DescentBB

apologies for the delayed response. Life is crazy.

Jeff250 wrote:I disagree. Scientists begin with no assumptions about God's existence, and then they proceed from there. Do you think that there is scientific evidence that should compel a scientist with no assumptions of God's existence into thinking that God exists?

I'm not really trying to make a statement about science's statements about God's existence. You're right that science doesn't claim to make statements about God's existence, but it assumes that no effect has a non physical (or natural) cause... which effectively assumes an inactive God. This defines God out of the picture, or "out of the equation" as I put it.

This is a good time for me to try to further explain my thoughts about evolutionary origins not really being a scientific endeavor. "Pure science" as I see it, is about observing natural cause and effect relationships in order to further understand the mechanics of our world, which is in turn motivated by a potential to harness these relationships to make our lives easier, better, and safer. "Pure science" has an end of practical application to further the human race. (and the world in general, if you want to get altruistic.)

I fail to see how the study of evolutionary origins translates into practical applications in our world. I see how the idea of evolution, and survival of the fittest, and natural selection do, but I'm not convinced about the step of trying to apply those concepts to the question of how we came to be. Likewise, I think that the ID argument is far from "pure science."

I think the subject of origins has two problems that prevent it from being a genuinely scientific question:
1. It's far-removed, and practically beyond experimentation. A lot of science depends on experiments, which in turn depend on getting results within a reasonable span of time. We can't experiment to produce macro evolution, because the results are too slow. This pushes the subject more toward history and historiography. (Processing evidence of occurances that we had no control over, with varying degrees of removal.)

2. It's at the heart of our philosophies. Our purpose in life is directly tied to the source of our existence. What we do on a daily basis is driven by what we believe our purpose in life is. Thus, having to abandon our beliefs in origins has huge effects on the way that we live our lives. As a result, we're not only very reluctant to change our minds, we are also heavily biased to read our philosophies into the evidence.

Science and experimentation already has to take measures to eliminate biased results- and that's when the results don't rock the way we live in our world.

Jeff250 wrote:I think that this is done for cosmological issues, not for biological evolution issues, which makes it more fair, since whether there is a multiverse is a very cosmological type of question.

My argument is that origins are much more akin to cosmological issues than biology or micro-evolution. Specifically, the multiverse answer is the ultimate trump card for ID... which is aimed to adress evolutionary origins.

snoopy wrote:You're right that science doesn't claim to make statements about God's existence, but it assumes that no effect has a non physical (or natural) cause... which effectively assumes an inactive God. This defines God out of the picture, or "out of the equation" as I put it.

I used to think this, but I don't buy it anymore. Science deals with things that are amenable to the scientific method. If you think that a theory is true, make a prediction about something that that theory should entail to test it. And then see if the prediction comes true. The ID movement hasn't been successful because they have trouble figuring out what we should expect ID to entail and then making predictions about it that we can test. A lot of their efforts seem to be in just disproving evolution, as though if evolution is disproved, then ID is the only other choice.

snoop wrote:It's far-removed, and practically beyond experimentation.

As is the case with astronomy, but that doesn't stop astronomers from exercising the scientific method. Consider predictions like this: If X is true, then every time we observe Y, then we should also observe Z. And then test that prediction.

snoop wrote:Specifically, the multiverse answer is the ultimate trump card for ID... which is aimed to adress evolutionary origins.

But my point is that I don't see people using that for explaining how we evolved. I have heard it used for explaining why the universe itself has certain intrinsic properties that seem fortunate for the possibility of life. But that is, at the moment, a very metaphysical topic. I should have originally pointed out that is was a metaphysical solution to a presently metaphysical problem.

Testiculese, all I said was that evolution is illogical. There's no need to insult me. If you can't keep a level head during a discussion, then perhaps you shouldn't be in E&C debating creation and evolution. >_<

Burlyman wrote:Testiculese, all I said was that evolution is illogical.

ugh. why?

