Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

Isn't that what you just claimed was a division fallacy?

You just talk in circles and don't seem to know what the hell anything you say means.

Yes, that is an error from misinterpreting a previous post, which I already attempted to edit.

Your arguements have been cherry picking and false attributions of contextomy.

Example:


I never stated that species is not "defined well enough", you are refuting a strawman.

Organic or organism has no universal definition, yet it is defined.

Intelligence has no universal definition, yet it is defined.

Definitions need only be practical, not universal, physical laws are suggested to be backround independent, however human empiricalism is not universal, it is 'useful'.

Proof requires an axiomatic basis (necessarily true assumptions), physical laws are not axiomatic, and theories are not theorems.

Perhaps quantum mechanics will obtain infinite empiricalism.

So then your bringing up the lack of a definition was what? A red herring?

So.. what assumptions concerning evolution are false in your mind?

All this says is "that which is true, is true"
duuuuhh?

As Ernst Mayr said just before he dioed

"Evolution should no longer be considered a theory, it is, instead, a fact"

Ive seen the many arguments against evolution but never the one where the definitions of words, not central to the argument, are the featured fare.

As the man said"A theory is a mass of principles and evidence and laws that underpin a phenom in science.Therein,ALL the evidence supports the theory and NO evidence refutes it."

Yes fm--but proving the theory and making it a big deal is a backdoor way of disseminating it. So some devious semantics is involved.

The only argument against evolution is that it should not be disseminated even if it is true. It has social implications which other scientific ideas do not and thus it can't be compared to them.

That it can be widely accepted without serious social implications. That's a false assumption you make. An error of omission.

spendious wants to be the head mammy in the nanny state. The fact that hes as wet as a kluski makes no never mind to our spendi.
Last year (about) he was preaching not to teach the theory of natural selection to school kids. Today he wants noone to be exposed to it.

Im sure Gov Jindal would love to have his schools preach only Fundamental Christian Creation Crap..

That is not an answer to my remarks fm and those who think it is have no scientific credibility.

I did not say that no-one should be exposed to the theory of evolution and I never have.

What is your alternative to the Nanny State? I've seen you nannying away like Billyho.

I have recently read the recollections of Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell concerning their years in No 10 and I can assure you that they both, separately and severally, on almost ever page of the near 2000 of them, confirm my view that being the head of anything is a serious pisser from an evolutionary point of view. 4 hours, regularly interrupted sleep, most nights, is not my idea of how a serious student of evolution would behave. Only self-improving, psychologically indoctrinated dickheads think that sort of work, or any ******* sort of work for that matter, is a worthwhile way to spend one's precious time. So your idea that I wish to be "head mammy", and you really ought to have capitalised those two words to give your very original jest a modicum of chutz, is a figment of your own imagination and, in view of the fact that you have a serious hankering to be Big Brother's Scientific Adviser, a case of simple projection.

I'm sure Mr Jindal runs his state to the best of his ability.

And we should consider the social consequences before we accept the science? I guess we never should have adopted a heliocentric view of our solar system because doing so undermined the church.

Is your world still flat spendi?

Most certainly we should.

The heliocentric system was accommodated by the Church. Had you not noticed? Attempts are being made to accommodate evolution but they are piss-balling about with watered-down euphemisms and jargon.

The biological species concept remains in effect.A species is a population whose members are able to interbreedfreely under natural conditions.

Not all bilogists agree with the biological definition because its full of exceptions and difficulties (eg are Ursus horribilis and Ursus maritimus merely subspecies of each other? . The majority of evolutionary biologists accept the biological definition . They understand the concepts of hybridization in species at geographic contact points or in captivity. Or, hybridization in our gardens by artificial diversity expansion via propogation (Both asexual and sexual). The existence pf hybrids proves only that members of the hybridizing species are closely related to each other. When ranges are proximally forced by environmental factors and niches are compressed , (as is occuring in the High Arctic), some hybridization may occur especially when additional environmental niches occur via some kind of external intervention (like Garbage dumps in the CHrurchill area of Hudson Bay-here there be polar bears, AND barren ground grizzlies). These two animals, while initially having different habitats, are now both becoming m ore opportunistic and niches (and chances for hybridization) overlap.
Studies on polars and grizzlies show that the females produce chemically different pheromones , while brown bears produce pheromones of very similar nature Hence weve seen some hybridization between these two.

