Posted on 08/17/2011 6:57:10 AM PDT by Todd Kinsey
For the better part of a century, socialists (Democrats) have been using science as a weapon to destroy the very fabric of American society. Today they propagate the global warming myth, forty years ago they were sounding the global cooling alarm, and they’ve used junk science to teach evolution in our nation’s schools.
To the socialist it is somehow easier to believe that aliens put us here or that we emerged from some primordial sludge than it is to believe in God. Socialist leadership, under the guise of “organizing”, use the environment, gay rights, immigration, or any number of causes as a form of religion to keep their unwitting masses in line. Their absence of God, and therefore morality, leaves these desperate souls longing to believe in something. How else can you explain a human being that is willing to risk their life to save a tree or a whale, yet they have no qualms about aborting a baby or assisted suicide?
(Excerpt) Read more at toddkinsey.com ...
There's nothing "magical" about it. Of what consequece does your being able to find an old instance where I have used the word have?
As far as it being "polemical", it may be, but no less so than the assertions it was in response to.
Is your complaint that it's not arguably an exercise in sophistry, that somebody said so, or that I said so?
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.
Evolution is a theory, not a philosophy.
As such, it provides a framework for the vast body of biological knowledge, and it provides the means by which we can continue to formulate the hypotheses that drive scientific advance.
According to Stephen Hawking's criteria, evolution is an excellent theory that has stood up to rigorous testing for well over a century.
Well as "Expelled" showed us, there are financial disincentives as well.
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...
No, evolution is a philosophy - it is a worldview that colours the interpretation of empirical data.
Clearly, you also have no understanding of scientific method. Reading the article at the link I provided earlier would help with that.
Since I really come to FreeRepublic to discuss politics, not to try to educate people who don't want to be educated, I'm really not interested in continuing this kind of discussion.
The only reason I commented in the first place was to try to shake GourmetDan's absolute certainty about the nature/motivations of scientists by inserting the viewpoint of an actual scientist. I'm sure that you're able to understand when I say that I don't like being mischaracterized by people who have no understanding of what I do or how I think.
I'm a scientist myself, and have been applying the scientific method for half of my life. And evolution does not - despite the rah rah article you posted, and regardless of what Stephen Hawking might think - qualify.
As did B.F. Skinner in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity in which he basically denies free will, saying instead that we are automatons simply reacting biologically to the instructions of our genes.
This means that everything within the purview of the scientific method extends to "objects" that are amenable to sense perception — and only to such objects. (I hear Francis Bacon — the driver of this new Novum Organum — had precisely this result in mind.)
Being unencumbered by intellectual instruction, I came upon this idea independently (I think) quite awhile back. However, my thinking at the time took another road. I concluded that since we can only know things through ourselves, then our universe and our perceptions are unique to each individual. Therefore, to me, the entire universe is my universe. The universe does not exist without me, to me. You and the others are merely players in my universe. Of course the same is true of you and everyone else, that we are all players in the others' universes.
Yet, just as there is much more to Scripture than words, this concept can deal with a lot of subjects. As Master of my universe I can control my perceptions and reactions, if I keep that in mind. I can invite God into my universe and grant control to Him. I can exclude God and be a tyrant or a wimp, in my universe. I can treat others as I wish and deal with the consequences. After all, I am only affecting My universe. If you and others don't like what I do you can shun me or do other things to me but it really only affects my universe, to me. I can also dismiss harmful opinions and information from my universe and not be harmed by them. (I am not saying we can exclude all harmful opinions and information and not be harmed by them. I mean selected opinions and information.) Your universe is affected by what you do to me.
Of course, the more beneficial choice for us all is for me to choose to be loving, kind, and truthful, like all good Boy Scouts. It greatly improves my universe and it makes perceptions and reactions much more predictable and harmonious. It also makes me a pleasant participant in your universe.
This concept also cements the idea that all of us are innately self-centered. Being limited to contact with the external through our senses, we can't escape that. It just is.
R. Buckminster Fuller, the ultimate scientific thinker, said free enterprise has the unique ability to transform the selfish desires of each individual into a good for the whole of society. That is a positive culmination of this concept.
Still, we must keep in mind that this is how we interact with the material world or, as you correctly describe it, the observable world. The key to all this is the internal world of abstractions. It is from these that the perceptions are evaluated to produce the reactions. I don't see how science and the scientific method can deal with that other than by going the B.F. Skinner route. I suppose psychology is considered a science, although an imperfect one, but how do you use the scientific method in psychology? Perhaps it is considered a soft science versus the hard sciences like chemistry and physics.
exDem Mom, in your discussion with GourmetDan, you cite and link to Stephen Hawking and his description of scientific theory. He says, paraphrasing, that you take a few provable facts and from them induce a theory about a larger body of facts. He also says that as long as experiments continue to produce the same results then the theory is intact, even though you can not be certain that the next repetition will give you the same results. He concludes that if the next experiment gives a contradictory result, that one result disproves the theory. He says that is the nature of inductive reasoning.
