1221 replies to this topic

[shadowhawk]

Ad homolnem attacks as you have repeatedly engaged in,  It turns you on.  No facts and off subject as usual.   Have a nice day. 

[Duchykins]

I dare you to find one example of a Discovery Institute Fellow who does not believe in Jesus Christ.

The Wedge Document is explicitly written by Christians for Christians and this is most obvious on page 6.


Islam is chock full of antievolutionists, and yet it is nearly unheard of to see a Muslim creationist advocating Intelligent Design. It is very rare and when you do see the occasional article about it written by a Muslim, the fact that ID is a movement of Christians is mentioned at least once. Most Islamic creationists reject ID not only because it is of Christianity but because they disagree with key points in the definition of ID (ID is actually not compatible with all religions and beliefs as they advertise, they make this claim out of ignorance of other religions and egocentricity). Not in ten years has any Muslim cited an article from the Discovery Institute or its affiliate companies to me, nor name dropped any of the Fellows at the Discovery Institute nor cited any of their books or papers. Nor any Jew, for that matter. Most Jews are not antievolution, not at all anti-intellectual to their credit, but they still have their fundies like any other group. I have spoken to more than a few in my time who had similar arguments to ID (while also havin some differences) but never claimed ID ... because it is a thing of Christianity and they know it. The story is similar among Hindus, most do not agree with ID and strongly object to Christian creationism in the classroom, while a very tiny minority advocate ID explicitly.

Christian creationists made quite the effort at sterilizing their version of creation but it still doesn't fly with the overwhelming majority of nonChristian religions and even most of the antievolutionists in those religions. Lol.

ID explictly denies natural selection in its very definition. You have posted videos of ID creationists who challenge the validity of natural selection at some point in their videos. Since you accept that natural selection is part of the mechanism for the diversification of life, then you do not accept ID. You are not promoting ID but some other type of creationism.


Every time you speak of mutations you fail to compose a cogent sentence, let alone addressing any problems you see in the ability of mutation to alter genetic material. Your arguments against mutations are difficult to address because they are nonsensical. Hence the laughing.

[Duchykins]

http://www.wikipedia...elligent_design

http://www.wikipedia...ws_on_evolution

http://www.wikipedia...ws_on_evolution

[shadowhawk]

By mutation and random chance???

 

 

 

 

 

[shadowhawk]

Duchykins I know Christians are your big concern.  Off topic and in material.  I could argue this but why?  I don't care if they are Jews but apparently you do.  Something else is going on here.  How about black Christians, would they be OK?

[serp777]

Duchykins I know Christians are your big concern.  Off topic and in material.  I could argue this but why?  I don't care if they are Jews but apparently you do.  Something else is going on here.  How about black Christians, would they be OK?

 

Well this is a red herring if I ever saw one. Why don't you stop being such a hypocrite? In one instance, you cry about ad hominem in addition to people being off topic, and in the second you're trying to prove some irrelevant point about his alleged feelings against religious people. Off topic, irrelevant, and a pointless deflection. Just go post some more youtube videos at least; it's better than looking at your meaningless arguments. 

[serp777]

Ad homolnem attacks as you have repeatedly engaged in,  It turns you on.  No facts and off subject as usual.   Have a nice day. 

 

More crying about ad hominem, and then uses his own ad hominem against that user by claiming it "turns them on." You are a hypocrite of the worst kind.

 

Edited by serp777, 11 July 2014 - 01:21 AM.

[serp777]

By mutation and random chance???

 

 

 

 

 

Yes by mutation and random chance. Do a google search on genetics for God's sake. IF IT'S TOO COMPLEX FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND IT MUST BE INTELLIGENT DESIGN.

 

Give me a break. Your "evidence" is embarrassing.

Edited by serp777, 11 July 2014 - 01:21 AM.

[Duchykins]

Duchykins I know Christians are your big concern.  Off topic and in material.  I could argue this but why?  I don't care if they are Jews but apparently you do.  Something else is going on here.  How about black Christians, would they be OK?

Just calling you out on another lie, that's all. Is there a reason you brought ethnicity into it? My spouse is black.

[Duchykins]

By mutation and random chance???
 

