Did Dr. Ross Fudge The Facts?

[DD_8630]

It is merely an acknowledgement of the inherent epistemological limitations of any human endeavour: we only know the laws of logic (and everything derived thereof), and our own existences (I know I exist, you know you exist, but I don't know you exist). No proposed hypothesis can ever be proven, merely evidenced. This is not a flaw of Naturalism; this is just the way things are.

Looks like we are going from a fact, to a theory, and now a hypothesis…

Not at all. Each comment is not necessarily referring to the same thing: a theory is, after all, just a special kind of hypothesis.

If we examined the laws of logic, it clearly reveals that naturalism with chance cannot produce living material.

By all means, present such a logical refutation.

1) It's not a fact insofar as a 'fact' is a direct observation.
2) It is a belief insofar as a 'belief' is something which you think is true (I think that the statement "I am male" is true: I believe it).
3) It cannot be proven for the reasons I outlined above: nothing can be proven outside of pure logic.
4) It is not an assumption insofar as we conclude it from the evidence (just as it is not an assumption to conclude that someone is dead if they have no pulse or brain activity).

Again this is a far cry from what you stated before…. You stated before “I call it a fact because the evidence is sufficiently convincing.” Now I'm confused…

I initially used colloquial language, because I thought you could understand it. Since you got confused, I then switched to technical terminology, explicitly defined each keyword.

Gladly. TalkOrigins has lists here and here. Wikipedia has examples of observed instances of various types of speciation (allopatric, parapatric, etc). And I'm sure you're aware of the speciation of fruit-flies.

The links don't work… As for allopatric, parapatric they are simply modes of speciation, not “new” species… I asked for you to show me where evolution has produced a new species of animals.. What about the fruit flys? Are you saying that evolution has produced a new species of fruit fly? Fruit flies have been mutated and bred in laboratories for generations, but they are still fruit flies… Sorry.

OK, let's go through together.

Consider a population of imperfectly reproducing organisms, all of the same species. Genetic variation that arises in one organisms can flow to the rest of the population after a few generations (this is called 'gene flow'). If the population is split in two genetically isolated groups (by new geographical features, migration, etc), then gene flow is severed between the two groups: variation that arises in an organism can only spread within its group, since neither it nor its descendants can breed with members of the other group.
Now, because new genetic material cannot flow between groups, they become more and more genetically distinct as time goes by. Eventually, they are so distinct that the gametes of one cannot properly fertilise the gametes of the other. When this occurs, the two groups are considered to be two different species.

'Speciation' is the name given to this process. It can be further categorised according to the exact isolating mechanism:

'allopatric speciation' is where a physical barrier prevents gene flow between the two groups;
'heteropatric speciation' is where a sub-species of the population evolves to be dependant on a new ecological niche in the same geographical locale as the rest of the species;
'peripatric speciation' is where part of the population migrates to a new ecological niche (e.g., a new pond).
etc.

This is how new species evolve. This is speciation. Notice that one species doesn't evolve into another per se; rather, it splits into several new species. We don't see fruit flies evolving into elephants; rather, we see one population of breeding fruit flies evolve into two distinct groups of non-interbreeding fruit flies. They are still fruit flies, yes, but that doesn't bely the fact that they are now two distinct species, both descended from the same parent species.

I will deny it to my dying breath. Do not accuse me of lying simply because I dare contradict your stereotype of evolutionists. Do not put words into my mouth. Do not presuppose my beliefs.

How can we have a civil, rational debate, if you accuse me of lying at every turn, if you see covert agendas where none exist?

I may not fully understand what you believe, but that video was extremely anti-God… I'm not accusing you of lying at every turn. I'm trying to get you to realize that “chance” cannot produce life… I would say however that the narrator of the video WAS vehemently opposed to the existence of God. Why you shared that would make anyone wonder…

What, specifically, was anti-God? What precise phrase or term is vehemently opposed to the existence of God? God was only mentioned when he pointed out that one does not need to invoke God to explain this, that, or the other (just as one doesn't need to invoke God to explain how computers work).

It is nothing like religious belief. We acknowledge the inherent epistemological limitations of human endeavour, nothing more.

Again, I would say that some people I know would see it as their religion… Their alpha and omega..

Of course you would. Doesn't mean it's true though.

A hypothesis or theory is falsified if it fails to predict a relevant experimental result. A falsification test is such an experiment. Thus, the theory of common descent is potentially falsifiable, since there exists the possibility that it will fail a falsification test. However, it has yet to fail one: its predictions have always been vindicated.

So you think again that ID can't be tested?

What? You did not understand what 'falsification' meant, so I explained it to you. I said nothing about ID.

I disagree. It is inextricably linked to its religious, Creationist roots. It does not draw its conclusions from scientific data and objective analysis, but rather from specious logic and religious agenda (Wedge Document, anyone?). The US courts agree with me on this: it is a religious, not scientific, endeavour.

Again I disagree… Design does not necessarily require that the designer be a supernatural God. A number of scientists have already accepted that the existence of intelligent life could exist elsewhere in the universe and that life could be the result of “seeding” by aliens known as the “panspermia” hypothesis.

Indeed. Nevertheless, my point stands.

