More creationist misconceptions about the eye

Posted 7 June 2010 by PZ Myers

Jonathan Sarfati, a particularly silly creationist, is quite thrilled — he's crowing about how he has caught Richard Dawkins in a fundamental error. The eye did not evolve, says Sarfati, because it is perfectly designed for its function, and Dawkins' suggestion that there might be something imperfect about it is wrong, wrong, wrong. He quotes Dawkins on the eye.

But I haven't mentioned the most glaring example of imperfection in the optics. The retina is back to front.
Imagine a latter-day Helmholtz presented by an engineer with a digital camera, with its screen of tiny photocells, set up to capture images projected directly on to the surface of the screen. That makes good sense, and obviously each photocell has a wire connecting it to a computing device of some kind where images are collated. Makes sense again. Helmholtz wouldn't send it back.
But now, suppose I tell you that the eye's 'photocells' are pointing backwards, away from the scene being looked at. The 'wires' connecting the photocells to the brain run over all the surface of the retina, so the light rays have to pass through a carpet of massed wires before they hit the photocells. That doesn't make sense…

What Dawkins wrote is quite correct, and nowhere in his refutation does Sarfati show that he is wrong. Instead, Sarfati bumbles about to argue against an argument that no biologist makes, that the eye is a poor instrument for detecting patterns of light. The argument is never that eyes do their job poorly; it's that they do their job well, by a peculiar pattern of kludgy patches to increase functionality that bear all the hallmarks of a long accumulation of refinements. Sarfati is actually supporting the evolutionary story by summarizing a long collection of compromises and odd fixes to improve the functionality of the eye.

There's a fundamental question here: why does the vertebrate eye have its receptors facing backwards in the first place? It is not the best arrangement optically; Sarfati is stretching the facts to claim that God designed it that way because it was superior. It ain't. The reason lies in the way our eye is formed, as an outpocketing of the cortex of the brain. It retains the layered structure of the cortex, even; it's the way it is because of how it was assembled, not because its origins are rooted in optical optimality. You might argue that it's based on a developmental optimum, that this was the easiest, simplest way to turn a light-sensitive patch into a cup-shaped retina.

Evolution has subsequently shaped this patch of tissue for better acuity and sensitivity in certain lineages. That, as I said, is a product of compromises, not pre-planned design. Sarfati brings up a series of odd tweaks that make my case for me.

The vertebrate photoreceptors are nourished and protected by an opaque layer called the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE). Obviously, you couldn't put the RPE in front of the visual receptors, so the retina had to be reversed to allow it to work. This is a beautiful example of compromise: physiology is improved at the expense of optical clarity. This is exactly what the biologists have been saying! Vertebrates have made a trade-off of better nutrient supplies to the retina for a slight loss of optical clarity.
Sarfati makes the completely nonsensical claim that the presence of blood vessels, cells, etc. in the light path do not compromise vision at all because resolution is limited by diffraction at the pupil, so "improvements of the retina would make no difference to the eye's performance". This is clearly not true. The fovea of the vertebrate eye represents an optimization of a small spot on the retina for better optical properties vs. poorer circulation: blood vessels are excluded from the fovea, which also has a greater density of photoreceptors. Obviously, improvements to the retina do make a difference.

It's also not a condition that is universal in all vertebrates. Most birds, for instance, do not have a vascularized retina — there is no snaky pattern of blood vessels wending their way across the photoreceptors. Birds do have greater acuity than we do, as well. What birds have instead is a strange structure inside their eye called the pecten oculi, which looks kind of like an old steam radiator dangling into the vitreous humor, which seems to be a metabolic specialization to secrete oxygen and nutrients into the vitreous to supply by diffusion the retina.
Sarfati also plays rhetorical games. This is a subtly dishonest argument:

In fact, cephalopods don't see as well as humans, e.g. no colour vision, and the octopus eye structure is totally different and much simpler. It's more like 'a compound eye with a single lens'.

First, there's a stereotype he's playing to: he's trying to set up a hierarchy of superior vision, and he wants our god-designed eyes at the top, so he tells us that most cephalopods have poorer vision than we do. He doesn't bother to mention that humans don't have particularly good vision ourselves; birds have better eyes. So, is God avian?

That business about the cephalopod being like a compound eye is BS; if it's got a single lens, it isn't a compound eye, now is it? It's also again pandering to a bias that our eyes must be better than mere compound eyes, since bugs and other lowly vermin have those. Cephalopods have rhabdomeric eyes, meaning that their photoreceptors have a particular structure and use a particular set of biomolecules in signal transduction, but that does not in any way imply that they are inferior. In fact, they have some superior properties: the cephalopod retina is tightly organized and patterned, with individual rhabdomeres ganged together into units called rhabdomes that work together to process light. Their ordered structure means that cephalopods can detect the polarity of light, something we can't do at all. This is a different kind of complexity, not a lesser one. They can't see color, which is true, but we can't sense the plane of polarity of light in our environment.

I must also note that the functions of acting as a light guide (more below) and using pigment to shield photoreceptors are also present in the cephalopod eye…only by shifting pigments in supporting cells that surround the rhabdome, rather than in a solid RPE. Same functions, different solutions, the cephalopod has merely stumbled across a solution that does not simultaneously impede the passage of light.

Color vision, by the way, is a red herring here. Color is another compromise that has nothing to do with the optical properties of the arrangement of the retina, but is instead a consequence of biochemical properties of the photoreceptors and deeper processing in the brain. If anything, color vision reduces resolution (because individual photoreceptors are tuned to different wavelengths) and always reduces sensitivity (you don't use color receptors at night, you may have noticed, relying instead on rods that are far less specific about wavelength). But if he insists, many teleosts have a greater diversity of photopigments and can see colors we can't even imagine…so humans are once again also-rans in the color vision department.
Sarfati is much taken with the discovery that some of the glial cells of the eye, the Müller cells, act as light guides to help pipe light through the tangle of retinal processing cells direct to the photoreceptors. This is a wonderful innovation, and it is entirely true that in principle this could improve the sensitivity of the photoreceptors. But again, this would not perturb any biologist at all — this is what we expect from evolution, the addition of new features to overcome shortcomings of original organization. If we had a camera that clumsily had the non-optical parts interposed between the lens and the light sensor, we might be impressed with the blind, clumsy intricacy of a solution that involved using an array of fiber optics to shunt light around the opaque junk, but it wouldn't suggest that the original design was particularly good. It would indicate short-term, problem-by-problem debugging rather than clean long-term planning.
Sarfati cannot comprehend why the blind spot would be a sign of poor design, either. He repeats himself: why, it's because the eye needs a blood supply. Yes, it does, and the solution implemented in our eyes is one that compromises resolution. I will again point out that the cephalopod retina also needs a blood supply, and they have a much more elegant solution; the avian eye also needs a blood supply, but is not invested with blood vessels. He gets very circular here. The argument is not that the vertebrate eye lacks a solution to this problem, but that there are many different ways to solve the problem of organizing the retina with its multiple demands, and that the vertebrate eye was clearly not made by assembling the very best solutions.

Sarfati really needs to crawl out of his little sealed box of creationist dogma and discover what scientists actually say about these matters, and not impose his bizarre creationist interpretations on the words of people like Dawkins and Miller. What any comparative biologist can see by looking at eyes across multiple taxa is that they all work well enough for their particular functions, but they all also have clear signs of assembly by a historical process, like evolution and quite unlike creation, and that there is also evidence of shortcomings that have acquired workarounds, some of which are wonderfully and surprisingly useful. What we don't see are signs that the best solutions from each clade have been extracted and placed together in one creature at the pinnacle of creation. And in particular — and this has to be particularly grating to the Genesis-worshipping creationists of Sarfati's ilk, since he studiously avoids the issue — Homo sapiens is not standing alone at that pinnacle of visual excellence. We're kinda straggling partway down the peak, trying to compensate for some relics of our ancestry, like the fact that we're descended from nocturnal mammals that let the refinement of their vision slide for a hundred million years or thereabouts, while the birds kept on optimizing for daylight acuity and sensitivity.

382 Comments

Dale Husband · 7 June 2010

Plus, cephalopod eyes are wired FORWARDS, this debunking the claim by Dr George Marshall that eyes of vertebrates have a good reason to be wired backwards.

It doesn't matter what you claim your scientific credentials to be; if you get caught lying to promote a false dogma, you should be publicly whipped over it.

Nick (Matzke) · 7 June 2010

"The vertebrate photoreceptors are nourished and protected by an opaque layer called the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE). Obviously, you couldn't put the RPE in front of the visual receptors, so the retina had to be reversed to allow it to work. This is a beautiful example of compromise: physiology is improved at the expense of optical clarity. This is exactly what the biologists have been saying! Vertebrates have made a trade-off of better nutrient supplies to the retina for a slight loss of optical clarity."

This doesn't make sense to me -- octopus retinas are successfully from behind, with the nerves also going out behind as well. All it requires is that the supply cells and the nerve cells interdigitate, which can't be that hard at all for e.g. the hypothetical intelligent designer who allegedly was able to design the rest of the eye.

For the real source of the vertebrate backwards retina, look at the arrangement of the light-sensitive nerve in Amphioxus (the nerve enters the light-sensitive cup from the front).

"They can't see color, which is true, but we can't sense the plane of polarity of light in our environment."

I doubt very much that ALL cephalopods lack color vision. E.g. cuttlefish display compex colored patterns to each other, it seems likely that they can see them. Have the tests been done?

eric · 7 June 2010

I remember watching a nature show on elephants. The narrator (or possibly the naturalist, its a bit hazy) was explaining that you don't try and approach elephants at night, because their night vision is very poor in comparison to most animals and that tends to make them jumpy and aggresive after dark. Their night vision is so poor, he went on to say, that its almost as bad as a human's.

mrg · 7 June 2010

Dawkins did the eye to death in CLIMBING MOUNT IMPROBABLE. But alas, how could we possibly be the least surprised at creationists recycling of their oldest arguments?

Of course, the whole question of "what the Designer might or might not have done" is a trap of sorts. We can point to particular structures as evidence for evolution, but as far as Design goes, there's no structure that *isn't* compatible: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY!

The only question that arises is what the motives of the Designer might be, and since the Designer hasn't seen fit to inform us of His Design decisions, we can pull any rationale we like out of our back pocket, sensible or silly, and defend as having every bit as much support in the evidence as any other (which is, for those with irony deficiency, is precisely none). Indeed, JUST MADE THAT WAY is exactly perfect an answer for ALL the sciences.

The interesting question is: what evidence is NOT compatible with Design? Rabbits in the Precambrian would be showstopper for evo science, but no problem for Design: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY!

PZ Myers · 7 June 2010

The interdigitation is exactly what the cephalopod eye does. As you well know, though, you don't get to demand what's best for vision in your eye via evolution, which is what I mean when I say it's a compromise: vertebrates have adapted an epithelial tissue for nutritive function, which isn't quite as clever or efficient as the cephalopod solution, but it still gets the job done.

Only one species of cephalopod has shown any evidence of color vision, a firefly squid. Many others have been thoroughly tested, and also examined biochemically for color opsins. They only see intensities. Octopus, for instance, can discriminate very fine shades of gray, but try to train them to choose between a red block and a blue block with the same luminance, and they can't tell them apart.

Cuttlefish: no color vision. Surprising, isn't it?

Wayne · 7 June 2010

Could I ask a favor? Could you please use a bigger font? You see, I've lost my reading glasses and am having trouble reading your posts. Thanks.

PZ Myers · 7 June 2010

Here's more about cephalopod vision and camouflage. They're color blind. They try to match textures and patterns.

PZ Myers · 7 June 2010

Most browsers have a command to enlarge text -- on my Mac Firefox, I just hit command-+.

mrg · 7 June 2010

Wayne said: Could you please use a bigger font?

This may not work on all browsers, but try "Ctrl +" to scale up the font. It works on IE 8 and works on Firefox -- suggest you upgrade to latest browser if you use them, it's free. To scale back down, try "Ctrl -".

Olorin · 7 June 2010

mrg said:
Wayne said: Could you please use a bigger font?
This may not work on all browsers, but try "Ctrl +" to scale up the font. It works on IE 8 and works on Firefox -- suggest you upgrade to latest browser if you use them, it's free. To scale back down, try "Ctrl -".

Now here I laughed when reading Wayne's comment. He did have a sarcastic smirk on his face, didn't he?

eric · 7 June 2010

he's trying to set up a hierarchy of superior vision, and he wants our god-designed eyes at the top, so he tells us that most cephalopods have poorer vision than we do.

This being one of the big howlers. The whole idea of there being a hierarchy and a 'top eye' is ridiculous on its face. What is evolutionarily optimal is based on your local ecological niche. There isn't any hierarchy. The best eye for a hawk may not be the best eye for a human (I have better uses for my brain than optimized visual signal interpretation, thank you); same goes for the octopus.

Of course having said that, Sarfati's still wrong. Even if we assume that current human vision is the "goal" (i.e. saying for sake of argument that our actual visual capability is optimal for us), it is still true that one could design a better eye to achieve that visual capability. Which as PZ says is the point: not that the eye is poor - its not - but that there are obvious better ways of achieving the same result.

fasteddie · 7 June 2010

I am going to kick square in the nuts the next creationist who says the eye is perfectly designed. The eye is a flawed organ; but for optometrists and opthomologists, many humans would be functionally blind before adulthood.

And I'm betting eagles have better eyes than any human.

Henry J · 7 June 2010

But what if they say that on a blog rather than in person?

mrg · 7 June 2010

fasteddie said: I am going to kick square in the nuts the next creationist who says the eye is perfectly designed.

A little violent for my tastes ... I would at least suggest restraint until a creationist says the eye is perfectly designed ... ... and then, when confronted with obvious evidence of evolutionary kludging, answers without blinking an eyelash: "Well, how do we actually know how a Designer would do things?" Heads I win tails you lose!

fnxtr · 7 June 2010

Would colour vision be of any use to benthic creatures? Is there any indication that modern cephalopods developed from deep-sea dwellers?

Helena Constantine · 7 June 2010

That is very strange about cephalopod color vision. I always imagined that if I wrote a science fiction story, the aliens could be similar to squid and would communicate entirely by detailed pattern and color changes on their skins. That would be so much more subtle than human speech it would given them an advantage over us. And imagine what it would look like when they performed their analog of opera. But then, I suppose, they would want to eat us when the stars are right.

Intelligent Designer · 7 June 2010

It would indicate short-term, problem-by-problem debugging rather than clean long-term planning.

This is what I do at work most of the time. It's hardly contrary to intelligent design.

FL · 7 June 2010

Regarding the Muller cells, Myers wrote:

"This a wonderful innovation, and it is entirely true that in principle this could improve the sensitivity of the photoreceptors. But again, this would not perturb any biologist at all — this is what we expect from evolution, the addition of new features to overcome shortcomings of original organization."