 
 
 
 

It's mutation and natural selection, actually. You keep making Freudian slips like this. You make antievolution arguments that challenge natural selection (when you prattle on about 'random chance', you are denying natural selection). You have been told countless times that natural selection is a distinctly nonrandom process that overrides the randomness of mutation. So either you were lying when you said you accepted natural selection or you are too scatterbrained to keep track of your own nonsense.

[shadowhawk]

My spouse is a Jew.  I don't care if your wife is black.  Bigotry can come in many forms.  Natural selection alone does not evolution make.  Darwin was half right.  I made no slip.  Anyone can see survival of the fittest (Natural selection) and I nor ID proponents deny this.  Random chance directly is tied into mutations and that is where new genetic information comes from in evolution.  We have gone over this before.

 

More name calling.  Typical, you do it all the time. 

[serp777]

My spouse is a Jew.  I don't care if your wife is black.  Bigotry can come in many forms.  Natural selection alone does not evolution make.  Darwin was half right.  I made no slip.  Anyone can see survival of the fittest (Natural selection) and I nor ID proponents deny this.  Random chance directly is tied into mutations and that is where new genetic information comes from in evolution.  We have gone over this before.
 
More name calling.  Typical, you do it all the time. 

Thats because you started saying ridiculous things like "nonsense". You just can't argue with a hypocritical idiot; youll bring us down to your level and beat us with experience. You do ad hominem all the time too, fool

[Duchykins]

I don't care if your spouse is a Jew. I tend to prefer Jews over Christians specifically because they are less likely to be anti-intellectual creationists like you and your ilk. Statistically, Jews tend to be smarter than their younger Abrahamic brethren. I think it has something to do with Jewish culture encouraging critical thinking and philosophical argumentation in their children while Christian and Islamic cultures tend to stifle or mutilate it, eventually contributing to the disproportionate overrepresentation of Jews in academic and scientific communities, even more glaring among Nobel prize winners. Then again, atheists and various irreligious are also overrepresented among the intellectual elite so that probably makes me biased in my favoritism of Jewish people.



Natural selection is not survival of the fittest. That is an erroneous pop culture perception of evolutionary mechanisms.

Remember what I told you - if you are not representing evolutionary theory, its mechanisms, correctly in your arguments, then you are not arguing against evolution. You're only arguing against the misconception of evolution you hold in your mind, which is hilarious.

Even if you claim to accept 'survival of the fittest', that's not natural selection so you're still not talking about evolutionary mechanisms, which is even funnier.

Edited by Duchykins, 11 July 2014 - 03:51 AM.

[Duchykins]

So anyways your argument is basically that random mutations do not happen, right? Mutations are overseen by unknown intelligences, every last one of them micromanaged, the dozens and dozens that occur in every new human life, is that that your argument?

Edited by Duchykins, 11 July 2014 - 04:10 AM.

[maxwatt]

Intelligent design as a theory is not falsifiable; everything it explains can be explained without it.  By Occams Razor, it's out, not part of science.  Theology, on the other hand....

 

 

Edited by maxwatt, 11 July 2014 - 05:43 AM.

[shadowhawk]

So anyways your argument is basically that random mutations do not happen, right? Mutations are overseen by unknown intelligences, every last one of them micromanaged, the dozens and dozens that occur in every new human life, is that that your argument?

No. Nonsense.

[shadowhawk]

Intelligent design as a theory is not falsifiable; everything it explains can be explained without it.  By Occams Razor, it's out, not part of science.  Theology, on the other hand....

 

 

 

Incomparably more influential than any science textbook, Wikipedia with its seen-as-if-through-a-funhouse-mirror rendering of intelligent design passes along with its distortions directly into the bloodstream of popular consciousness. If you're ever looking for a way to kill time, counting errors per sentence in any Wikipedia article that touches on ID will soak up plenty. This of course is a way to really kill time -- not to use it effectively by somehow correcting the errors. No class of people on the planet has more time on their hands than the guys who edit Wikipedia articles. As part of what seems to be a 24/7 unpaid job, they stand ready at a moment's notice to change any attempted correction back to its original erroneous version.