That may be helpful to you as a teacher of scientific methods and theories but I don't see how that supports evolution. Please tell me the few provable facts that justify the leap in logic which concludes in evolution. In light of the millions of years in which evolution supposedly reigned, tell me how you repeat the experiment endless times in support of that theory. When we know today that cross species breeding is rare in the wild how can one logically conclude the everything - plants, mammals, insects, birds, retiles, etc., came from a single source Common Ancestry and progressed through Natural Selection to the vast number of species we have today.
The giraffe is often used as an example of Survival of the Fittest, a key to Darwin's theory. Supposedly, the giraffe survived because a mutation in giraffe linage caused a strain of animals with long legs and necks and those long legs and necks allowed it to eat the leaves from the tall trees on the savanna and survive. Yet, I have seen pictures and tapes of those giraffes stretching out those long legs in order to reach the ground and eat grass. It seems they are a hindrance there. Also, where is the evidence of the their ancestors, the short neck/legged giraffe from which they mutated?
I am of the opinion that evolution is promulgated as the defining description of the universe, earth, and its inhabitants in order to exclude God and spirituality from the discussion. Simply offering Intelligent Design, even though suggested by Einstein and others, is strictly forbidden. If it is "Science" then it is true and superior to all other concepts. By the way, how are those experiments to determine whether electrons are waves or particles coming along?
I'll stop for now. Though good grief, I could go on....
I wish you would. I love these threads. They are very helpful to me.
One can judge a theory's validity by the accuracy of predictions it makes. Can you identify a prediction evolutionary theory has made about biology that has been proven true by research? For guidance, consider the many predictions the theory of relativity made that have been proven dead on by spacecraft.
Also, can you identify a single drug, treatment or surgical procedure that has required evolutionary theory to be developed? If not, how could a theory be as fundamental to biological science as electromagnetism is to physical science and not affect the development of new medical frontiers?
Yeah, yeah...
Circumstances of posting is my excuse.
Also, can you identify a single drug, treatment or surgical procedure that has required evolutionary theory to be developed? If not, how could a theory be as fundamental to biological science as electromagnetism is to physical science and not affect the development of new medical frontiers?
Actually, yes. In my own research, I make plenty of predictions that are based on the principles of evolution. In fact, I cannot imagine trying to make predictions without the theoretical framework to support them. For example, during my graduate work, I was very interested in a particular toxic response pathway. This pathway exists in every vertebrate species tested.
Let's say that I want to examine another species to find the key proteins involved in this pathway. Under a creationist "theory," there would be a limited number of possibilities. Either the pathway would be identical in all species tested, or at least identical within the broad group (for instance, all mammals would have the same version, all reptiles would have the same version, etc.) Or else the pathway would be tailor made for each species, to make it more suitable for its habitat. Under the first assumption, looking for the proteins would be trivial--since they're identical, it would not take a very complicated research plan to find it. Under the second assumption, looking for the proteins would be a huge undertaking, because there wouldn't necessarily even be something similar to look for. But neither one of those situations is the case. Evolutionary theory tells me that the pathway will be highly similar in closely related species, and more divergent in distantly related species. So that is the assumption I will use to design my experimental approach. I will use as my template the proteins that have already been identified and sequenced in a closely related species, because I know that they will be different, but not so different that using materials from one species won't work when used in another species.
As far as drugs, treatments, and surgical procedures--they are all developed using animal models; without the theory of evolution informing us that we are biologically similar to these animals, and how much similarity there is, we wouldn't be able to, for example, research pig cardiology and apply the knowledge to human medicine. Under creationist "theory," we'd have to do the medical research in humans because we would have no reason to assume that any treatment developed for an animal would work in a human (in fact, we'd have to assume that no treatment developed in animals would be at all applicable to human medicine--according to Genesis, humans were created separately from animals and are therefore different).
Getting outside of my field of basic medical research, evolutionary theory has been beautifully validated by the new molecular techniques that have been developed in the last half century or so. Prior to molecular techniques, taxonomists spent inordinate amounts of time dissecting, measuring, and comparing animals to come up with evolutionary relationships between them. For instance, they would look at the lengths of bones relative to the size of the body, and make conclusions of relatedness based on how similar the bone measurements were between different species. There are many such observations they made, which they used to classify species as being more or less closely related, and to develop phylogenetic trees illustrating the relationships. According to evolutionary theory, these relationships should be present all the way down to the molecular level--for instance, a specific gene should be more similar between two species of duck than it is between a duck and a pigeon. And that has turned out to be the case in thousands of genes sequenced. The sequencing results, as it turns out, correspond very well to the relationships already determined through taxonomy.
