veracity of evolution

@odenskrigare,

odenskrigare;87514 wrote:

one instance of ethical violations invalidates the entire epistemology of the scientific method

Yeah, it's not much different than Rich's bringing up Piltdown Man. In fact in the latter case it's of particular credit to evolutionary biology to identify and toss out the trash.

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@odenskrigare,

it's kind of like when Stephen Colbert vandalized Wikipedia and the graffito was wiped out within a few hours

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@Aedes,

Aedes;87492 wrote:

Let's be careful not to try to produce open-minded adults by contaminating the science education of children. Teach kids the state of the art of science first. You can't truly be open-minded if you're not empowered with knowledge and critical thinking.

True.

How does the saying go: be open-minded, but not so open-minded your brain rolls out.

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@odenskrigare,

odenskrigare;87517 wrote:

it's kind of like when Stephen Colbert vandalized Wikipedia and the graffito was wiped out within a few hours

Yeah, good point.

I used to prescribe a lot of probiotics, like lactobacillus and bifidobacterium and saccharomyces boulardii. This stuff is all over the counter in health food stores, and there's some supportive literature about them.

But then I was at a national meeting last year and two of the world's experts in the subject started showing how these things have no quality control in manufacture or transport, no standardization of dosing, and the studies that support them are not necessarily using the same thing that you can buy over the counter. Plus there is risk of harm. Basically, these were people who stood to gain financially from these compounds, yet they were telling the world not to prescribe them based on the current data. I've not once prescribed them since. It's another form of internal error-correction.

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;87496 wrote:

If I had been there would not be the thousands of thalidomide victims there are today.

Except that it wasn't the medicinal enantiomer of thalidomide that caused the birth defect but the other non-medicinal one. This was in a time before anyone really knew about enantiomeric effects.

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@Berner,

Holy crap this thread exploded!

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@Kielicious,

Kielicious;87522 wrote:

Holy crap this thread exploded!

It's Oden's, if he's happy with it then no harm no foul.

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@odenskrigare,

odenskrigare;87507 wrote:

everything is a poison under the right circumstances

Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division - dihydrogen monoxide info

Yea, this is nice...there's also a good youtube video on the popular petition to ban dangerous dihydrogen monoxide.

YouTube - Banning DiHydrogen Monoxide - Penn and Teller

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@odenskrigare,

this was worth interrupting Beavis and Butthead

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@odenskrigare,

Thalidomide or piltdown man, doesn;t matter

the issue is that we should not make declarations before their time.

We should continue to study and observe, learn and experiment.

But there is no need to make declarations based solely on circumstantial evidence.

Declaration will not make it any easier or harder to study evolution so why do it.

The reasoning you guys use to support declaring evolution a fact is that it has a large following and much evidence,

That reasoning can be used to suggest that God then is a fact because he has a huge following and there is much evidence to suggest he exists as well, are u guys willing to tolerate that?

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@odenskrigare,

huge following, yes

much evidence, not so much

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;87530 wrote:

that reasoning can be used to suggest that God then is a fact because he has a huge following and there is much evidence to suggest he exists as well, are u guys willing to tolerate that?

Care to give a few NOVEL examples? not the continually regurgitated...

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@odenskrigare,

thy will be done

hallowed by thy name

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@odenskrigare,

Evidence for a God:

Theory: You know all of those fossils and things that people are finding. Well, someone must have created them. There must be a God.

Evidence for natural selection:

Theory: You know all those fossils and things that people are finding. Well, they must have evolved somehow into us. They must have been the fittest, because, boy are we fit.

One good metaphysical turn deserves another. Speculation by any name is still speculation. Now of course, if we could see into the beginning, we might really know what happened. But as far back we can go, we still can't see it. Too bad. We'll just have to live with what ever story suits our own belief system.

Rich

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@richrf,

richrf;87540 wrote:

Theory: You know all those fossils and things that people are finding. Well, they must have evolved somehow into us. They must have been the fittest, because, boy are we fit

no one is saying this and I think if you read most any book touching on evolutionary biology (at least everything I've read wrt psychology/neuroscience and evolution), the emphasis is driven home again and again that evolution is a satisficing rather than an optimizing algorithm. if it finds a "good enough" local maximum, it has no reason to move away from it. we are no exception to this rule. indeed there is evidence of it everywhere. so, for instance, while human vision processing is extraordinarily well developed (out of necessity), reasoning by default relies on some very shoddy heuristics that used to work in the Stone Ages but have since fallen apart

this is the point that the transhumanists on this board you so revile are making: we are really not that "fit"

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@odenskrigare,

so this raises the question: is rich going to pursue the "scientists are evil because they use the theory of evolution to make us look like the greatest thing since sliced bread" or the "scientists are evil because they believe we're not perfect and want to improve on human biology" angle

let's see him develop his internally incoherent conspiracy theory here

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@richrf,

richrf;87540 wrote:

Evidence for a God:

Theory: You know all of those fossils and things that people are finding. Well, someone must have created them. There must be a God.

