Dinobird: Practically anything, no matter how false or ridiculous, is given serious attention in the science press as long as it appears to support Darwinism

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 1, 2011

Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

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In “Science stunner! ‘Missing link’ for 150 years and now it isn’t?” ( World News Daily, , July 28, 2011) Bob Unruh puts his finger on the key point about an otherwise routine reclassification ofa fossil from bird to dinosaur: “Expert says Nature report highlights sands on which Darwin theory built”:

The report says the latest discovery suggests the assumption that Archaeopteryx is “the evolutionary link between the two [birds and dinosaurs]” may need reconsideration.

A legitimate debate. That said, this fossil was purchased, not found. Plus the report author admits the hypothesis that knocked the dinobird from its perch is only “weakly supported” by data. So how sure are we? Anyone remember “Feathers for T. Rex”? Oh wait, that scam fell down the memory hole, so we are not allowed to remember. Which is a problem.

Unruh grasps the central point when he asks,

But what about the century-plus that Archaeopteryx was considered “the ideal ‘missing link’ with which to demonstrate evolution from non-avian dinosaurs to birds”?

What about it? It falls into the same memory hole as T. Rex’s feathers, that’s what. We’re all supposed to dumbly worship and believe at the temples of Darwinism (museums) and pay for its sacred texts to be force on students in school. We are supposed to regard as experts Darwinists, who are routinely the marks for Holy Icon scams. And Archaeopteryx was only ever important as a Most Holy Icon of Evolution. Otherwise, it is just a beautifully preserved fossil from time out of mind.

Who knows what will become of the dinobird, real or imagined? Practically anything, no matter how false or ridiculous, is given serious attention in the science press as long as it appears to support Darwinism. No one working there considers (or is allowed to consider?) the cumulative effect of repeated frauds, failures, and offenses to common sense.

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Comments

...ought we not also be leary of assertions that some reptiles have bird lungs?
Absolutely! Or not. Some credence may be given to the idea that a reptilian lung evolved into a bird lung, for after all bird lungs are different from reptilian lungs and birds evolved from reptiles, which is to say that bird lungs evolved from reptile lungs. Except when, by reason of the fact that birds just are reptiles and that bird lungs therefore just are reptile lungs). But then that would ruin that whole tree thingy and would mean that the impossible has in fact taken place and Darwinism would be falsified, so that can't be right. So while it's just not possibler for mammals to have bird lungs, it is possible for reptiles to have bird lungs. I think I'm getting this theory figured out.Mung_{August 5, 2011
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News @ 5: "“Wake me up when someone finds a fossil mammal with bird lungs.” Elizabeth Liddle, be careful what you wish for. The duck-billed platypus, after all, shows mammal, bird,and reptile traits. ..." Moreover, the DarwinDefender assertion is that birds are reptiles with bird lungs. If we ought to be leary of assertions that there can be mammals (which are, like birds, and unlike reptiles, warm-blooded) with bird lungs, then ought we not also be leary of assertions that some reptiles have bird lungs?Ilion_{August 4, 2011
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In the same way that murder is the explanation for finding a dead person with their head bashed in, and the evidence for the murder is that there is a dead person with their head bashed in. In this case we have more information. In particular that having a caved-in head can be fatal, and that people are historically more likely to bash in someone else's head than their own. That's why the evidence is not circular. It's right, although not 100% of the time. Take away that information, and here's a more likely comparison: This person was killed by Factor X. How do you know that Factor X killed him? Because Factor X is what causes death. How do you know that Factor X is what causes death? Well look, he's dead. Now we have convincing evidence of Factor X, and we don't even have to say what it is. Every death is more evidence. And unlike the first example which properly leaves room for uncertainty, this conclusion is always correct with no exceptions. In fact, allowing for the possibility of exceptions destroys the theory.ScottAndrews_{August 4, 2011
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FG: Nope. As just highlighted, we do not OBSERVE the actual state of the remote past. We directly observe the body in the case of a murder, and in any case the conclusion murder is not a direct conclusion, though the process may be intuitive. Providing there were no eyewitnesses, we infer to death by design, not chance and necessity, on evidence and best explanation. Indeed, forensics as applied science is one of the home bases of the design filter, in intuitive form. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 4, 2011