The debate was never in the science classroom. Children are not experts in niche scientific fields, so it is absurd to expect them to make an informed decision at such a young age. That is why we have experts in the first place: no one can know everything about everything, but people can devote their lives to know as much as possible about one particular thing. It is to them we turn for answers. I am not a biologist, so I defer to their expertise when it comes to biological matters. I am not a doctor, so I defer to their expertise when it comes to medicine. I am, however, a physicist, so I am educated enough to debate the issue.

This is not to say that the uneducated or untrained are forbidden from asking questions, requesting justification, debating, etc. It's just that, in the classroom, there is a limited amount of time to teach students a broad overview of the subject at hand (be it history, RE, science, mathematics, etc). It is logistically impossible to cite every shred of evidence, to discuss every possible hypothesis, to go into the nuances and subtleties of every theory. As with every other subject, the teacher gives an overview of the consensus of the experts. Moreover, we agree that science is to be taught in the science classroom, history in the history classroom, religion in RE, etc.

What place, then, does ID have in the science classroom, public or otherwise?

It may not be ready for primetime, but should we think that ID is a science stopper? Inferring but not dictating design would not stop science from achieving its goal to understand our natural world. ID does not seek to thwart evolution from the classrooms but only stir up the controversies surrounding it.

So say the spokesmen, but the Wedge Document states otherwise.

ID probably should be given the same spotlight as evolution has, but it probably doesn't need to be forced into the classrooms. We all know that scientific disputes can actually enliven and stimulate the scientific thought process. On top of that, issues raised by ID may naturally arise in biology classrooms whether design is mandated or not since the evolutionary theory was born in the theological cradle as it did with Darwin.

They might indeed. For the longest time, people thought that such issues could only be answered by invoking a grand designer. Nowadays, we know better: complex, function-specific systems can, surprisingly and counter-intuitively, arise all by themselves in nature without any guiding intelligence.

And if we performed the same rigorous tests that we could with ID on evolution, evolution probably wouldn't pass the test to be classified as science either.

By all means, explain how evolution isn't a science.

In the public science classroom, yes. Outside, they can discuss whatever they want. Their parents can spoon-feed them whatever nonsense they like.

Like I said before, it's against the law to discuss anything BUT Darwinian evolution.. Nonsense like what? Dawinian evolution?

Like Creationism, Flat Earthism, Scientology, the superiority of Kirk over Picard, etc.

You are conflating technical vocabulary with that of the layman. No scientist claims to be able to prove anything. No scientist claims that a theory can become fact.

Oh, you are SO wrong here… What do you call this list of scientists?? As they state in bold letters... “EVOLUTION IS A FACT, IT IS ONE OF THE MOST WELL ESTABLISHED FACTS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE.”

Indeed they do. But notice the phrase "well established". This is their acknowledgement that, ultimately, nothing can be proven. There are, ultimately, no facts. We all make the implicit assumption that our perception is real, that our senses aren't lying to us, that we aren't just brains in vats being fed false sensory data. That is, Descartes' demon.

There is also the possibility that God did indeed do it, but did it in such a way that there is no extant record of his 'doing it'. That is, the Omphalos argument.

These fringe scenarios, while exceedingly improbable, cannot in all intellectual honesty be rejected. As pursuers of truth, we must acknowledge the limitations of our conclusions and the certainty with which we hold them.

Evolution is indeed one of the most well-evidenced facts ever produced by science, on par with the existence of atoms and the rotation of the Earth. But, if one is talking from a strict epistemological stance, they are 'facts' only insofar as the evidence is staggeringly overwhelming.

Of course. Just because I believe one explanation over the others doesn't mean I reject them outright. I would be a fool to ignore the possibility of being wrong, or to reject other possible explanations out of hand (however implausible they may be).

Implausible? Implausible as Darwin's ideas?? According to Darwin...

To think that the eye had evolved by natural selection, "seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree." - Charles Darwin

Oh please. Is your position so poor that you resort to quote-mining? Here is the entire passage:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

Tut tut.

[dayage]

Hello all,

I would like to go back to the subject of Dr. Ross' quote about the consmological constant. He (Dr. Ross) is correct. Here are links some of his sources. The other scientist only told you part of the story.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/ ... 6227v1.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr= ... E#PPA18,M1

The problem with this from a fundamental perspective is that a cosmological constant...on
a scale which would be cosmologically relevant and yet still allowed today would take a value
which is roughly 125 orders of magnitude smaller than the naive value one might expect based
on considerations of quantum mechanics and gravity (see for example [4]). This apparent
discrepancy would involve the most extreme fine tuning problem known in physics, and for
this reason many particle physicists would prefer any mechanism which would drive the
cosmological constant to be exactly zero today.

Which fundamental fine tuning problem is one more
willing to worry about: the flatness problem, or the cosmological constant problem? The
latter involves a fine tuning of almost 125 orders of magnitude, if the cosmological constant is
non-zero and comparable to the density of clustered matter today, while the former involves
a fine tuning of perhaps only 60 orders of magnitude...

We can reliably calculate some contributions to Qv....which is larger than is observationally allowed by some 120 orders of magnitude. Such terms in Qv can be cancelled by other contributions that we can't calculate, but the cancellation then has to be accurate to 120 decimal places.

The fine tuning in both sources deals with the cancellation factors.

[zoegirl]

THanks, Dayage, for clarifying that.