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Here’s an Example of Evolution’s Unavoidable Anti Realism

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Though evolutionists think of themselves as realists—ruthlessly objective investigators interested only in truth—their naturalistic constraint ultimately leaves them with only anti realism. This is because any a priorirestriction of the answer might exclude the true answer. If I decide my math homework must contain only odd numbered answers, then I’ll be wrong on those problems whose correct answer is an even number. I can round up, approximate, truncate, contort or whatever to obtain an odd number, but I will be wrong. For such problems, the only way to be right is to remove the a priori restriction. But evolutionists cannot do this. Foundational to their thinking is that the world must have arisen by itself, strictly via natural laws and processes. What most evolutionists do not grasp is that their extreme rationalism leads at best to anti realism, and at worst to skepticism.  Read more

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Cornelius regularly confuses predictions of scientific theories with prophecy. Science makes progress by conjecturing theories based on all of our current, best explanations, when observations are made rather than predictions made 150 years ago. To use an example, imagine it was predicted a man would arrived at a particular destination in two hours because he left 10 minutes and was traveling by bicycle. However, 20 minutes before the expected arrival time, we discover a bridge the man would have had to had cross was had been closed all day due to a traffic accident early that morning and the nearest bridge would have add an additional 45 minutes to his trip. Would you still evaluate the theory based on the original arrival time predicted before we knew the bridge was closed or on the the adjusted arrival time?critical rationalist
September 21, 2012
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Let me guess CR, Cornelius refuses to acknowledge that his justificationist conception of human knowledge is an idea subject to criticism?Upright BiPed
September 21, 2012
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CH: Foundational to their thinking is that the world must have arisen by itself, strictly via natural laws and processes. What most evolutionists do not grasp is that their extreme rationalism leads at best to anti realism, and at worst to skepticism.
Ironically, Cornelius has failed to grasp the impactions of assuming there is some inexplicable realm where inexplicable beings reach in to bubble of explicably in a way that can actually effect us.
If we really do reside in a finite bubble of explicably, which exists in an island in a sea of of inexplicability, the inside of this bubble cannot be explicable either. This is because the inside is supposedly dependent what occurs in this inexplicable realm. Any assumption that the world is inexplicable leads to bad explanations. That is, no theory about what exists beyond this bubble can be any better than “Zeus rules” there. And, given the dependency above (this realm supposedly effects us), this also means there can be no better expiation that “Zeus rules” inside this bubble as well. In other words, our everyday experience in this bubble would only appear explicable if we carefully refrain from asking specific questions. Note this bares a strong resemblance to a pre-scientific perspective with its distinction between an Earth designed for human beings and a heaven that is beyond human comprehension.
Of course, just because something is a bad explanation this doesn't necessarily mean it is might not be true. But, if we assume this is indeed true, for the sake of criticism, and that all observations should conform to it, this leads to the following question: "If bad explanations are indeed true, then how do you explain our ability to know anything?" However if, on the other hand, Cornelius means that Darwinism is nothing more than veering atoms, rather than a process that genuinely creates knowledge via emergence, then he's attacking a strawman via an outdated definition of materialism.critical rationalist
September 21, 2012
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Evolution predicted where to find the Tiktaalik fossil, they predicted the Chromosome 2 fusion and they predicted the ancestry to man which was later confirmed by genetics. I know that some may have issues with these examples but the point is that they were correctly predicted.