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Yup. (Though to some extent we must realise that to date events before we came along and made records, is very hard, so we must give room for limitations. But that also means that those who propose or teach or popularise such model timelines of the remote past should give the limitations. Too often that is exactly what is not done. The pretence (or -- almost as bad --gross blunder) that we are observing the actual remote past should not be projected. )kairosfocus_{August 4, 2011
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We’re very leery of circular arguments. If Darwinism is an explanation for the pattern, in what way is the pattern evidence for Darwinism, without being circular? ------------- In the same way that murder is the explanation for finding a dead person with their head bashed in, and the evidence for the murder is that there is a dead person with their head bashed in. fGfaded_Glory_{August 4, 2011
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Mung @ 62: "We’re very leery of circular arguments. If Darwinism is an explanation for the pattern, in what way is the pattern evidence for Darwinism, without being circular?" Oh, you mean like one semester I was "taught" that such-and-such rock formations were known to be x-millions of year old, because they contained the fossils of thus-and-such species which lived x-millions of years ago, and then, the very next semester, I was "taught" that thus-and-such species is known to have lived x-millions of years, because their fossil remains are found in such-and-such rock formations, which were laid down x-millions of years ago? Mind you, these were the *same* species and the *same* geological strata being used as "evidence" in both classes.Ilion_{August 3, 2011
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Ah Mung: That null hyp switcheroo game again. While my Download Helper and VLC get updates . . . and while the tail of Storm Elsie [?] falls outside [probably tanking up ole smokey down south . . . ], and while a client is in a meeting I cannot interrupt . . . First, the issue is does mechanical necessity explain the relevant aspect of a phenomenon, process of object etc? If it has low contingency under similar initial conditions, yes. A heavy object, released from support near earth's surface falls at 9.8 or so N/kg. Null no 1, falsified on high contingency. If the aspect shows high contingency chance and/or choice may explain outcomes. If the outcomes simply follow what we would expect of a random pop sample under relevant conditions, or the scope of complexity is too small to rule out hitting on needles in haystacks by chance -- no 0.1 Light year on the side haystacks here with 1 straw size samples . . . -- then the default is chance. Null no 2. We happily accept that in many cases design could imitate chance, and bias the test heavily in favour of false negatives; accepting the null in cases where it is false. That is because we want a very powerful test conclusion when it comes to rejecting the null. So, we do something really stringent: set up a haystack 0.1 light year on the side, and you get to sample as much as 1 straw takes up. Is it straw or needle? (Needles are assumed present, but rare.) BTW, that is the comparison for the 10^102 or so Planck time quantum states for the 10^57 atoms of our solar system, to the 10^150 or so possibilities for 500 bits. The only reasonable expectation for such a small sample is that if it is at random, it will be typical of the bulk, not plausibly picking up the needles in the haystack. Matter of fact you could have a solar system lurking in that size of haystack and still overwhelmingly likely miss it with random samples that relatively small. Now, we find something that is complex and specific, coming from an isolated zone that is UNrepresentative of the space of possibilities as a whole. Was it likely that random walks got us there, or that if we are in a needle zone, this was by intelligent choice, not chance? (As in would you accept any claim that the first 72 characters of this comment were produced by lucky noise?) So, there are reasons for setting up a test so that it will cheerfully give us false negatives, to make a false positive overwhelmingly unlikely. That's what the design filter does, most easily seen in the form: Chi_500 = I*S - 500 bits beyond the solar system threshold. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2011
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But kf, if something shows too few bits you can't say it's NOT DESIGNED, therefore your null hypothesis and your alternative hypothesis are not mutually exclusive, and since there is no reliable way to tell DESIGNED from NOT DESIGNED, ID cannot be science. When will you ID types ever learn.Mung_{August 3, 2011
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F/N: While natural vs supernatural is open to debates on whether the supernatural can be studied scientifically, it should be plain that this dichotomy begs a question, For, ever since Plato it is on record that the relevant alternative is natural vs artificial causes, studied on empirically testable signs of nature vs art. We have excellent reason to infer that FSCO/I is such a reliable, tested sign of art by design, i.e intelligently directed configuration.kairosfocus_{August 3, 2011
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David W Gibson:
But they THINK the results support their beliefs, and they THINK that their beliefs are based on their body of results.
