Define "Evidence"

@layman,

No matter, Popper did admit he was fucked up in his letter of 1978:

Quote:

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]

As Charles Raven said, "It was a tempest in a Victorian teacup"

Weve dispensed with the Spenseriqn lines being a "tautology". It wasnt it was a type of response that took Spenser out of total context.

I love discussing Darwin and nat selection and Evolution. I just meant that we were going astray and I wasnt too interested anymore ,(weve taken this course many many times before)

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@farmerman,

Quote:

No matter, Popper did admit he was fucked up in his letter of 1978

What 1978 letter? I have already posted most of what you just did (and if you read the whole thing, he hardly admitted that he "fucked up"--he basically reiterated his original stance, with some small qualifications). Those quotes are from a "Darwin Lecture" he delivered at Cambridge in 1977

.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

I just meant that we were going astray and I wasnt too interested anymore

Well, I'm not sure how "astray" we've gone. Neo did, after all, indicate that he was looking for a discussion of such terms as falsifiability, theory, test, science, etc.

Seems like few people care to post on the topic, for some reason. I think it's a great topic, myself.

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@layman,

It was in Dialectica 1978, a short response .
Duane Gish was the one who, as you, had relighted this issue after Popper himself was willing to accept that he was WRONG (we dont give him any discredit for he as open and transparent).
Duane Giosh did much as you are doing, tery to supwrpose things from what Popper said EARLIER and try to fit them so that he APPEARED TO recant his recant.
Please, we HAVE gone over this and Im happy with Poppers contributions if you wish to insert new meanings, I dont think its worth my time. Whether you acceptwhat Popper said or not, Talk to Duane. Both Your and His methods seem in accord.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Duane Giosh did much as you are doing, tery to supwrpose things from what Popper said EARLIER and try to fit them so that he APPEARED TO recant his recant.

Perhaps you should read my post again. Everything I quoted after I posted his recant were AlSO said AFTER it.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

It was in Dialectica 1978, a short response .

The only thing I can find published in Dialectia in 1978 is this very same lecture (transcribed), originally delivered in 1977. We're talking about the same thing, NOT something he said "later," best I can tell.

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@layman,

The argument that you clipped had its origins in 1974 . Try to use the concept of timelines to at least recognize Poppers own words. You seem to wish to not allow him to have his own words live on.

As Frank Sonleitner said in 1980

Quote:

Thus we may conclude (as Popper did) that evolutionary theories or historical hypotheses about origins are no different than other scientific theories as far as their logical features are concerned and are just as falsifiable as hypotheses in the form of general laws and theories.

. That which followed in 1981 was the quote by Duane Gish and which you seem to be dwelling on in this "leaning" discussion of falsifiability.
Gish along with Isaac Asimov published(in Science Digest ) an attempt to rehash what Popper said originally and tried to avoid the entire recant thing , the master debator of Creationism asserted
"Sir Karl Popper has said that evolution is not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program"

Sonleitner said, "It impressed laypeople".

Even Gish gave up on the "its not science its religion " statements.

Youre being quite a bit disingenuous about what Falsifiability is all about. First and foremost, it must be truthful, not an untrue assertion about what one philosopher really was saying.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Youre being quite a bit disingenuous about what Falsifiability is all about. First and foremost, it must be truthful, not an untrue assertion about what one philosopher really was saying.

That's twice now you've accused me of lying, Farmer, but you haven't provided a thing to back it up.

Despite your delusion about me, I am not Duane Gish, so why are you talking about what HE said?

Quote:

Try to use the concept of timelines to at least recognize Poppers own words. You seem to wish to not allow him to have his own words live on.

Say what? I quoted his very own words, and the sequence was clear. I also posted a link so that anyone who cared to (apparently not you) could read the entire lecture for themselves.

Maybe YOU should try to present things honestly, eh?

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@farmerman,

Earlier, I said:

Quote:

I realize that this suggestion subjects me to the ever-present risk of you concluding that I am a fundamentalist Christian with a creationist agenda. But, honest, it aint about that.

It didn't help much, eh? For anyone who might not be aware, I'm pretty sure Duane Gish is a creationist. I don't recall ever reading anything he wrote, or hearing anything he said, but I have seen him referred to as such.

