Only science can give us the real truth

The other day I heard a woman talking to a group of people around her about the failures of science and the need to accept “other ways of knowing” as legitimate sources of truth. I was bothered not so much by the fact that she was saying it—lunacy and ignorance abound, after all, often densely concentrated in individuals—but because others around her were nodding their heads in agreement. I wondered to myself what these people—indeed what most people—understand of science, and what precisely was meant by an “other way of knowing.” The likely answer to both questions was very little.

I say this not out of arrogance, but because science is the only meaningful and reliable method of determining what is true that has or will ever exist.

To understand this, it must first be understood that science is nothing more than systematized observation and common sense. “Science,” according to George Henry Lewes, “is the systematic classification of experience.” While many people attach much more emotional or mental baggage to the word, science is nothing more than a means of organizing observations and drawing logical conclusions based upon them. It must also be understood and accepted that without having observed or experienced a phenomenon in some way, it is meaningless to claim that it exists.

As David Hume famously concluded in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, all knowledge and all reason are based upon experience and induction. It follows then that nothing can be known without first being observed or experienced, and that that which we say is true is merely that which most closely coincides with our observations. Anything that runs contrary to observations, then, has no right to the title of truth.

Therefore, by its very definition, any idea or belief which is supported by science is supported by observation and experience—themselves the only justifiable criteria for determining truth. These are points that should be understood by everyone. They should forever colour our thoughts and influence our actions. No one should accept propositions that are not grounded in fact and experience, yet the vast majority of people do exactly that. Why is this so?

The answer is that most people think their own beliefs are, in fact, supported by fact and experience. I suspect that what the advocate of “other ways of knowing” really meant was that she had knowledge rooted in experience which was dismissed by the men and women of science, and that therefore science itself was a failure, as it did not really recognize the truth.

Had her quarrel been with the scientific establishment, with scientists’ individual failings and experimental inadequacies, her thoughts might have merited some consideration. But by naïvely flailing against science itself, she exposed herself as a feeble and imprecise thinker, bitter that the scientific community had passed judgment on some issue or idea important to her.

It is for this reason that such people advocate “other ways of knowing.” Lacking a skeptical disposition, they will be unduly swayed by situations or experiences which would not survive the rigour of scientific scrutiny. Over time, they will develop a deep emotional attachment to the conclusions that are drawn from their faulty experiences.

Thus, when they learn that experiments, studies, or scientists have denied the validity of their experiences and the lifestyles drawn from them, they become understandably resentful and conclude—wrongly—that science itself must be based upon faulty principles. In an effort to justify their beliefs, they will then begin to attach great significance to meaningless or banal phenomena. Dreams, premonitions, voices, omens, prophecies, palm reading, astrology: these are the children of the scientifically disenfranchised. These are all “other ways of knowing,” and fly blithely in the face of our collected observations. They have nothing to support them but the desire to do so.

Does it follow then that whatever scientists claim is true must be so, or that science can divine all the answers of life? Emphatically, no. Scientists are human, experiments may be faulty and imprecise, and some very meaningful questions do not lend themselves to scientific inquiry. Yet for any question that has observable phenomena as a component, science is the only place—the only way—to seek an answer.

I said there are billions of gaps in Neo-Darwinism and you said:

Not that I've noticed. Perhaps you could support your claim by naming, say, twenty million or so of them. We'll wait.

How about all the gaps from the first cell to the first donkey.

You present a picture with many points that creates a picture. A better analogy would be to pick two dots and erase the rest and let that represent your Neo-Darwinian picture. The number of dots are just not there -- unless of course you have been indoctrinated into the fable of Neo-Darwinian evolution. They add the dots not because of the science but because it supports their philosophy.

You admit that life is coupled but you fail to understand the implications. The probability of advancement becomes remote because you need a host of specific mutations to allow the functional advancement. Without the advancement, you do not get the selection of the new mutation. The probability of the host of mutations being addapted into one genome then becomes very small. The advancement does not materialize rapidly enough to explain the complex lifeforms that exist. This is especially noticeable when you examine the Cambrian explosion with the short time available for the sudden rise in the many advanced lifeforms.

You claim there is only a hundred million mutations required for the development of man! This is absurd! The functional parts are about equivalent to a hundred million when you consider the parts and the functional compactness of life. Each cell is like a functional machine! And think of the number of DIFFERENT cells. And they all work together as a congruent system! Again, your claim of a hundred million mutations is absurd!

You claim that the supposed development of life by Neo-Darwinian evolution poses no problems thermodynamically. Again, you are wrong! The Second Law of Thermodynamics does apply to all systems -- including open systems. In fact the statements of the Second Law apply to open systems! I know the propagandists of evolution try to refute this, but they are just lying! I know because I work in a field related with thermodynamics.

Another ploy by the propagandists is to say that thermodynamics has nothing to do with mechanism. This is only partially true. Thermodynamics has been advanced so that mechanisms are analyzed. Engineers use it all the time to analyze mechanisms. Without this advancement it would be of little value!

Many of the propagandists of evolution say that because we have the energy of the sun life can advance. This is not true. For example, I may have all the materials to build a house. A flash of lightning may hit the materials with enough energy to build the house. But will the house be built? I doubt it. The most probable outcome would be the energy diffusing as heat. Possibly, some of the materials would be charred but you will not get a new house! The reason is that you need to utilize the energy in a constructive fashion with a thermodynamic mechanism. From a scientific perspective, you need to constrain the boundary conditions in a fashion so the energy is utilized constructively. You need specified and controlled boundary conditions. You need intelligence. You need the plans and templates. The proposed Darwinian mechanism fails to constrain the phase space adequately and lacks the intelligences to explain the development of life. It is an inadequate mechanism!

And you "learned" this non-fact where, exactly?

I have studied thermodynamics and I work in a field related to thermodynamics!

I am not debating the fact that there may be a few mutations that provide added function by a single mutation. The vast number of mutations would require a large number of mutations. The basis of this is found in observing the way the body operates. It is functionally coupled. This means that you can't have simple mutations because a change in one function would require the change in a number of other adjacent structures and the connecting functional parts.

I said that you need to program intelligence into the evolutionary engineering design programs and you responded:

No they don't, but hey, don't let facts slow down your rant. I've built "evolutionary engineering design programs" (try "genetic algorithms", save yourself some typing *and* sound more like you're actually familiar with the field), and I don't recall having to "program in some intelligence" in order to "allow feasible designs to be developed". But hey, I only have degrees in this kind of stuff, what do *I* know?

Perhaps your education has been accompanied by an indoctrination that has blinded you to the observations that I stated. There is always a selection process involved in these algorithms. Without minimizing the search space you will not get advancement -- or it would be too slow. The phase space associated with the genome is signifacantly large as you should know!

I should point out a critical assumption built into Neo-Darwinian evolution. The assumption is that the high probable mutations will lead to added function and the development of advanced lifeforms -- at least the vast number of mutations. In essence Neo-Darwinian evolutionists believe that the fundamental physics supports life. There is no basis for this assumption other than the initial assumption of Neo-Darwinian evolution. In essence the argument is circular. Why should we suppose that complex lifeforms should develop without the many small probable mutations stopping the process? Is it fair to assume that mostly high probable mutations can lead to advanced lifeforms? Ignoring the small probable mutations does help limit the required search space, but it does necessitate one to believe that life is programmed into the underlying physics -- a very nonnatural assumption. And if this nonnatural assumption is OK for Darwinists, why is it a problem with ID or with Creationism?

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