I don't believe you.
Well, Linnaeus produced his taxonomy long before Darwin. He lacked any explanation for WHY biological organisms nested so neatly into such a hierarchical model, of course, but the facts were plain even if the reason behind them was not.
He didn't lack an explanation- common design- and that is how the tree is built- that is how nested hierarchies are constructed- similarities.
Common ancestry is a proposal designed to fit this body of observations and in the bargain to be as simple as possible a proposal that fit all the facts.
Except it isn't simple as is requires things that cannot be tested.
And without question, a common design is another proposal that neatly fits all the observations.
That is incorrect. Common design only fits where there is a common design. If we see things that are radically different then there isn't a common design. So Creation produced at least two publically proclaimed predictions that science has confirmed. Darwinism has produced nothing.Joseph_{August 3, 2011
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DWG: Once science has been allowed to be locked up into a philosophical materialistic circle by imposed a priori, it is being censored through question-begging. And, once the public begins to realise what is going on, especially for origins science, the game is over. For, we all know where politically correct -- ideological -- philosophical -- a priori impositions and censorship leads. Hence of course the pretence that for centuries the successful rule of the game in science is so-called methodological naturalism, now used to say that science can only explain by "natural causes." NOT! (And a few other myths about the roots of science are popped here.) When pressed, that imposition boils down to you can only work in the circle of matter, energy, space, time, chance and forces of mechanical necessity. Precisely the a priori evolutionary materialism that Lewontin identified, and as others also back up. The "only" problem with this is that it leaves out of the reckoning exactly the forces that allow us to do science at all, i.e. that we are self-moved, freely thinking intelligent beings who can follow LOGICAL connexions by reasoning, and by observing and evaluating facts of the empirical world. As Haldane pointed out ever so long ago:
"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." [["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
In short, if you reduce our mental capacity to a product of chance plus necessity acting on matter and energy, through genetic and socio-cultural conditioning, you end up in a self-referential absurdity. And tossing around word-magic terms like "emergence" and conscious software looping, is just that: word-magic, not serious explanation. Your sysrem of explanaitons must leave room for a self-aware, self-moved mind that can think, decide, reason and act for itself, or the first premise of science collapses in self-refuting ruins: science requires scientists who can freely think, reason, and know. So, the sort of a priori materialistic censorship we see you trying to justify locks out the very intelligence that scientists must use to do science at all, and the question as to whether that intelligence may sometimes leave empirically testable, reliable signs that point to its source. For instance, in comment 82 just above, you put up a post in this thread in English, using 1612 ASCII characters. Based on the 7-bit code, the number of contingent possibilities for that many characters is: 128^1612 ~ 6.6*10^3,396. We may ignore for our purposes the debates on the redundancy of English as a digital code and the different proportions of letters in English, as on pure chance each character would be equiprobable. So, we are dealing with 7*1612 = 11,284 bits. (At even 1 bit per character as an average, we are still well beyond the resources of the observed cosmos so this is without loss of materiality of the argument.) Applying the log-reduced Chi metric on the gamut of our solar system of some 10^57 atoms (mostly Hydrogen in the sun, BTW), we can see: Chi_500 = I*S - 500 Where, I = 11,284 , and as we are dealing with an instance of a code known to be vulnerable to perturbations, the specificity dummy variable S is 1. Chi_500 = 10,784 bits beyond the solar system threshold. The import of this is that the only credible cause of something that has that many functionally specific bits is intelligence as we OBSERVE it, based on the challenge of finding islands of specific function in a large space of possibilities, beyond the solar system [our effective universe] threshold. (FYI, over the time since the usual estimate for the big bang, 10^57 atoms would go through about 10^102 Planck time quantum states where it takes bout 10^30 such to do the fastest -- ionic -- chemical reactions. 