Along with other falsehoods, the ranks of Wikipedia errors include a group of myths, comprising a Darwinian Mythos of superstitious, credulous, fallacious and legendary beliefs about intelligent design. Among these, the myth as to falsifiability or testability ranks high on the Wikipedia Scale. The latter is a rough measure of how important a particular mythic theme is to the overarching conception of Darwinism as unquestionable "fact," gauged by how insistent the Wikipedia editors are in emphasizing it.

Regarding the mythic idea that intelligent design can't be tested or falsified and is therefore unscientific, the Wikipedia editors quote the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. They cite the distinguished scientist and philosopher Judge John E. Jones. They cite blogger PZ Myers on "Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence." They quote philosopher Elliott Sober: "Defenders of ID always have a way out. This is not the hallmark of a falsifiable theory."

Yet isn't it funny that the Darwinist faithful are often perfectly happy to launch attempts to clobber intelligent design on factual and scientific grounds -- just as if ID were genuine science -- only to retreat immediately behind the barricade of the Falsifiability Myth? If they had confidence either in the myth or in the attack, presumably they would choose one and stick with it.

By way of illustration, the new year starts off with a series of articles based on a symposium back in June of the 1st International Society of Protistologists (North American Section), now published in a primary research journal, The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology. The January/February issue collects essays on how "Horizontal Gene Transfer and Phylogenetic Evolution Debunk Intelligent Design." Biologists from Roger Williams University, the University of Georgia, the New York State Department of Health, the University at Albany (SUNY), and the University of Massachusetts contributed attempts to "Uncover Faulty Logic in Intelligent Design" or "Dispel the Myths of Intelligent Design," as two article titles put it.

Dispel? Uncover? Debunk? That sounds very much like falsifying. Whether the dispelling, uncovering and debunking succeed is a different question but there can be no doubt that at least when they were composing their presentations, treatments of no little empirical depth and detail, the authors took it for granted that intelligent design can be tested, that ID advocates cannot simply slip out of any refutation. Otherwise, what in the world could be the purpose of the symposium? One assumes the participating biologists do not enjoy endless free time to spin their wheels. They are not unemployed obsessive compulsives, like the Wikipedia editors. Or maybe I'm naïve about academic life.

It reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon series, where Lucy had a stand dispensing "PSYCHIATRIC HELP 5¢." Underneath the window where she sat was the additional hand-printed information, "THE DOCTOR IS" and then a little placard that could be turned up or down, "IN" or "OUT."

Sometimes the doctor was "IN." Sometimes "OUT." Sometimes intelligent design IS testable or falsifiable. Sometimes it IS NOT. If the question seemed to depend on which doctor, or which Wikipedia editor, is IN or OUT, you could ascribe the confusion to a candid difference of opinion among evolutionists. But that seems not to be the case. I'm not aware of an established opinion among them that consistently, honestly concedes that intelligent design is science but that it is science that has been tested and found to be false. In the Darwin debate, if either party really "always has a way out," it's not the defenders of ID but those of Darwinism.

[sthira]

...Sometimes intelligent design IS testable or falsifiable. Sometimes it IS NOT.

When is ID falsifiable? For example, what's your research project with ID? What experiment is proposed? Do something. Name a hypothesis, then test it in the world. Since no one knows what an intelligent designer is or if one exists, how is it ever tested, verified, falisfied? How is it anything beyond human imagination? 

By comparison, say I study moths (

...Sometimes intelligent design IS testable or falsifiable. Sometimes it IS NOT.

So many words, so little to say. When is ID ever falsifiable? Since no intelligent designer appears to exist, how is non existence falsifiable?

