Define "Evidence"

Well, that's wonderful, Farmer, but this kind of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" reasoning it well-known to be logically fallacious.

But, that aside, it's a non sequitur as it pertains to the issue of whether the coloration change was due to natural selection or some other cause.

It's certainly reasonable to conclude that changes in the environment (soot) "triggered" phenotypic change in moths, but that alone tells you nothing about what actually "caused" those changes.



Fair enough, Farmer, and it's just as well. You're not doing a very job of aligning yourself with "rational science," as far as I can tell.

That MMajerus was published POSTHUMOUSLY to present his research program of the repeatability of Kettlewell says a hell of a lot. If you want to deny the results , why not go to the Journal.

The fact that they could follow Hardy Weinberg stats on the re-emergence of the various phases of the peppered moth is just one piece of data.
Your "Plasticity" assertion seems to NEED to DENY that natural selection is in play as the "sorting force" and genetic variability is the "Species pool"

Insults from you dont matter. If I see someone at a conference Ill hear the relevant arguments I know they dont only engage in quote mining.
Gday DUANE

Nobody, not even theorists most hostile to the claim that "natural selection directs evolution," such as Lynn Margulis, deny that natural selection plays a "sorting" role. Nobody, not even advocates of the prevalent theories of biology which PRECEDED Darwin.

That's not the problem with Neo-Darwinism, as they see it. The "genetic variability" which you mention CANNOT be a result of "natural selection." Natural selection can only act upon pre-established variability, it cannot "create it." It is the neo-Darwinian claim that natural selection "directs" evolution that has become more and more suspect in the eyes of modern theorists. Does natural selection play some role? Sure. But that's not even the issue, so why pretend that it is?

I don't have a "NEED to DENY that natural selection is in play as the "sorting force." I do feel some kind of need, I suppose, to refrain from claiming that unproven, hypothetical propositions have been PROVEN when they haven't.

You don't need to deny that evolution (change over time) is an indisputable fact in order to disagree with Neo-Darwinism, Farmer. You may (or may not) someday come to realize that.

You flounce into this thread with one sole purpose, to pick a fight? Figures, sho nuff.

Now do what you always do: claim that someone is trying to pick a fight with you.

Evidence in its simplest definition is defined as data. That data/evidence is used to come to some kind of conclusion. In a court room both the defense and the prosecution present evidence/data. It's up to the jury to sift through all of the presented evidence. Some evidence may carry more weight than other evidence. Some evidence may be more scrutinized than other evidence. Some evidence may be more material to the subject than other evidence. The conclusion from the evidence is supposed to be what is more probable to be the truth. It's never going to perfect. It's sometimes going to result in the wrong conclusion. We try to come to what we hope is the correct conclusion. All we can do is hope we get it right most of the time. Also, one side point. Often people will cherry pick data/evidence that supports their particular view or opinion while downplaying or ignoring other evidence. When evidence is cherry picked that should be scrutinized and taken with a grain of salt. This is quite evident in politics.

What's thsi "sho nuff" **** you always come up with? Is that all a part of your pose?

Oh, and of course you're trying to pick a fight. You didn't address the substance of either of my posts, and you used tendentious language--such as that i "flounced" into the thread. Picking fights seems to be your only online object.

when you learn some more science from other than Creationist quote mine sites perhaps you will recognize that much of what you say is circular and "code speak". Although I doubt it.

Learn this, eh, Farmer:


With respect to phenotypic plasticity, note this:



http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v110/n3/full/hdy201292a.html

This is from 2013 and I don't think you'll find a more exhaustive review of the history of study pertaining to the peppered moth anywhere. It goes back to 1877. It talks about the extensive nature of data collected, the many hypothetical alternative explanations, and the problems encountered with each. There is nothing to "prove" that "natural selection" explains it all, by any means, notwithstanding your cocksure pronouncements.

Substance? Heh. Where?

Your doubts are well-justified, Farmer. I don't think I'll ever be able to "get into" the black and white, us versus them, mentality where everyone who doesn't agree with my opinion thereby proves themselves to be the agent of an enemy camp which is out to get me.

Even if the world did (which you would know was untrue if you followed current evolutionary theory) consist of ONLY (1) Neo-Darwinists, and (2) creationists, I wouldn't view either one as my "enemy," although I would disagree with both. I might pity each to the extent they were captive slaves of ideology, but, still......

Funny, ain't it?
I started this thread to extend a discussion I was having with FBM.
That would be here
Then I took a snooze.
Now I discover the OP is a loon hidng in the nether recesses waiting to whack folks on their heads with a bible and drag them into church.

Go figure. It's about evidence. . .

Well, Neo, it's kinda like this with these militant atheists who get their whole sense of purpose and identity from their creed, I figure:

I used that in an observational fashion. You flounced in here like a bitch trying to start, and win, a bitch fight.

What is a bitch fight? Well, obviously, it involves at least one bitch. The rules for a bitch fight are something like this:

1. Whoever displays the most hysteria gets points.
2. Whoever can come up with the most provocative and irrelevant insults get points.
3. Whoever can acts the most dramatic gets points.
4. Whoever can better portray themselves as the victim of unwarranted aggression gets points.
5. Whoever loses their temper first gets points (best to do this immediately, or you'll lose when fighting another bitch).
6. Having lost your own temper, you gain decisive victory if you can get you opponent to lose theirs.

In other words, your idea of a fight and how to win it. I don't mind a straight-up, man-to-man, fair and honest fight, now and again. But I leave the bitch fights to others.

Next, I'll be accused of starting this thread so I can troll it.

You start em, and I'll troll em, Neo, how's that?

Not to sound trolish but this precious post of yours is bitching heaven...

Every dictionary contains a finite number of terms. Each term defines itself by using other terms (also in the dictionary). So in a very real sense, all definitions are circular. Meaning, which is associated by the reader with certain words, comes from thought and experience. I know what "red" is because I have seen red things. I know what delusion is because I have experienced it. I know what truth is because I directly apprehend the concept.

Every argument, or proof, is finite. It therefore necessarily begins with unproven or assumed premises. These premises may be random and arbitrary, as in some"formal systems", or they may be provisional or working premises; or they may be self-evident and directly apprehended, and therefore not in need of proof; or they might seem obvious but upon scrutiny can be seen to depend upon auxiliary assumptions that were not even explicit.

If you expand the argument to prove the originally unproven premises, the new expanded proof will itself, being finite, begin with unproven premises. So every proof or argument depends on premises that cannot be proven by proofs or arguments, but only through direct apprehension of certain basic truths.

Corroboration by other parties is worthless unless you can establish that those other parties are: (a) real rather than illusions, and (b) neither lying individually nor in collusion, nor mistaken, nor mutually influenced by mistakes or lies.

Historical evidence is worthless unless you can establish that what purports to be history isn't fiction or distortion.

Perceptual experience is what it is, but may not be what it is interpreted as. Someone dreaming or hooked up to a computer simulation has definite perceptions but what they are evidence of is another question.

You don't strike me as being very puzzled...

Me neither