500 bits is about 10^150 possibilities, 48 orders of magnitude beyond, that is, a search of 10^102 steps at most will not sample enough of the possibilities to plausibly capture something that is UNrepresentative of the distribution as a whole.) And, plainly, functionally specific configs are going to be absolutely overwhelmed by gibberish in the space of possibilities. If you are looking for needles in haystacks but sample only 1 in 10^48 of the haystack, overwhelmingly you are going to be picking up a tiny bit of straw. The gamut of search is not reasonable relative to the isolation of the target in the field of possibilities. To give an idea, let us say that a needle and a straw both weigh about a gram. Looking for a 1 gram object in a pile of straw weighing in at 10^42 tonnes [and at about the density of water, 10^42 tonnes would be a cubical bale of straw, something like 625 billion miles on the side . . . ], by sampling 1 gram at random just does not cut it as a reasonable search. So, we see a simple example of how functionally specific complex organisation and associated information [FSCO/I] beyond a reasonable complexity threshold is a reliable sign of design. An empirical sign. So, we immediately see that we have a reasonable empirical procedure and test for inference to design on specified complexity beyond a threshold. A process that is subject to empirical test and falsification on the very simple challenge: provide a good OBSERVED counter-instance where it is credible that undirected chance and necessity led to FSCO/I beyond say the solar system threshold. It will not surprise you, I am sure, to know that there is an Internet full of cases in point, and by contrast there are zero counter-examples that meet the required criterion. (If there were, the sort of debate points commonly used to object to the design inference would not be used.) Now, a minimally complex cellular life form may have say 200 proteins, averaging let's say 200 AAs each, and represented by DNA at 3 4-state letters per AA and with let's say 10% more for regulatory stuff. 660 * 200 = 132,000 4-state elements; 264 k bits. The config space for this is 8.3 *10^79,471 possibilities. An unintelligent chemical soup with possibilities for all sorts of cross reactions and breakdown mechanisms for such will simply not get there on the gamut of our solar system or the wider observed cosmos. Nor is there any credible observed sign of a ladder of development from simple initial components to that degree of specified complexity, regardless of the many just so stories commonly trotted out. So, since life as we observe it is reasonably at least of that sort of complexity, and is known to be functionally highly specific. So, just as we can see from the example of post 82, we have excellent reason to infer that the original source of the living cell was design, on the sign of FSCO/I. Nor does the fact of self-replication in the cell undermine this, for what we have is a case of a metabolising automaton, which has the ADDITIONAL capacity of replicating itself on a stored copy of digital coded algorithmically functional information, as von Neumann discussed 60 years ago, a von Neumann self replicator. The vNSR facility added to the ability to process energy and materials from environment to carry out operations to build up and break down internal components is yet another manifestation of FSCO/I. What is happening is that instead of dealing with such on the merits, politically correct censorship is locking out the ability of science to freely and responsibly think through the issues just outlined. That's politics, and censorship, not science. Period. So, nope, it is simply not true that science MUST only explain in a materialistic circle of chance and necessity acting blindly on matter and energy, and in fact it was not even true of the co-founder of the theory of evolution, Wallace. Call off the rottweilers, it is time for science to proceed as an unfettered but intellectually and ethically responsible progressive pursuit of the empirically based truth about our world, through experiment, observation and related logical and mathematical analysis discussed freely and fairly among the informed. Otherwise the core integrity of science will utterly and irretrievably break down. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2011
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Joseph,
Well, David, most scientists are so specialized they really have no say in the matter, scientifically.
I don't think I understand what this statement is intended to mean. Presumably, you practice a profession at which you are quite expert. What would you say to an outsider who observed that you must have so much expertise that you don't know what you're talking about? You might not take such a comment seriously. As for "THE" scientific method, I agree it's basically a fiction, a kind of misleading composite of multiple approaches to solving different sorts of problems. And this is why I tend to refer to the "scientific enterprise", which is the set of fairly common practices by which science is actually done.
There aren’t any results that support their beliefs.
But they THINK the results support their beliefs, and they THINK that their beliefs are based on their body of results. Now, their results might very well not support YOUR beliefs, and they might not even support the beliefs YOU THINK that THEY have. But those are somewhat different formulations.
As for universal common descent there still isn’t any way to test it. Cladistics assumes it based on shared characteristics.
