Define "Evidence"

I started a thread once pertaining to special relativity. It ran up to about 200 pages before the mods suddenly deleted it in it's entirety for reasons unknown and unexplained.

As I recall, with the exception of one person, every poster who made an appearance in the thread came there to condemn the very thought that SR could be anything less than a conclusively established "fact."

In order to maintain their stance, they were quite willing to affirm the truth of the most contradictory logical claims. To me, the entire thread was just one long demonstration of the old saw that "people believe what they want to believe." They didn't even know when they were presenting arguments based on premises that, if true, would be tantamount to rejecting the very theory they thought they were defending.

They didn't need any "evidence." They already had it. Anything that was "true" was consistent with SR, some how, some way. Why? Because it HAD to be. Why did it "have" to be? Because SR is true, as every fool knows.

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@layman,

Quote:

In order to maintain their stance, they were quite willing to affirm the truth of the most contradictory logical claims.

Here's an example: I would propose the following line of reasoning:

Suppose that A and B are moving with respect to each other, and

1. A believes (concludes) that B's clock is running slower than his
2. At the same time, B believes that A's clock is running than his, but
3. Each clock cannot be running slower than the other, so at least one of them must be wrong.

Sounds logical, doesn't it? Yet one after another, people would say that A and B are both "right," and neither of them is wrong and/or that there could be no right answer.

Granted, you could say they are both right "from their perspective" without contradiction, but that's not what they were saying. They would claim that "in objective reality" each clock was slower than the other..

It didn't help a bit to inform them that no reputable physicist would make such a claim and that many (including Einstein) have explicitly denied it. They would simply deny that any physicist would deny it.

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@neologist,

I figured an objection to FBM's constant demands for evidence would be behind this. Snide characterizations of my criticism of your holy roller angst don't alter that your motive is to discredit the concept of evidence, rather than to provide evidence. Which is to say, being asked for evidence for your imaginary friend superstition, you question the meaning of evidence rather than provide any.

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@layman,

It's hilarious how you cannot give up your obsessional desire to pick a fight. Have fun taking swings at thin air, bitch.

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@FBM,

At the end of that video (audio, really) a link pops up for "The Demon Haunted World." I highly recommend it, for it's own merits--and for it's relevance for this exercise in defending mumbo-jumbo in the last ditch.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

At the end of that video (audio, really) a link pops up for "The Demon Haunted World." I highly recommend it, for it's own merits--and for it's relevance for this exercise in defending mumbo-jumbo in the last ditch.

Yeah, I read it years ago. I still have a copy, I think. That's the reason I started googling for "Sagan" and "dragon in the garage." Was happily surprised to find a video.

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@layman,

basically, all youve done is repeat the "hopeful Monster" issue. Plasticity is a multivariate function of mutation's store of variance, sexual reproduction, etc etc. all acted on by the environment. Ive never seen anything that upends this.
The "selection" of the color phases as a consequence of environmemental conditions.
The simple fact of that needed some stronger evidence than Kettlewell , who was criticized for shoddy methods not (as you seem to wanna peddle) for impossible conclusions.Thats why the posthumous report of Majerus work was done. His work was a loud underpinning of Kettlewells work. (Complete with an (s) value of about 0.15) If you disagree that this issue of "industrial melanism" as a means of natural selection is in major need of revision, where?

Your arguments seem to challenge natural selection but I dont think you really identify where it is you wish to focus. If Im incorrect, I apologize, youre as close to a colleague BS session as Ive ever had on these lines and I really dont wanna come off as a smart ass.

Sometimes science aint just tossing around vocabularies, it should be common sense thats conveyable by simple communication.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Your arguments seem to challenge natural selection but I dont think you really identify where it is you wish to focus.

Let me concede, for the sake of argument, that a black moth on a white tree trunk would likely be more "easily spotted" by a predator than a white moth on a white tree trunk, and vice versa.

That's not the issue. The issue is, first and foremost, about what is "certain" or "proven."

Beyond that, there is the particular proposition that "the change, over time, of the predominant color of moths observed changed drastically."

I don't dispute that either.

Now let's take the proposition that "it has been proven that the change in color was solely due to the selective choices of predators (birds), i.e. "natural selection."

That statement would be wrong.

It is wrong for many reasons, as recounted in the Nature article I cited you too. Did you read it?

PS: Lets just make it "black and white" for simplicity, rather than "black and peppered."

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Quote:

Farmerman Quote:
"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."

The now familiar ending to FM's arguments.