Hmm. "This is what we expect from evolution"? According to David Tyler, that's simply not correct. Evolutionists didn't see it coming at all:

"Darwinists never predicted the function performed by Muller cells, but once they were recognised, they are dubbed a "retrofit", with credit given to the amazing powers of mutation and natural selection (without any valid supporting evidence). This strategy is to Darwinism what epicycles were to the Ptolemaic cosmology." --David Tyler, "Post details: The contribution of glial cells to human vision acuity." http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/05/10/the_contribution_of_glial_cells_to_human

Always drawing more and more circles, it seems. Anything, anything, to keep evolution from dying a slow, painful, scientific death. FL

PZ Myers · 7 June 2010

There was no expectation that Müller cells would act as light guides -- the range of possibilities generated by evolutionary processes are so great and so unpredictable that no one can lay out a specific next step for anything. What we expect from evolution is novelty of some sort that, if beneficial (and sometimes if not), will be used to compensate. That's what kludges are.

If you think evolution is dying, you need to get out more.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

mrg said: Dawkins did the eye to death in CLIMBING MOUNT IMPROBABLE. But alas, how could we possibly be the least surprised at creationists recycling of their oldest arguments? Of course, the whole question of "what the Designer might or might not have done" is a trap of sorts. We can point to particular structures as evidence for evolution, but as far as Design goes, there's no structure that *isn't* compatible: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY! The only question that arises is what the motives of the Designer might be, and since the Designer hasn't seen fit to inform us of His Design decisions, we can pull any rationale we like out of our back pocket, sensible or silly, and defend as having every bit as much support in the evidence as any other (which is, for those with irony deficiency, is precisely none). Indeed, JUST MADE THAT WAY is exactly perfect an answer for ALL the sciences. The interesting question is: what evidence is NOT compatible with Design? Rabbits in the Precambrian would be showstopper for evo science, but no problem for Design: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY!

Well first of all the PreCambrian Rabbit is not a valid falsification. And evidence that would really hurt ID would be fossil evidence of gradualism. But evolution cannot be falsified because no matter what we see in the fossil record it can always be claimed: IT EVOLVED THAT WAY!. Sorry.

Intelligent Designer · 7 June 2010

Thinking out of the box, maybe the purpose of the design is not optimal vision. The eye presents the brain with information that needs to be processed. If our brains were processing all the information presented to bird brains they wouldn't have the computing resources for higher level thought processes.

Flint · 7 June 2010

But evolution cannot be falsified because no matter what we see in the fossil record it can always be claimed: IT EVOLVED THAT WAY!.

Uh, no. A theory rests on data, not claims. A fossil rabit unequivocally in the precambrian would of course have to be explained, but doing so would at the very least require some pretty massive changes to current theory. Yes, such a find would trigger a whole lot of diligent research, but the result would be the falsification of the CURRENT THEORY. The result would never be "I give up, goddidit." It would be a different theory. And the new theory would have to explain HOW it evolved that way. You are confusing science with religion. It's religion that just waves a hand and says POOF, this is how it is.

John Vanko · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: And evidence that would really hurt ID would be fossil evidence of gradualism.

Such evidence is found in the fossil record, you just have to look for it. You also have to study paleontology. Niles Eldredge wrote a book entitled 'Time Frames, The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibrium' (Princeton University Press, 1985) where he describes his find of a gradual transition between two species of trilobites, seemingly long before the apparent disappearance of the older species and the emergence of the newer species. This apparent abruptness of one species into another is an illusion. He found the actual transition in a quarry in upstate New York (page 78 onward). Every fossil in every museum around the world, and still uncollected in every sedimentary formation, is a FACT of evolution. The Theory of Evolution seeks to explain the Facts of Evolution. If you are an honest person you should learn about these things and you will be amazed at what you will discover.

SteveF · 7 June 2010

David Tyler is indeed an expert on evolution. He has laid out his published research on the topic in such prestigious journals as, er, Stitch World and other textiles related venues:

http://www.hollings.mmu.ac.uk/~dtyler/

He's also a maverick when it comes to Young Earth Creationism - our Dave believes the early to be as old as 10,000 years and that the Flood deposited only the very earliest part of the geologic record. He thinks outside the box does David J Tyler.

Definitely an authority to be trusted when dealing with the latest news relevant to evolutionary biology. You can see why he was the go to guy for ARN.

Flint · 7 June 2010

Thinking out of the box, maybe the purpose of the design is not optimal vision

But of course, the "purpose" of evolution is not to produce "optimal", but only "works better, everything considered." And what's considered seems to be survival. Most biological structures seem to evolve toward cost-effective. If visual acuity AND higher level thinking were both necessary, one might expect something else to shrink, OR a larger brain.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

John Vanko said:
meganfox said: And evidence that would really hurt ID would be fossil evidence of gradualism.
Such evidence is found in the fossil record, you just have to look for it. You also have to study paleontology. Niles Eldredge wrote a book entitled 'Time Frames, The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibrium' (Princeton University Press, 1985) where he describes his find of a gradual transition between two species of trilobites, seemingly long before the apparent disappearance of the older species and the emergence of the newer species. This apparent abruptness of one species into another is an illusion. He found the actual transition in a quarry in upstate New York (page 78 onward). Every fossil in every museum around the world, and still uncollected in every sedimentary formation, is a FACT of evolution. The Theory of Evolution seeks to explain the Facts of Evolution. If you are an honest person you should learn about these things and you will be amazed at what you will discover.

I guess I was not clear enough. What would falsify ID would be a very complete incremental fossil record that showed gradualism. Yes of course there is a lot of spotty evidence but a complete set of fossils from the first cell to humans would weigh heavily against ID. Have you studied much biology?

meganfox · 7 June 2010

Flint said:
But evolution cannot be falsified because no matter what we see in the fossil record it can always be claimed: IT EVOLVED THAT WAY!.
Uh, no. A theory rests on data, not claims. A fossil rabit unequivocally in the precambrian would of course have to be explained, but doing so would at the very least require some pretty massive changes to current theory. Yes, such a find would trigger a whole lot of diligent research, but the result would be the falsification of the CURRENT THEORY. The result would never be "I give up, goddidit." It would be a different theory. And the new theory would have to explain HOW it evolved that way. You are confusing science with religion. It's religion that just waves a hand and says POOF, this is how it is.

Please read Popper. The Cambrian Rabbit is NOT a falsification for evolution. Of course some people do not accept falsification as a concept so the point might be moot.

harold · 7 June 2010

Intelligent Designer -

Thinking out of the box, maybe the purpose of the design is not optimal vision.

That's a very good point. After all, we can't predict in advance what a super-human, inscrutable designer would want to design. The idea of common descent, on the other hand, leads to testable predictions. Let's review how just a few have turned out. These are just a few examples. 1) Of course, common descent was first inferred by the observation of nested hierarchies in biology, which allow organized taxonomy. 2) One of the first advances in the life sciences was the beginning of biochemistry in the early to mid nineteenth century. For common descent to be strongly supported, we should see common biochemistry across life. Completely unique biochemistry in different lineages would argue against common descent. In fact, we see the former. 3) Around the same time, light microscopic examination of cell structure developed. To strengthen the claim of common descent, we should see common elements of cell structure across life. That is, indeed, what we see. 4) Mendelian or "classical" genetics developed. To support evolution and common descent, it needs to be compatible with that concept; it is. 5) The electron microscope became available, allowing a much greater understanding of cellular structure. To strongly support common descent, we should see common cellular structures across life. We do. 6) Molecular genetics became understood. Now some really convincing tests. "Design" could do anything, but for strong support of common descent, we'd need to see such things as a common genetic code across life. We do. I could go on and on, but I'll stop here and ask you a question. How do you explain the fact that, even if life has been designed, it has been designed to look exactly as if it had evolved? Are you an advocate of Omphalos - the idea that "the designer" falsely creates the appearance of age and evolution? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis

meganfox · 7 June 2010

Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.

John Vanko · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: ... a complete set of fossils from the first cell to humans would weigh heavily against ID.

Oh, I see. "A complete set of fossils from the first cell to humans," in other words THE complete set of fossils for all life on Planet Earth - every parent and every child, every organism that has ever lived. Nothing else will satisfy you. And yet there is indeed an incomplete set from the first cell to humans - we have it, it is called the fossil record. You just refuse to acknowledge it. Gradualism is not a requirement of evolution. Gould and Eldredge proposed Punctuated Equilibrium as a better explanation of much of the fossil record and then offered actual examples. Gradualism still exists in the fossil record but it is not the only way evolution proceeds. By the way, every human being grew from just one cell. (I think that's biology, no?) Very peculiar, don't you think? I think it weighs heavily against ID.

Intelligent Designer · 7 June 2010

harold said: I could go on and on, but I'll stop here and ask you a question. How do you explain the fact that, even if life has been designed, it has been designed to look exactly as if it had evolved?

I have a number of computers in my office. Some were purchased as long as 11 years ago. If I lined them up in chronological order of purchase, they would look as if they evolved. And in some sense of the word they did. They were also intelligently designed. Your question presumes that evolution and intelligent design are mutually exclusive.

Are you an advocate of Omphalos - the idea that "the designer" falsely creates the appearance of age and evolution? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis

I am not a biblical creationist, nor do I subscribe to any religion.

harold · 7 June 2010

Lest there is some confusion, although I can't understand how there could be, I did not say "that's a very good point" to Intelligent Designer because I have suddenly become a creationist - as the rest of my comment should make clear.

I said that because he inadvertently makes a good point about the weakness of vague claims of "design". Anyone can also say that anything was magically designed to look a certain way.

Dale Husband · 7 June 2010

FL said: Regarding the Muller cells, Myers wrote:
"This a wonderful innovation, and it is entirely true that in principle this could improve the sensitivity of the photoreceptors. But again, this would not perturb any biologist at all — this is what we expect from evolution, the addition of new features to overcome shortcomings of original organization."
Hmm. "This is what we expect from evolution"? According to David Tyler, that's simply not correct. Evolutionists didn't see it coming at all:
"Darwinists never predicted the function performed by Muller cells, but once they were recognised, they are dubbed a "retrofit", with credit given to the amazing powers of mutation and natural selection (without any valid supporting evidence). This strategy is to Darwinism what epicycles were to the Ptolemaic cosmology." --David Tyler, "Post details: The contribution of glial cells to human vision acuity." http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/05/10/the_contribution_of_glial_cells_to_human
Always drawing more and more circles, it seems. Anything, anything, to keep evolution from dying a slow, painful, scientific death. FL

Only a Creationist bigot like FL would take an idiot like David Tyler seriously. It is only a failure of imagination, perhaps combined with a willingness to lie outright, that would make anyone say the vertebrate eye was of ideal design in any sense.

John Vanko · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.

Fossil Record. You're welcome.

RAM · 7 June 2010

When Sarfati's article was posted, I made the following reply, which was acknowledged but never answered:

"Dear CMI -
I would agree that Dawkins lays undue stress on the "backward" arrangement of the retinal layers in the vertebrate eye, but this argument is not 20 years old. It is more like 120 years old, having been made by Helmholz in the nineteenth century. But I am also surprised that both he and Dr. Sarfati have not addressed the real reason that reason that the layers of the retina are ordered the way that they are. The arrangement derives directly from the embryological origin of the retina as an outgrowth of the developing brain – the order of the layers is fixed long before the eye functions as an optical instrument.
The point that Dawkins makes explicitly, and that Sarfati has apparently failed to appreciate, is that what would appear to be a drawback in design is well compensated for by numerous adaptations that have arisen during the evolution of the eye. Because these improvements and compensations are applied to a structure whose basic layout is “locked in” by its evolutionary heritage, all vertebrate eyes have the “backwards retina” in common. This arrangement underlies all of the various adaptations and is not due to “the need to regenerate the photocells” as Dr. Sarfati claims. Evolution does not (and cannot) make major changes (such as reversing the order of the retinal layers) de novo, but must build on what has gone before – that is the essence of “descent with modification.”
Simply put, the excellent performance of the eye is not due to the particular ordering of the retinal layers, but is in fact a tribute to the effectiveness of evolutionary processes in working with the materials and structures at hand in order to produce a structure. Perhaps is it time to add this topic to “arguments creationists should not use.”

I'm not holding my breath.

harold · 7 June 2010

Intelligent Designer -

I have a number of computers in my office. Some were purchased as long as 11 years ago. If I lined them up in chronological order of purchase, they would look as if they evolved. And in some sense of the word they did. They were also intelligently designed.

That's merely an inappropriate analogy. It is, in fact, a version of Paley's watch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy We know computers were designed by humans. We need not conjecture about mysterious inscrutable superhuman designers. We are often able to recognize even novel objects as having been designed by natural designers, but that is because we know what the designers are like. For example, if a scientist discovered a hive of a previously unknown species of bee, it might still be very clear that it was a beehive. Because of what we know about bees. In addition, computers to not have a well-known method of self-replication with variability. Thus, the alternate hypothesis of evolution need not be considered.

Your question presumes that evolution and intelligent design are mutually exclusive.

"Intelligent Design" as advanced by the Discovery Institute is grounded in errors of logic and mathematics, and is not compatible with any rational system of thought, science or otherwise. The position "theistic evolution", which I don't share but have no problem with, conceives that a deity may in some way intend, give divine meaning to, or possibly even very subtly guide, the evolution of life on earth, but within the bounds of human scientific observation.

I am not a biblical creationist, nor do I subscribe to any religion.

So who is the designer?

harold · 7 June 2010

meganfox said:

Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.

Nested hierarchy. Common biochemistry across all of life. Common cellular structures across all of life. Population genetics. Common genetic code across all of life. LINES, SINES, and ERVs. Common observations of speciation. Common observations of natural selection. Fossil record highly consistent with contemporary phylogenetic relationships. This hasn't been updated for three years but is a decent, if terse, summary of much the evidence. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ Are you using someone else's name as your username?

John Vanko · 7 June 2010

So who is the designer?

I've always thought that ID was a joke invented by YECreationists who thought they had pulled a fast one on 'scientists.' They were laughing up their sleeves at the scientific community. They thought scientist are obligated to investigate all legitimate possible explanations for natural phenomenon. So they put forward this possibility that no scientist could disprove. What if life on Earth had been designed by outer-space aliens? But if the designer, or committee of designers, are outer-space aliens, are they not part of the 'Natural World'? As part of the Natural World cannot they be investigated with the methods of science? How can IDers say we cannot know anything about the designer/designers/committee of designers and it is improper to inquire about them? They never heard of Occam's Razor. The joke's on them.

