Posted on 09/22/2005 4:15:34 AM PDT by SeaLion
Editor's Note: This article is the first in a special LiveScience series about the theory of evolution and a competing idea called intelligent design.
TODAY: An overview of the increasingly heated exchange between scientists and the proponents of intelligent design.
COMING FRIDAY : Proponents argue that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory, but a close look at their arguments shows that it doesn't pass scientific muster.
Science can sometimes be a devil's bargain: a discovery is made, some new aspect of nature is revealed, but the knowledge gained can cause mental anguish if it contradicts a deeply cherished belief or value.
[snip]
Darwin's truth can be a hard one to accept. His theory of evolution tells us that humans evolved from non-human life as the result of a natural process, one that was both gradual, happening over billions of years, and random. It tells us that new life forms arise from the splitting of a single species into two or more species, and that all life on Earth can trace its origins back to a single common ancestor.
Perhaps most troubling of all, Darwin's theory of evolution tells us that life existed for billions of years before us, that humans are not the products of special creation and that life has no inherent meaning or purpose.
For Americans who view evolution as inconsistent with their intuitions or beliefs about life and how it began, Creationism has always been a seductive alternative.
Creationism's latest embodiment is intelligent design (ID), a conjecture that certain features of the natural world are so intricate and so perfectly tuned for life that they could only have been designed by a Supreme Being.
[article continues...]
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Carbon-14 dating is actually quite accurate. It has been calibrated against bristlecone pines going back some 11,500 years. This means you directly count tree-rings from the present back as far as you can, using different trees of course (the ring sequences overlap), and then you date rings that are, say 9,550 years old, and establish a calibration curve. By using thousands of samples you get a pretty accurate calibration dataset. The curve has been extended past 20,000 years using other materials.
The other methods of dating are also pretty good, but they are a bit out of my field, whereas I use Carbon-14 dating a lot.
Do you have some evidence that I don't know about that shows Carbon-14 dating is not accurate?
Not particularly surprised, but this is not any vinyl record, it's the purest science that exists: mathematics. Statistical analysis is the holy grail of true science. (That is why it is never applied to evolution, but always applied to everything else.)
"Native American" fantasy has nothing to do with intelligent design. One addresses sexual fantasy, the other addresses pure science: the statistical impossibility of accidental life.
That is a blatant falsehood. Sherman's project has debunked all claims re the koran after laborious research. Since you obviously have not read the book (your comments prove that) your rejection is totally subjective. No science evident.
Actually statistics is routinely applied to biology. Scientists who work in the field of evolutionary have also defined a statisical property called "complexity".
More falsehood. Bristlecone pines are considered to be the oldest living things on the planet, but none has been found to be older than 4500 years.
Carbon dating definately has not been calibrated, nor can it be, due to the obvious lack of an atmospheric sample from ancient times. It is known that the percentage of atmospheric 14 varies, but no pattern has ever been established.
Coyoteman been sippin the lobo juice?
Hard to believe.
So can you post the link to where the English language was observed to evolve in a laboratory setting? Or are you saying English is just a dialect of Aramaic?
Or maybe the belief in the English language is just a false religion?
I said that there is a Koran code that purports to do the same thing. I did not say it does it; I said it purports to do it. And whether it is proved true, false or what have you, it still purports to do it.
You claim that Sherman had "debunked" it. Okay. Other people have purported to have "debunked" Sherman's work. I've read enough about ELS and "holy book codes" to recognize their limitations. But, as I stated, more to the point, even if is true that the existence of these supposed "codes" had such long odds, the occurrence of the improbable simply does not prove the existence of the divine. By definition.
Thanks. Oh, I am still interested in your answers to the other three questions.
No argument on that point, but there is no discernable link between the science of biology and the philosophy of evolution, except for the belief system of some biologists. The term 'biology' has to be limited to that which may be observed, not that which can be imagined.
More falsehood. Bristlecone pines are considered to be the oldest living things on the planet, but none has been found to be older than 4500 years.
Carbon dating definately has not been calibrated, nor can it be, due to the obvious lack of an atmospheric sample from ancient times. It is known that the percentage of atmospheric 14 varies, but no pattern has ever been established.
Coyoteman been sippin the lobo juice?
No falsehood. Its the standing dead trees that are important, not the living ones. If you date a living organism you don't get much of a date, as it is still ingesting Carbon-14.
By matching the tree-rings from the present backward you can establish the age of a particular ring on the dead trees. Then you can date that ring and establish a calibration curve.
Given the tree-rings you don't need an atmospheric sample.
This is what the new calibration curve is about:
A new calibration curve for the conversion of radiocarbon ages to calibrated (cal) ages has been constructed and internationally ratified to replace IntCal98 which extended from 0-24 ka cal BP (Before Present, 0 cal BP = AD 1950). The new calibration dataset for terrestrial samples extends from 0-26 ka cal BP but with much higher resolution beyond 11.4 ka cal BP than IntCal98. Dendrochronologically dated tree-ring samples cover the period from 0-12.4 ka cal BP. Beyond the end of the tree-rings, data from marine records (corals and foraminifera) are converted to the atmospheric equivalent with a site-specific marine reservoir correction to provide terrestrial calibration from 12.4-26.0 ka cal BP. A substantial enhancement relative to IntCal98 is the introduction of a coherent statistical approach based on a random walk model, which takes into account the uncertainty in both the calendar age and the radiocarbon age to calculate the underlying calibration curve.http://radiocarbon.pa.qub.ac.uk/calib/whatsnew.html
That would depend on your level of cognition. Statistical evidence is held in high regard because mathematics is by it's nature objective. Those with lesser cognitive abilities tend to apply the "Missouri" factor long after they have lost the argument.
