Tough Assignment: Teaching Evolution To Fundamentalists

Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette ^ | 03 December 2004 | SHARON BEGLEY

[js1138]

Science is not really about first year logic. The logic employed by science is speculative, and produces levels of confidence, not proof. The science employed by biologists studying evolution is identical to forensic science. It is forensic science.

So I am asking you for a simple answer to a simple question: which is more reliable, forensic evidence or human witnesses? I understand that it depends on the specifics, but which is generally more reliable, solid forensic evidence, or the testimony of someone you love?

[Havoc]

Rather it is found in 200 years of painstaking research by tens of thousands of biologists and geologists, and their cumulative publications. If you have a case to present, it will need to be sufficient to overthrow nearly all of physics, chemistry, geology biology, and astronomy -- or it will at least have to present a mathematically self-consistent alternative to all those sciences. You really can't single out evolution as the bad guy without taking on all of science.

And that is utterly absurd and without foundation. Evolution is not science. It has been related as science in a guilt by association method; but, it is not science. And you can't offer a best case of "cumulative proof" when you don't have anything to point to as a proof to begin with. The only thing you have is opinion attached to evidences which cannot confirm evolution. What is observeable is as useful as what is not observeable in proving evolution a lie, and that is it's core reliance on what you call speciation - speciation isn't happening in the manner you describe it nor is there evolution being witnessed today. In at least the last 3000 years, no one has ever witnessed a chimp giving birth to a human being or anything similar. Argument sunk.. period. That sort of change has to be falsifiable. You can't do that with dead bones and no witness to the event. Not possible.

[Havoc]

Go back and read.

[Wallace T.]

In bringing up the issue of stare decisis, I did not argue why this position is wrong. There are many others who have done so. Likewise, there are others who have argued against evolution or at least random, unguided evolution. You are incorrect when you presume that I have not examined the evidence of mainstream scientists. I have also examined the position of mainstream Constitutional scholarship, FWIW. You have thus made an unsupported statement, as you accuse me of doing. As an evangelical Christian, I am compelled to reject naturalism, the philosophy that underlies mainstream science.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

[RadioAstronomer]

Go back and read.

I have been reading your posts.

Your science seems to be a wee bit lacking. You may want to go read that link I provided for you.

[general_re]

In bringing up the issue of stare decisis, I did not argue why this position is wrong.

Am I to understand that you do not believe it is wrong? If so, I should warn you that you would be a pariah among many political conservatives and most libertarians.

Or is it the case that your doctrine and your examination of the evidence leads you to reject that authority? In which case, where is your examination of the scientific evidence required to reject the authority of scientists in this case?

You are incorrect when you presume that I have not examined the evidence of mainstream scientists.

I do not read minds - if you make no reference to such evidence, cite no such evidence, why should I believe you are aware of the evidence? Nevertheless, this would be a wonderful jumping-off point for you to undertake a thorough examination of the evidence supporting evolution, and explaining why the current interpretation is insufficient. That way, your analogy might stand up to a passing glance.

[chronic_loser]

I don't know effdot, but what I am saying ain't new.
That is the problem with most of the good thoughts...., they were already thunk long before you and I arrived on the scene.

"Dignity" is a subset of "axiology" .... which is a dead science with no reference point for values.

Do we really need to beat this horse some more, or will yuou accept that it is dead?

[Havoc]

Science is not really about first year logic. The logic employed by science is speculative, and produces levels of confidence, not proof.

Ahem. Science is about first year logic. Confidence in a conclusion is built through the type of evidence you use as support. The more shaky the evidence the less confidence in the conclusion. The more assumptions you have to make, the less confidence in the conclusion. Science is logic. You can't do proper science without first year logic and I'm both amazed and disgusted at your attempt to divorce the two and further attempt to differentiate them as though that were at all possible. Yes, you are seeking proof. That is the point of the method. Forensic science is still bound to the rules of logic. The more leaps of faith you make, the more questionable your conclusions. You can't charge a guy with murder and walk them into a courtroom and convict them on a hunch or maybe I should say "inference". Don't know how many ways one needs to say it before it sinks in. You seem to be of the misunderstanding that because you can reason that something is possible, that possibility is factual. I'm attempting to disabuse you of that notion - which seems a losing game as ya'll for all your intellectual superiority, don't seem to have the brains to get it.

So I am asking you for a simple answer to a simple question: which is more reliable, forensic evidence or human witnesses? I understand that it depends on the specifics, but which is generally more reliable, solid forensic evidence, or the testimony of someone you love?