Torbach · 7 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: Thinking out of the box, maybe the purpose of the design is not optimal vision.

wait is this a joke? bc it is a good laugh if it is. if not...You Sir need to go claim your noble prize right after you create the worlds first experiment to prove "purpose" you do realize (rhetorical) that statement is an arbitrary suggestion without any scientific merit, adding 0 to the data used to solve natural problems. if you were actually capable of constructing an experiment that could prove what you suggest, you would have to be the worlds greatest mind in history ... but that is likely a Catch-22. Only ignorance allows the confidence suggest something impossible and see nothing wrong with it. the same goes for mFox requiring every bit of biological life...as if that is the ONLY way to gain evidence to recreate and predict natural phenomenon. well two idiots can play that game.. MFox you show me a super natural designer and i'll follow your words.

Dale Husband · 7 June 2010

harold said: Intelligent Designer -
I have a number of computers in my office. Some were purchased as long as 11 years ago. If I lined them up in chronological order of purchase, they would look as if they evolved. And in some sense of the word they did. They were also intelligently designed.
That's merely an inappropriate analogy. It is, in fact, a version of Paley's watch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy We know computers were designed by humans. We need not conjecture about mysterious inscrutable superhuman designers. We are often able to recognize even novel objects as having been designed by natural designers, but that is because we know what the designers are like. For example, if a scientist discovered a hive of a previously unknown species of bee, it might still be very clear that it was a beehive. Because of what we know about bees. In addition, computers to not have a well-known method of self-replication with variability. Thus, the alternate hypothesis of evolution need not be considered.
Your question presumes that evolution and intelligent design are mutually exclusive.
"Intelligent Design" as advanced by the Discovery Institute is grounded in errors of logic and mathematics, and is not compatible with any rational system of thought, science or otherwise. The position "theistic evolution", which I don't share but have no problem with, conceives that a deity may in some way intend, give divine meaning to, or possibly even very subtly guide, the evolution of life on earth, but within the bounds of human scientific observation.
I am not a biblical creationist, nor do I subscribe to any religion.
So who is the designer?

Excellent answer! Indeed, it is exactly because computers, automobiles, airplanes, and other mechanical or electronic inventions of human beings A. cannot reproduce thenselves and B. lack a molecular mechanism to transmit traits from one generation to the next that makes Intelligent Design necessary for those things. Living things which do reproduce themselves and use DNA or RNA to pass traits from parents to offspring can rely on natural selection instead. So a watch does imply a watchmaker, but we are NOT watches!

MrG · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.

Please provide me with any specifics of who the Designer might be -- at least to the level that allows me to choose between, say, unseen alien white mice from another dimension and any other possible Designer that we might specify as we felt like it. Also provide me with any specifics of what the Designer actually did. If you say things went "POOF!" and JUST HAPPENED, please provide me with any validated case of POOF! in any context.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

John Vanko said:
meganfox said: ... a complete set of fossils from the first cell to humans would weigh heavily against ID.
Oh, I see. "A complete set of fossils from the first cell to humans," in other words THE complete set of fossils for all life on Planet Earth - every parent and every child, every organism that has ever lived. Nothing else will satisfy you. And yet there is indeed an incomplete set from the first cell to humans - we have it, it is called the fossil record. You just refuse to acknowledge it. Gradualism is not a requirement of evolution. Gould and Eldredge proposed Punctuated Equilibrium as a better explanation of much of the fossil record and then offered actual examples. Gradualism still exists in the fossil record but it is not the only way evolution proceeds. By the way, every human being grew from just one cell. (I think that's biology, no?) Very peculiar, don't you think? I think it weighs heavily against ID.

Now don't go into hyperbole. Not a fossil of every creature that ever lived but enough to construct a good random sampling but also enough connectivity. Would have to be mathematically calculated. Well that would sufficiently be enough evidence to bury ID. Seems like you are circumventing methods to negate ID. Do you believe in it?

harold · 7 June 2010

John Vanko -

I’ve always thought that ID was a joke invented by YECreationists

Pretty close, it was actually an attempt by them to "court proof" creationism/evolution denial as "science" in public schools. As with all other prior attempts to insert creationism into the public school science curriculum (all of which occurred in conservative, rural districts), courts found against them and the public eventually voted active creationists off the school board. Inteligent Designer could merely be obsessed with the delusion that he is a "greater genius than" all the academic leaders in biomedical science. Alternately, he could be dishonest. Despite the fact that the Biblical character Jesus refers specifically to the commandment against false witness as one which should be kept, efforts to "pretend not to be a Christian" and set up a clumsy "gotcha game" are common. However, he seems to be a sincere lone crackpot.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it? Could species just appear abruptly and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it? What would NOT verify it?

meganfox · 7 June 2010

MrG said:
meganfox said: Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.
Please provide me with any specifics of who the Designer might be -- at least to the level that allows me to choose between, say, unseen alien white mice from another dimension and any other possible Designer that we might specify as we felt like it. Also provide me with any specifics of what the Designer actually did. If you say things went "POOF!" and JUST HAPPENED, please provide me with any validated case of POOF! in any context.

I do not see how your response answers my question on how 'live appears to be evolved'.

eric · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it? Could species just appear abruptly and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it? What would NOT verify it?

The TOE is the best available explanation we have. It fits the data we have quite well. But maybe you know something we don't - if you have a better explanation, one that explains the fossil record, genetics, etc... better than evolution, name it.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

harold said: meganfox said:
Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.
Nested hierarchy. Common biochemistry across all of life. Common cellular structures across all of life. Population genetics. Common genetic code across all of life. LINES, SINES, and ERVs. Common observations of speciation. Common observations of natural selection. Fossil record highly consistent with contemporary phylogenetic relationships. This hasn't been updated for three years but is a decent, if terse, summary of much the evidence. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ Are you using someone else's name as your username?

You misunderstood my question. You said life appears evolved. That seems to imply that it was not evolved but appears to be. Why would you think it was not evolved?

harold · 7 June 2010

meganfox - I hope you get a chance to look at my other comment for you. Meanwhile -

Now don’t go into hyperbole. Not a fossil of every creature that ever lived but enough to construct a good random sampling but also enough connectivity. Would have to be mathematically calculated. Well that would sufficiently be enough evidence to bury ID.

I think the fossil record as it exists today is one line of strong independent evidence for evolution, and thus, against the need to invoke magical design to explain the diversity of life on earth. This has nothing to do with religion, unless a religion chooses to deny the evidence. I don't agree that any level of fossil record can ever disprove the claim that "the fossils were designed to look that way". The facile claim that something "looks designed to me" can always be made, but such statements are meaningless for that very reason. I also don't think that your implied claim that we can only evaluate ID if we have some unlikely future super-complete fossil record is valid. What is a claim that ID makes, that I can test right now?

Seems like you are circumventing methods to negate ID. Do you believe in it?

Seems as if you are doing this. You are engaging in the logical fallacy known as "moving the goalposts" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts.

Stanton · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: I do not see how your response answers my question on how 'live appears to be evolved'.

Life appears to be evolved because people have observed life evolving.

MrG · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: I do not see how your response answers my question on how 'live appears to be evolved'.

Oh, you could go over to the library and read books on the subject if you were actually interested, and if you weren't impressed, all I could say is that I wouldn't have a problem with that. "Live in ignorance." But I've been really curious about the two questions I posed to you for a long time. If you can't answer them, fine, no need to respond.

harold · 7 June 2010

meganfox -

You misunderstood my question. You said life appears evolved. That seems to imply that it was not evolved but appears to be. Why would you think it was not evolved?

LOL!!!!!!!!! Life appears to have evolved. In my opinion, it is most reasonable to think that this is because it did evolve.

If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it?

Lack of nested hierarchy, lack of common biochemistry, genetics not compatible with it, lack of common cellular structures, lack of common genetic code, conflicting phylogenies constructed when using different methodologies...

Could species just appear abruptly

If species did, in fact, appear abruptly without relationship to other species, that would verify creationism. Have you seen that lately?

and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it?

Whether species appear "gradually" has nothing to do with it.

What would NOT verify it?

I've answered that question many times now. Pretending that I haven't won't help. Everyone can see that I have.

harold · 7 June 2010

Dale Husband -

Thanks. The one advantage of seeing the same ridiculous fallacies repeated over and over is that one gets better at responding to them.

harold · 7 June 2010

meganfox -

One final comment from me to you for now. I would love an answer.

Forget evolution. Pretend we both agree life on earth doesn't evolve. We don't need to worry about it.

How did the diverse forms of life in the biosphere get here? What happened? Don't worry about evolution. Just tell me what really happened.

Cubist · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it?

By conducting experiments and/or making observations which would allow you to distinguish between evolution-by-gradualism and evolution-by-nongradualism.

Could species just appear abruptly and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it?

Again, you'd have to first figure out what sort of data would allow you to tell the difference between abrupt appearance and gradual appearance.

What would NOT verify it?

If abrupt appearance occurs under a set of conditions which evolutionary theory says should not allow abrupt appearance to occur, that would indicate something's wrong with evolutionary theory. Likewise, if gradual appearance occurs under a set of conditions which evolutionary theory says should not allow gradual appearance to occur, that would indicate something's wrong with evolutionary theory. meganfox, I recognize that my answers aren't all that specific -- but your questions weren't all that specific, either. Ask a nonspecific how-is-this-possible question, get a nonspecific here's-how-this-is-possible answer.

fnxtr · 7 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
harold said: I could go on and on, but I'll stop here and ask you a question. How do you explain the fact that, even if life has been designed, it has been designed to look exactly as if it had evolved?
I have a number of computers in my office. Some were purchased as long as 11 years ago. If I lined them up in chronological order of purchase, they would look as if they evolved. And in some sense of the word they did. They were also intelligently designed. Your question presumes that evolution and intelligent design are mutually exclusive.
Are you an advocate of Omphalos - the idea that "the designer" falsely creates the appearance of age and evolution? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis
I am not a biblical creationist, nor do I subscribe to any religion.

Soo.... space aliens? Superintelligent shade of the colour blue? Clearly you think life was designed. By whom?

meganfox · 7 June 2010

harold said: meganfox - One final comment from me to you for now. I would love an answer. Forget evolution. Pretend we both agree life on earth doesn't evolve. We don't need to worry about it. How did the diverse forms of life in the biosphere get here? What happened? Don't worry about evolution. Just tell me what really happened.

I do not see how life could be here on earth now as it is with it having evolved so how can I answer that? Evolution is seen everywhere. I really do not see what you are getting at.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

harold said: meganfox -
You misunderstood my question. You said life appears evolved. That seems to imply that it was not evolved but appears to be. Why would you think it was not evolved?
LOL!!!!!!!!! Life appears to have evolved. In my opinion, it is most reasonable to think that this is because it did evolve.
If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it?
Lack of nested hierarchy, lack of common biochemistry, genetics not compatible with it, lack of common cellular structures, lack of common genetic code, conflicting phylogenies constructed when using different methodologies...
Could species just appear abruptly
If species did, in fact, appear abruptly without relationship to other species, that would verify creationism. Have you seen that lately?
and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it?
Whether species appear "gradually" has nothing to do with it.
What would NOT verify it?
I've answered that question many times now. Pretending that I haven't won't help. Everyone can see that I have.

Again you are misunderstanding. If I said to my kid 'It appears you have done your homework' that sort of implies that it appears that way but in reality has not. My original question is how can evolution appear to have happened with out actually not have happened as you have implied?

meganfox · 7 June 2010

MrG said:
meganfox said: I do not see how your response answers my question on how 'live appears to be evolved'.
Oh, you could go over to the library and read books on the subject if you were actually interested, and if you weren't impressed, all I could say is that I wouldn't have a problem with that. "Live in ignorance." But I've been really curious about the two questions I posed to you for a long time. If you can't answer them, fine, no need to respond.

"Live in ignorance'??? Seems like that is what YOU are doing. You are saying there is no way to verify evolution so your only explanation is creation which is NOT science since in uses the supernatural. Evolution has been proven whether you want to believe it or not.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

"Forget evolution. Pretend we both agree life on earth doesn’t evolve. We don’t need to worry about it."

That is ridiculous. Like saying forget gravity and then try to explain the movements of the planets. Sorry, I think you are in left field.

MrG · 7 June 2010

meganfox said: Evolution has been proven whether you want to believe it or not.

Absolutely true.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

harold said: meganfox - I hope you get a chance to look at my other comment for you. Meanwhile -
Now don’t go into hyperbole. Not a fossil of every creature that ever lived but enough to construct a good random sampling but also enough connectivity. Would have to be mathematically calculated. Well that would sufficiently be enough evidence to bury ID.
I think the fossil record as it exists today is one line of strong independent evidence for evolution, and thus, against the need to invoke magical design to explain the diversity of life on earth. This has nothing to do with religion, unless a religion chooses to deny the evidence. I don't agree that any level of fossil record can ever disprove the claim that "the fossils were designed to look that way". The facile claim that something "looks designed to me" can always be made, but such statements are meaningless for that very reason. I also don't think that your implied claim that we can only evaluate ID if we have some unlikely future super-complete fossil record is valid. What is a claim that ID makes, that I can test right now?
Seems like you are circumventing methods to negate ID. Do you believe in it?
Seems as if you are doing this. You are engaging in the logical fallacy known as "moving the goalposts" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts.

Moving the goalposts? What are you talking about. I do not see how life could exist without evolution. If you want to believe that, that is your business but I think it is impossible.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

MrG said:
meganfox said: Evolution has been proven whether you want to believe it or not.
Absolutely true.

Thanks! Someone here is able to think logically!

meganfox · 7 June 2010

Torbach said:
Intelligent Designer said: Thinking out of the box, maybe the purpose of the design is not optimal vision.
wait is this a joke? bc it is a good laugh if it is. if not...You Sir need to go claim your noble prize right after you create the worlds first experiment to prove "purpose" you do realize (rhetorical) that statement is an arbitrary suggestion without any scientific merit, adding 0 to the data used to solve natural problems. if you were actually capable of constructing an experiment that could prove what you suggest, you would have to be the worlds greatest mind in history ... but that is likely a Catch-22. Only ignorance allows the confidence suggest something impossible and see nothing wrong with it. the same goes for mFox requiring every bit of biological life...as if that is the ONLY way to gain evidence to recreate and predict natural phenomenon. well two idiots can play that game.. MFox you show me a super natural designer and i'll follow your words.

Please stop. A supernatural designer would not fit into our scientific method. If you want to believe in one that is fine, but it is NOT science!

meganfox · 7 June 2010

John Vanko said:
meganfox said: Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.
Fossil Record. You're welcome.

Again a magician can make it 'appear' that a rabbit disappears but it does not in reality. Why do you think evolution appears to be true but is not?

meganfox · 7 June 2010

"I don’t agree that any level of fossil record can ever disprove the claim that “the fossils were designed to look that way”."