Well, Linnaeus produced his taxonomy long before Darwin. He lacked any explanation for WHY biological organisms nested so neatly into such a hierarchical model, of course, but the facts were plain even if the reason behind them was not. Common ancestry is a proposal designed to fit this body of observations and in the bargain to be as simple as possible a proposal that fit all the facts. So in a sense, you could say that every new organism discovered that fits neatly into that taxonomy, is a "test" of any proposed explanation. And without question, a common design is another proposal that neatly fits all the observations. And if some new organism fails to fit either common descent OR common design, then both proposals must be questioned.
Do they win?
Win what? I think the goal here is greater understanding of the universe we live in. Anything that increases that understanding wins. So long as we recognize that understandings are always tentative. For example, there are many proposals for the "beginning" of our universe, that describe it as nothing more than a phase change from one sort of universe to another, with a long history prior to that phase change. If this should be demonstrated (though I don't know how it would be), then creation would need appropriate modification to fit our new and greater understanding.David W. Gibson_{August 2, 2011
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Zachriel has a new sock. News at 11...Joseph_{August 2, 2011
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David W. Gibson:
So long as we understand that those 99% THINK they are supporting their beliefs.
Well, David, most scientists are so specialized they really have no say in the matter, scientifically.
They are following the scientific method developed and honed over the last 300 years, and following it assiduously and meticulously.
This scientific method: There is no such thing as “THE Scientific Method.”
They support their results, not their beliefs.
There aren't any results that support their beliefs.
Certainly the 99+% of scientists who work in the field and are intimately familiar with every nuance, THINK these transformations are not just feasible, but inevitable.
And when they find evidence to support that people will start listening. As for universal common descent there still isn't any way to test it. Cladistics assumes it based on shared characteristics. Genetic, molecular and morphological data can be used to support a common design. As for predictions, I have yet to see any based on the theory of evolution's mechanism of accumulations of genetic accidents. And certainly never in public. Heck it has already been admitted that darwinism cannot be tested. neo-d is in the same boat. But anyway I am pretty sure that Creation publicly predicted the universe had a beginning and there is reproductive isolation. Do they win?Joseph_{August 2, 2011
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kairosfocus:
Origins science is under captivity to an evolutionary materialist a priori imposition, as Lewontin and others summarised.
Minus the slanted adjectives, yes, this seems to be quite correct. Science has carved out for itself a purely and strictly material domain. This was done deliberately, and with full knowledge that there may be extremely important matters which lie outside this domain, but which therefore lie outside the competence of science to investigate or even comment on. And so Philip Johnson is exactly correct. The materialism MUST come first, because if it does not, it would not be possible to devise the scientific method, which rests on that materialism entirely. While it might often seem useful to allow a divine foot in the door, the result would not be science, and the scientific method could not be used. And certainly materialism and rationality are not at all the same thing. At least as I understand it, materialism MEANS being concerned strictly with the material, to the exclusion of anything else, with the understanding that any conclusions are themselves restricted to materialistic understandings. Rationality is something quite different, namely the correct application of logical inference to reach conclusions. Within the purview of science, the postulates to which rationality is applied, must necessarily be material. But certainly this is not a requirement for rati0nality. In pure reason, postulates are simply taken as given and not evaluated per se. With the rational understanding that screwy postulates will lead to entirely reasonable screwy conclusions.David W. Gibson_{August 2, 2011
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Joseph:
Then there is a problem when 99% can’t support their beliefs.
So long as we understand that those 99% THINK they are supporting their beliefs. They are following the scientific method developed and honed over the last 300 years, and following it assiduously and meticulously. And according to that method (which IS science), their belief is as supported as science gets. Now, one might argue that the scientific method doesn't actually "support" anything at all, and easily gives rise to erroneous understandings. And while this is possible, the scientific enterprise (by which I mean, the rules science is played by) goes to considerable lengths to eliminate confirmation bias or other distortions. For example, things like peer review, replication, active debate, competing hypotheses, accuracy of predictions, null hypotheses, construction of methods (to avoid building conclusions into the method) etc. are all very carefully accounted for. So when you say they "can't support their beliefs", this again stretches the meanings of words. They support their results, not their beliefs. And those with different expectations or mental models (you might call these "beliefs", I suppose) are quick to construct different experiments. Then there are dueling results, leading to yet more studies. And so science stumbles forward.