Evidence for natural selection:

Theory: You know all those fossils and things that people are finding. Well, they must have evolved somehow into us. They must have been the fittest, because, boy are we fit.

One good metaphysical turn deserves another. Speculation by any name is still speculation. Now of course, if we could see into the beginning, we might really know what happened. But as far back we can go, we still can't see it. Too bad. We'll just have to live with what ever story suits our own belief system.

Rich

Wow rich...

You never cease to amaze me. I am swayed by your consistent logic and determination. Where do I sign up?:Glasses:

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@odenskrigare,

Using the reasoning that evolution should be regarded as fact based upon its large following and its accumulation of evidence that people believe leads to a conclusion, is exactly the reasoning that millions of Christians use to declare their beliefs.

We do not need to argue the validity. That is what we are already doing here is it not. Whether we do it here, with regard to evolution, or there, with regard to Christianity, is not the point. Trying to use the evidence that people use to support their beliefs works both ways and both can be debated.

The point is that both are using exactly the same logic to promote their theories. I do not accept either as a reason to declare fact out of fiction without further proof.

A mountain of evidence and large following does not prove anything. If it did than evolution would be as true as the Christ in heaven that millions of people believe in.

Do I hear a hallelujah Oden? If you like I can go to some of these Christian sites and paste in a few hundred pages of what they cite as evidence of the existence of their God just like you like to do to prove your god.

---------- Post added 09-02-2009 at 06:30 AM ----------

odenskrigare;87531 wrote:

huge following, yes

much evidence, not so much

I see, now you are about to take the podium and declare only you have the patent on what should be considered evidence and what should not.

Yup, you are definitely important! especially to millions of other people who I am sure will trash their beliefs instantly as soon as they hear from,, O Great Wonder of Wonders!

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;87484 wrote:

the differnce between gravity and the other things that you use, is that I believe that the tie between the mystery of life and evolution cannot be separated and that without knowing where life actually comes from that all evolution will ever be is speculation. the same can be said of the consciousness dilemma being had on that other thread.

I do not see how the question of life's origin and the mystery behind it can be set aside as moot just to declare something discovered and factual.

Let us separate two things:

(a) Abiogenesis - the chemical creation of living organisms from non-living matter; the natural creation of life from non-life.

(b) Evolution - the biological modification of living organisms; the natural diversification and increasing complexity of life.

I think your concern relates specifically to abiogenesis, does it not? It does not seem to relate to evolution (as defined above), because you are concerned about the mystery of life's origin, not how (or even whether) already-living species evolved into different ones. So biological mutations, natural selection, and all the other post-Darwinian evolutionary processes are not really the issue, as they are subsequent to the origin of life. Is that correct?

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@Pathfinder,

Pathfinder;87530 wrote:

the issue is that we should not make declarations before their time

What is this "declaration" of which you speak? Who cares about "declarations"?

Pathfinder;87530 wrote:

We should continue to study and observe, learn and experiment.

Yup. But we shouldn't just shrug our shoulders and fear commitment to an idea just because someone has thought of a new experiment to do.

Pathfinder;87530 wrote:

But there is no need to make declarations based solely on circumstantial evidence.

Fortunately evolution isn't circumstantial. It's going on real-time and it can be demonstrated even in humans real-time. The sickle cell, HbC, and HbE gentoypes in malaria-endemic areas are one of the most powerful demonstrations of ongoing human evolution over a very short time scale.

Pathfinder;87530 wrote:

God then is a fact because he has a huge following and there is much evidence to suggest he exists as well, are u guys willing to tolerate that?

Sure, as soon as someone shows us this "evidence" of which you speak.

---------- Post added 09-02-2009 at 08:28 AM ----------

richrf;87540 wrote:

Evidence for a God:

Theory: You know all of those fossils and things that people are finding. Well, someone must have created them. There must be a God.

Right................ That's about as sound as saying in court "Michael Jackson is dead. Someone must have killed him. Richrf must be a murderer".

1 Reply

veracity of evolution

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