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@layman,

Farmer, I sometimes get the impression that you may have spent many years on the front lines in the "culture wars." Perhaps on a major battlefield, like some christian website, promoting the certainty of Neo-Darwinism while insulting most every religious person you came across. You may have finally returned home a little weary, and subject to "flashbacks," eh?

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@neologist,

Quote:

Quote:
Fil Albuquerque wrote:. . . We don't have true proof of anything unless we agree to it socially, what we usually call sufficient reasoning reviewed by peers and specialists....

Interesting observation. And, I would agree.
But, don't we risk ad populum conclusions?

Good question, Neo. God help us if "truth" ever comes to be seen as "social agreement."

After Popper decided that Darwinism was "testable" he choose an unfortunate example, saying:

Quote:

...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.

Of course his acceptance of the generally-accepted truth about this "famous phenomenon" came prior to the time this whole meme came under critical attack:

From the New York Times:

Quote:

IT was the story that was supposed to prove Darwin right. It began in England, during the Industrial Revolution, when foul black smoke began to pour from factory chimneys....

The experiments made their way into all the evolution textbooks, many of which reproduced a now famous pair of seemingly indisputable black-and white photographs....There it was: natural selection in action. Darwin was right. End of story.

In recent years it has become clear that the evidence on which the story hangs is as flimsy as a butterfly's wing. Kettlewell's experiments proved nothing. The most famous example of evolution in action must now become the most infamous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/25/books/the-moth-that-failed.html

Some world-famous psychologist, I forget who now, was once asked: "Is there any behavior so disgusting and reprehensible that the average person would never do it?"

After reflection he said. "No, I don't think there is, so long as the act(s) was approved of by his peers."

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Popper is god now when it comes to scientific evidence? Even Popper has to underpin what he writes with logic and sound reasoning. Essentially, all that is offered here is an argument from authority, which is meaningless, especially given how Popper kept hedging his statements.

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This was interesting to me: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jl/what_is_evidence/

Quote:

What is evidence? It is an event entangled, by links of cause and effect, with whatever you want to know about. If the target of your inquiry is your shoelaces, for example, then the light entering your pupils is evidence entangled with your shoelaces. This should not be confused with the technical sense of "entanglement" used in physics—here I'm just talking about "entanglement" in the sense of two things that end up in correlated states because of the links of cause and effect between them.

Not every influence creates the kind of "entanglement" required for evidence. It's no help to have a machine that beeps when you enter winning lottery numbers, if the machine also beeps when you enter losing lottery numbers. The light reflected from your shoes would not be useful evidence about your shoelaces, if the photons ended up in the same physical state whether your shoelaces were tied or untied.

To say it abstractly: For an event to be evidence about a target of inquiry, it has to happen differently in a way that's entangled with the different possible states of the target. (To say it technically: There has to be Shannon mutual information between the evidential event and the target of inquiry, relative to your current state of uncertainty about both of them.)

Entanglement can be contagious when processed correctly, which is why you need eyes and a brain. If photons reflect off your shoelaces and hit a rock, the rock won't change much. The rock won't reflect the shoelaces in any helpful way; it won't be detectably different depending on whether your shoelaces were tied or untied. This is why rocks are not useful witnesses in court. A photographic film will contract shoelace-entanglement from the incoming photons, so that the photo can itself act as evidence. If your eyes and brain work correctly, you will become tangled up with your own shoelaces.

This is why rationalists put such a heavy premium on the paradoxical-seeming claim that a belief is only really worthwhile if you could, in principle, be persuaded to believe otherwise. If your retina ended up in the same state regardless of what light entered it, you would be blind. Some belief systems, in a rather obvious trick to reinforce themselves, say that certain beliefs are only really worthwhile if you believe them unconditionally— no matter what you see, no matter what you think. Your brain is supposed to end up in the same state regardless. Hence the phrase, "blind faith". If what you believe doesn't depend on what you see, you've been blinded as effectively as by poking out your eyeballs.

