Posted on 11/29/2011 12:32:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For the last several months there has been a flurry of discussion—mostly online, of course—about the impossibility of a literal Adam & Eve (see, e.g., here and here and here). This ruling-out has been accomplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story?
Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs at Patheos, has been following the discussion with some care. Lately he has done us all a great favor: written a series of posts pointing out recurring mistakes made by many of those doing the discussing. Many of these mistakes are rhetorically effective but collapse upon even modest inspection.
But not all of them.
On Friday, he listed one held mostly by the pro-science crowd: “Evidence for and against evolution is open to all and can be assessed by anyone.”
Enns declares that this is not so. “The years of training and experience required of those who work in fields that touch on evolution rules out of bounds the views of those who lack such training,” he writes.
This is true but it misses the point. The open-access-to-science cliché, usually trundled out by those who wish to contrast the transparency of science with the supposed obfuscation of religion, carries some truth.
Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not. That’s because, in science land, there is nothing but to follow the evidence. It’s out on the table, after all, able and willing to be poked and prodded and analyzed and figured out and held up and turned around and looked at from new angles. Also, what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined. And if you do become an evolution expert, you actually will see that 99% of all scientists back evolution for a reason: the evidence demands it.
This is the great generosity of science, and its great strength: It is actually all right there, ready to be seen and understood. It is relievedly explicit. It takes effort, sure, just as Enns suggests; it’s not easy to become a professional research biologist. But the reason biologists agree on evolution is because it’s a relatively simple matter to be objective about fossils and genes. Unlike the objects of religion—the divine and humanity’s relation to it—the objects of science give themselves up for abstraction and analysis without a fight.
Therefore Richard Dawkins (for example) is right when he says, as he has on many occasions, that the evidence for evolution is there to be inspected by anyone. It is sitting out there on the table, waiting patiently for most of humanity to catch up to it, waiting to tell us it’s time to bid the historical Adam & Eve a final, if fond, farewell.
I think “anatomically human” doesn’t cut it. The first human worthy of the name was Adam because there had to be a first anatomically human person who knew who he was and knew who God was. This person used words and knew they were names for things. “In the beginning was the Word.” God was there at the root of this First Man’s understanding of himself.
This is a logical fallacy for assuming that because a thing exists, that 'selection' or 'evolution' created it. Making the mistake of assuming that artifacts of complex biological systems created those complex biological systems is known as the fallacy of 'begging the question'.
It is neither logic nor argument.
Selection cannot create anything, only select among the variations that arise through mutation.
Your logical fallacy is thinking the Sun is in orbit around the Earth.
That is known as the fallacy of being a total loon.
Thinking that artifacts of complex biological systems actually created those systems is the fallacy of begging the question.
"Your logical fallacy is thinking the Sun is in orbit around the Earth. That is known as the fallacy of being a total loon."
This is the fallacy of appeal to ridicule based on a strawman.
The truth is so much more interesting:
“Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? […] The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS.”
Einstein, A. and Infeld, L. (1938) The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.); Note: CS = coordinate system
“The relation of the two pictures [geocentricity and heliocentricity] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view.... Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”
Hoyle, Fred. Nicolaus Copernicus. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1973.
"...Thus we may return to Ptolemy's point of view of a 'motionless earth'...One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein's field equations, by distant rotating masses. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein's point of view, Ptolemy and Corpenicus are equally right."
Born, Max. "Einstein's Theory of Relativity",Dover Publications,1962, pgs 344 & 345:
"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations,” Ellis argues. “For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. “You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”
Ellis, George, in Scientific American, "Thinking Globally, Acting Universally", October 1995
I didn't think selection created anything - that was your own hideously idiotic mistake.
A model explains data, but any attempt to explain the data using the model is “begging the question” to an idiot who doesn't understand logic or scientific models or gravity.
No, that's the fallacy of affirming the consequent.
The truth is:
“Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? […] The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS.”
Einstein, A. and Infeld, L. (1938) The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.); Note: CS = coordinate system
“The relation of the two pictures [geocentricity and heliocentricity] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view.... Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”
Hoyle, Fred. Nicolaus Copernicus. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1973.
"...Thus we may return to Ptolemy's point of view of a 'motionless earth'...One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein's field equations, by distant rotating masses. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein's point of view, Ptolemy and Corpenicus are equally right."
Born, Max. "Einstein's Theory of Relativity",Dover Publications,1962, pgs 344 & 345:
"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations,” Ellis argues. “For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. “You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”
Ellis, George, in Scientific American, "Thinking Globally, Acting Universally", October 1995
"I didn't think selection created anything - that was your own hideously idiotic mistake."
'Selection' and 'evolution' don't create anything. Thinking that artifacts of complex biological systems created those biological systems is an exercise in logical fallacy.
"A model explains data, but any attempt to explain the data using the model is “begging the question” to an idiot who doesn't understand logic or scientific models or gravity."
No, that is the fallacy of appeal to ridicule.
Begging the question is assuming the validity of the proposition being presented. The fallacy of affirming the consequent then interprets subsequent data as supporting the initial assumption. As I have shown multiple times, 'evolution' and 'geokineticism' are based on the fallacy of begging the question and subsequent data is interpreted through the fallacy of affirming the consequent.