The terms "Physicalist", "Naturalist", and "Darwinist", and "Atheism" are not generally considered orthodox theistic terms, although in a debate between the atheist and the theist often use these terms to communicate. I asked, INITIALLY, if other, please explain. Your protestations seem to indicate your refusal to claim your worldview as atheistic, darwinist, naturalist, or physicalist as descriptive of what you do believe as a view of the world.
Your assertion of me being "way to wacked out" study science. You may be right. I do not hold a PhD in any of the natural sciences. What I do hold is a BS in Biology and Chemistry, MS in Biology, with my dissertation "Identification of Pleistocene Fossils from McFaddin Beach, High Island Texas. I hold a doctorate in medicine and did 5 years postdoc in General and Trauma Surgery. I even participated in double blind studies for what used to be Smith-Kline-French Pharmaceutical Corp. studying H2 receptor antagonists in the development of anti ulcer and reflux esophagitis treatment.
That said, you may still assert me being unqualified to study science...that remains to be seen.
I was simply trying to assertain how you reconsile invarient, abstract entities, such as consciousness, numbers, logic, rational thought, reason, love, hate, beauty, etc. to a worldview of the physicalist (if you are not a phyicialist, or one who believes Darwins theory is sufficient to explain it all (darwinist), or an atheist)).
You are correct...I do not know you, but you seem bright. I am just talking to you...hopefully without invective.
I believe I've read Alberts Molecular Biology of the Cell from cover to cover, but it's been a long time since I picked it or any other text book up. If one were studying cell biology, without trying to answer questions about species similarities--say, one's work is to define a specific metabolic pathway using a single system--then I suppose one could conduct such work without consideration of evolutionary theory.
My graduate work, however, was dedicating both to dissecting the pathway (the toxin response pathway that I mentioned in my previous post) and to trying to understand why it behaves so differently in different species (or in different human sub-populations). Others in the lab were trying to find the key players in other species. I'm not sure how we could even approach that work if we were to reject all of the tenets of the theory of evolution. It was through looking at homologies--which are both predictable by, and supportive of, evolutionary theory--that we were able to design PCR primers to use to successfully look for this protein (well, the gene for it anyway) in a species where it had not yet been found.
In the more recent past, I was assisting a gynecologist with papillomavirus research. Different strains of the virus hitchhiked with different migrating populations of humans; one of her favorite stories was to tell about how human migration can be traced through viral evolution. The idea that a virus--which can evolve much faster than an animal--would develop into different strains in geographically separate locations of its host is completely consistent with evolutionary theory.
My whole point is not that we're sitting around talking about how this or that evidence fits into or supports evolution; it's about how most of what some of us do does fit quite nicely within the theoretical framework--and so far, nothing yet has shown up that would falsify the theory.
The terms "Physicalist", "Naturalist", and "Darwinist", and "Atheism" are not generally considered orthodox theistic terms, although in a debate between the atheist and the theist often use these terms to communicate. I asked, INITIALLY, if other, please explain. Your protestations seem to indicate your refusal to claim your worldview as atheistic, darwinist, naturalist, or physicalist as descriptive of what you do believe as a view of the world.
Well, it is a huge assumption of anyone to believe that they know anything about my belief system or worldview just because I happen to be a scientist for whom knowledge and understanding of evolution is a fundamental part of my work.
Assigning belief systems such as "Physicalist", "Naturalist", "Darwinist", or "Atheism" has very much the tone of assigning nutty religious beliefs to me. "Physicalist"? I don't know what that's supposed to mean. "Naturalist"? I'd normally think of that as some sort of outdoor biologist, but in this context, it seems to suggest some sort of Gaia worshipper. "Darwinist"? Obviously, the suffix "ist" was attached to the name of a prominent scientist to convey the impression that scientists who continue his work are engaging in some sort of religion; it certainly is not a term for any scientific discipline, and it describes no belief system of which I am aware. And, last, "atheist"--well, atheists act like atheism is a religion, so, clearly, calling someone that IS an attempt to characterize them as having some sort of nutty quasi-religious belief.
Your assertion of me being "way to wacked out" study science. You may be right. I do not hold a PhD in any of the natural sciences. What I do hold is a BS in Biology and Chemistry, MS in Biology, with my dissertation "Identification of Pleistocene Fossils from McFaddin Beach, High Island Texas. I hold a doctorate in medicine and did 5 years postdoc in General and Trauma Surgery. I even participated in double blind studies for what used to be Smith-Kline-French Pharmaceutical Corp. studying H2 receptor antagonists in the development of anti ulcer and reflux esophagitis treatment.