In a way, evolution is going on before your very eyes. Just look at all the different dog breeds there are.

Floyd wrote:

Burlyman wrote:cosmology and biology... two of the saddest stories in science, as far as I'm concerned. at least the former utilizes math.

biology utilizes statistics and probability (which is how evolution works IMO), as all other sciences do. these are math in my book.

Well good, then.

Floyd wrote:

Burlyman wrote:Testiculese, all I said was that evolution is illogical.

ugh. why?

I don't want to add any more momentum to a debate that never stops. x_x You can probably see why as clearly as day from the example above. 9_9

It would probably be more correct to say that Darwinian evolutionary logic lacks a necessary foundation in reality.

Burlyman wrote:

Floyd wrote:

Burlyman wrote:Testiculese, all I said was that evolution is illogical.

ugh. why?

I don't want to add any more momentum to a debate that never stops. x_x You can probably see why as clearly as day from the example above. 9_9

sorry, i can't. if it's too much momentum, why not create a new topic? i'd be glad to be enlightened as to how evolution is illogical. not just "because it is".

Sergeant Thorne wrote:It would probably be more correct to say that Darwinian evolutionary logic lacks a necessary foundation in reality.

which would be, for instance?

Kilarin, here's something quickly with regard to equillibrium or stable phases that I came across. There seems to be increasing evidence that environmental stress (low food supply mostly) triggers higher mutation rates. See, for instance, here and here. What this means is that as long as populations are doing well, mutations should occur rarely and are less drastic. When, however, the population is challenged, then mutation rates go up and produce more and more drastic mutations. This is a mechanism that - next to the mechanisms described above - can go a long way to explain sudden changes in the evolution of organisms and punctuated equillibrium.

Floyd wrote:

Burlyman wrote:

Floyd wrote:

Burlyman wrote:Testiculese, all I said was that evolution is illogical.

ugh. why?

I don't want to add any more momentum to a debate that never stops. x_x You can probably see why as clearly as day from the example above. 9_9

sorry, i can't. if it's too much momentum, why not create a new topic? i'd be glad to be enlightened as to how evolution is illogical. not just "because it is".

I meant you can probably see why I don't want to add momentum to the debate... because people start insulting others, as everyone saw above. =P

I'm not going to post here or create a new thread; the 'creation versus evolution' debate transcends this thread. =P LOL

Kilarin wrote:many evolutionist have problems with Punctuated Equilibrium as well. Even Dawkins has some gripes with how it is applied. :)

During times of crisis and stress, such as significant changes in the environment or encountering a new species, evolution should happen at an accelerated rate. But punctuated equilibriam seems to claim that this is the most common way for evolution to occur, and that's the point I find a bit weak.

I always heard that speciation was caused almost entirely by catastrophic changes in the environment and isolating events. That seemed really unsatisfying to me -- seemed to require a far more catastrophic world than the one we actually live in. Couldn't we have speciation without catastrophe?

It turns out, yes, we can, and we probably do. I spent most of 2 years in grad school reading over Michael Doebeli's work on adaptive speciation. It's really quite fascinating.

The core idea is that, essentially, you can have an evolutionary system wherein the population as a whole evolves toward a "stable" solution (or a high point on a fitness landscape), but when the whole population reaches that point, small groups gain a competitive advantage by evolving away from it. One reason this can occur is that the fitness landscape itself depends on the rest of the population -- your "fitness" depends in large part on your competition.

Consider a population that depends on a resource that can be found in two nearby bodies of water with slightly different pH levels. The population as a whole should evolve toward a tolerance of the "average" pH level between the two, as it's advantageous to be able to access the resource. Once the population as a whole has evolved to near the average, it can become advantageous for members of the population to specialize one way or the other. In these circumstances, a fitness "peak" can quickly become a "valley" as the population splits away from it, and you get evolutionary branching without any change in the environment whatsoever.

very interesting. thanks for that!