Well I certain think there could be enough evidence. If you want to BELIEVE life was designed you are welcome to that belief but it is NOT science. I think we have enough evidence now that evolution happened and is happening.

meganfox · 7 June 2010

harold said: meganfox said:
Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.
Nested hierarchy. Common biochemistry across all of life. Common cellular structures across all of life. Population genetics. Common genetic code across all of life. LINES, SINES, and ERVs. Common observations of speciation. Common observations of natural selection. Fossil record highly consistent with contemporary phylogenetic relationships. This hasn't been updated for three years but is a decent, if terse, summary of much the evidence. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ Are you using someone else's name as your username?

Of course I am using someone else's name. Did you really think I am Megan Fox? It was just the first thing I thought of. Is your name really harold?

Torbach · 7 June 2010

oh is good joke, yah, high five.

Alex H · 8 June 2010

meganfox said:
John Vanko said:
meganfox said: Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.
Fossil Record. You're welcome.
Again a magician can make it 'appear' that a rabbit disappears but it does not in reality. Why do you think evolution appears to be true but is not?

Because scientists allow for the possibility (despite it being remote to well beyond the point of absurdity) that The Flying Spaghetti Monster is only making the evidence *look* as if life evolved rather than remain static.

Scott · 8 June 2010

Dear M.fox, You appear to be new here, so I think you misunderstand. You are arguing with the wrong people. First, your original comment, "the PreCambrian Rabbit is not a valid falsification"; second, your obviously false statement that "evolution cannot be falsified"; third, your demand for an arbitrarily detailed fossil record; fourth, your failure to answer any question in detail, but to answer questions with yet more vague questions; all these things are classic hallmarks of a hard core Creationist. Because of these things, I, as others here apparently have done, assume you are a hard core Creationist. Your more recent posts seem to contradict this impression, so we are left chasing our tails. Perhaps that was your intent? You appear to be nitpicking the phrase, "appears to be evolved". First, you were the first one to use the phrase, "appears to have been evolved". It is not present in the comment to which you replied, nor in any above your comment. Second, the "appearance" of evolution is all that science can demonstrate. No one in this thread (except perhaps you) has stated nor implied that "appears to be evolved" means "not evolved". All that Science can demonstrate is that life appears to have evolved. We can conclude three possible reasons for the "appearance" of evolved life:

A: Life did in fact evolve through natural means (as Stanton commented); or

B: Life evolved through the invisible hand of a deity (ie theistic evolution); or

C: Life was created last Thursday to appear evolved.

D: Variations on the above.

The consensus of scientists and PT regulars is option "A". Before we go making more unwarranted assumptions about your beliefs, what is your choice from the options above? If you avoid the question, or choose none of the above, we can only conclude that you are a Creationist troll. We would like to be proven wrong.

Scott · 8 June 2010

I forgot to add:

E: Life does not appear to be evolved, but appears to be created/designed.

While this is the choice of Creationists and IDiots, it does not explain the appearance of evolved life, but rather denies all the evidence of the appearance of evolved life. If we can't even agree on fundamental facts, then option "E" is a non-starter, scientifically.

Scott · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Well first of all the PreCambrian Rabbit is not a valid falsification.

Okay, I give up. Why is the PreCambrian Rabbit not a falsification of TOE? And, no, I have not read Popper. Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarize for me? Thanks.

Dave Luckett · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it? Could species just appear abruptly and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it? What would NOT verify it?

Living things evolve, generally. Some, however, so perfectly fit a particular unchanging niche in a particular unchanging environment that there is no selection pressure, and these species evolve little or not at all. On the other hand, some environments and some niches are settings for spectacular evolution - "arms races", "biofeedback", rapidly changing environments, new or recently isolated territory, novel pests, rivals, parasites, predators, food sources and so on. Rapid evolution is just what one would expect, in those cases. And as Stephen J Gould pointed out, the appearance of new species will nearly always seem abrupt, especially when viewed with the intense foreshortening of the fossil record. What would falsify evolution? Well, classical evolution is the necessary result of individual variation and heritable traits with natural selection. If all three are real, evolution must happen. It can't not happen. So, to falsify evolution, you'd have to show that individual variation doesn't occur (obviously it does), OR that heredity doesn't occur (ditto), OR that natural selection doesn't occur. To do the last, you'd have to show an example of a species meeting a new environmental factor and neither evolving new characteristics nor changing its population up or down depending on whether the new factor were favourable or unfavourable. No such example is known. The opposite is so commonplace as to hardly merit comment. Another means of falsifying evolution (by falsifying universal common descent) would be to demonstrate some biochemical mechanism that prevents further change beyond some specified clade - species, genera, family, class, whatever. The creationists calling themselves "baraminologists" have been looking for this for decades, without the slightest success. So far as anyone knows, no such mechanism exists. Its existence is now so unlikely that the possibility is negligible. But that's purely a theoretical case, anyway. The physical evidence that living things really have evolved is enormous and overwhelming, and physical evidence, rather than theoretical possibilities, is what concerns scientists.

Intelligent Designer · 8 June 2010

John Vanko said: What if life on Earth had been designed by outer-space aliens? But if the designer, or committee of designers, are outer-space aliens, are they not part of the 'Natural World'? As part of the Natural World cannot they be investigated with the methods of science?

That depends on what the natural world is. Most of us tend to think of the universe as consisting of three physical dimensions plus one dimension of time. We can investigate that. However, many leading physicists think the universe is consists of more than these four dimensions. Edward Witten thinks the universe consists of 11 dimensions. That we can't investigate.

Intelligent Designer · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: What would falsify evolution?

Why not ask what would falsify the idea that evolution is the result of random mutation and natural selection?

SWT · 8 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Luckett said: What would falsify evolution?
Why not ask what would falsify the idea that evolution is the result of random mutation and natural selection?

Perhaps because that's not what modern evolutionary theory posits. "Random mutation and natural selection" is a straw man caricature of the theory of evolution; there are additional mechanisms.

Intelligent Designer · 8 June 2010

fnxtr said: Soo.... space aliens? Superintelligent shade of the colour blue? Clearly you think life was designed. By whom?

How would I know? Why don't you tell me what happened before the big bang.

Intelligent Designer · 8 June 2010

SWT said: Perhaps because that's not what modern evolutionary theory posits. "Random mutation and natural selection" is a straw man caricature of the theory of evolution; there are additional mechanisms.

Like what?

Cubist · 8 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Luckett said: What would falsify evolution?
Why not ask what would falsify the idea that evolution is the result of random mutation and natural selection?

No need to ask, because the idea that "evolution is the result of random selection and natural selection". already has been falsified. There are any number of things which could falsify said idea , one of which is the existence of other evolutionary mechanisms than just the two ("random mutation" being one, and "natural selection" being the other) that are specifically mentioned in said idea. And since there are, in fact, other evolutionary mechanisms than just those two (see also: sexual selection, founder effect, etc), said idea already has been falsified, as I stated up front. I think it's clear that the question you meant to suggest be asked, was something along the lines of "what would falsify the idea that current evolutionary theory is a scientifically valid explanation for the diversity of life on Earth?" If you could prove that mutations don't actually occur, that would probably do it; I have no idea how you'd go about proving that, but if you succeeded in doing so, current evolutionary theory would be screwed, blued, and tattooed. Similarly, if you could prove that an organism's reproductive fitness is enhanced by variations which have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring which that organism produces, that, too, would make hamburger out of current evolutionary theory. These are only two of the ways by which one might falsify current evolutionary theory. I must admit that I don't see how anyone could actually do either of them, but surely you ID-pushers are up to the challenge?

Dave Luckett · 8 June 2010

Cubist said: Similarly, if you could prove that an organism’s reproductive fitness is enhanced by variations which have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring which that organism produces, that, too, would make hamburger out of current evolutionary theory.

Either I have misunderstood you, or you don't actually mean this. The reproductive fitness of mammals is actually "enhanced by variations that have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring they can produce", namely, their internal gestation and nurturing of their young. This, however, increases the proportion of offspring that survive to reproduce in their turn. This is a trade-off which is clearly viable for mammals. It's in the nature of an economic transaction, and poses no problem for the theory of evolution.

eddie · 8 June 2010

Scott said:
meganfox said: Well first of all the PreCambrian Rabbit is not a valid falsification.
Okay, I give up. Why is the PreCambrian Rabbit not a falsification of TOE? And, no, I have not read Popper. Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarize for me?

As it happens, I have a fossil rabbit embedded in Precambrian rock, found in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. And not just a bit of a rabbit either, but a whole one captured in the moment it was eating a carrot. So, it is definitely a rabbit. I keep it on my mantlepiece to upset scientists when they call round for coffee. Strangely, it hasn't managed to disturb one of them yet. A common response is that the rock can't be Precambrian, it has a rabbit in it. Others claim that some (as yet unidentified) geological processes must have moved the fossil into a rock formation with which it wasn't initially associated. It's a hoax is an oft-heard statement from my coffee-drinking scientist friends. One (and one only) accepted that it is a rabbit from the Precambrian, and muttered about having to go and do some thinking to incorporate this into her vision of evolutionary trees of life. On the whole, though, almost every white-coat wearing visitor simply says that the huge body of evidence in favour of the current view of evolution is sufficient to outweigh one fossil on my mantlepiece. Falsification? Not yet. But I'll keep my fossil there and update you on any changes to the current orthodoxy. [p.s. Popper nice in theory; rubbish as far as explaining how scientists actually operate. My rabbit shows that Lakatos is much closer to explaining the practice of science, as distinct from the theory of science.]

The Founding Mothers · 8 June 2010

Cubist: What Dave said. In general, relative fitness is a more appropriate measure to think of, although there are some problems associated with this measure as well, and fitness is sometimes difficult to define.

Basically, as long as you produce more offspring than others in your population (and this trait remains heritable in the environment), this 'type will come to dominate (higher frequencies) in the local population.

It doesn't matter if you have fewer offspring than your parents, or if you produce on average fewer than 1 offspring per-capita (although this tends to lead to extinction), your 'type will still dominate the local population.

The Founding Mothers · 8 June 2010

eddie said: As it happens, I have a fossil rabbit embedded in Precambrian rock, found in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Eddie: Show me the bunny. SHOW ME THE BUNNY!

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Scott said:
meganfox said: Well first of all the PreCambrian Rabbit is not a valid falsification.
Okay, I give up. Why is the PreCambrian Rabbit not a falsification of TOE? And, no, I have not read Popper. Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarize for me? Thanks.

Well again you have to accept Popper's basic assertions that a theory must be falsifiable and that is probably too long to get into here. If you carefully read Popper his criteria for falsifiability are not that simple. For instance I could not say that a falsifiability test for gravity would be if I would apples fell up instead of down. A falsifiable observation MUST be one that would be observed if the theory in question is not true. You seriously cannot say that if TOE was not true we would have rabbits living along with trilobites etc. If TOE was not true there would be no life at all. Cambrian rabbits is a cute visual but nonsensical. Just as silly as cats giving birth to dogs etc. It would be like asking what the earth would look like if there were no gravity. Well there would not even be planets etc. The question has to be much, much more subtle like would we see parallax. Again I do not think TOE is falsifiable as Popper explains it. That does not mean the theory is not true. If you rule out the 'supernatural' from science then there is no other choice than TOE being true by definition. But again it seems to me to be circular logic since 'supernatural' is something that science cannot explain.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Cubist said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Luckett said: What would falsify evolution?
Why not ask what would falsify the idea that evolution is the result of random mutation and natural selection?
No need to ask, because the idea that "evolution is the result of random selection and natural selection". already has been falsified. There are any number of things which could falsify said idea , one of which is the existence of other evolutionary mechanisms than just the two ("random mutation" being one, and "natural selection" being the other) that are specifically mentioned in said idea. And since there are, in fact, other evolutionary mechanisms than just those two (see also: sexual selection, founder effect, etc), said idea already has been falsified, as I stated up front. I think it's clear that the question you meant to suggest be asked, was something along the lines of "what would falsify the idea that current evolutionary theory is a scientifically valid explanation for the diversity of life on Earth?" If you could prove that mutations don't actually occur, that would probably do it; I have no idea how you'd go about proving that, but if you succeeded in doing so, current evolutionary theory would be screwed, blued, and tattooed. Similarly, if you could prove that an organism's reproductive fitness is enhanced by variations which have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring which that organism produces, that, too, would make hamburger out of current evolutionary theory. These are only two of the ways by which one might falsify current evolutionary theory. I must admit that I don't see how anyone could actually do either of them, but surely you ID-pushers are up to the challenge?

Yes but how do you falsify that humans came from much lower organisms through mutation and selection? Again what would we observe if the TOE was not true? Well I can't think of anything (other than supernatural) but again one would have to be a complete Popperist to then say TOE if not true. Maybe Popperism is not valid. Anyhow that is how I look at it.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said:
meganfox said: If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it? Could species just appear abruptly and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it? What would NOT verify it?
Living things evolve, generally. Some, however, so perfectly fit a particular unchanging niche in a particular unchanging environment that there is no selection pressure, and these species evolve little or not at all. On the other hand, some environments and some niches are settings for spectacular evolution - "arms races", "biofeedback", rapidly changing environments, new or recently isolated territory, novel pests, rivals, parasites, predators, food sources and so on. Rapid evolution is just what one would expect, in those cases. And as Stephen J Gould pointed out, the appearance of new species will nearly always seem abrupt, especially when viewed with the intense foreshortening of the fossil record. What would falsify evolution? Well, classical evolution is the necessary result of individual variation and heritable traits with natural selection. If all three are real, evolution must happen. It can't not happen. So, to falsify evolution, you'd have to show that individual variation doesn't occur (obviously it does), OR that heredity doesn't occur (ditto), OR that natural selection doesn't occur. To do the last, you'd have to show an example of a species meeting a new environmental factor and neither evolving new characteristics nor changing its population up or down depending on whether the new factor were favourable or unfavourable. No such example is known. The opposite is so commonplace as to hardly merit comment. Another means of falsifying evolution (by falsifying universal common descent) would be to demonstrate some biochemical mechanism that prevents further change beyond some specified clade - species, genera, family, class, whatever. The creationists calling themselves "baraminologists" have been looking for this for decades, without the slightest success. So far as anyone knows, no such mechanism exists. Its existence is now so unlikely that the possibility is negligible. But that's purely a theoretical case, anyway. The physical evidence that living things really have evolved is enormous and overwhelming, and physical evidence, rather than theoretical possibilities, is what concerns scientists.

Again these falsifications are not addressing the hypothesis that natural selection has limitations. I do not see how that can be done.

Dave Luckett · 8 June 2010

"Natural selection has limitations".

Well, yes. For instance, it can't select for characteristics that don't exist, or else we'd have fibre-optic nerves and tungsten-steel backbones. But if natural selection works as stated - a proposition for which the phrase "mountains of evidence" might have been invented - then the boot goes on to the other foot. If you say it has limitations, that's your proposition, and it's up to you to demonstrate it, or at to least functionally specify the limitations you mean, which should suggest how they might be tested for.