Save for the fact that none of those are actually correct predictions then perhaps you may have a point. Tiktaalik Blown "Out of the Water" by Earlier Tetrapod Fossil Footprints - January 2010 Excerpt: The tracks predate the oldest tetrapod skeletal remains by 18 Myr and, more surprisingly, the earliest elpistostegalian fishes by about 10 Myr. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/tiktaalik_blown_out_of_the_wat.html Three-dimensional limb joint mobility in the early tetrapod Ichthyostega : Published online 23 May 2012 - video with article Excerpt: The origin of tetrapods and the transition from swimming to walking was a pivotal step in the evolution and diversification of terrestrial vertebrates.,,, We conclude that early tetrapods with the skeletal morphology and limb mobility of Ichthyostega were unlikely to have made some of the recently described Middle Devonian trackways. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf16z5zDm3A New Research Debunks Theory of Prehistoric Tetrapod's Walk - May 2012 - video http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?id=new-research-debunks-theory-2012-05-30 This following article has a excellent summary of the 'less than forthright' manner in which Darwinists handle anyone who dares to tell of falsifications to their paltry evidence for 'transitional' fossils: Evolutionary Biologists Are Unaware of Their Own Arguments: Reappraising Nature's Prized "Gem," Tiktaalik - Casey Luskin - September 2010 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/09/evolutionary_biologists_are_un038261.html The chromosome 2 fusion model of human evolution—part 1: re-evaluating the evidence - Jerry Bergman and Jeffrey Tomkins Conclusion: The purportedly overwhelming DNA evidence for a fusion event involving two primate chromosomes to form human chromosome 2 does not exist, even without the aid of new analyses. In this report, our review of only the reported data by evolutionary scientists shows that the sequence features encompassing the purported chromosome-2 fusion site are far too ambiguous to infer a fusion event. In addition to a lack of DNA sequence data for a head-to-head chromosomal fusion, there also exists a decided paucity of data to indicate a cryptic centromere. In a companion paper (part 2) to this, we report the results of additional data analyses using a variety of bioinformatic tools and publicly available DNA sequence resources that further refute the hypothetical chromosome fusion model. http://creation.com/chromosome-2-fusion-1 The recently completed Gorilla genome threw another 'monkey' wrench into the Darwinian story of supposed human evolution: 30% of the Gorilla Genome Contradicts the Supposed Evolutionary Phylogeny of Humans and Apes - March 2012 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/03/gorilla_genome_057391.html The Gorilla Who Broke the Tree - Doug Axe PhD. - March 2012 Excerpt: Well, the recent publication of the gorilla genome sequence shows that the expected pattern just isn’t there. Instead of a nested hierarchy of similarities, we see something more like a mosaic. According to a recent report [1], “In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other…” That’s sufficiently difficult to square with Darwin’s tree that it ought to bring the whole theory into question. And in an ideal world where Darwinism is examined the way scientific theories ought to be examined, I think it would. But in the real world things aren’t always so simple. http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/19703401390/the-gorilla-who-broke-the-treebornagain77
September 21, 2012
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I believe the “example” in the title referred to the three-paragraph quote from Joel Velasco regarding the evolutionary tree model near the bottom of the article.
That is an example where the tree model did not prevent him from seeing something that did not fit. It does not show any unavoidable problem.Neil Rickert
September 21, 2012
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I don’t know if I would say consistently failed. Evolution predicted where to find the Tiktaalik fossil, they predicted the Chromosome 2 fusion and they predicted the ancestry to man which was later confirmed by genetics. I know that some may have issues with these examples but the point is that they were correctly predicted.JLAfan2001
September 21, 2012
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The justification for the use of trees has traditionally been that evolutionary processes are in fact tree-like. This justification is faulty.
Another Liddle lie exposed.Mung
September 21, 2012
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Evolution’s predictions have consistently failed and the species do not form an evolutionary tree. These are yet more manifestations of evolution’s underlying anti realism. But evolution remains a fact.
I can't wait to see how many responses Dr. Hunter receives claiming that species do form an evolutionary tree.Mung
September 21, 2012
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I believe the "example" in the title referred to the three-paragraph quote from Joel Velasco regarding the evolutionary tree model near the bottom of the article. You may question whether this is a good example or not, but I believe that is what was meant.sagebrush gardener
September 21, 2012
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Look, we have our very own example right here at UD!Mung
September 21, 2012
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Here’s an Example of Evolution’s Unavoidable Anti Realism
I am still waiting for that example. I did check the full post at "Darwin's God" but I was unable to find any actual example.Neil Rickert
September 21, 2012
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