To you using ANY scientific model to explain ANY data is “begging the question”. Either on the subject of the Earth going around the Sun (it does) or the evolution of living systems through selection of genetic variation (both observable).
I find it amusing that you place the model of biological evolution on the same level as the model of gravitation that has the Earth in orbit around the Sun.
Both are very well supported models that help explain and predict data - opposed only by the most ludicrous of loons.
You have no idea whether I would consider ANY scientific model and ANY scientific data as 'begging the question. You seem to be making this a personal issue about me.
"I find it amusing that you place the model of biological evolution on the same level as the model of gravitation that has the Earth in orbit around the Sun."
All I said was that they are both based on the logical fallacies of begging the question and affirming the consequent. You seem extremely confident in your ability to say where I would place both models in terms of some ranking-system that you evidently have in mind.
"Both are very well supported models that help explain and predict data - opposed only by the most ludicrous of loons."
Both are only 'very well supported' in terms of the fallacy of affirming the consequent. You certainly seem intent on making this discussion personally about me.
No, just ANY loon who would deny that the Earth is in orbit around the Sun. Not any particular loon.
Your constant refrain on any scientific subject - gravity or evolution - is that using the model to explain the data is “begging the question”. You are at least consistent that you think using a scientific model to explain data is some sort of logical fallacy.
But what you call a logical fallacy the rest of the world calls the scientific method - using a model to explain and predict data.
Apparently you think the evolutionary ‘scientific models’ are closest to reality just because nothing else is so highly researched [read gov funded]. The problem is any contradictory data consistently gets overlooked and ignored while ridiculing anyone willing to ask you to show all the steps in your ridiculous conclusions.
Evolution fails at the ‘mathematical model’ level and therefore evolution fails at reality.
The theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation is a very helpful theory in that it explains and predicts data.
If I take a bacteria and plate it on ten different plates and subject those plates to ten different stresses - using the theory I can predict the outcome.
Can you predict the outcome?
When a novel antibiotic is introduced the theory of natural selection of genetic variation can predict what will happen in bacterial populations subject to the novel antibiotic.
Can you predict the outcome?
Mathematically what is going to PREVENT genetic variations from accumulating within a population and differential reproductive outcomes ‘selecting’ for or against these variations?
Predicts data...
for micro-evolution or changes allowed and pre existing in the DNA
but never never never has your precious macro-evolution been observed
neither in the living record
nor in the fossil record!
When will you ever concede what all the data already indicates?
Try to have it both ways much?
No, mutations create novel variations that are not “pre existing” in the DNA. But they must be “allowed” in that they cannot be a nonviable mutation.
The creationists on this thread so far cannot even seem to DEFINE “macro” evolution - or explain how it would differ in mechanism, quality or quantity from “micro” evolution.
I somehow don't expect you to do any better.
Can you define “macro” evolution for me?
Would the change between a mouse and a rat be “micro” or “macro”?
Doesn’t the entire theory of evolution require there to be a first?
I mean, according to the theory, isn’t the first homo sapien the first because he’s the first to have the random mutation that differentiated him from his ancestors?
If there is no first human, is the author suggesting that the same random mutation struck multiple times in a population of 10,000?
Defining when a population has diverged enough to be called a separate species is not a dividing line but a continuum.
A swamp dries up and becomes a forest over a hundred years. It was obviously a swamp one hundred years ago, and it is obviously a forest now. At what point did the swamp become a forest? Was there a particular second when it happened? One location that was obviously forest first?
Do you think the theories of language require that there be a first original speaker?
That among Latin speakers there was born one individual who spoke Italian - and unless another Italian speaker were born concurrently - they would have nobody to speak to?
Do you think one day that can be precisely defined the residents of Italy stopped speaking Latin and started speaking Italian?
We aren’t talking about a forest or arbitrary categories, we are talking genetics. Surely there was a time there was no such thing as a genetic human, and then there was, and according to evolution this happens because of mutation and natural selection.
So when and to whom did this mutation happen to?
There was no “first human” born from nonhuman apes just as there was no “first Italian speaker” born from Latin speakers - and for EXACTLY the same reason.
Latin did not become Italian in one day and for one speaker - it was an accumulation of differences that happened over a great deal of time.
Nonhuman apes did not become modern humans in one day and for one individual - it was an accumulation of differences that happened over a great deal of time.
Historic evidence indicates that Spanish and Italian were once the same language. What happened?
Genetic evidence indicates that rats and mice were once the same species. What happened?
The same thing in both cases. Separate populations accumulated differences until there was a fundamental divergence.
Still doesn’t make sense, surely a geneticist can look at rats and mice and document all the genetic differences between them.
Lets say for argument sake there are 100 total differences, and let’s say the argument you’re makings, is that there is this separate population of rats, each developed some of these traits individually, until the entire population gained all the traits over time and became mice. Surely, there is at one point, one individual member of the population that was the 1st to have all one hundred of these traits. That prior to that there were many with almost all of them, but none had all of them, until this individual mice came along.
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