David, there isn’t any evidence that the transformations required are even feasible. Evo-devo has been a bust and it was the last hope.
Again, this seems very much a matter of interpretation. Certainly the 99+% of scientists who work in the field and are intimately familiar with every nuance, THINK these transformations are not just feasible, but inevitable. Evo-devo, as I understand it, is a fairly new field, developing rapidly but already considered (by these scientists) to have added huge dollops of explanatory power to existing theories, and extended those theories in important ways. And again, there are always different ways of defining and identifying "evidence", which is bound to lead to disagreement. I can only observe that your statements would find little or no agreement among more than 99% of the specialists in the field.
Zero centuies of meticulous science behind universal common descent. No one knows if the changes required are even do-able.
And once again, those scientists would strongly disagree with you. Maybe we could write this off as a matter of battling areas of expertise? Certainly more than 99% of practicing biologists would regard these changes as already demonstrated at considerable length, and indeed taken advantage of in many ways. As I understand it, common descent is a deduction based on a combination of genetic, molecular and morphological analysis. It kind of emerges as a necessary implication of a rather extensive body of observations, but once again, science is always tentative. It might be, if not wrong, at least not entirely correct.
The more they find out the better ID looks.
I regard that as very positive, since I believe there is only one history and only one reality, and all approaches to such things must eventually dovetail and agree. Currently, the problem with ID is, it's a bit short in terms of making testable predictions. And possibly even shorter on willingness to return to the drawing board if those predictions flop badly. Conducted properly, science is a humiliating exercise. One must FIRST make one's predictions, usually publicly, and to get funding one must specify in advance what method will be used to test them, and the default must be failure (the null hypothesis). And most of the time, the null hypothesis wins, and the prediction was wrong. Publicly.David W. Gibson_{August 2, 2011
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DWG: Joseph is right. Origins science is under captivity to an evolutionary materialist a priori imposition, as Lewontin and others summarised. Here is Lewontin: ___________ >> . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident [[actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . ] that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [[i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [[another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [[i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [NYRB, Jan 1997. If yo8u think the following words justify the actions just described, or that they turn this into a quote-mining exercise, kindly continue reading here. Also note the other three following clips from Coyne, US NAS and NSTA.] >> ___________ Philip Johnson's rebuke is apt: __________ >> For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [[Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence. That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." . . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [[Emphasis added.] [[The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.] >> ___________ We are facing a reigning orthodoxy locked into an essentially ideological position, and one routinely enforced by the most untenable means. The only question in my mind is when it will collapse, and, then, how much damage it will do to the credibility of institutional science and science education, as well as the major media houses when that happens. (Observe the almost unreported but nonetheless drastic impact of the Climategate incident.) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 2, 2011
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Darwin’s theory was not a “theory of common descent."
Ah, I just re-read that thread and you retracted that claim. My bad for bringing it back up.
OK, Mung, I will retract that claim, and rephrase
https://uncommondescent.com/tree-of-life/he-doubted-darwins-tree-of-life-but-he-was-just-a-creationist-then/Mung_{August 2, 2011
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David W. Gibson:
You might be missing the fact that the “alleged majority of scientists” exceeds 99%,
Then there is a problem when 99% can't support their beliefs.
that they embody centuries of dedicated, focused research, that they are under the impression that these claims (of common descent, and relative reproductive success) have been tested at least millions and millions of times (and thousands every day), and that all of this was done in strict accordance with the scientific method.
David, there isn't any evidence that the transformations required are even feasible. Evo-devo has been a bust and it was the last hope.
We the people, of course, need not accept anything they have discovered. But saying that those centuries of very meticulous science is “not scientific” kind of stretches the meaning of the word a bit.
Zero centuies of meticulous science behind universal common descent. No one knows if the changes required are even do-able.
I expect scientists will continue to make new discoveries indefinitely, and many of those discoveries will result in rearranging what they thought was true into something that fits better.
The more they find out the better ID looks.
