David Warren : Still Digging (Debunking Darwinism)

When discussing scientific methods, it is best to be aware of these guidelines. When discussing religion and particular beliefs, other guidelines will, of course, apply.

Very true.

For example, -- digressing a bit from the competing theories of origin of species, -- it is often said by atheists that since religion deals with the supernatural and consequiently cannot be experientially verified by scientific methods, then religion disproves itself. This is tautological: if a phenomenon is supernatural then it is not naturally observed.

There are vast areas of human experience beside canonical religion that cannot be scientifically observed. Love, pride, jealousy are all experientially available but cannot be subjected to the scientific method of hypothesis-prediction-verification (physiological reactions that attend to emotions can, but that is a different issue). Similarly, millions of people experienced varieties of religious experiences of exultation, awe, divine presence, spiritual love, etc. Some of these are undoubtedly illusory, but it does not scientifically follow that all are illusory.

Another way to objectify the supernatural is similar to the methods of mathematical abstraction. Non-Euclidian geometries, or some algebras, cannot be observed in nature (leaving aside some advanced physics to which unusual math can be applied, and then physical phenomena indirectly observed). To a mathematician, an object exists if he can produce axiomatics defining the object, then building an abstraction fitting the axiomatics, -- no experimentation with the physical world is required.

It is often the case that some mathematical object, -- for example, complex numbers, -- is build as an abstraction, then applied successfully in real world engineering. Wave mechanics for example would be impossible to understand without complex numbers, but we cannot experience a complex number by bending fingers or fooling around with a tape, or in any other tangible way.

Similarly, while God and other supernatural subject matter of religion cannot be perceived through the methodology of natural science, the theological concepts give us an understanding of human purpose and condition that we cannot get from anywhere else. For example, such elements of human existence as love, happiness, shame or grief cannot be understood but in theological terms.

It is fine for someone to say: "I never experienced God". The leap to "Therefore, god is not there" is wholly unwarranted.

Read Post #32 on this thread.

You wrote: within enormous numbers of remarkably ordered chemical structures.

That's rather vague. And that's not the standard one uses, in science. You have to be able to say what you mean. You have to be able to state it - or why bother, and why bother calling it science?

Put your vague notion, there, into an answer to the question - how do you state The Theory of Evolution? And just state it, flat out.

The fossil record indicates that all creatures appeared in their present forms. It shows no transitional creatures (except those rare items where someone attempts to make something out of almost nothing). If a person considered the fossil record the make or break of Darwinism (the "falsification" as it were), then Darwinism would have been tossed out with other wacko theories. That is, as they say, simply the facts, admitted to by many famous Darwinists, such as Stephen Jay Gould and others.

However, since there is no sign of transitional creatures in nature or the fossil record, they have come up with new theories (to supplement Darwin), such as "punctuated equilibriuim," which proposes that evolution occurred very quickly, in bursts (another falsification of Darwin's slow process?) and out of the view of the fossil record. Therefore, no fossils and no current transitional creatures. How very convenient! Find the falsification scenario for that one!

In a local debate, I once asked the pro-evolution scientist how evolution could be falsified. Her answer, almost verbatim, was, "I suppose if we saw life just suddenly appear before us, that would possibly do it." Scientific theory or philosophy? You decide.

"The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.

Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and "fully formed."

Harvard Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould

Your unwillingness to continue the discussion of the philosophical argument I originally made is palpable. In post #32, I've given my own synoptic account of what I take to be the general evolutionist approach to the development of life here on Earth. A synoptic account is not a theoretical model, nor does it pretend to be such. If my account didn't use a buzz-word or term that you were looking to hear, that's not my problem. I believe my account would be reasonably clear to the average reader and would be recognizable as falling under the rubric of evolutionism. Moreover, I submit that many readers of this thread (should there be any) would probably recognize the account I gave as being roughly consistent with the views of, say, Richard Dawkins (which wouldn't be surprising since I've read some of his books and articles).

Until, and unless, you're willing to identify an error in my philosophical argument that any (current) evolutionary account of the development of modern humans is in principle falsifiable (post #3, post #8, post #11, post #18, and post #22), I'll take it that you're unable to do so.

And as for my challenge to provide a similar argument showing that creationism/intelligent design is falsifiable, annalex took up that challenge (post #17, post #19, post #21, post #24, post #26, post #28), and although she later backed off just a bit from her response (post #36), still, she at least was willing to engage with the issue...unlike you.

I am he. Ann is an intelligent enabler of my posts...

Creationism is wholly falsifiable by some form of a life-in-a-test-tube experiment. ID is falsifiable by the same if, in addition, no steering is done through the environment.

Come to think of it, ID is also falsifiable speculatively if a fully stochastic model is shown to account for the complexity of life that ID holds irreducible.

I backed off not from the above but from the possible implication that the entire theistic view of the world is falsifiable if creationism is falsifiable.

(From a news article about the find)Neither creature looks like any mammal alive today. Indeed, the term "Repenomamus" ("reptile mammal") was coined to express the odd aspects of these creatures, which had large, sharp and pointy teeth and reptile-like limbs that stuck out from their bodies at an angle. However, they were far more limber than any reptile, thanks to more flexible joints.

Gosh, an early mammal with some reptiltian features, wouldn't that be one of those transitional forms that creationists insist don't exist?

I am he. Ann is an intelligent enabler of my posts...

Noted.

Creationism is wholly falsifiable by some form of a life-in-a-test-tube experiment. ID is falsifiable by the same if, in addition, no steering is done through the environment.

There's always steering. The enormously complex conditions that attended the early development of life on Earth were steering conditions—some sorts of organisms were able to develop, and it's likely that uncounted numbers of other types weren't. But I take your point.

Come to think of it, ID is also falsifiable speculatively if a fully stochastic model is shown to account for the complexity of life that ID holds irreducible.

My surmise is that that will happen. I'll concede that it hasn't happened yet.

I backed off not from the above but from the possible implication that the entire theistic view of the world is falsifiable if creationism is falsifiable.

Not an implication I drew, you'll note. However, since neither theism nor atheism appear to be (straightforwardly) falsifiable, both ought to be distinguished from, and neither ought to be allowed to interfere with, empirical science and its practice. (That 'ought' is pragmatic, not deontological.)

Best regards to you (and to all of your alter egos)...

the general evolutionist approach

But no evolutionist, particularly the TO FAQ sort, would ever claim spontaneous creation under that rubric of evolutionism. That they say it is beyond the 'science'. All I wanted to know was how, scientifically, formally, succinctly does one state the fact and the theory(s). It is presented as something more along the lines of a vague superstition rather than a clearly understood science. You've mentioned a test for the theory, without ever stating the theory. And I suspect that the test would be irrelevant, regardless, as I've repeatedly told you. As for the Catholic teaching that God can be seen in His Creation, which is an article of Faith right out of any old catechism, your 'intelligent design', proving it wrong would depend on the specific formulation, how it is operationalized. I supposed that would have to do with likelihoods and tests of significance.

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