That said, you may still assert me being unqualified to study science...that remains to be seen.
Please don't take offense--but to me, most of what MDs do in the area of research barely qualifies as research. I recognize the necessity of comparing different treatments to see which one is more effective, but earth-shattering science, it is not. Ugh...give me basic research, any day.
When I described people who adhere to nutty quasi-religions as being too whacked-out to study science, I was actually referring to people like this. Unless you're into New Age beliefs and you do things like go into the woods to cry over trees, I think it's safe to assume I wasn't referring to you (or anyone else on FreeRepublic, for that matter).
I was simply trying to assertain how you reconsile invarient, abstract entities, such as consciousness, numbers, logic, rational thought, reason, love, hate, beauty, etc. to a worldview of the physicalist (if you are not a phyicialist, or one who believes Darwins theory is sufficient to explain it all (darwinist), or an atheist)).
You are correct...I do not know you, but you seem bright. I am just talking to you...hopefully without invective
The truth is, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about abstract concepts, such as what is consciousness. I'm not entirely sure that science can answer that, and I'm focused on thinking about the questions that science can answer. And on how I can get funding to answer those questions, although in the near future, I won't be doing research.
Feynman was most certainly not taken in by Uri Geller’s supposed mental powers.
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
Regarding MD's, I would agree with you.
Most of us do not spend a lot of time thinking about things like consciousness and other universal, invarient, abstract entities. But some do. I think you might find J.P.Moreland's book "Argument From Consciousness". It is fascinating what those research philosophers write.
Another book, if you are interested, is "Natural Law". It is very applicable to understanding scientific method.
I am somewhat well read in Nature Worship, as opposed to Naturalism and New Age theology, but only to refute the claims of such. You are correct in stating Gaia worship as associated with the New Age Movement (which comes as many names..Age of Aquarius, Christ Consciousness, and good old simple occultism...but that is another discussion).
As a research scientist and devotee (not meant religious) of Darwins Theory of Evolution, and one who purports its truth and usefulness, I once was of a similar opinion. During the writing of my thesis I read a lot of comparative paleontology...most prominent among that group was a Harvard professor named George Gaylord Simpson...perhaps you have heard of him. Anyway, one day while reading one of his papers on Comparative palenontology of species Equus, he bold asserted, and this is a substantive quote, "Given enough time, if one were to place a chimpanzee in front of a typewriter, and that chimp struck 60 elements per minute, given enough time he would reproduce completely and perfectly the entire works of Shakespeare." It struck me that he had made a statement of an article of faith. Stephen Jay Gould, rest his soul, was a Harvard comparative paleontologist said, substantively, "We believe in Darwinism, not because there is evidence to support it, but to do otherwise would allow a divine fot into the door,..and that we cannot allow." Darwin, himself, had strong doubts about his own theory.
Anyway, good luck with your work.
Could not the predictive ability of your working theory also be predicted by the theory that all the ADAPTIVE ability you see and base predictions on is
“built into” the organisms you study, and not a matter of adding these abilities through ADDITION of information through mutation?
Aren’t you just observing adaptation and attributing that to “evolution”?
Aren’t you just observing adaptation and attributing that to “evolution”?
Not really.
If I were going to assume a created system, first of all, I would not expect adaptive changes, since presumably, components of the created system would have been specifically designed for the niche they occupy and wouldn't need to adapt.
But let's say that despite that, some change is occurring anyway. In that case, I would only be able to look at the change within any given species in isolation; I would not be able to look at how a given change in, e.g., a protein, occurred in one species and make any predictions about how that protein would have changed in another species. In fact, I wouldn't even be able to assume the same protein exists--arguably, an organism designed to live in a barrier reef has drastically different needs than an organism designed to live in a temperate deciduous forest, so I wouldn't assume design similarities between them.
I don't see anything consistent with a designed world in actual practice. Everything I see is consistent with an evolved world.
For instance, a main feature of evolution is that species share common ancestors. That means that at some point in the distant past, there was only one version of the protein. But as time goes by, that ancestor spreads out, resulting in many population groups. The protein changes over time in all of the groups, but the change isn't the same in each group. So, when I compare the protein (or, more correctly, the DNA sequence coding for it) after a few thousands of years, I see that most of the sequence is still the same between all the groups, and I can use that to extrapolate the original sequence. Furthermore, if different groups migrated at different times, that is reflected in the changes (because two separate groups might share a change that is not seen in other groups, suggesting that they shared ancestry at a later point, but they also have changes unique to each group). Knowing nothing about the species' history, I can develop what is called a cladogram, which is a visual representation of the changes, which typically corresponds quite well to other evidence regarding population migrations.
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