Only creationists and ID'ers refer to the "philosophy of evolution" or the "religion of evolution". I realize that's because some of the atheists will come out and say some of the oddest things.
However, evolution was observed in the fossil record. Everything done in biology since then, confirms the accuracy of the theory.
I'm not sure which part of evolution you consider not to be observed.
Both of those statements are blatantly false. First, the fossils are the ultimate proof of the flood, and nothing else. Just the massive decline in the number of species that is irrevocably recorded in the fossil record presents an insurmountable argument against evolution. Second, all statistical data gathered argues against evolution, and only the belief systems of a handful of powerful adademicians props up the evolution agenda.
So you believe there was a flood of cement that encased animals with rock skeletons. How come there are no animals now with skeletons made of rock? Don't tell me they evolved. And what is the chapter and verse of that cement flood?
Just the massive decline in the number of species that is irrevocably recorded in the fossil record presents an insurmountable argument against evolution.
Up until your post, I had always considered this evidence for evolution. How is this an argument against?
Second, all statistical data gathered argues against evolution, and only the belief systems of a handful of powerful academicians props up the evolution agenda.
I think you're trying to revive that old argument where you're on both sides. If the specific mechanisms for evolution aren't known, how can you calculate their probability? In fact all the statistical data that biologists gather is evidence for evolution.
I answered your first three questions with one answer that is equally applicable to all. Your fourth question is a strawman. You jump over the same cliff as Radio Astronomer when you try to assert that the Bible makes statements that it does not. No statement in the Bible has ever been found to be false on complete examination; only in the flawed imagination of the imperfect reader.
The epistles of Enoch are the oldest written record of the motion of the moon and sun relative to the earth, but Enoch does not say that the sun revolves around the earth; he merely describes the motion from our point of reference. In fact his writings contain vague descriptions of the solar system, and also of distant bodies. Paul writing in Hebrews ch 11 even aludes to the atomic structure of matter.
"Other people have purported to have "debunked" Sherman's work"
Nobody has published any tabular data that assails Sherman's assertions. You will find only emotional retoric and carping standing against thousands of hours of number-crunching on fast mainframes.
Think it over and give an honest reply, and I will answer it.
Flapddodle!
"The bristlecone pine chronology in the White Mountains currently extends back almost 9,000 years continuously. That's to 7,000 BC! Several pieces of wood have been collected that will extend this date back even further. The hope is to push the date back to at least 8,000 BC. This will be important as the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, and to have a record of this transition period would offer scientists a wealth of information."
http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html
due to the obvious lack of an atmospheric sample from ancient times.
Further flapdoodle!
Ice core data provides data about ancient atmospheric composition.
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/ees/climate/labs/vostok/
That would depend on your level of cognition.
No it wouldn't. Improbabilities are just things that aren't likely to happen. Nothing more. If they do happen, it isn't necessarily evidence of a supernatural agency or deity, but can merely be an unlikely occurrence occurring.
Statistical evidence is held in high regard because mathematics is by it's nature objective.
True, but the statistic reliability is also a function of its appropriateness and the soundness of its predicates. For example, the odds of the sperm that made up every human alive today being the first to their respective eggs can be asserted as being somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 240,000,000,000,000,000. Staggering odds, but statistically meaningless, because there's nothing in the particular arrangement of existing humans (ego aside) that is qualitatively different than all of the other arrangements of potential humans, if each of the 6 billion people had one of the other 39,999,999 sperm cells beat theirs to their mother's egg. But it is only amazing in retrospect: one of the possible combinations had to result.
Those with lesser cognitive abilities tend to apply the "Missouri" factor long after they have lost the argument.
I confess I am not quite following your idiom, here. I don't know what the "'Missouri' factor" would be and how it relates.
But it's been my observation that those with lesser cognitive abilities tend to not only be ignorant, but to have stunted or deficient metacognative abilities. They not only are ignorant about things, but also don't even know enough to understand how ignorant they really are. Consequently, they think they "win" arguments when they really are too ill-informed to be worth even discussing matters with.
Often times, for example, on these boards, some creationists make statements that are designed to show how evolution is "impossible" or something like that, but they only show that they don't even have elementary zoological or biological knowledge. For example, I've had people actually argue against the incontestable statement that "humans are apes" (African Great Apes, specifically.) Clearly these people are not only ignorant of the science involved, but appear to be too ignorant to know how ignorant they are. (I've seen the reverse, too, where people ignorant of the content of the Bible argue about it.)
Say, given any thought to my other three questions?
That answer, as I've said, is rather weak in my mind, but you're entitled to believe what you want. BUT, the fourth question isn't a strawman. It is a hypothetical.
I am not saying that the bible says any particular thing. I am merely asking you what you would believe if there were something in the bible that clearly conflicted with your extra-biblical knowledge. Would you believe the words in the bible, regardless of how crazy they seemed to you, or would you believe what your extra-biblical sources told you to be the case? In other words, when it comes to the bible text, can you ever conceive of a situation where your reason would overcome your faith, or would your faith always win out, regardless of how unreasonable that may seem on the surface?
Surely, you are not saying that you don't have the imagination and mental abilities to imagine yourself in this situation and to tell me what you would think, right?
See my post #70
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.