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I find this thread hilarious, in that one of more irrational of bible thumpers at this site seeks to throw into doubt the validity of asking for evidence. This is crucial to the bible thumpers here because they are routinely asked to provide evidence for their claims, and all they have to offer is scriptural BS. This is particularly the case with Neo, who makes all manner of outrageous claims, but when forced to retreat on them, does sow with a "two out of three ain't bad" argument. In fact, Neo, like all the other bible thumpers, has to twist the meaning of language to underpin his claims. Given that bible thumpers routinely assert that scripture is divinely inspired, and therefore inerrant, it becomes even more hilarious to watch them squirm. It actually plays right into falsifiability, because then one need only find one example of scriptural error to overturn the entire principle inerrancy. Pontius Pilate was not a proconsul, he was a prefect, and the evidence for that is literally carved in stone. Caesar August did not order a "census" (even that term in incorrect) in any year near the probable birth of the putative Jesus--and the evidence for that is literally carved in stone.

Bible thumpers hate the entire concept of evidence. If they want to cling to their blind faith, that's no skin off my nose. But they never restrict themselves to their own loony superstition--they want society ordered to coincide with their superstition, and that is unacceptable.

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@layman,

Are you saying that industrial melanism IS NOT a tool within natural selection?
I think the rise and fall (nd subsequent rise) of the peppered moth's story has been a really good tool in describing "evidence" within biology. SO much has been said (Mostly by Creationists) who, after "overhearing" the arguments between evolutionary biologists, tried to capitolize on the disagreements among colleagues as a "Major split and the demise of evolution"

Yes I do feel that you purposely lean on arguments posed by the Creation/IDers, youve not explained why they no longer use the Popperian misunderstandings about "historical sciences" (Poppers term). After he frequently repeated and reflected on how his earlier misunderstandings led to incorrect statements in the literature. As he once said after all this was "Settled",
"Im not a scientist " (Speaking as to how he developed his early misunderstandings.
Same thing for INDUSTRIAL MELANISM . It IS a mechanism of natural selection. It has not, been relegated to the dustbin. Industrial melanism and the return of the "white phase" of the peppered moth (AFter air pollution laws had been put in place in ENgland), can be measured using old fashioned Hardy Weinberg expansions.
Its become a lab study so familiar to beginning biology students that I didnt realize it required any defense.

Evidence is lso repeatable (an add-on to Poppers war on Inductive studies after he recanted) .

We now can test where a fossil SHOULD be found (based on how mature stratigraphy, tectonics, and paleontology have become). Were Popper still alive hed be on the stump for the way that Daeschler and SHubin found the Tiiktalik fossil in a prograding fresh water highland in the early Devonian rocks.

Hed have been one to say "WOW" " thats some cool stuff".

Sometimes being too close to the sciences on a daily basis, maybe makes one just a bit jaded.
As far as our member ALBUQUERQUE BROTHER, Id like to say that Europe is Not free of these yahoos. Youve got a growing undercurrent of anti- naturalistic intolerance and Conservative "science" that youve yet to be fully exposed to. At least in America we can fairly clearly identify the yahoos and their bag-o-tricks (and weve got a finely honing Constitution). Youve yet to be exposed to the "coded phraseology" and methodology used to try to enfranchise this worldview .

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@farmerman,

Im aware that Jerry Coyne had discredited Kettlewell's experiments as "inconclusive". but, in 2001 Michael Majerus had taken on a 7 year study in which he pretty much vindicated Kettlewell. The disagreement among scientists was mostly about the methodology of Kettlewell. His conclusions could therefore, not be repeated (A rule that underscores what science says about evidence and itts robustness)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3391436/

The article here, published as aposthumous tribute to Majerus, fills in the issue of repeatablity of Kettlewells work, for anywone who wishes to keep the study going

Natural selection with industrial melanism as a pallette is back as far as Im aware. (I havent seen any tee shirts yet but Im sure they have something at the book store)

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@farmerman,

There is nothing remotely close in Europe to what happens in the US....and this coming from a supposedly 90% Catholic country in South Europe...we keep traditions but that's the end of it. Anyone here younger then 50 doesn't believe zilch about creationism souls and the likes...as for God itself there are all sorts of broad definitions regarding some sort of logos in the world but that's as far as most of us ever go. We admit some intrinsic value to the basic 101 of some necessary "metaphysical claims". Bottom line, you simply have no idea how different we are. Otherwise you'd be moving here in a heart beat...
...don't mistake this as militant anti Americanism, I love America for many reasons, starting with Nasa MIT and the likes passing by Hollywood entertainment and ending up with coca cola, popcorn and Santa Claus...America is fun ! I am just not a blind soul.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Are you saying that industrial melanism IS NOT a tool within natural selection? Same thing for INDUSTRIAL MELANISM . It IS a mechanism of natural selection.