By comparison, say I study native population dynamics of Lepidoptera (moths) and what effects mowing regimes have upon them. Moths (creatures that exist) exist within ecosystems (that also exist) and mowing regimes (that exist) affect populations (that also exist). I find an interesting study; I seek to replicate that study or challenge its findings. So I read the lit, then make a plan to duplicate their protocol. I follow directions. I look to verify or falsify prior results within very tight parameters. I stand on someone else's research, then proceed. As part of the process, I do a lot of field work in the real world, and record everything I do. I'm careful to stay within published boundaries. Then I reach a statistical conclusion based upon my collected data. Did my results match prior research? Did I mess up any steps along the way? Did I follow procedure exactly as previous researchers outlined it? I record all that. I make that record very clear. No question how I did this, no mysteries, no secret plans or devices, no extraneous words or actions. Then I make a generalized conclusion based upon my data. In seasons to follow, more researchers will come along. They're also interested in how mowing regimes affect native biodiversity. They will follow the same guidelines I followed, and they also look at my additions to the research. They will then attempt to replicate or falsify previpus findings based upon the same narrow confines we all follow in this field. 

We research the existent world. How is ID (if it conducts experiments in reality) ever verifiable or falsifiable? In linguistics?  Semantics? What experiments do ID practitioners DO to verify or falsify their hypotheses in the existent world?

[johnross47]

 

Intelligent design as a theory is not falsifiable; everything it explains can be explained without it.  By Occams Razor, it's out, not part of science.  Theology, on the other hand....

 

 

 

Incomparably more influential than any science textbook, Wikipedia with its seen-as-if-through-a-funhouse-mirror rendering of intelligent design passes along with its distortions directly into the bloodstream of popular consciousness. If you're ever looking for a way to kill time, counting errors per sentence in any Wikipedia article that touches on ID will soak up plenty. This of course is a way to really kill time -- not to use it effectively by somehow correcting the errors. No class of people on the planet has more time on their hands than the guys who edit Wikipedia articles. As part of what seems to be a 24/7 unpaid job, they stand ready at a moment's notice to change any attempted correction back to its original erroneous version.

Along with other falsehoods, the ranks of Wikipedia errors include a group of myths, comprising a Darwinian Mythos of superstitious, credulous, fallacious and legendary beliefs about intelligent design. Among these, the myth as to falsifiability or testability ranks high on the Wikipedia Scale. The latter is a rough measure of how important a particular mythic theme is to the overarching conception of Darwinism as unquestionable "fact," gauged by how insistent the Wikipedia editors are in emphasizing it.

Regarding the mythic idea that intelligent design can't be tested or falsified and is therefore unscientific, the Wikipedia editors quote the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. They cite the distinguished scientist and philosopher Judge John E. Jones. They cite blogger PZ Myers on "Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence." They quote philosopher Elliott Sober: "Defenders of ID always have a way out. This is not the hallmark of a falsifiable theory."

Yet isn't it funny that the Darwinist faithful are often perfectly happy to launch attempts to clobber intelligent design on factual and scientific grounds -- just as if ID were genuine science -- only to retreat immediately behind the barricade of the Falsifiability Myth? If they had confidence either in the myth or in the attack, presumably they would choose one and stick with it.

By way of illustration, the new year starts off with a series of articles based on a symposium back in June of the 1st International Society of Protistologists (North American Section), now published in a primary research journal, The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology. The January/February issue collects essays on how "Horizontal Gene Transfer and Phylogenetic Evolution Debunk Intelligent Design." Biologists from Roger Williams University, the University of Georgia, the New York State Department of Health, the University at Albany (SUNY), and the University of Massachusetts contributed attempts to "Uncover Faulty Logic in Intelligent Design" or "Dispel the Myths of Intelligent Design," as two article titles put it.

Dispel? Uncover? Debunk? That sounds very much like falsifying. Whether the dispelling, uncovering and debunking succeed is a different question but there can be no doubt that at least when they were composing their presentations, treatments of no little empirical depth and detail, the authors took it for granted that intelligent design can be tested, that ID advocates cannot simply slip out of any refutation. Otherwise, what in the world could be the purpose of the symposium? One assumes the participating biologists do not enjoy endless free time to spin their wheels. They are not unemployed obsessive compulsives, like the Wikipedia editors. Or maybe I'm naïve about academic life.

It reminds me of the old Peanuts cartoon series, where Lucy had a stand dispensing "PSYCHIATRIC HELP 5¢." Underneath the window where she sat was the additional hand-printed information, "THE DOCTOR IS" and then a little placard that could be turned up or down, "IN" or "OUT."