Sorry, but vague quibbling about "limitations" doesn't cut it. What limitations? Operating how? More importantly, doing what?

For here's the thing: of course natural selection has limitations. But what you are insinuating is that it has limitations that challenge universal common descent. If you think you know of one such, trot it out, and let's see the evidence.

MrG · 8 June 2010

FWIW, NCSE had an article on Popper VS evolution:

http://ncse.com/cej/6/2/what-did-karl-popper-really-say-evolution

Haven't looked it over in any detail myself. I just installed Win7 on my PC and have been working long hours trying to get everything working again. "Three times moved same as once burned down."

Christina Hendricks · 8 June 2010

meganfox said:
Scott said:
meganfox said: Well first of all the PreCambrian Rabbit is not a valid falsification.
Okay, I give up. Why is the PreCambrian Rabbit not a falsification of TOE? And, no, I have not read Popper. Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarize for me? Thanks.
Well again you have to accept Popper's basic assertions that a theory must be falsifiable and that is probably too long to get into here. If you carefully read Popper his criteria for falsifiability are not that simple. For instance I could not say that a falsifiability test for gravity would be if I would apples fell up instead of down. A falsifiable observation MUST be one that would be observed if the theory in question is not true. You seriously cannot say that if TOE was not true we would have rabbits living along with trilobites etc. If TOE was not true there would be no life at all. Cambrian rabbits is a cute visual but nonsensical. Just as silly as cats giving birth to dogs etc. It would be like asking what the earth would look like if there were no gravity. Well there would not even be planets etc. The question has to be much, much more subtle like would we see parallax. Again I do not think TOE is falsifiable as Popper explains it. That does not mean the theory is not true. If you rule out the 'supernatural' from science then there is no other choice than TOE being true by definition. But again it seems to me to be circular logic since 'supernatural' is something that science cannot explain.

I see you can respond to Scott, but you refuse to answer his direct question: A,B,C,D, or E. Anyways, please continue to try and project the "God-did-it" science stopper onto evolution..as that "Appears" to be your goal.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Christina Hendricks said:
meganfox said:
Scott said:
meganfox said: Well first of all the PreCambrian Rabbit is not a valid falsification.
Okay, I give up. Why is the PreCambrian Rabbit not a falsification of TOE? And, no, I have not read Popper. Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarize for me? Thanks.
Well again you have to accept Popper's basic assertions that a theory must be falsifiable and that is probably too long to get into here. If you carefully read Popper his criteria for falsifiability are not that simple. For instance I could not say that a falsifiability test for gravity would be if I would apples fell up instead of down. A falsifiable observation MUST be one that would be observed if the theory in question is not true. You seriously cannot say that if TOE was not true we would have rabbits living along with trilobites etc. If TOE was not true there would be no life at all. Cambrian rabbits is a cute visual but nonsensical. Just as silly as cats giving birth to dogs etc. It would be like asking what the earth would look like if there were no gravity. Well there would not even be planets etc. The question has to be much, much more subtle like would we see parallax. Again I do not think TOE is falsifiable as Popper explains it. That does not mean the theory is not true. If you rule out the 'supernatural' from science then there is no other choice than TOE being true by definition. But again it seems to me to be circular logic since 'supernatural' is something that science cannot explain.
I see you can respond to Scott, but you refuse to answer his direct question: A,B,C,D, or E. Anyways, please continue to try and project the "God-did-it" science stopper onto evolution..as that "Appears" to be your goal.

Huh??? A-E?? God-did-it?? Science by definition CANNOT include the supernatural. What are you talking about??

meganfox · 8 June 2010

meganfox said:
Cubist said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Luckett said: What would falsify evolution?
Why not ask what would falsify the idea that evolution is the result of random mutation and natural selection?
No need to ask, because the idea that "evolution is the result of random selection and natural selection". already has been falsified. There are any number of things which could falsify said idea , one of which is the existence of other evolutionary mechanisms than just the two ("random mutation" being one, and "natural selection" being the other) that are specifically mentioned in said idea. And since there are, in fact, other evolutionary mechanisms than just those two (see also: sexual selection, founder effect, etc), said idea already has been falsified, as I stated up front. I think it's clear that the question you meant to suggest be asked, was something along the lines of "what would falsify the idea that current evolutionary theory is a scientifically valid explanation for the diversity of life on Earth?" If you could prove that mutations don't actually occur, that would probably do it; I have no idea how you'd go about proving that, but if you succeeded in doing so, current evolutionary theory would be screwed, blued, and tattooed. Similarly, if you could prove that an organism's reproductive fitness is enhanced by variations which have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring which that organism produces, that, too, would make hamburger out of current evolutionary theory. These are only two of the ways by which one might falsify current evolutionary theory. I must admit that I don't see how anyone could actually do either of them, but surely you ID-pushers are up to the challenge?
Yes but how do you falsify that humans came from much lower organisms through mutation and selection? Again what would we observe if the TOE was not true? Well I can't think of anything (other than supernatural) but again one would have to be a complete Popperist to then say TOE if not true. Maybe Popperism is not valid. Anyhow that is how I look at it.

[idea that “evolution is the result of random selection and natural selection”. already has been falsified.] TOE has been falsfied? What are you going to replace it with 'creationism'? Are you sure you did not think before you wrote?

MrG · 8 June 2010

Christina Hendricks said: Anyways, please continue to try and project the "God-did-it" science stopper onto evolution..as that "Appears" to be your goal.

Actually, to the extent that I haven't lost interest and am still paying any attention, I think the goal "Appears" to be a simple interest in stirring the pot as an end in itself and with no other objective in mind.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: "Natural selection has limitations". Well, yes. For instance, it can't select for characteristics that don't exist, or else we'd have fibre-optic nerves and tungsten-steel backbones. But if natural selection works as stated - a proposition for which the phrase "mountains of evidence" might have been invented - then the boot goes on to the other foot. If you say it has limitations, that's your proposition, and it's up to you to demonstrate it, or at to least functionally specify the limitations you mean, which should suggest how they might be tested for. Sorry, but vague quibbling about "limitations" doesn't cut it. What limitations? Operating how? More importantly, doing what? For here's the thing: of course natural selection has limitations. But what you are insinuating is that it has limitations that challenge universal common descent. If you think you know of one such, trot it out, and let's see the evidence.

[For here’s the thing: of course natural selection has limitations. But what you are insinuating is that it has limitations that challenge universal common descent. If you think you know of one such, trot it out, and let’s see the evidence.] When did I say universal common descent is not true? What I am saying is that the TOE is not falsifiable but so what? Many, many people disagree with Popper. Why the devotion to him here?

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Alex H said:
meganfox said:
John Vanko said:
meganfox said: Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.
Fossil Record. You're welcome.
Again a magician can make it 'appear' that a rabbit disappears but it does not in reality. Why do you think evolution appears to be true but is not?
Because scientists allow for the possibility (despite it being remote to well beyond the point of absurdity) that The Flying Spaghetti Monster is only making the evidence *look* as if life evolved rather than remain static.

Are you being sarcastic? I hope! Supernatural beings do not belong in science.

SWT · 8 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
SWT said: Perhaps because that's not what modern evolutionary theory posits. "Random mutation and natural selection" is a straw man caricature of the theory of evolution; there are additional mechanisms.
Like what?

Consider recombination, gene flow, lateral gene transfer, gene duplication, and neutral drift.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Cubist said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Luckett said: What would falsify evolution?
Why not ask what would falsify the idea that evolution is the result of random mutation and natural selection?
No need to ask, because the idea that "evolution is the result of random selection and natural selection". already has been falsified. There are any number of things which could falsify said idea , one of which is the existence of other evolutionary mechanisms than just the two ("random mutation" being one, and "natural selection" being the other) that are specifically mentioned in said idea. And since there are, in fact, other evolutionary mechanisms than just those two (see also: sexual selection, founder effect, etc), said idea already has been falsified, as I stated up front. I think it's clear that the question you meant to suggest be asked, was something along the lines of "what would falsify the idea that current evolutionary theory is a scientifically valid explanation for the diversity of life on Earth?" If you could prove that mutations don't actually occur, that would probably do it; I have no idea how you'd go about proving that, but if you succeeded in doing so, current evolutionary theory would be screwed, blued, and tattooed. Similarly, if you could prove that an organism's reproductive fitness is enhanced by variations which have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring which that organism produces, that, too, would make hamburger out of current evolutionary theory. These are only two of the ways by which one might falsify current evolutionary theory. I must admit that I don't see how anyone could actually do either of them, but surely you ID-pushers are up to the challenge?

For here’s the thing: of course natural selection has limitations. But what you are insinuating is that it has limitations that challenge universal common descent. If you think you know of one such, trot it out, and let’s see the evidence.

meganfox said:
Dave Luckett said:
meganfox said: If evolution can be demonstrated by both gradualism and non-gradualism how would you disprove it? Could species just appear abruptly and that would verify evolution and if they appear gradually that would also verify it? What would NOT verify it?
Living things evolve, generally. Some, however, so perfectly fit a particular unchanging niche in a particular unchanging environment that there is no selection pressure, and these species evolve little or not at all. On the other hand, some environments and some niches are settings for spectacular evolution - "arms races", "biofeedback", rapidly changing environments, new or recently isolated territory, novel pests, rivals, parasites, predators, food sources and so on. Rapid evolution is just what one would expect, in those cases. And as Stephen J Gould pointed out, the appearance of new species will nearly always seem abrupt, especially when viewed with the intense foreshortening of the fossil record. What would falsify evolution? Well, classical evolution is the necessary result of individual variation and heritable traits with natural selection. If all three are real, evolution must happen. It can't not happen. So, to falsify evolution, you'd have to show that individual variation doesn't occur (obviously it does), OR that heredity doesn't occur (ditto), OR that natural selection doesn't occur. To do the last, you'd have to show an example of a species meeting a new environmental factor and neither evolving new characteristics nor changing its population up or down depending on whether the new factor were favourable or unfavourable. No such example is known. The opposite is so commonplace as to hardly merit comment. Another means of falsifying evolution (by falsifying universal common descent) would be to demonstrate some biochemical mechanism that prevents further change beyond some specified clade - species, genera, family, class, whatever. The creationists calling themselves "baraminologists" have been looking for this for decades, without the slightest success. So far as anyone knows, no such mechanism exists. Its existence is now so unlikely that the possibility is negligible. But that's purely a theoretical case, anyway. The physical evidence that living things really have evolved is enormous and overwhelming, and physical evidence, rather than theoretical possibilities, is what concerns scientists.
Again these falsifications are not addressing the hypothesis that natural selection has limitations. I do not see how that can be done.

[So, to falsify evolution, you’d have to show that individual variation doesn’t occur (obviously it does), OR that heredity doesn’t occur (ditto),] Again these are NOT falsifications because these observations would be observed whether TOE is true or not. It is like saying that heliocentrism would be falsified if the sun did not exist. To falsify you need to state an observation that would NOT be seen if the theory is true and WILL be seen if the theory is false. Your examples do not fit the criteria.

Stanton · 8 June 2010

Megan fox, your vociferous quibbling and goalpost moving are boring, to say nothing of your constant skirting of other people's questions by going "nuh-uh"

If evolution were not true, we would not see any evidence of common descent; therefore, we would see that cats and dogs are not related, that species literally, magically appear out of nowhere, that biological structures really were "irreducibly complex" because some unknowable Intelligent Designer tampered them, that there would be no evolutionary trends in documented lineages, or even that children would not be related to their parents.

Furthermore, don't fool yourself into thinking that you can redefine Intelligent Design ~~Theory~~ so as to need an impossibly complete fossil record to defeat it, especially when it was never intended to be an explanation in the first place. If you want to find out about the potential falsifiability of Evolution, go read an evolutionary biology textbook, and stop bothering us.

MrG · 8 June 2010

And now the discussion goes into perpetual motion until the moderate decides to shut it down.

harold · 8 June 2010

meganfox - SLOW DOWN. Thank you for not being a creationist, but there is a problem. You don't fully understand what other posters are saying. You are arguing with the wrong people, in wrong ways. Cubist said -

No need to ask, because the idea that “evolution is the result of random selection and natural selection”. already has been falsified.

You said -

TOE has been falsfied?

That is NOT what Cubist said. Cubist is arguing against the oversimplification/straw man that evolution is the result of ONLY mutation and natural selection. If you don't know that this is an oversimplification, do some reading. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift. Don't come back with some crack about Wikipedia, either. There is a long list of original references. You said -

Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.

I answered that with a straightforward summary of multiple converging lines of evidence that support the theory of evolution, and a link (which you obviously ignored) that summarizes more.

Nested hierarchy. Common biochemistry across all of life. Common cellular structures across all of life. Population genetics. Common genetic code across all of life. LINES, SINES, and ERVs. Common observations of speciation. Common observations of natural selection. Fossil record highly consistent with contemporary phylogenetic relationships. This hasn’t been updated for three years but is a decent, if terse, summary of much the evidence. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

My answer to you did not even include the word "appears", yet you came back with this.

You misunderstood my question. You said life appears evolved. That seems to imply that it was not evolved but appears to be.

Moreover, the term "life appears evolved" does NOT imply this. That would be the implication of "life merely appears evolved". A rock appears to be a rock and is a rock. I said -

“Forget evolution. Pretend we both agree life on earth doesn’t evolve. We don’t need to worry about it.”

You actually said -

That is ridiculous. Like saying forget gravity and then try to explain the movements of the planets. Sorry, I think you are in left field.

You're wrong. ID/creationists SHOULD be challenged for positive evidence of their claims. It also would not be "ridiculous" if I said that same thing about gravity to someone who was denying gravity. It would be the logical thing to say in that circumstance as well. If it isn't gravity, what is it? Please read more carefully, think more carefully, and inform yourself more on the scientific evidence for the theory of evolution. Thank you for being pro-science, but please, please learn how to be effective.

Robin · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Yes but how do you falsify that humans came from much lower organisms through mutation and selection? Again what would we observe if the TOE was not true? Well I can't think of anything (other than supernatural) but again one would have to be a complete Popperist to then say TOE if not true. Maybe Popperism is not valid. Anyhow that is how I look at it.

But really...is anyone a truly religious Popperist? I know I know...bad pun, but I had to ask...(g)

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Stanton said: Megan fox, your vociferous quibbling and goalpost moving are boring, to say nothing of your constant skirting of other people's questions by going "nuh-uh" If evolution were not true, we would not see any evidence of common descent; therefore, we would see that cats and dogs are not related, that species literally, magically appear out of nowhere, that biological structures really were "irreducibly complex" because some unknowable Intelligent Designer tampered them, that there would be no evolutionary trends in documented lineages, or even that children would not be related to their parents. Furthermore, don't fool yourself into thinking that you can redefine Intelligent Design ~~Theory~~ so as to need an impossibly complete fossil record to defeat it, especially when it was never intended to be an explanation in the first place. If you want to find out about the potential falsifiability of Evolution, go read an evolutionary biology textbook, and stop bothering us.

