Fossil Find Is Missing Link in Human Evolution, Scientists Say

National Geographic News ^ | April 13, 2006 | John Roach

[CarolinaGuitarman]

So true. Kelvin attended a lecture about the discovery of radiation and it's implications for dating the earth. From what I remember reading about it, he was very uncomfortable and squirming in his chair.

[js1138]

Kelvin adapted. He revised his numbers to conform to new discoveries. He never quite got to billions, I dont think.

As a kid I had a 1911 edition of the Book of Knowledge, rescued from a library that was throwing it away. As a teenager I was astounded at how much physics was known early in the century. They had the correct explanation for the source of the earth's inner heat.

As an adult I am astounded at how much stuff was included in a children's encyclopedia at that time.

[jec41]

Because philosophy is not restricted to empirical evidence, evidence that is derived through a philosophical manner can not be scientifically tested.

What empirical evidence has philosophy observed or tested.?

[Conservative Texan Mom]

Hey, this is something to ponder from our discussion regarding "made in God's Image" the other night.

There was debate as to whether or not Genesis is referring to a physical likeness, spiritual, or emotional. What about this!

Something I came across got me to thinking. Apparently proponents of ID are suggesting that cells behave intelligently because they produce variations, thus having the ability to evolve, adapt, in the first place.

In turn, a scientist may point out that it shows no more intelligence than reacting to stimuli, and give examples in nature to make the point. I have also seen some example of mechanisms, such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner, or a computer game, used. It reacts, even adapts, but doesn't have intelligence.

Now, a proponent of ID would say this, "it reacts, because it is designed to."

Here is where I'm going. We, as intelligent beings, posses the knowledge to create things that behave, react, in a certain manner. They follow some set of instructions, and parameters that are a part of their overall design. Now, remember this is a thought for ponder on the nature of God's Image, and not one as to whether or not he exists. Could "His Image" be the ability to create? I don't just mean build, like a beaver would build a damn, or a bird a nest, but to create something that reacts, changes, even adapts. Would this not be the ultimate reflection of Him, being that we, and everything around us, and the laws by which we exist are his creation. He is a Creator! Did he make us to be also, on a smaller scale of course.

I keep coming across statements on these threads, and some are by me, that perhaps things in nature react the way they do because they are designed that way.

[jec41]

However, can evidence of a scientific nature, be evaluated by philosophical reasoning? If it could, a sole example would could never be anything more than conjecture, as there would be no way to guarantee it's accuracy. But, if there were many consistent evaluations done, all leading to the same conjecture, could this support a hypothesis and lead to a theory? Is this method used in other field of science? Have we been wrong in the assumption that the methods cannot be intermixed?

Easy to test.

Prove a mathematical equation that determines absolute 0 with philosophy or Science.

Determine a argument for proof of God by By Science or Mathematics.

Determine ongoing change occurs or does not occur as in evolution with philosophy or a mathematical equation and remember that observed facts, evidence and empirical evidence are science.

[js1138]

This comes under the general heading of the anthropic principle. It remains to be seen whether cells produce variations that are adaptive. This is a variation of Lysenkoism. What has been observed is that cells produce more mutations under environmental stress, such as starvation. I'm not holding my breath expecting to find that germ cells anticipate adaptive needs.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

I don't know if it has? I'm wondering if it's possible.
My knowledge may just be too limited at this point to even know what I'm talking about.

The example I am thinking of is using inductive reasoning to form a premise about scientific evidence. I don't see how you can get past the premise part though.

For example, you can draw comparisons between the genetic code and high level languages. they both possess a sort of alphabet. They both have equivalents of spelling and grammar. They both possess meaning an intended purpose. The intended purpose I'm referring to for the genetic code being this. My code is a set of instruction for building, repairing, and maintaining me. I then extrapolated this, " All known high level languages are the creation of an intelligent source, therefore...." You can fill in the rest. Now this by itself, is hardly proof of anything. I very well made have made an incorrect premise. Inductive reasoning doesn't guarantee a correct assessment. But, if this method were used on a continual basis when evaluating scientific evidence. And, it continually came to the same premise many, many, times. Would that be somewhat like testing by observation and comparison? If the same premise is reached over and over would it be somewhat like evidence that continually supports a theory?