It’s a never-ending process.
Where have I heard that before? Oh me!: As I like to say- science is our search for the truth, i.e. the reality, to our existence via our never-ending quest for knowledge.Joseph_{August 2, 2011
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Mung @ #74 David Gibson has responded to your post more eloquently than I could do.Elizabeth Liddle_{August 2, 2011
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"iirc, her “reasoning” in that thread was that Darwinism could be reduced to certain fundamental claims about it’s mechanism, and that common ancestry was not required for the mechanism to function (iow, the mechanism could still work even if all life did not descend from a common ancestor), therefore, Darwin’s theory was not a theory of common descent." Well, more or less. I interpret her to mean that common descent is compatible with natural selection, but that natural selection isn't a theory of common descent. Just like the game of baseball is compatible with theories of physics, but physics is not a theory of baseball. (And in fact, HGT is a known, observed, and tested mechanism which is INcompatible with common descent.)David W. Gibson_{August 2, 2011
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Joseph, You might be missing the fact that the "alleged majority of scientists" exceeds 99%, that they embody centuries of dedicated, focused research, that they are under the impression that these claims (of common descent, and relative reproductive success) have been tested at least millions and millions of times (and thousands every day), and that all of this was done in strict accordance with the scientific method. We the people, of course, need not accept anything they have discovered. But saying that those centuries of very meticulous science is "not scientific" kind of stretches the meaning of the word a bit. I expect scientists will continue to make new discoveries indefinitely, and many of those discoveries will result in rearranging what they thought was true into something that fits better. It's a never-ending process. "Scientific truth" is inherently tentative, by definition. Often wrong, always incomplete. But useful.David W. Gibson_{August 2, 2011
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Now I'd like to remind everyone that in a different thread Elizabeth argued that Darwin's theory was not a theory of common descent. Yet here she is in this thread arguing that Darwinism offers an explanation for the tree-like pattern which can be created by grouping past and present organisms based upon their similarities and differences. That is to say, that Darwin's theory of descent with modification explains the pattern, but that Darwin's theory is not a theory of common descent. iirc, her "reasoning" in that thread was that Darwinism could be reduced to certain fundamental claims about it's mechanism, and that common ancestry was not required for the mechanism to function (iow, the mechanism could still work even if all life did not descend from a common ancestor), therefore, Darwin's theory was not a theory of common descent.Mung_{August 2, 2011
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To sum up- Neither Darwinism nor universal common descent are testable claims, yet seeing that some alleged majority of scientists accept them for unscientific reasons, we, the people, are just supposed to blindly follow along. Am I missing something?Joseph_{August 2, 2011
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Re-fitting the tree wouldn't be a big deal except that the tree is used as evidence of itself. I.e., of course common descent is true, look at the tree. The model isn't used to test the theory. The very existence of the model is held as support for the theory. That leaves you with a theory for which the evidence is interchangeable (not to mention vague.) IOW, the theory can exist independently of its evidence.ScottAndrews_{August 2, 2011
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Elizabeth, The problem isn't science making corrections. The problem is when you have a theory so vague that it can stand regardless of any specific evidence or predictions. What started as variation and selection has morphed into 'anything not designed or directed by intelligence.' You can mess with the tree some, but the tree still stands. If you take out the tree, you can replace it with a bush. HGT instead of descent. The more you alter the specifics and the evidence, the more meaningless the theory becomes. It becomes the theory of living things changing over time, somehow, undesigned.ScottAndrews_{August 2, 2011
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If that is the case then those scientists accept common descent for unscientific reasons. And that is pathetic if you ask me.Joseph_{August 2, 2011
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Joseph:
So what is the reason this alleged vast majority cannot come up with a way to objectively test their position to the exclusion of all alternatives?
The nature of the scientific method. It has its limits. And actually, its limits are what gives it its power.Elizabeth Liddle_{August 2, 2011
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Elizabeth:
There is a reason why the vast majority of scientists accept common descent, and it isn’t sloppy thinking.
So what is the reason this alleged vast majority cannot come up with a way to objectively test their position to the exclusion of all alternatives? BTW I am still waiting to see how we test Darwinism...Joseph_{August 2, 2011
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