Huh??? I never brought up 'goal posts" If evolution were not true, we would not see any evidence of common descent; .......... I agree! therefore, we would see that cats and dogs are not related, that species literally, magically appear out of nowhere, that biological structures really were "irreducibly complex" because some unknowable Intelligent Designer tampered them, that there would be no evolutionary trends in documented lineages, or even that children would not be related to their parents. ........ well of course I agree with all of that? What is YOUR point? Furthermore, don't fool yourself into thinking that you can redefine Intelligent Design ~~Theory~~ so as to need an impossibly complete fossil record to defeat it, ......... when did I say that? Are you reading OK?? especially when it was never intended to be an explanation in the first place. If you want to find out about the potential falsifiability of Evolution, go read an evolutionary biology textbook, and stop bothering us. ........ look if you cannot understand my points you really need to read Popper very carefully. Please do not respond to me any more. You are not making sense.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

harold said: meganfox - SLOW DOWN. Thank you for not being a creationist, but there is a problem. You don't fully understand what other posters are saying. You are arguing with the wrong people, in wrong ways. Cubist said -
No need to ask, because the idea that “evolution is the result of random selection and natural selection”. already has been falsified.
You said -
TOE has been falsfied?
That is NOT what Cubist said. Cubist is arguing against the oversimplification/straw man that evolution is the result of ONLY mutation and natural selection. If you don't know that this is an oversimplification, do some reading. For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift. Don't come back with some crack about Wikipedia, either. There is a long list of original references. You said -
Please explain how life appears to have been evolved. Thank You.
I answered that with a straightforward summary of multiple converging lines of evidence that support the theory of evolution, and a link (which you obviously ignored) that summarizes more.
Nested hierarchy. Common biochemistry across all of life. Common cellular structures across all of life. Population genetics. Common genetic code across all of life. LINES, SINES, and ERVs. Common observations of speciation. Common observations of natural selection. Fossil record highly consistent with contemporary phylogenetic relationships. This hasn’t been updated for three years but is a decent, if terse, summary of much the evidence. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
My answer to you did not even include the word "appears", yet you came back with this.
You misunderstood my question. You said life appears evolved. That seems to imply that it was not evolved but appears to be.
Moreover, the term "life appears evolved" does NOT imply this. That would be the implication of "life merely appears evolved". A rock appears to be a rock and is a rock. I said -
“Forget evolution. Pretend we both agree life on earth doesn’t evolve. We don’t need to worry about it.”
You actually said -
That is ridiculous. Like saying forget gravity and then try to explain the movements of the planets. Sorry, I think you are in left field.
You're wrong. ID/creationists SHOULD be challenged for positive evidence of their claims. It also would not be "ridiculous" if I said that same thing about gravity to someone who was denying gravity. It would be the logical thing to say in that circumstance as well. If it isn't gravity, what is it? Please read more carefully, think more carefully, and inform yourself more on the scientific evidence for the theory of evolution. Thank you for being pro-science, but please, please learn how to be effective.

I think I AM effective. It is just that many here are missing my points. First of all does one have to be a Popperist to accept TOE. I accept TOE but reject Popper. It seems here that not being a Popperist means you are a Creationist. I think that shows a lack of understanding of how science works. I think if many here would 'think more clearly and read more carefully' AND read Popper they would see my point. If eveyone here wants to be a die-hard Popperist based on FAITH I feel sorry for them. Popper is not GOD or Darwin or Jesus. He is not infallible and though his concepts were good for a period of time I think we have gone beyond him.

kakapo · 8 June 2010

m.fox is just generating argument to have argument. he/she/it is taking the "opposite side" to anything that anyone writes.

SWT · 8 June 2010

Stanton said: Megan fox, your ~~vociferous quibbling and goalpost moving are~~ trolling is boring ...

Fixed that for you.

Robin · 8 June 2010

kakapo said: m.fox is just generating argument to have argument. he/she/it is taking the "opposite side" to anything that anyone writes.

Oh, I see what you did there! Oh now that's...creative... (grin)

harold · 8 June 2010

meganfox - More misunderstandings. Alex H said -

Because scientists allow for the possibility (despite it being remote to well beyond the point of absurdity) that The Flying Spaghetti Monster is only making the evidence *look* as if life evolved rather than remain static.

You said -

Are you being sarcastic? I hope! Supernatural beings do not belong in science.

He is not saying that the FSM is a scientific explanation. He is making the obvious point that science cannot "rule out" or "disprove" such explanations, but can only provide a testable scientific explanation. The FSM was invented by a physicist to make this point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster. The example of the FSM was actually important in getting the Kansas school board to back off of creationism. You said to Cubist -

For here’s the thing: of course natural selection has limitations. But what you are insinuating is that it has limitations that challenge universal common descent.

Again, that is NOT, NOT, NOT what Cubist said. In fact, it is plainly the opposite of what he said. He was rebutting the ironically named poster "Intelligent" Designer, who attempted to force that simplified/straw man definition of TOE. You said -

Again these are NOT falsifications because these observations would be observed whether TOE is true or not.

No. A correct observation which is blatantly incompatible with a hypothesis rules out that hypothesis. If I say "the mouse ate the cheese" and the same cheese is still there, my hypothesis is ruled out. Dave Luckett gave you examples that were logically equivalent of the same cheese still being there. If the cheese is gone, my hypothesis is supported. There are still other potential explanations for why the cheese is gone. I continue to look for more evidence that the mouse ate it. Eventually, if I have enough evidence, and have addressed and ruled out other testable scientific explanations, the idea that "the mouse ate the cheese" may be sufficiently supported. However, if the same cheese is still there I can stop right then and rethink.

It is like saying that heliocentrism would be falsified if the sun did not exist.

That is not the logic Dave Luckett presented, nor standard scientific logic. I explained the logic that was presented to you just above.

To falsify you need to state an observation that would NOT be seen if the theory is true and WILL be seen if the theory is false.

This is fine as a semantic definition of "falsification" for a freshman philosophy class, but it is far less rigorous then the way scientific theories are tested. Observations that would not be seen if the theory of evolution is true? I don't see any. Observations that will be seen if the theory of evolution is false? I don't see any. But that is NOT all we do. We use the theory to generate predictions, and we consider the theory to be fully supported only if the predictions are met by the observations. Example - Prediction - common descent would be strongly supported by a common genetic code. A unique genetic code for every species would challenge common descent. Observation - A common genetic code. This supports common descent. We keep going, keep testing predictions (at this point, the predictions are often implied). As evidence mounts, a hypothesis becomes a theory. It is a very skeptical process.

Your examples do not fit the criteria.

His examples fulfill a better criterion.

MrG · 8 June 2010

kakapo said: m.fox is just generating argument to have argument. he/she/it is taking the "opposite side" to anything that anyone writes.

See: Monty Python, "Argument Clinic". M: Look, I CAME HERE FOR AN ARGUMENT, I'm not going to just stand...!! Q: OH, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse. M: Oh, I see, well, that explains it. Q: Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor. M: Oh, Thank you very much. Sorry. Q: Not at all. M: Thank You. (Stupid git!)

harold · 8 June 2010

meganfox -

I think I AM effective.

It is just that many here are missing my points.

The second statement contradicts the first statement. The second statement is also incorrect. What is happening is that YOU are missing the points made by others.

MrG · 8 June 2010

harold said: What is happening is that YOU are missing the points made by others.

Maxwell Smart: " ... and LOVING it!"

harold · 8 June 2010

meganfox - One final comment from me - You are either accidentally or deliberately misunderstanding other people. This is leading you to mischaracterize the views of others, which is insulting.

First of all does one have to be a Popperist to accept TOE.

No-one but you said the word "Popper" or "Popperist".

I accept TOE but reject Popper.

That seems reasonable, but you need to learn a LOT more about biology, science, and why scientists accept the theory of evolution. I don't care how much you already think you know. On the plus side, it is enjoyable to learn.

It seems here that not being a Popperist means you are a Creationist.

No. But if you make remarks like "the theory of evolution can only be falsified by an impossibly complete fossil record", to paraphrase, it sounds as if you are a creationist.

I think that shows a lack of understanding of how science works.

Quite bluntly, you have a hell of a nerve to come on here, project things like "Popper" onto people who never said a word about said things, play silly word games with words like "appears", blatantly misunderstand very clear posts that are directed to you, and appear to show lack of knowledge of and/or lack of interest in any of the actual scientific evidence that supports the theory of evolution, doing all this while talking to actual scientifically educated people and working scientists, and then talk about "lack of understanding of how science works".

I think if many here would ‘think more clearly and read more carefully’ AND read Popper they would see my point.

Popper is peripheral to the theory of evolution and no-one here but you is talking about him. I continue to urge you to read more carefully and think more clearly.

If eveyone here wants to be a die-hard Popperist based on FAITH I feel sorry for them.

Luckily, this absurd straw man does not apply to anyone.

Popper is not GOD or Darwin or Jesus. He is not infallible and though his concepts were good for a period of time I think we have gone beyond him.

Here's a suggestion. You want to talk about Popper. FINE Do it honestly, articulately, and with some level of civility. Don't do it by hijacking a thread about the evolution of the eye. Do it by finding a forum where Popper is under discussion. Begin by explaining that you are talking about. Don't jump into a conversation in which Popper has not been mentioned with some mysterious comments. Make your point clearly and honestly. Mention Popper right up front. State Popper's views accurately, don't create a straw man, and then state what your problem with them is. When you get a reply, make SURE you understand what the other person is saying. You have a problem with this. The problem is caused by your ego. You desperately want to "catch" other people "naively defending Popper", so you project that onto them, when they are actually explaining something else to you. Because you didn't even mention Popper in the first place. Stop doing that and be sure you understand what others are saying. No go away, leave us alone, and talk about Popper somewhere.

eric · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: I think I AM effective. It is just that many here are missing my points. First of all does one have to be a Popperist to accept TOE. I accept TOE but reject Popper.

Over 100 posts of people disagreeing or not understanding your points say otherwise - they say that empirically, your argument(s) aren't effective. So, I suggest that you try and more clearly and concisely say what your point is. If its that Popper's falsifiability is not the end-all, be-all of science, I doubt anyone would disagree with you. If its that TOE has not yet been fasified, I doubt anyone would disagree with that statement either. If its that there is no possible observation which could falsify the TOE, that is patently true. Its trivially easy to come up with hypothetical observations which would do that, and many people have already posted them (example). If its some other point, then I have to join the other posters in saying your point isn't clear to me.

eric · 8 June 2010

oops...patently untrue. D'oh!

John Vanko · 8 June 2010

The Founding Mothers said:
eddie said: As it happens, I have a fossil rabbit embedded in Precambrian rock, found in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
Eddie: Show me the bunny. SHOW ME THE BUNNY!

"Harvey, step over here and meet our friend Megan!"

David Fickett-Wilbar · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: I think I AM effective. It is just that many here are missing my points.

meganfox, you've been given some good advice and information from professional scientists here. Now let a professional writer give you some. If reasonably intelligent people who are trying to understand you are "missing [your] points," you are not being effective. It's the writer's job to be understood, provided the reader does their share. Everyone here has done their share. Learn to edit. Ask yourself how what you're saying could be misunderstood, and then revise until it says exactly what you want. Or rather, what you want it to be understood given what you know of your audience. When I write a book, I have to make an educated guess as to who that audience will be. You have a great advantage here in knowing exactly who will be reading you, and how they have responded to what you've said in the past. If you feel you're being misunderstood, read over what you've said, read over how you've been misunderstood, and then express yourself in a way to prevent future misunderstanding. You're not a professional writer, I'm guessing, but the same rules apply to anyone who wants to get their message across to readers. The ball is in your court.

Robin · 8 June 2010

Maybe Ms. Fox is playing the part of a creationist or Popperist in some up coming movie and was here practicing some method acting. Just a thought...

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: "Natural selection has limitations".

But to suggest that means you could also prove natural selection does not have limitations, by what criteria? what is the perspective one uses to judge natures intent? anyway more to the point,. Mfox i think is multiple people, feels like two or even three writing patterns, one who is verbose and peculiar one who is short, ironic (contradictory?) and this is an example of that. yep, very easy to do. Perhaps Pthumb can make accounts instead of open name creation? ps this is Torbach.

Cubist · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: I think I AM effective. It is just that many here are missing my points.

It is good that you realize that your points (whatever those points may be) are being missed by many people here. It is not so good that in spite of this evidence that you are expressing yourself poorly, you nevertheless regard yourself as "effective".

Dave Luckett said:
Cubist said: Similarly, if you could prove that an organism’s reproductive fitness is enhanced by variations which have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring which that organism produces, that, too, would make hamburger out of current evolutionary theory.
Either I have misunderstood you, or you don't actually mean this. The reproductive fitness of mammals is actually "enhanced by variations that have the practical effect of reducing the number of offspring they can produce", namely, their internal gestation and nurturing of their young. This, however, increases the proportion of offspring that survive to reproduce in their turn. This is a trade-off which is clearly viable for mammals. It's in the nature of an economic transaction, and poses no problem for the theory of evolution.

What I was trying to say (and may well have expressed poorly) was, "if one of the processes on which evolution depends could be proven not to work, that would falsify evolution". As I understand it, mutations are classified as "favorable" or "unfavorable" depending on how they affect a critter's reproductive fitness (= "ability to produce offspring"); those mutations which are classed as "favorable" have a positive effect on the critter's ability to produce offspring, whilst those mutations which are classed as "unfavorable" have a negative effect on the critter's ability to produce offspring. So if you could demonstrate that unfavorable mutations tended to spread through a breeding population -- especially, if you could demonstrate that unfavorable mutations were better at spreading thruout a breeding population than favorable ones -- that would be evidence against evolution. Does that clarify anything?

Torbach · 8 June 2010

& to be clear, that is the only time i have "pretended" to be meganfox, if the admins can check IP's it will clearly show that.

MrG · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Mfox i think is multiple people, feels like two or even three writing patterns, one who is verbose and peculiar one who is short, ironic (contradictory?)

Sort of like a sock puppet with the sock turned inside out?

MrrKAT · 8 June 2010

Dr. Sarfati et al should try this test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIi8h8u434s

Our vision was not designed for Newspapers and computer screens..
==:) Far-sighted ID's don't exist ;)

Dave Luckett · 8 June 2010

Cubist said:So if you could demonstrate that unfavorable mutations tended to spread through a breeding population -- especially, if you could demonstrate that unfavorable mutations were better at spreading thruout a breeding population than favorable ones -- that would be evidence against evolution. Does that clarify anything?