Sometimes the doctor was "IN." Sometimes "OUT." Sometimes intelligent design IS testable or falsifiable. Sometimes it IS NOT. If the question seemed to depend on which doctor, or which Wikipedia editor, is IN or OUT, you could ascribe the confusion to a candid difference of opinion among evolutionists. But that seems not to be the case. I'm not aware of an established opinion among them that consistently, honestly concedes that intelligent design is science but that it is science that has been tested and found to be false. In the Darwin debate, if either party really "always has a way out," it's not the defenders of ID but those of Darwinism.

 

I marked this as needing references because it is a cut and paste job. This nasty little bigot is still pasting other people's work and making it look like his own.

http://www.discovery...imit=10&page=15

 

When I was wasting my life arguing with this troll I made a habit of always googling his material. Most of it was not his

at all. You're not arguing with a person, you're arguing with a bigotted right wing religious propaganda machine.

[Duchykins]

So anyways your argument is basically that random mutations do not happen, right? Mutations are overseen by unknown intelligences, every last one of them micromanaged, the dozens and dozens that occur in every new human life, is that that your argument?

No. Nonsense.

Then what?

[shadowhawk]

[Duchykins]

Intelligent design as a theory is not falsifiable; everything it explains can be explained without it.  By Occams Razor, it's out, not part of science.  Theology, on the other hand....
 
 

 

Incomparably more influential than any science textbook, Wikipedia with its seen-as-if-through-a-funhouse-mirror rendering of intelligent design passes along with its distortions directly into the bloodstream of popular consciousness. If you're ever looking for a way to kill time, counting errors per sentence in any Wikipedia article that touches on ID will soak up plenty.

http://news.cnet.com..._3-5997332.html




Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica, the venerable standard-bearer of facts about the world around us, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature.

Over the last couple of weeks, Wikipedia, the free, open-access encyclopedia, has taken a great deal of flak in the press for problems related to the credibility of its authors and its general accountability.

In particular, Wikipedia has taken hits for its inclusion, for four months, of an anonymously written article linking former journalist John Seigenthaler to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. At the same time, the blogosphere was buzzing for several days about podcasting pioneer Adam Curry's being accused of anonymously deleting references to others' seminal work on the technology.

After two scandals in one week, Wikipedia's founder decides to make a change to the anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia.
In response to situations like these and others in its history, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has always maintained that the service and its community are built around a self-policing and self-cleaning nature that is supposed to ensure its articles are accurate.
Still, many critics have tried to downplay its role as a source of valid information and have often pointed to the Encyclopedia Britannica as an example of an accurate reference.


For its study, Nature chose articles from both sites in a wide range of topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles--one from each site on a given topic--side by side, but were not told which article came from which site. Nature got back 42 usable reviews from its field of experts.

In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts, in the articles. Of those, four came from each site. They did, however, discover a series of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements. All told, Wikipedia had 162 such problems, while Britannica had 123.

That averages out to 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86 for Wikipedia.

"An expert-led investigation carried out by Nature--the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science," the journal wrote, "suggests that such high-profile examples (like the Seigenthaler and Curry situations) are the exception rather than the rule."

And to Wales, while Britannica came out looking a little bit more accurate than Wikipedia, the Nature study was validation of his service's fundamental structure.

"I was very pleased, just to see that (the study) was reasonably favorable," Wales told CNET News.com. "I think it provides, for us, a great counterpoint to the press coverage we've gotten recently, because it puts the focus on the broader quality and not just one article."

He also acknowledged that the error rate for each encyclopedia was not insignificant, and added that he thinks such numbers demonstrate that broad review of encyclopedia articles is needed.

He also said that the results belie the notion that Britannica is infallible.

//



Incidentally, and ironically, as you are one who continuously cries about ad hominem, making the argument that Wikipedia is full of error and is untrustworthy because it is 'edited by anonymous' is a genuine argumentum ad hominem, because it uses popular misconceptions about Wiki without actually addressing the content of any one article or an article's references.

Edited by Duchykins, 14 July 2014 - 04:49 AM.

[Duchykins]

Even though you hijacked the argument from your favorite professional liars, you presented it as your own and that means you shoulder all their mistakes as your own.