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@layman,

Quote:

It is wrong for many reasons, as recounted in the Nature article I cited you too. Did you read it?

I cited you to a chart there, which provides one reason. That chart gives 4 different scenarios none of which, it says, have been ruled out for certain.

As an example, the first line says that if
(1) the migration distance was "moderate," and
(2) the was NO offsetting survival advantage of a different kind (non visual, i.e., not by reason of a "camouflage" advantage) THEN
3. The "visual" (camouflage) advantage would be "weak"

Furthermore, it says:

Quote:

Migration and selection can be used interchangeably in models...The issue of migration is critical; change in morph frequency does not give a good measure of selection if there is high migration...Modelling was attempted with selection values based on the predation experiments, and migration rate and density based on Bishop’s estimates. This showed that if selection estimates were about right, migration had to be some 10 times greater than assumed.... It is therefore important to make better estimates of migration and to explore the question of non-visual fitness difference.

The migration vs. selection issue is just one unresolved problem.

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Science is the holy rollers' new Satan.

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@layman,

Quote:

I started a thread once pertaining to special relativity. It ran up to about 200 pages before the mods suddenly deleted it in it's entirety for reasons unknown and unexplained.

And we restarted it immediately... Was a fun thread. We should resurrect it...

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@layman,

Re SR, you brought out an amusing point: the only thing that Einstein exempts from his "principle of the relativity of simultaneity" is the procedure of clock synchronization (which has to be carried out independently in each frame of reference in SR before meaningful measurements can be carried out). If that principle were so applied, the time dilation would disappear. (Just do the math.)

Another aspect of SR which popular science adherents (who tend to be more vociferous than professionals) overlook is how much of SR is axiomatic. The speed of light is STIPULATED in SR to be a universal constant, not derived from experiment.

If you look up peer reviewed journal articles in physics, its amazing how much turns out to be assumed, even in empirical studies, and what a wide gap exists between the experiment and how it is characterized in popular science.

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@layman,

I believe that e are now rounding the barn and strting at where Paul Ehrlich (Not the magic bullet Ehrlich) began. When he quoted Lettlewell in the 1970's ed of the "process of Evolution" , he alluded to migration "in and out" and suggeseted univariate analyses, which(I beleieve)

is where Majerus w. ent in his work
Jerry Coyne seemed satisfied as to the conclusions in the paper

Quote:

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/the-peppered-moth-story-is-solid/

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Jerry Coyne seemed satisfied as to the conclusions in the paper

I'm sure Coyne did. The study, on it's face, merely claimed to show that birds did prey preferentially on moths of different colors. It then claimed:

Quote:

There was strong differential bird predation against melanic peppered moths. Daily selection against melanics (s ≃ 0.1) was sufficient in magnitude and direction to explain the recent rapid decline of melanism in post-industrial Britain

But note that the words "sufficient to explain" are different than "does explain."

As the paper I cited to you (and partially summarized for you) makes clear, models using the predation estimates provided in this study, seem to create conflicts with, and therefore do not sufficiently explain (all by themselves), available information pertaining to such other factors as (1) migration information and/or (2) the need for offsetting advantage or disadvantage to account for the discrepancy.

In my book, at least, "approved of by Jerry Coyne" does not mean "proven and certain."

Looked at all by itself, without regard for any other available information, the assertion that "it rains because God is crying" is sufficient to explain why it rains.

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@layman,

As a scientist, must Jerry remain unconvinced of the evidence at hand until all the evidence is 99.99998% unequivocal?.
That sounds like Frankie-talk.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

As a scientist, must Jerry remain unconvinced of the evidence at hand until all the evidence is 99.99998% unequivocal?.
That sounds like Frankie-talk

Not sure what "Frankie-talk" is, but I do know that it's nothing I said, nor is it relevant to anything I said. Whether Coyne was 50% certain or 100% certain has no bearing on what I said.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

As a scientist, must Jerry remain unconvinced of the evidence at hand until all the evidence is 99.99998% unequivocal?.
That sounds like Frankie-talk.

At no point have I ever suggested that evidence has to be 99.99998% unequivocal in order to be convincing.

What I have suggested is that when no unequivocal evidence exists about x...assertion about x essentially are nothing more than blind guesses.

You, in effect, are saying there is no possibility of a god existing.

That is a blind guess...based on NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER.

Get over yourself.

If you have got something to say to me...say it to me...not Layman.

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@layman,

I figured Frank would hear his name and put his clubs aside for a few minutes.

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