Ah. Thank you. Yes, of course that's right. Another way in which evolution could be falsified, were such a demonstration made. But, of course, it has not been made.

Robin · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: ps this is Torbach.

Well damn...so much for togtfo... (sigh) *mutters and walks away.

Dave Luckett · 8 June 2010

Meganfox says that the Theory of Evolution cannot be falsified.

If it can't be falsified, then it must follow that there is no conceivable evidence that would demonstrate that it is wrong in any vital particular.

But such evidence is conceivable. A demonstrated case where a species did not undergo adaptation or change in population in response to change in environment. A demonstrated biological mechanism that prevented change in allele beyond some given bound. A case where allele change spread through a population despite providing a relative reproductive disadvantage, or did not spread despite conferring one. Any of these would demonstrate that the Theory of Evolution is wrong in some vital particular.

These events are conceivable and would be observable if they occurred, and they would falsify the Theory of Evolution. Ergo, the Theory of Evolution is falsifiable.

SWT · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: Meganfox says that the Theory of Evolution cannot be falsified. If it can't be falsified, then it must follow that there is no conceivable evidence that would demonstrate that it is wrong in any vital particular. But such evidence is conceivable. A demonstrated case where a species did not undergo adaptation or change in population in response to change in environment. A demonstrated biological mechanism that prevented change in allele beyond some given bound. A case where allele change spread through a population despite providing a relative reproductive disadvantage, or did not spread despite conferring one. Any of these would demonstrate that the Theory of Evolution is wrong in some vital particular. These events are conceivable and would be observable if they occurred, and they would falsify the Theory of Evolution. Ergo, the Theory of Evolution is falsifiable.

As you've noted, the evolutionary process requires the occurrence of heritable variations. It's easy for us to forget, from our perspective, that in the mid-19th century there was no real theory explaining how biological traits are inherited. Had it turned out that, as I think Mendel thought, biological inheritance was "atomic" -- that there were discrete, immutable units of heredity -- it would not be possible for the range of variation needed for evolution to occur and biology would look much different today. Thus, Mendel's work provided an opportunity to falsify the theory of evolution; it turned out, of course, that Mendel's theory needed to be revised as we gained a clearer understanding of genetic mechanisms.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

[He is not saying that the FSM is a scientific explanation. He is making the obvious point that science cannot “rule out” or “disprove” such explanations, but can only provide a testable scientific explanation.]

You cannot be serious! Science can and SHOULD rule out supernatural explanations. Otherwise they can always say Goddditit! or FSMdidit!

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: Meganfox says that the Theory of Evolution cannot be falsified. If it can't be falsified, then it must follow that there is no conceivable evidence that would demonstrate that it is wrong in any vital particular. But such evidence is conceivable. A demonstrated case where a species did not undergo adaptation or change in population in response to change in environment. A demonstrated biological mechanism that prevented change in allele beyond some given bound. A case where allele change spread through a population despite providing a relative reproductive disadvantage, or did not spread despite conferring one. Any of these would demonstrate that the Theory of Evolution is wrong in some vital particular. These events are conceivable and would be observable if they occurred, and they would falsify the Theory of Evolution. Ergo, the Theory of Evolution is falsifiable.

No that is not how falsification works. I thought I explained that already.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Robin said: Maybe Ms. Fox is playing the part of a creationist or Popperist in some up coming movie and was here practicing some method acting. Just a thought...

Jeez I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic and you accuse ME of being a Popperist? They made no sense. And how in the world can you call me a Creationist? It seems like I am trying to again show people here the weakness of that position. Is there a parallel universe going on here??

meganfox · 8 June 2010

SWT said:
Stanton said: Megan fox, your ~~vociferous quibbling and goalpost moving are~~ trolling is boring ...
Fixed that for you.

YOU simply are not understanding my concepts. They are subtle. But people here really need to read Popper. It seems there is just a surface understanding of his concepts.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

kakapo said: m.fox is just generating argument to have argument. he/she/it is taking the "opposite side" to anything that anyone writes.

Bull! Its just that most everyone here thinks that someone can not accept Popperism AND accept TOE at the same time. Many scientists do not accept Popper. Seems like there are a lot of dogmatic Popperists here. Who are not willing to listen to logic.

eric · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Jeez I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic...

and

YOU [SWT] simply are not understanding my concepts. They are subtle. But people here really need to read Popper. It seems there is just a surface understanding of his concepts.

It seems that in two consecutive emails you've accused us of being Popperists and then not being proper Popperists. Why don't you just tell us what specific falsification theory or doctrine you're objecting to? Who knows, if you explain it cogently, you might find that we agree with you.

eric · 8 June 2010

While you're at it, you could also explain what Popperism has to do with Sarfati claiming that the mammalian blind spot is part of some intelligent design. Because right now you look like a philosopher shopping for an audience rather than someone interested in discussing the original post.

Robin · 8 June 2010

meganfox said:
Robin said: Maybe Ms. Fox is playing the part of a creationist or Popperist in some up coming movie and was here practicing some method acting. Just a thought...
Jeez I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic and you accuse ME of being a Popperist? They made no sense. And how in the world can you call me a Creationist? It seems like I am trying to again show people here the weakness of that position. Is there a parallel universe going on here??

I'm going to go out on a limb here - it's just darn hard to understand your point. Why did you bring up Popper for instance? I'm not aware of anyone here who subscribes to his particular take on falsification and science, so your statement, "I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic..." doesn't make a lot of sense. I certainly don't subscribe to Popper and yet fully understand and can work with evolution theory. And whether or not you're a creationist doesn't really impact whether you're trying to method act such a position, so I don't know why you're arguing against that. In any event, perhaps if you clearly and concisely state your particular point andwhat it has to do with the evolution of the eye people can respond more clearly in return.

SWT · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: YOU simply are not understanding my concepts. They are subtle. But people here really need to read Popper. It seems there is just a surface understanding of his concepts.

I am a working scientist and understand very well how to test hypotheses and theories. There is nothing subtle at all in what you're up to here -- either you're trolling or you are a tragically incompetent writer. The only clear theme that emerges from your posts so far is an apparent desire to pick fights with with knowledgeable people who accept modern evolutionary theory as the best available scientific explanation for biological diversity.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Robin said:
meganfox said:
Robin said: Maybe Ms. Fox is playing the part of a creationist or Popperist in some up coming movie and was here practicing some method acting. Just a thought...
Jeez I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic and you accuse ME of being a Popperist? They made no sense. And how in the world can you call me a Creationist? It seems like I am trying to again show people here the weakness of that position. Is there a parallel universe going on here??
I'm going to go out on a limb here - it's just darn hard to understand your point. Why did you bring up Popper for instance? I'm not aware of anyone here who subscribes to his particular take on falsification and science, so your statement, "I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic..." doesn't make a lot of sense. I certainly don't subscribe to Popper and yet fully understand and can work with evolution theory. And whether or not you're a creationist doesn't really impact whether you're trying to method act such a position, so I don't know why you're arguing against that. In any event, perhaps if you clearly and concisely state your particular point andwhat it has to do with the evolution of the eye people can respond more clearly in return.

I brought up Popper because I was responding to a poster who brought up the Cambrian Rabbit which of course is based on Popperism. And my position is that TOE cannot be falsified but so what? And ID can be falsified but again so what? I reject Popperism and this obsession with 'falsifiability'. Everytime I hear any referral to the Cambrian Rabbit I cringe because it is universally misunderstood. It is as silly as the 'cat giving birth to a dog' concept. And also this obsession with the structure of the eye. So much Sophism.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

eric said:
meganfox said: Jeez I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic...
and
YOU [SWT] simply are not understanding my concepts. They are subtle. But people here really need to read Popper. It seems there is just a surface understanding of his concepts.
It seems that in two consecutive emails you've accused us of being Popperists and then not being proper Popperists. Why don't you just tell us what specific falsification theory or doctrine you're objecting to? Who knows, if you explain it cogently, you might find that we agree with you.

I simply do not accept Popperism. Again you misunderstood. I am trying to show the Popperists here that Popperism is full of holes. It should be abandoned like aether. And if you ARE going to use Popper to demonstrate your point, at least use it correctly. A Rabbit in the Cambrian does NOT falsify in the Popperian sense

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: I brought up Popper because I was responding to a poster who brought up the Cambrian Rabbit which of course is based on Popperism.

I suspect you brought up Popper because it sounds “intellectual” to you, and you are putting on airs. You brought up Popper, but you didn’t explain why you reject Popper. You never demonstrated your understanding of Popper’s concepts. In fact, concepts you have brought up so far are simply allusions to something that sounds “intellectual.” You have never demonstrated that you actually understand any of these concepts. I think the real test of whether or not you are playing games here is for you to demonstrate that you understand Popper and all of those other concepts you simply allude to. Otherwise, it just appears that you are playing games with the names of concepts you toss around but never demonstrate that you actually understand. I suspect that is the game you are playing. Of course, you could prove me wrong, but I don’t think you can.

eric · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: I simply do not accept Popperism. Again you misunderstood. I am trying to show the Popperists here that Popperism is full of holes.

Mission accomplished. Probably everyone here thinks Popperism is full of holes. (Or, more charitably, that while it might make for thought-provoking philosophy it doesn't accurately describe what scientists actually do.)

my position is that TOE cannot be falsified but so what?

There have been many posts giving you examples of experiments which could yield evidence refuting or undermining major parts of evolutionary theory. As far as I can tell, you haven't explained how the TOE is unfalsifiable, you've just asserted that it is. Lets take your fave, the precambrian rabbit. Why don't you explain to us how the discovery of such a beast would, in your mind, not falsify the TOE.

Robin · 8 June 2010

meganfox said:
Robin said:
meganfox said:
Robin said: Maybe Ms. Fox is playing the part of a creationist or Popperist in some up coming movie and was here practicing some method acting. Just a thought...
Jeez I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic and you accuse ME of being a Popperist? They made no sense. And how in the world can you call me a Creationist? It seems like I am trying to again show people here the weakness of that position. Is there a parallel universe going on here??
I'm going to go out on a limb here - it's just darn hard to understand your point. Why did you bring up Popper for instance? I'm not aware of anyone here who subscribes to his particular take on falsification and science, so your statement, "I am trying to show the Popperists here the error of their logic..." doesn't make a lot of sense. I certainly don't subscribe to Popper and yet fully understand and can work with evolution theory. And whether or not you're a creationist doesn't really impact whether you're trying to method act such a position, so I don't know why you're arguing against that. In any event, perhaps if you clearly and concisely state your particular point andwhat it has to do with the evolution of the eye people can respond more clearly in return.
I brought up Popper because I was responding to a poster who brought up the Cambrian Rabbit which of course is based on Popperism. And my position is that TOE cannot be falsified but so what? And ID can be falsified but again so what? I reject Popperism and this obsession with 'falsifiability'. Everytime I hear any referral to the Cambrian Rabbit I cringe because it is universally misunderstood. It is as silly as the 'cat giving birth to a dog' concept. And also this obsession with the structure of the eye. So much Sophism.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
meganfox said: I brought up Popper because I was responding to a poster who brought up the Cambrian Rabbit which of course is based on Popperism.
I suspect you brought up Popper because it sounds “intellectual” to you, and you are putting on airs. You brought up Popper, but you didn’t explain why you reject Popper. You never demonstrated your understanding of Popper’s concepts. In fact, concepts you have brought up so far are simply allusions to something that sounds “intellectual.” You have never demonstrated that you actually understand any of these concepts. I think the real test of whether or not you are playing games here is for you to demonstrate that you understand Popper and all of those other concepts you simply allude to. Otherwise, it just appears that you are playing games with the names of concepts you toss around but never demonstrate that you actually understand. I suspect that is the game you are playing. Of course, you could prove me wrong, but I don’t think you can.

Read my comments. I explained first of all how Popper was misapplied to the Cambrian Rabbit. And secondly is inadequate for the historical sciences and overkill for the hard sciences. According to Popper TOE is not scientific but Astrology is. There is something wrong with a barometer like that. And how can we possible falsify 'gravity'??

JT · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Read my comments. I explained first of all how Popper was misapplied to the Cambrian Rabbit.

Read other people's comments. We DO NOT CARE about Popper. Popper is no more relevant to this discussion than Popeye. In fact, I propose that all future instances of the M.fox's references to Popper be treated as though they were about Popeye.

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Read my comments. I explained first of all how Popper was misapplied to the Cambrian Rabbit. And secondly is inadequate for the historical sciences and overkill for the hard sciences. According to Popper TOE is not scientific but Astrology is. There is something wrong with a barometer like that. And how can we possible falsify 'gravity'??

I would be more interested in hearing your explanation of Popper’s concept of falsifiability. And then I would like to hear you explain what you think is wrong with it and why you think it is inadequate. Only then would I like to hear why you think a specific instance, such as a Precambrian rabbit, doesn’t make the cut. Until then, I say you are just blowing smoke.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

meganfox said:
Mike Elzinga said:
meganfox said: I brought up Popper because I was responding to a poster who brought up the Cambrian Rabbit which of course is based on Popperism.
I suspect you brought up Popper because it sounds “intellectual” to you, and you are putting on airs. You brought up Popper, but you didn’t explain why you reject Popper. You never demonstrated your understanding of Popper’s concepts. In fact, concepts you have brought up so far are simply allusions to something that sounds “intellectual.” You have never demonstrated that you actually understand any of these concepts. I think the real test of whether or not you are playing games here is for you to demonstrate that you understand Popper and all of those other concepts you simply allude to. Otherwise, it just appears that you are playing games with the names of concepts you toss around but never demonstrate that you actually understand. I suspect that is the game you are playing. Of course, you could prove me wrong, but I don’t think you can.
Read my comments. I explained first of all how Popper was misapplied to the Cambrian Rabbit. And secondly is inadequate for the historical sciences and overkill for the hard sciences. According to Popper TOE is not scientific but Astrology is. There is something wrong with a barometer like that. And how can we possible falsify 'gravity'??

