-telic), then intelligent design would be falsified on the general grounds that one doesn't invoke intelligent causes when purely natural causes will do. In that case Occam's razor finishes off intelligent design quite nicely.
If there were no continuity in genes, Darwinism would be false. Darwin didn't know about genes, but we do.
How is it possible to falsify intelligent design in general (to me a belief that the the universe is the result of the actions of a creative designer? It is possible to falsify the Intelligent Designer of the ID movement, by showing naturalistic paths to achieve the apparently irreducible complexity. To me, this is the fatal flaw of the whole movement as many will inevitability jump to the conclusion that falsification of the second means that the first is also falsified. This was the whole problem of Paley and Darwin and God of the gaps thinking.
For a specific example (e.g. flagellum), this is correct.
8. On the other hand, falsifying Darwinism seems effectively impossible. To do so one must show that no conceivable Darwinian pathway could have led to a given biological structure. What's more, Darwinists are apt to retreat into the murk of historical contingency to shore up their theory. For instance, Allen Orr in his critique of Behe's work shortly after Darwin's Black Box appeared remarked, "We have no guarantee that we can reconstruct the history of a biochemical
pathway." What he conceded with one hand, however, he was quick to retract with the other. He added, "But even if we can't, its irreducible complexity cannot count against its gradual evolution."
I, for one, find the argument that Darwinism is unfalsifiable a persuasive one. That does not make it untrue, of course, but it does suggest that "Darwinism is a fact" and "gravitation is a fact" seem to be in two different categories, for we can conceive of observations that would falsify the second but not any that would falsify the first.
This is false, as noted above. Additionally, given any set of empirical data, we can have an infinite number of equally good models. So "no conceivable Darwinian pathway" is impossible of attainment.
both evolution in general and darwinian evolution are falsifiable. Evolution in general (descent with modification) is falsifiable by detailed study of fossil lineages and molecular biological studies. Darwinian evolution (natural and sexual selection) is falsifiable by field and laboratory studies. As I recall, neodarwinian evolution also includes for geographic isolation
Correct!
9. The fact is that for complex systems like the bacterial flagellum no biologist has or is anywhere close to reconstructing its history in Darwinian terms. Is Darwinian theory therefore falsified? Hardly. I have yet to witness one committed Darwinist concede that any feature of nature might even in principle provide countervailing evidence to Darwinism. In place of such a concession one is instead always treated to an admission of ignorance. Thus it's not that Darwinism has been falsified or disconfirmed, but that we simply don't know enough about the biological system in question and its historical context to determine how the Darwinian mechanism might have produced it.
"I have no proof" is not equivalent to "There is no proof," so this is specious. Fermat's Last Theorem and the Four Color Theorem remained unproved for centuries, but today they stand proved.
Correct! (However, Darwin gave a few examples which he said would falsify his theory). - The problem is that any theory claiming that a process whose mechanism is unknown occurred supernaturally is, in principle, always falsifyable (in the sense Dembski describes in 7b), namely by verifying that a natural mechanism is sufficient. But any theory claiming that a process whose mechanism is unknown occurred by a purely natural, reductionistic mechanism can, in principle, never be falsified: an unknown mechanism may always be awaiting detection and verification. Falsification of an ID origin requires knowing just ONE feasible Darwinian mechanism, but falsification of a Darwinian origin requires knowing ALL formulatable mechanisms to be impossible. This asymmetry shows that ID and Darwinism are not alternative scientific explanations on the same level. - A related problem with ID is its strict "either - or": either a process occurs naturally or it occurs supernaturally, implying that God has nothing to do in a naturally occurring process, which clearly contradicts biblical theology. He gifted creation at least with Van Till's functional integrity, if not with continuing, more concrete providential actions. How about the possibility of God causing a natural process to occur despite an infinitesimally small probability? - The basic problem with Darwinism, on the other hand, is that no test is feasible for its fundamental premise that the known evolutionary mechanisms were sufficient to produce the biosphere of the Earth within the past 4 billion years (macroevolution in the sense of producing fundamentally novel functions is required).
10 For instance, to neutralize the challenge that the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum raises against Darwinism, Ken Miller employs the following argument from ignorance. Like the rest of the biological community, Miller doesn't know how the bacterial flagellum originated. The biological community's ignorance about the flagellum, however, doesn't end with its origin but extends to its very functioning. For instance, according to David DeRosier, "The mechanism of the flagellar motor remains a mystery." Miller takes this admission of ignorance by DeRosier and uses it to advantage. In
Finding Darwin's God he writes: "Before [Darwinian] evolution is excoriated for failing to explain the evolution of the flagellum, I'd request that the scientific community at least be allowed to figure out how its various parts work." But in the article by DeRosier that Miller cites, Miller conveniently omits the following quote: "More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human."
Miller's request must be granted. And DeRosier didn't say that the flagellum was intelligently designed, just that it appeared so.
11. So apparently we know enough about the bacterial flagellum to know that it is designed or at least design-like. Indeed, we know what most of its individual parts do. Moreover, we know that the flagellum is irreducibly complex. Far from being a weakness of irreducible complexity as Miller suggests, it is a strength of the concept that one can determine whether a system is irreducibly complex without knowing the precise role that each part in the system plays (one need only knock out individual parts and see if function is preserved; knowing what exactly the individual parts do is not necessary). Miller's appeal to ignorance obscures just how much we know about the flagellum, how compelling the case is for its design, and how unfalsifiable Darwinism is when Darwinists proclaim that the Darwinian selection mechanism can account for it despite the absence of any identifiable biochemical pathway.