Again, your example was wanting and overstated in comparison to the example of what vade did earlier which I took immediate issue with. He didn't witness an exploded planet, further, he has no evidence of a missing planet. He also has no evidence that a planet ever exploded. The only thing he has evidence of is that there are rings on some of the planets and there are asteroids. Bully for him. Theory is not fact just because you state the theory. If you can't authoritatively back up your postulations with proper premises and proofs, your conclusion is worth zip, zilch, nichts, nada. That is why you want to divorce science and logic. Logic flatly betrays the leaps you make as untrustworthy and vacant. How utterly disingenuous. I really feel for you guys. But I'm also finished with this. As I noted before, people wouldn't buy laundry soap on the kind of evidence you offer, yet you expect them to buy an origins of the universe explanation on that crap. Again, stop and think, who are you kidding. Seriously. Nobody. That's why evolution is in as much trouble right now as abortion and higher taxes. People have had enough of being sold a bill of goods. Might want to work up an epitaph for all that governmental grant money propping you dipsticks up.

[Wallace T.]

Please show me where I have mischaracterized the position held by advocates of random, unguided evolution.

The preponderance, though not all, of the scientific evidence points to an old universe and to the existence of macroevolution. However, both the creation science and intelligent science camps have pointed out deficiencies in evolutionary theory that the evolutionist camp has not successfully refuted. However, the conservative Christian position is not necessarily based on what camp has better evidence. Conservative Christianity works from the presupposition that the statements in the Bible are true, when understood in their historical and grammatical context and authorial intent. Based on that assumption, evangelicals and fundamentalists must reject the presumption that mainstream science adheres to: that the physical universe is all that was, is, and ever will be.

The ultimate issue is not what the fossil record, astronomy, DNA, half-lives of elements, etc., may or may not indicate. The issue is which worldview is correct: the conservative Christian one, the naturalistic one, a position that synthesizes the two positions, or another one entirely.

[JohnnyM]

The article you cited has all of the water in the flood attributed to the water canopy. This is not true. The Bible speaks of the fountains of the deep spewing forth water as well.

"BTW, the arguments presented at that website were used by the Church for centuries to deny a heliocentric model of the Solar System -- and they are used by the modern Flat Earth Society, too. "

I do not care as I am not a member of the flat earth society nor do I recognize the authority of "the church". This church being an institution composed of men who claim authority, but have none. I recognize the authority of Christ and His Word and am a member of His Body, the true Church.

JM

[general_re]

However, the conservative Christian position is not necessarily based on what camp has better evidence.

So what? That's not relevant to the scientific process, which is based on what camp has better evidence. You're trying to take tools from one arena and use them in an entirely different arena - what you're essentially doing is trying to bake a cake with a belt sander, and wondering why the results are such a mess.

[js1138]

... no one has ever witnessed a chimp giving birth to a human being or anything similar.

I retire from the debate and never post on this topic again if you can show me a professional, juried publication in which a respected scientist has predicted such an event or suggested such and event has happened in the history of the earth. This may sound unfair, but I have to limit this offer to publications from the past hundred years. I rather doubt that you could find such a statement in the writings of Darwin. Only a complete idiot would suggest that such a thing was part of evolutionary theory.

[js1138]

random, unguided evolution.

Evolution is not unguided. It is guided by selection, whether the changes are random, part of the Designer's computer program, or the result of direct divine intervention. Selection is the shaping cause. Selection is what Darwin discovered. Darwin had no clue as to how modification occurred or whether it was random.

[PatrickHenry]

So long, evo-boy! WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO MONKEY.

[longshadow]

Who'd have guessed that the existence of screws with left-handed threads would be invoked as the culminating refutation of BB Cosmology?

[js1138]

Wrong direction. No cigar.

[js1138]

I prefer a drill press.

[longshadow]

I've had creationists "witness" against complex numbers in class.

They must think a Hilbert Space is an abomination....

:-)

[PatrickHenry]

Nice knowin' ya! APE GIVES BIRTH TO HUMAN BABY

[Wallace T.]

Scientific observations have their limits. A bird watcher in an observation post may see 10,000 white swans over a 20 year period and conclude that all swans are white. That bird watcher may have missed the 10,001 swan that went by his observation point and was black. It is difficult for scientific observation to come to an irrefutable conclusion. The best that can be done by scientists is to come to a working hypothesis. Foe example, Albert Einstein stated that his theory of relativity was not irrefutable, just that it worked better than Newtonian physics.

Mainstream science also works from naturalistic presuppositions that may cloud their objectivity, as I discussed in previous posts.