Farmer, I really don't expect you to pay much attention to this answer to your question/assertion about natural selection, but you never know, so I'll give it a try.

After the original exposure of the suspect methodology in the Kettlewell studies, a geneticist from Oxford named Michael Majerus spent years attempting to rehabilitate the conclusions reached by Kettlewell, i.e. that the change in coloration in the moths was due to natural selection. But is that the ONLY possible explanation?

In a 2010 4 biologists, 3 of them from oxford, and one of whom was none other than Majerus himself, published a paper in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. You can read it here:

http://sitka.gen.cam.ac.uk/research/jiggins/pdfs/Michie2010.pdf

This paper summarizes a study done on melanism as a mode of adaptation such as the pepper moth case. The paper says:

Quote:

The case of the peppered moth is one of melanism being used in crypsis (dark moths were harder for birds to find against soot-blackened trees), but there are many other reasons for being melanic

So it is acknowledged that there are many other reasons than those hypothesized by the natural selection advocates. The paper also makes clear than phenotypic plasticity can be one of those "other reasons." It says, in the very first paragraph:

Quote:

Faced with a variable environment, organisms frequently evolve local adaptations that confer a fitness advantage in their local environment. However, a population may also adapt to a variable environment, not through geneticchange, but through phenotypic plasticity. Phenotypic plasticity is a change in an individual’s behaviour,morphology or physiology induced by the environment.
(Price et al., 2003).

As you know well, phenotypic plasticity is an internal and inherent development tool which precedes any exposure to predators. It is not "caused by" natural selection in any manner, but it can have the same kind of adaptive advantages. This paper was not a study of peppered moths themselves, but it chronicles a number case where phenotypic plasticity, NOT natural selection, provided adaptive advantages to organisms.

This thread is about "evidence," and the conclusions hastily drawn about the peppered moth have a bearing on the issue of "evidence."

You make this cocksure assertion: "INDUSTRIAL MELANISM ...IS a mechanism of natural selection." Your claim would make more sense if you had said it was "an instance of" rather than "mechanism," but I know what you're trying to say.

Your claim may be right. It's "possible." But it has not been "proven" in any way shape or form and your ALL CAPS assertion is unwarranted. It's also possible that one or more of the "many other reasons" referred to in the paper better explain the moth phenomenon. Phenotypic plasticity would be a prime, but not exclusive, candidate for another explanation.

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@layman,

I posted the postumous Majerus article above, so obviously you didnt read anything that messes with your made-up mind.
Majerus basically supported the role of industrial melanism since the rise of the dark phase moth seemed to follow the air pollution of the industrial revolution nd the re-rise of the familiaris strain , once again rose as air pollution regs began to clean up the air.

In your argument (the role of phenotypic plasticity) is kind of like the roostertaking credit for the dawn, your moths seemed to be responsible for the Industrial Revolution and then the return to clean air.

I GOTTA GET ME SOMA THESE BUGS SO I CAN CLEAN UP DENVERS AIR.

Phenotypic plasticity is the alignment of the various phenotypes of a species with the major axis of genetic variability. (Think about it, mutations ARE random selection is not). This alignment is mostly defined by selection , and where its not, we see drift and ring species , convergence. all sorts of possibilities.

Please dont try to usurp what Majerus was saying (like what you were trying to say about KP).
Im not gonna continue trying to defend these minor twekings of rational science that youve been sneaking under the tent.
I dont know your beliefs and really dont give a rats ass.
Its just that when it quacks...

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@layman,

After all, and Ill be done for today--- YOU ARE THE ONE who is making the assertions that the peppered moth has been poo poo'd as evolution
or thatKarl Poppwer was trying to dispute that NATURAL SELECTIOn was not science, not I.

The various arguments that youve made have been pretty standard Creationism BS.
If ya want to continue a data and evidence "trade" , PM me.

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Define "Evidence"

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