The flagellum is certainly design-like; whether it is designed is a different matter. - The knock-out test would be convincing if the parts to be tested were atomic, indivisible. This is not the case. Behe's mouse-trap model doesn't apply that easily. Knocking out a component protein might destroy all activity, but a slightly simpler derivative of the protein might be found which makes the whole system work just a little less efficiently. This is just what Darwinism claims. But this is what would have to be shown impossible to prove irreducibility - a proposition every bit as immense as Darwinism's task of verifying that an evolutionary path was possible. In virtually all specific cases of complex systems, Darwinists are incapable of proving that its origin by evolution works, and IDers appear to be incapable of proving that it doesn't.
CONFIRMATION: Read the rest at link.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Apologetics/2001Dembsk1.html
Convenient how some scientists made up their own dictionary.
I think I'll do that, too. :)
You have twice ignored my posts, yet you keep posting to me. Why?
I think I'll do that, too. :)
If you want to argue science, you have to stick to certain rules. We aren't just making this up, much as you might believe that.
Laws are kind of formulas, "you do this--you get that." Mathematical, very simplistic. They do not grow up to be theories.
Hypotheses, if they stand up to a lot of testing, do grow up to be theories. A theory is about as high as you can get in science. There is no "next step" for a theory. There is only down, and that takes some real evidence to accomplish.
I know you don't like evolution, but science and the scientific method have evolved over hundreds of years. All sciences use pretty much the same rules.
If you don't even understand the rules (including the definitions), you can't argue against the results!
They did this in an effort to cut down on unnecessary flame wars caused by people fighting over two different meanings of the same word, without realizing it.
To my point of view it has helped things out.
Cheers!
<< According to your asinine version of "teach the controversy," flat earth theory would be taught in class alongside geosphericism (as these are the two front-running scientific theories), geocentrism would be taught alongside heliocentrism (as these are the two front-running scientific theories),>>
While I have never run into any gen-yoo-wine flat-earthers, I have run into several geocentrists among creationists. I kid you not. I think there is a significant minority of those who really "get into" creationism that end up there.
There is no denying the fact that the Bible repeatedly claims that the Earth does not move. Both Luther and Calvin used those passages to dismiss Copernicus as a kook.
Most modern creationists go into contortions in their attempts to explain away these biblical statements, but some of them just go all the way and embrace them. Seems to me to be completely inconsistent for them not to do so, since they are so intent on reading the first chapters of Genesis as literal scientific truth.
What I have found is that they find literal truth where they want it to be literal, and they find symbolism and non-literal stuff where they need it to be non-literal. The basis for the choices seems to be entirely arbitrary. The Bible is like a wax-nose in their hands.
Actually I came up with the original definitions based on a lot of web and dictionary searching. PH started a thread to work on the definitions as a group project, and a lot of good suggestions were submitted. As far as I know that thread is still open for comments and suggestions.
These definitions are meant to give new posters, as well as some regulars, an idea of how scientists define scientific terms, and how basic dictionaries define other relevant terms.
As you point out, this should cut down on "on unnecessary flame wars caused by people fighting over two different meanings of the same word" -- but some people simply will not accept the standard definitions of terms because they do not like the implications. For example, theory has a specific meaning to scientists, and it is not the "guess" or "hunch" meaning often attributed to it by the layman. But those who want to promote ID as a theory have to denigrate the definition of a theory to do so.
This is serious stuff because specific words mean specific things. If a "scientific theory" is equated with a "wild guess" then somebody is trying to sell us a bill of goods, first by misrepresenting the scientific method and secondly by trying to slip the Trojan horse through the gates. Dishonest in either case.
Involuntary sophomoric *snicker* !
I'm sorry Coyoteman--I forgot it was you, thought it was either CarolinaGuitarman or PH.
And PH, forgot the obligatory courtesy *ping* on the earlier post. My bad.
Cheers!
You are right; but I did NOT claim to give a REASON for it.
You are getting your panties in a wad for nothing.
IT was THIS statement that got our entire conversation going;
|
Preaching about Hell without being totally broken-hearted about those one is trying warn -- well, that just doesn't seem right to this old reprobate. |
Consider the oft rejected argument that life is a miracle because the odds of organic mud being struck by lightning to spontaneous produce one-celled life are so low. What irreducible complexity asks you to believe, is that science could possibly innumerate all the ways an organic event can occur. This is not possible because there are an infinity of possible ways history could have produced an organic event.
Science only very rarely proceeds by exhaustive enumeration. It proceeds by induction on a very limited set of collected data, and the measure of confidence we have in scientific theories is largely determined by observing if a given theory does a useful job of predicting events as yet unobserved, under critical scrutiny, without a competing theory managing to do a remotely comparable job.
In that light, Darwinian theory emmenently qualifies, as it has been successfully predicting what would be found in certain strata, and not found in other strata, with high consistency.
And all forms of ID presently fail this test. The theory of ID which posits an unlimitedly powerful creator fails the test forever, because there's no such thing as a contemporary event such a creator could not produce. Forms of ID where we posit a finitely powerful, or even organic creator, where creation is some sort of repeating event, rather than a one-shot deal, could conceivably pass a scientific test, because their limitations might leave a mark on reality scientists could test the paleontological footprints of. It's a long shot but it's possible.
However, until ID makes a successful prediction under critical scrutiny, this is just a pipe dream, and ID is not a science, in any serious sense.
It's obvious that we look at things from differering angles. I pretty much go along with the things you have said in this post (other than the no-hell thing).
I'm just wondering (since we tend to get into a quibbling over what the text EXACTLY means), what it was that has cuased you to no longer be a believer?
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