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To: tortoise
"Both posit the usual chemical mechanisms. Evolution essentially hypothesizes that this is all that is required for speciation (which could very well be true even if intelligent design turned out to be the truth). While mutation and selection can be observed, the connection to speciation is only hypothesized."

That's what you based your Occam's Razor conclusion upon?

Most Darwinians claim that Evolution is dependent upon:
1. Appropriate environment,
2. Natural Selection, and
3. Random Mutations.

Most ID-er's claim that ID is dependent upon:
1. Appropriate environment and
2. Intelligent Designer.

3 degrees of freedom versus 2, yet you picked the loser and wrongly ascribed Occam's Razor as your reasoning.

That's not very scientific...

194 posted on 03/04/2002 8:10:05 AM PST by Southack
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To: Southack
Most Darwinians claim that Evolution is dependent upon: 1. Appropriate environment, 2. Natural Selection, and 3. Random Mutations.
Most ID-er's claim that ID is dependent upon: 1. Appropriate environment and 2. Intelligent Designer.
3 degrees of freedom versus 2, yet you picked the loser and wrongly ascribed Occam's Razor as your reasoning. That's not very scientific...

The problem with your argument is that ID is not a valid candidate for Occam's Razor - it's not a scientific theory. In order for it to become one you need to produce the Intelligent Designer. We know what the 3 things are you said evolution depends on. What/who in the world is the Intelligent Designer?
Regards.

198 posted on 03/04/2002 8:43:06 AM PST by Lev
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To: Southack
Most Darwinians claim that Evolution is dependent upon:
1. Appropriate environment,
2. Natural Selection, and
3. Random Mutations.

You weren't paying attention, because I very carefully stated it, though I knew that this is the kind of response I'd get. Degrees of freedom are unverified premises. We can ignore #1 (since it essentially cancels out with the second list). Selection essentially means "death". Are you saying that death is an unverified phenomenon? While you may be willing to contest it, I am pretty sure that everything dies, and that we aren't all dying at exactly the same time from exactly the same causes. We all get selected out of the gene pool eventually, whether it is death due to organ failure in old age or death due to adolescent stupidity. Therefore, this is not a degree of freedom. As for random mutation, that is also self-evident as it occurs literally everywhere all the time in biology. It is how we end up with weird genetic disorders and other anomalies.

3 degrees of freedom versus 2, yet you picked the loser and wrongly ascribed Occam's Razor as your reasoning.

I think you need to recount. Demonstrable facts aren't open variables, and don't confuse the hypothesis with the premise. Remember, the point of this isn't to determine how a specific case of speciation occurred, but to determine both what is possible and what is probable.

287 posted on 03/04/2002 7:48:05 PM PST by tortoise
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