Using SNP and STR alleles using " genetic knock- out species" has shown that we can retrograde speciation via altering an SNP to a previous nucleotide letter (for example, genetic knock out chickens and mice can be induced to recapture morphological fetures that had been lost since the Jurassic (eg, chickens with teeth buds) and the Cretaceous (Insectivores with marsupial traits).

While speciation is a favorite topic to beat about the head and neck, the fact is that the biological definition "works fairly well" and, after all. Hardy- Weinberg predicts that a large amount of genetic variation occurs during every mating congress. The "hopeful monsters" of the Hardy Weinberg endmembers may just be sitting there waiting for extinction, OR, the environment may change , giving a hopeful monster a slight advantage.

The two competing definitions of species in use by evolutionary biologists (not so much competing as they are indpendently focused) are the biological definition on which I expanded a bit, and a "genetic definition" which is more loaded with statistical inference and population stats (gene frequencies) The first looks at the phenotypic variation, and the latter looks at the genotypic.
I just stand around the genetics labs and wait for film at 11. Paleo species are easy. We just measure a significant change in a fossil, measure its mass and metrics, and then carefully try to fit it within a geologic period (plus or minus a chron or three). Geologists /paleontologists. IMHO, have revoked their hold on evolutionary evidence, since most of us use fossils more for applied science rather than the theoretical. In fact, genetics is showing that the clades of heretofore assumed-to-be "related" chronospecies are more easily assigned genetic relationships among totally different species rather than some that only appear morphologically related.

For example, weve had several species of "sabre toothed" placental mammals , marsupials , and even a few from among members of one order of multituberculates (An order that was wiped out in the Cretaceous extinction). It wasnt only "cats" that produced sabre toothedness it was at least 10 separate chronospecies of different orders. The thing in common that defined sabretoothedness was a single SNP(ic) allele.

Anomie claimed that all the evidence for evolution is "merely" circumstantial. So is the evidence of the theory ofUniversal magnetism and the ATomic theory. Being merely circumstantial relates to one , maybe two components of the scientific underpinnings. WHEN ALL the "circumstantial evidence" supports the theory, it becomes compelling to all but those whose worldview requires stubborn adherence to ignorance of the theory .
The theory works fine, is testable, is the basis of predictions, is the basis of much of recent pharma advances, and, unlike any competing hypothesis of how life developed on the planet NOTHING REFUTES IT.

You stated:


It may be calculated by applying a practical definition, however it is not universal, being that empirical assumptions are not formally contained (analytic, a priori), meaning it is not a tautological basis.



The assumption of 'proof'.

I am not certain how this is informally defined, or is your 'proof' cognitively synonymous to this fuzzy 'fact' spectrum?

@farmerman


I never stated that evolution is "merely" circumstantial, I argued that transitional fossil evidence satisfies circumstantial conditions, furthermore I elaborated by analogy.

Also, I agree with your explanation.

You implied that all evidence for evolution is circumstantial. My prolix answer was a way of saying "SO WHAT IF IT IS"? Is there anything out there that even mildly competes with its shadow?

Can you quote this?

Again, specifically transitional fossil evidence, and yes I did suggest that macro evolution cannot be directly observed, being that it is macro scale (macro time), however there is direct evidence of micro evolution.

Therefore, evolution has direct and indirect evidence.

macro evolution can be "reverse engineered" by using the "knock our gene" method I previously posted. Its not so new. Knock out genes have been used in applied genetics since the 80's.

Anyway, what seems to be the problem with "circumstantial evidence"? Especially since mountains of it seems to be available , all intertwining the bases for nat selection.


Ive been off the board for about a month so I didnt catch how the discussion between you and parados began but I searched back and got a quick opinion from your interactions that you seemed to deny the validity of nat selection or evolution in general/ If Im incorrect then please accept my apology. Whenever spendi spends time bolstering someone other than himself, I automatically send up my red semaphor.

I already stated that I agree with your explanation.

To clarify my arguement,

I argued that evolution cannot be proven.
I argued that macro evolution (speciation) is satisfied by circumstantial evidence.
I argued that genetics does not define macro evolution, and it is defined by phylogenetics.
I argued that humans are no longer subjected to macro selection pressure, it is suggested that anatomy is no longer variant, such as brain size/density, height, eyes...ect.

Perhaps humans have 'hacked' the natural environment, hence there is 'human flourishing'.

It's already been proven. So your argument must revolve around playing with the definitions of "evolution" or "proven". Either that or you don't agree with (or understand) what constitutes a scientific proof. Please clarify your position.

View my recent post to parados.

From my interpretation, proof is defined in formal systems.

Can you define this "scientific proof" interpretation?