[Duchykins]

The guy on the phone is almost certainly deliberately distorting Popper's meaning, since he appears to have knowledge of it. Oh that shit is so old!




The actual context:





http://ncse.com/cej/...y-say-evolution


I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programmea possible framework for testable scientific theories. [Popper, 1976, p. 168]


And yet, the theory is invaluable. I do not see how, without it, our knowledge could have grown as it has done since Darwin. In trying to explain experiments with bacteria which become adapted to, say, penicillin, it is quite clear that we are greatly helped by the theory of natural selection. Although it is metaphysical, it sheds much light upon very concrete and very practical researches. It allows us to study adaptation to a new environment (such as a penicillin-infested environment) in a rational way: it suggests the existence of a mechanism of adaptation, and it allows us even to study in detail the mechanism at work. And it is the only theory so far which does all that. (Popper 1976, 171-172)



It is clear that here Darwinism means natural selection, not evolution. Popper states this explicitly earlier in the same work:

. . . because I intend to argue that the theory of natural selection is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme; . . . [Popper, 1976, p. 151]

There are two points to be made here:

First, natural selection being untestable is not the same as evolution being untestable. Evolution, to the creationist, is any hypothesis about origins. Astrophysical theories about stellar evolution or the "Big Bang" cosmology or scientific geology or, for that matter, many facets of biological evolution are not based upon Darwinian natural selection.

Second, Popper later admitted that he was wrong!

The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology. . . . I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological," and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. . . . [Popper, 1978, p. 344]

I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. . . . [p. 345]

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. [p. 346]


Thus the creationists were never correct in stating that Popper believed that evolution was not falsifiable (and hence not scientific), nor are they now correct in citing him as an authority for the claim that natural selection is tautological and not falsifiable!

Some might challenge my point that Popper never doubted the testability of evolution by citing the following:

I blush when I have to make this confession; for when I was younger, I used to say very contemptuous things about evolutionary philosophies. When twenty-two years ago Canon Charles E. Raven, in his Science, Religion, and the Future, described the Darwinian controversy as "a storm in a Victorian teacup," I agreed, but criticized him for paying too much attention "to the vapors still emerging from the cup," by which I meant the hot air of the evolutionary philosophies (especially those which told us that there were inexorable laws of evolution). But now I have to confess that this cup of tea has become, after all, my cup of tea; and with it I have to eat humble pie. [Popper, 1972, p. 241]

But in an earlier work, he explicitly identified these "vapors" as "the Great Systems of Evolutionist philosophy, produced by Bergson, Whitehead, Smuts and others" (Popper, 1957, p. 106). He was not speaking, then, of the scientific theory of evolution but of various metaphysical theories. He made a clear distinction between the two.

And his current support for the Darwinian idea of natural selection is expressed in equally plain language.

What Darwin showed us was that the mechanism of natural selection can, in principle, simulate the actions of the Creator and His purpose and design, and that it can also simulate rational human action directed towards a purpose or aim. [Popper, 1972, p. 267; see also Popper, 1978, pp. 342-343]


Full text:


Popper later changed his mind and recognized that natural selection is testable. Here is an excerpt from a later writing on "Natural Selection and Its Scientific Status" (Miller 1985, 241-243; see also Popper 1978):


When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today's theory - that is Darwin's own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity, by the theory of the mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool, and by the decoded genetic code. This is an immensely impressive and powerful theory. The claim that it completely explains evolution is of course a bold claim, and very far from being established. All scientific theories are conjectures, even those that have successfully passed many severe and varied tests. The Mendelian underpinning of modern Darwinism has been well tested, and so has the theory of evolution which says that all terrestrial life has evolved from a few primitive unicellular organisms, possibly even from one single organism.

However, Darwin's own most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural selection, is difficult to test. There are some tests, even some experimental tests; and in some cases, such as the famous phenomenon known as 'industrial melanism', we can observe natural selection happening under our very eyes, as it were. Nevertheless, really severe tests of the theory of natural selection are hard to come by, much more so than tests of otherwise comparable theories in physics or chemistry.