I really don't know. There are probably a hundred million things wrong with my thinking here. It has been pointed out to me that some things in science don't react in any manner that would be intuitively reasoned, yet they are still consistent. There is so much that I am unaware of about the working of science that this may be completely off the wall. It's just something I'm mulling around and wondering about.

[jec41]

Rules of Science: Must science be naturalistic? Great scientists who were religiously motivated and believed in creation and design (Newton, Kepler, Maxwell, Leeuwenhoek, Boyle, Herschel, Faraday, Maxwell, etc. etc.). How Charles Darwin changed the rules of science from a search for truth to the search for a good story. Frauds, Hoaxes and Fallacies: Baloney detecting: watching out for circular reasoning, card stacking, personification and other logical goofs. What lessons have we learned from Piltdown Man, Haeckel’s embryos, Nebraska Man, Java Man, Peking Man, peppered moths, Margaret Mead’s Samoa, the Miller experiment, the Martian meteorite, Archaeoraptor and other classic evolutionary mistakes? Theme: even the experts can be fooled, and can be led astray by their own biases. 4. Critical thinking: Information theory and design detection. Is biological design (which is universally acknowledged) real or apparent? Are undirected processes of chance capable of producing complex, functioning, self-replicating systems? Is a theory without a proven mechanism really a theory at all? Can a theory that explains everything explain anything? Is evolution self-refuting: i.e., can a theory that denies absolute truth make truth claims? Is it legitimate to assume one’s conclusion and force uncooperative data to fit it? Is evolution an observation or a dogma? (Unlike earlier curricula, this one doesn’t hide claims by leading scientists who deny that natural selection is capable of generating new information and complex, indispensable,

A philosophical opinion of hypothetical questions none of any relevance. The author neither acknowledges the definition of scientific theory or that absolutes are not determine by science but mathematics and he is either misleading or ignorant. Its his reasoning that is circular by lack of knowledge or logic and the result is babble to impress himself.

[ahayes]

I don't think that ID proponents are saying that cells are intelligent in choosing their route of evolution. From my understanding they think that cells go about their usual business without any consciousness. At a certain point God decides to kick some of them into a new route. So he says, "Let there be osteocalcin!" and poofs/manipulates/etc. the osteocalcin gene into existence. God is the intelligence that directs things.

However, your understanding of the image of God is similar to what I've thought. I don't think physical likeness is what it means at all. I suppose it could be a spiritual likeness, but I tend to think that humans are indivisible into spirits and bodies. Then some say it is in the ability to form relationships, experience emotions, and reason. However the more I consider this the more I think that we don't differ from the animals in this except in degree. In creativity we seem to be more distinct, but this may again be a matter of degree since other organisms are not intelligent or coordinated enough to build the type of system you are talking about. It's probably a multi-factorial thing.

[donh]

I may be thinking in complete circles and making absolutely no sense.

For my money, that makes you a philosopher for sure.

It is bad strategy, in my opinion, to object to ID on the grounds that it categorically isn't science. It satisfies every obvious abstract criteria to be a science. It just isn't very good science, as we speak. Crystal healing energy science, for example, is in the same boat. Crop circle science and cold-fusion science are in boats a little further upstream, but still, with better credentials than ID has, not to be taken seriously by mainstream science--or, really, anyone with a lick of sense.

I'd stop trying to whack myself over the head about the distinctions between scientific method and philosophical method, were I you. Science gauges its own success on the basis of methodological empiricism, which you already suggested was such a poor, humble relation in the philosophical family as to be cast out of the house. Big Philosophy bred science, but science owes no particular practical loyalty to it. Science is pretty happy with focusing on statistically verifiable predictive advantage, and is pretty content to leave the ontological/metaphysical abstractions to those better qualified and inclined to worry about them.

[jec41]

That sounds kind of scary.

What other agendas are possible by their actions?

[Conservative Texan Mom]

(Prove a mathematical equation that determines absolute 0 with philosophy or Science.

Determine a argument for proof of God by By Science or Mathematics.

