@Dave Allen,
Dave Allen;105335 wrote:
You can look at it whatever way you want. I haven't been stopping you, as far as I can see no one has.
In fact, as far as I can see, I have been engaging with you.
The reason I have not bothered to answer your original question is that I struggle to see it's relevence given that scientific enquiry takes as read that the phenomenal world can be the subject of greater understanding through observation.
If it doesn't make that foundational step - a line of enquiry is not science.
So choosing a particular branch of science and suggesting it take such a line of enquiry is rather bewildering to me.
What you are doing is conflating the theory of evolution with a sort of philosophical materialism that states all we can potentially about the material universe is all there is to know.
Evolution - changes in allele frequency leading to a theory regarding the relatedness of all organisms on earth.
Is not...
Philosophical materialism - there is nothing supernatural.
They are two rather different things, and whilst philosophical materialists might often cite evolution because it provides answers to questions such as "how did we get here" and "why are we the way we are".
Using evolution in that way is certainly fraught with problems, because a scientific theory is being applied to a natural history we aren't certain of.
I myself would tend toward philosophical materialism - but I am careful to distinguish between the fact of evolution and its possible (highly plausible in my opinion) application to natural history.
But philosophical materialism is not evolution in and of itself - it certainly is not "Darwinian" because he never stated that it had any bearing on the supernatural. His own disavowel of a loving god came as a result of questions such as "why is there suffering" based on the death of his daughter - and he never stated he was an atheist or disbeliever in the supernatural. He stopped being a practising Christian - yes - but that in itself is not proof of a worldview.
So to sum up, the reasons I'm not interested in your question:
1) It's based on a false premise (evolution doesn't state that it is "All there is" even if some proponents of evolution do, like Richard Dawkins - a self-proclaimed philosophical materialist).
2) It fails to understand the theory (evolution does not teach that we came from ameoba).
3) Even if it did why would that be anathema to religious belief unless you wish to adhere to a literal reading of a particular creation myth (many proponents of evolution happily supplement it with or to their religious beliefs - see Ken Miller again, a practising Catholic, see what the last two Popes said about the theory).
Well you havent been stopping me, but rather than answer my question you have been trying to simply dismiss it.
My point is this (i'll state it again). When we carry out scientific investigations into the phenomenal world, the most reliable deductions we can make are ones that have the qualities of demonstrability, and repeatability, for instance if you make the statement that the average rate of gravity on earth is around 9.1 m/s/s, you can take a stopwatch and a tennisball, go outside and try it out. Now, we can also do things like try to work out the rate of gravity on mars. This is not demonstrable and repeatable in the same way - ie I can not take a tennis ball, and stopwatch and try it out. BUT, we are able to work it out, and it is mathematically demonstrable, if we take certain ASSUMPTIONS. For instance that somehow the laws of physics dont just break down once we travel a certain distance outside our planet.
Now the further we go away from things which are immediately demonstrable and repeatable, the more ASSUMPTIONS we have to take. Therefore it is very acceptable for someone to question a theory VERY FAR from being immediately demonstrable and repeatable on the assumptions it is based on alone.
I am not, nor would I ever not take into account any evidence,and I am not now. Many times, I have one hundred percent stated I one hundred percent agree with evolution, and the transmutation of species. The ONLY thing I am questioning is the statement made in many quarters that ALL life on this planet started from a common ancestor, and even 'abiologically', and that was all there was, on the simple ground that this treats time space, and substance as kantian 'things in themselves', and that these were there before any conscious being. The statement I am making is that this is irreconcilable to many philosophic positions regarding the nature of copnsciousness, time space, and substance.
Can we then agree on this point then? If kantian idealism is correct, along with various ideas relating to the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and that 'conscousness expresses itself as matter' as davd bohm put it, and that we are indeed co-creators of our relaity, then this refutes the richard dawkins traditional picture of the beginnings of life on this palnet?
Quote:
You asked(I paraphrase) what observable facts back up the theory of evolution - hence my list of observable facts.
So it's not to counter any sort of dispute that I give them, but why ask for observables to back it up and then claim you have no dispute?
No.
I have never once even questioned the theory of evolution (for the millionth time), as I quite clearly state in my OP. None of your points prove anything about what I am attacking - ie that ALL life on earth can be explained with the 'common ancestor' explaination.