The fact that the theory of natural selection is difficult to test has led some people, anti-Darwinists and even some great Darwinists, to claim that it is a tautology [see CA500]. A tautology like 'All tables are tables' is not, of course, testable; nor has it any explanatory power. It is therefore most surprising to hear that some of the greatest contemporary Darwinists themselves formulate the theory in such a way that it amounts to the tautology that those organisms that leave most offspring leave most offspring. C. H. Waddington says somewhere (and he defends this view in other places) that 'Natural selection . . . turns out ... to be a tautology' ..4 However, he attributes at the same place to the theory an 'enormous power. ... of explanation'. Since the explanatory power of a tautology is obviously zero, something must be wrong here.

Yet similar passages can be found in the works of such great Darwinists as Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and George Gaylord Simpson; and others.

I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as 'almost tautological', and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems.

I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and the logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection.


http://www.talkorigi...CA/CA211_1.html

[shadowhawk]

Well, Popper aside, and the debate is not over, is beside the point.  You can always change your mind in Science as you discover more.  The people who want to rule things out of even consideration are not speaking for science.  All questions are open.  ID is in.

[Duchykins]

So where's ID's mechanism for diversity? How does ID explain antibiotic resistance, for example?

[serp777]

Well, Popper aside, and the debate is not over, is beside the point.  You can always change your mind in Science as you discover more.  The people who want to rule things out of even consideration are not speaking for science.  All questions are open.  ID is in.

 

Ok then, same with leprechauns, the celestial teapot, santa clause and reindeer, ancient aliens, alien abductions, etc, etc. Glad we can agree that ID would be as valid as those things, which was our entire point from the beginning. Thanks for conceding; now we don't need to talk about this anymore. Just because it's a question does not mean science should bother addressing it. 4th grade logic--theres no such thing as a bad question

 

Also in your words, science is a process, not a position, so people don't speak for it. 

Edited by serp777, 14 July 2014 - 07:55 PM.

[serp777]

So where's ID's mechanism for diversity? How does ID explain antibiotic resistance, for example?

 

Here's what he'll say so he doesnt need to bother posting: "the same way natural selection explains it, except that some intelligence is twiddling the nobs for random chance to lead to some outcome".

[shadowhawk]

For intelligent design, the big implication of antibiotic resistance is that it is cited as the main illustration of natural selection. That and those light and dark moths in industrial climes! Ask a Darwinian if natural selection has been demonstrated and he will tell you about antibiotic resistance in a very condescending tone. He will assume you never heard of it.

Basically, antibiotic resistance show how you get more of what already exists, not how you get new things. Darwin thought natural selection was the latter.

These same bacteria have been doing this kind of change for a long time.  Targeted metagenomic analyses of rigorously authenticated ancient DNA from 30,000-year-old Beringian permafrost sediments and the identification of a highly diverse collection of genes encoding resistance to ?-lactam, tetracycline and glycopeptide antibiotics. Structure and function studies on the complete vancomycin resistance element VanA confirmed its similarity to modern variants. These results show conclusively that antibiotic resistance is a natural phenomenon that predates the modern selective pressure of clinical antibiotic use.
http://www.evolution...who_085111.html

It is still the same old bacteria and still has the same abilities of adaption to things that can kill it.  It beats our best intelligence as humans.  Did this happen by chance?  Evolution is irrelivant to antibiotic resistence.  http://www.evolution...ibio004969.html
 

[shadowhawk]

 

Well, Popper aside, and the debate is not over, is beside the point.  You can always change your mind in Science as you discover more.  The people who want to rule things out of even consideration are not speaking for science.  All questions are open.  ID is in.

 

Ok then, same with leprechauns, the celestial teapot, santa clause and reindeer, ancient aliens, alien abductions, etc, etc. Glad we can agree that ID would be as valid as those things, which was our entire point from the beginning. Thanks for conceding; now we don't need to talk about this anymore. Just because it's a question does not mean science should bother addressing it. 4th grade logic--theres no such thing as a bad question

 

Also in your words, science is a process, not a position, so people don't speak for it. 

 

 think you have the wrong topic..  Name calling and attempt at ridicule.  No logic here.