Determine ongoing change occurs or does not occur as in evolution with philosophy or a mathematical equation and remember that observed facts, evidence and empirical evidence are science.)

Yikes! I have no idea what you said there, but I suspect it means NO.
My poor little brain just can't quite rap around that. I'm working on it!

It kind of sounds like the two are far too incompatible to assess each other. Should I leave it at that?

[Conservative Texan Mom]

(What has been observed is that cells produce more mutations under environmental stress, such as starvation.)

That is so fascinating! I'm not drawing any premises. I just find that fascinating! Wow!

I guess it's kind of in the "Duh" category for someone who has been studying evolution for a long time. It's new to me though.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

I love these threads! The concepts floating around here have got me thinking, and evaluating many, many aspects about us, ad how we came to be. It's so challenging! I haven't been getting much sleep as it seems my brain won't turn off until the wee hours of the morning.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

I wish my brain was more oriented to process information in a scientific manner? Then I'd quit thinking in circles and be less dizzy, or ditzy?

[jec41]

Here is where I'm going. We, as intelligent beings, posses the knowledge to create things that behave, react, in a certain manner. They follow some set of instructions, and parameters that are a part of their overall design. Now, remember this is a thought for ponder on the nature of God's Image, and not one as to whether or not he exists. Could "His Image" be the ability to create? I don't just mean build, like a beaver would build a damn, or a bird a nest, but to create something that reacts, changes, even adapts. Would this not be the ultimate reflection of Him, being that we, and everything around us, and the laws by which we exist are his creation. He is a Creator! Did he make us to be also, on a smaller scale of course.

I keep coming across statements on these threads, and some are by me, that perhaps things in nature react the way they do because they are designed that way.

We create those things by experimentation and how they react to situations, tests and stimuli. The rest is philosophical thought and unknown.

[donh]

An ID proponent would probably say that the the game example and the robot were designed to react that way, and suggest the same for the jellyfish and ant colonies. I'm not sure they are implying that cells, themselves, are intelligent, but that they are designed to behave in a certain manner.

Speaking with a little less smart-ass-edness, my point is that a literary analogy is not sufficiently similar to a scientific hypothesis, in and of itself, to be taken seriously. It has long been known that chemical signaling predated, and to a large measure, is not currently supplanted by, neurological signaling (which, by first order approximation, is what we generally think of as "intelligence"). To take any form of chemical signaling, and chemical responses to the environment, such as cells engage in, as sound evidence of intelligence, is to beg the question of whether neurological signaling itself isn't just a sophisticated form of chemical signaling--which, in fact, it is.

So this argument, I would suggest to you, is just a subtle form of post hoc, ergo propter hoc: of course cellular/chemical signaling is a sign of a designer--it designed neurological signaling by evolutionary means.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

People are scary. You take away emotion, and we can exist without conflict, because we don't feel it, but then we'd also never experience joy? You take away logic, and you have unchecked emotion, that can inflict God knows what. We kind of teeter on a delicate balance.

[jec41]

Inductive reasoning doesn't guarantee a correct assessment. But, if this method were used on a continual basis when evaluating scientific evidence. And, it continually came to the same premise many, many, times. Would that be somewhat like testing by observation and comparison?

Not valid, thats how some reasoned a flat earth. Look at the empirical evidence for change by reproduction of humans. Of 6.7 billion people no two are are known or thought to exist exactly the same. That is only evidence and is not proof or a absolute to science. A clone could appear in the future or may have appeared in the past. Scientific evidence is more reliable than reasoning. It has to be tested because the senses and reasoning are in themselves not reliable.

[donh]

You take away emotion, and we can exist without conflict, because we don't feel it, but then we'd also never experience joy?

Eh? Take away emotion, and you remove the chemical signaling system that predates neurons. Take away emotion and you'd have nothing but conflict--emotion(chemical signaling) is how living entities locate their appropriate place, and an appropriate place for their offspring, in the environment they depend on. Take away emotion and you have a world of sociopaths with nothing but hunger drives.

You take away logic, and you have unchecked emotion, that can inflict God knows what.

Logic never checked emotion to any great extent. Only countervailing emotions do that. Emotions are what you are--logic is a minor tool, like a hammer.