My understanding is that Haldane brought up the Precambrian rabbit to illustrate the point of falsification, not to insist on it. And given that Popper rejected the example (and argued against evolution being real science for most of his life), I’d say that he agrees that the rabbit isn’t proper Popper falsification. But as you say, so what? It is still a perfectly good example of a potential falsification of a component of the current theory, whether properly Popperistic falsification or not. One need not lean on Popper to accept the concept of falsification in science - the concept still works well within the scientific method. ........NO I do not believe it works well within the scientific method. Give me an example of how it works well. Now, is The Theory of Evolution falsifiable in total? Not likely. .......exactly. Theories that are as well-established as the TOE are the conglomeration of a number of well-supported hypotheses, laws, and data research and are thus pretty much immune to direct falsification. ........exactly But any number of the components of the TOE can be (and have been) falsified ..... true, but give me an example and discarded in favor of newer data. Thus falsification is a powerful tool for refining scientific explanations regardless of one’s stand on Popper. .... it is a good tool when it works. but it does not work enough of the time. for instance how can you falsify that natural selection works? what would we see in the natural world if it did not work? see there is no answer. but it is logical and data backed that NS works. doesnt the fossil record falsify ID? are you then going to accept ID as science. see it does not work. and how would you falsify the duality of light? see: Popperism is a flop.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
meganfox said: Read my comments. I explained first of all how Popper was misapplied to the Cambrian Rabbit. And secondly is inadequate for the historical sciences and overkill for the hard sciences. According to Popper TOE is not scientific but Astrology is. There is something wrong with a barometer like that. And how can we possible falsify 'gravity'??
I would be more interested in hearing your explanation of Popper’s concept of falsifiability. And then I would like to hear you explain what you think is wrong with it and why you think it is inadequate. Only then would I like to hear why you think a specific instance, such as a Precambrian rabbit, doesn’t make the cut. Until then, I say you are just blowing smoke.

If you reject Popper then you must also reject the Cambrian Rabbit concept. Are you willing to do that?

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Only then would I like to hear why you think a specific instance, such as a Precambrian rabbit, doesn’t make the cut.

..... I already explained that in a previous post.

Matt Bright · 8 June 2010

Ok, I have a hypothesis. If you will.

Meganfox is a new and comparatively clever ID troll, retreating to an even thinner end of the Wedge. It accepts evolution, but denies that it's falsifiable - it must therefore be accepted at least partially on faith*.

If it creates enough confusion, it hopes to elicit an unthinking agreement with the pro-evolution part of a post that through lazy phrasing might appear also to agree with the falsifiability argument. It can then triumphantly claim it has unmasked the truth - that 'evolutionists' really do believe through faith after all.

Note, for example, the absurd phraseology of '[Popper is not] god or Darwin...' upthread. It's mimicing what it thinks 'evolutionists' really believe in the hope of catching them
agreeing with it.

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: My understanding is that Haldane brought up the Precambrian rabbit to illustrate the point of falsification, not to insist on it.

You are still evading my point. Explain falsfiability. This is not hard if you actually know what it means. Then explain why you think this is not adequate. Again, if you really understand it, you can demonstrate it very easily. So far you are just tossing around words that allude to concepts you don’t appear to understand. This should be easy for you. You don’t need a lot of smoke and words. Do you understand anything about the concepts of logic? You could start there if you do.

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: If you reject Popper then you must also reject the Cambrian Rabbit concept. Are you willing to do that?

You are working damned hard to avoid the point, aren’t you. I want to know if you understand falsifiability. So far you keep changing the subject.

stevaroni · 8 June 2010

Matt Bright said: Ok, I have a hypothesis. If you will. Meganfox is a new and comparatively clever ID troll, retreating to an even thinner end of the Wedge.

I have a better hypothesis. Meganfox is an old and fairly predictable troll who has appeared here before under the nom de' plumes (er... nom de' key?) Bonnietyler and Hrpuffinstuff. he'll rant for a while, box himself into a logical corner, declare victory and dissapear, as always.

SWT · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: According to Popper TOE is not scientific but Astrology is. There is something wrong with a barometer like that. And how can we possible falsify 'gravity'??

Indeed, there is something wrong with criteria that judge the theory of evolution to be non-scientific but astrology to be scientific. However, these were not Popper's conclusions. Perhaps you have confused Karl Popper with Michael Behe.

eric · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: for instance how can you falsify that natural selection works? what would we see in the natural world if it did not work? see there is no answer.

Dave Luckett already answered that. Perhaps you missed it.

how would you falsify the duality of light?

By performing the two-slit experiment and consistently getting the result that light always behaves as a particle. You seem to be confusing "unfalsifiable" with "tested by experiment and tentatively accepted." Both the particle-wave duality of light and the TOE are the latter, not the former. In fact, its precisely because we accept them based on experimental testing that they aren't the former.

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Only then would I like to hear why you think a specific instance, such as a Precambrian rabbit, doesn’t make the cut. ..... I already explained that in a previous post.

But you haven’t explained falsfiability. Start with this. If you make sense, then we can move on to other concepts. Clarify one concept at a time until you convince us you aren’t just attempting to bullshit. Don’t keep changing the subject. That just makes it look worse for you.

Robin · 8 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
meganfox said: My understanding is that Haldane brought up the Precambrian rabbit to illustrate the point of falsification, not to insist on it.
You are still evading my point. Explain falsfiability. This is not hard if you actually know what it means. Then explain why you think this is not adequate. Again, if you really understand it, you can demonstrate it very easily. So far you are just tossing around words that allude to concepts you don’t appear to understand. This should be easy for you. You don’t need a lot of smoke and words. Do you understand anything about the concepts of logic? You could start there if you do.

Just FYI Mike - she's quoting me there. A little confusing I admit, but that's my statement above, not Megan's. Not that this changes your point of course...

Robin · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: If you reject Popper then you must also reject the Cambrian Rabbit concept. Are you willing to do that?

Why? Those two are not mutually inherent. In fact, as I noted Popper rejected the Precambrian Rabbit that Haldane gave as an example, so if anything Popperism is mutually exclusive with the Precambrian Rabbit example.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

eric said:
meganfox said: for instance how can you falsify that natural selection works? what would we see in the natural world if it did not work? see there is no answer.
Dave Luckett already answered that. Perhaps you missed it.
how would you falsify the duality of light?
By performing the two-slit experiment and consistently getting the result that light always behaves as a particle. You seem to be confusing "unfalsifiable" with "tested by experiment and tentatively accepted." Both the particle-wave duality of light and the TOE are the latter, not the former. In fact, its precisely because we accept them based on experimental testing that they aren't the former.

Yes you are correct about light. That is a valid test. I agree TOE and PWT ARE tested by experiment and tentatively accepted. That is my point thought that TOE is not falsifiable so why don't we drop the 'rabbit'??

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Robin said:
meganfox said: If you reject Popper then you must also reject the Cambrian Rabbit concept. Are you willing to do that?
Why? Those two are not mutually inherent. In fact, as I noted Popper rejected the Precambrian Rabbit that Haldane gave as an example, so if anything Popperism is mutually exclusive with the Precambrian Rabbit example.

But the stock answer when asked if TOE is falsifiable it to pull out the rabbit. You have not seen that hundreds of times?

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

Robin said: Just FYI Mike - she's quoting me there. A little confusing I admit, but that's my statement above, not Megan's. Not that this changes your point of course...

Yeah; I got that, Robin. I think we need to establish that this character understands concepts instead of just tossing around words and blowing lots of smoke. I think his/her tossing around this Popper thing is just putting on airs. I don’t believe there is any depth of understanding there. Let’s see if he/she can come up with a satisfactory explanation of Popper’s ideas and their limitations first. My guess as that he/she will keep bullshitting. That should be sufficient.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
Robin said: Just FYI Mike - she's quoting me there. A little confusing I admit, but that's my statement above, not Megan's. Not that this changes your point of course...
Yeah; I got that, Robin. I think we need to establish that this character understands concepts instead of just tossing around words and blowing lots of smoke. I think his/her tossing around this Popper thing is just putting on airs. I don’t believe there is any depth of understanding there. Let’s see if he/she can come up with a satisfactory explanation of Popper’s ideas and their limitations first. My guess as that he/she will keep bullshitting. That should be sufficient.

Bullshiting? I have read Popper very carefully. Go ahead quiz me!

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Bullshiting? I have read Popper very carefully. Go ahead quiz me!

Just what the hell do you think "explain falsfiability" means? Are you going to explain or not?

meganfox · 8 June 2010

You are still evading my point.

Explain falsfiability. This is not hard if you actually know what it means.

.... a theory or hypothesis is not scientific unless in can be 'falsified' meaning that if the theory is incorrect we can make an observation to verify that. classic example: no parallax

Then explain why you think this is not adequate. Again, if you really understand it, you can demonstrate it very easily.

....well historical sciences. the assertion that the assassination of archduke led to WWI. what would we observe if his death was NOT the cause of WWI? theory: dinosaurs would have developed large brains if the meteor did not hit and would be flying airplanes now. another:

So far you are just tossing around words that allude to concepts you don’t appear to understand.

..... to me it appears that you do not understand the concepts.

This should be easy for you. You don’t need a lot of smoke and words.

Do you understand anything about the concepts of logic? You could start there if you do.

....logic: well in science correlation does not necessarily mean cause and effect.

.......OK YOUR turn. show me you know these concepts by expanding on what I have just done.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
meganfox said: Bullshiting? I have read Popper very carefully. Go ahead quiz me!
Just what the hell do you think "explain falsfiability" means? Are you going to explain or not?

No reason to get nasty! Do you know what quizzing means? It is not open ended.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

""If it can’t be falsified, then it must follow that there is no conceivable evidence that would demonstrate that it is wrong in any vital particular.""

^^ incorrect. Read Popper!

Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: .... a theory or hypothesis is not scientific unless in can be 'falsified' meaning that if the theory is incorrect we can make an observation to verify that. classic example: no parallax.

I was quite sure you didn’t get the fundamental concept; and you have just demonstrated that you don’t. What is the fundamental logical structure of Popper’s concept of falsfiability. It is very simple. If you really understood it you could write out in a much shorter form. Do you understand any of the fundamental structure of logical arguments?

PZ Myers · 8 June 2010

We're all being played. "meganfox" is simply a creationist troll who has drawn out lots of pointless replies from everyone.

Popper is irrelevant. She's not going to answer anything. Just ignore her.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

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meganfox · 8 June 2010

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Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Well I disagree. It's YOUR turn now!

“I disagree” is also not the answer to “explain falsfiability.” I think we have adequately demonstrated the game you are playing here. As PZ just said, you have no intention of answering anything. You are, in fact, just bullshitting.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

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Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: You stated NOTHING that shows YOU understand it. Who is bullshitting???

It is YOU who has been exposed. And PZ is pretty good at sending trolls like you to the Bathroom Wall. Bye bye.

Robin · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: My understanding is that Haldane brought up the Precambrian rabbit to illustrate the point of falsification, not to insist on it. And given that Popper rejected the example (and argued against evolution being real science for most of his life), I’d say that he agrees that the rabbit isn’t proper Popper falsification. But as you say, so what? It is still a perfectly good example of a potential falsification of a component of the current theory, whether properly Popperistic falsification or not. One need not lean on Popper to accept the concept of falsification in science - the concept still works well within the scientific method. ........NO I do not believe it works well within the scientific method. Give me an example of how it works well.

Sure - the falsification of the steady state hypothesis, the falsification of the Earth-centered universe hypothesis, falsification of the Ether hypothesis, etc...

Now, is The Theory of Evolution falsifiable in total? Not likely. .......exactly. Theories that are as well-established as the TOE are the conglomeration of a number of well-supported hypotheses, laws, and data research and are thus pretty much immune to direct falsification. ........exactly

Yep...point being that in science, theories are not generally falsified; hypotheses are.

But any number of the components of the TOE can be (and have been) falsified ..... true, but give me an example

Sure. The linear progression hypothesis is a great example. Ditto for ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, though they are inherently related.

and discarded in favor of newer data. Thus falsification is a powerful tool for refining scientific explanations regardless of one’s stand on Popper. .... it is a good tool when it works. but it does not work enough of the time. for instance how can you falsify that natural selection works? what would we see in the natural world if it did not work? see there is no answer. but it is logical and data backed that NS works. doesnt the fossil record falsify ID? are you then going to accept ID as science. see it does not work. and how would you falsify the duality of light? see: Popperism is a flop.

You could easily falsify natural selection by demonstrating that species adaptation and change is completely independent of natural evironmental condition changes. Or you could show that all current species alive have the exact same percentage of offspring and deaths across a number of years. Or you could show there was no such thing as extinction. Any of those would completely put an end to natural selection. As for ID, no the fossil record does not falsify it since ID can accommodate anything. Why couldn't an intelligent designer make fossils? Clearly an intelligent designer could theoretically do anything so there's nothing that would falsify ID. As for your question about the duality of light, I'm not sure what hypothesis you are referring to, so I can't answer your question. And Popper may well be a flop, but the principle as shown still works.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

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Robin · 8 June 2010

meganfox said:
Robin said:
meganfox said: If you reject Popper then you must also reject the Cambrian Rabbit concept. Are you willing to do that?
Why? Those two are not mutually inherent. In fact, as I noted Popper rejected the Precambrian Rabbit that Haldane gave as an example, so if anything Popperism is mutually exclusive with the Precambrian Rabbit example.
But the stock answer when asked if TOE is falsifiable it to pull out the rabbit. You have not seen that hundreds of times?

Several thousand times probably. It's a good example. Why not use it?

meganfox · 8 June 2010

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meganfox · 8 June 2010

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meganfox · 8 June 2010

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SWT · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: Phrenology for instance is a scientific theory according to Popper.

Have you made a bet with someone about how many incorrect things you can assert about the philosophy of science in a 24-hour period?

SWT · 8 June 2010

By the way, am I the only one who chuckled at the portions of the exchange I've bolded below?

meganfox said:
PZ Myers said: We're all being played. "meganfox" is simply a creationist troll who has drawn out lots of pointless replies from everyone. Popper is irrelevant. She's not going to answer anything. Just ignore her.
Creationist? You got to be kidding! I am a complete atheist. You are just not getting my points here. Let's just quit using the rabbit. It proves nothing.

David Fickett-Wilbar · 8 June 2010

meganfox said: And how can we possible falsify 'gravity'??

Gravity (as opposed to a theory of gravity) doesn't have to be falsified. It's a fact, one of the things that theories (which can be falsified) are created to explain.

harold · 8 June 2010

These statements by meganfox contradict each other.

As for ID, no the fossil record does not falsify it since ID can accommodate anything. Why couldn’t an intelligent designer make fossils? Clearly an intelligent designer could theoretically do anything so there’s nothing that would falsify ID.

You cannot be serious! Science can and SHOULD rule out supernatural explanations. Otherwise they can always say Goddditit! or FSMdidit!

Self-contradiction is the last refuge of a troll. Of interest, although they contradict each other in logic, they are also both incorrect. That is because the first one would be true is ID was merely the equivalent of FSMism, but ID, if defined as what is in the output of "DI fellows" like Behe and Dembski, contains additional elements like false analogies, false claims about mathematical concepts, use of undefined terms, and so on. I was provoked to find out if the more famous Megan Fox, whose name seems to be unfairly associated with this display, is some kind of creationist. Fortunately, indirect evidence suggests not - (quote taken from Wikipedia; link to original source there) -

Fox has said during an interview with The Times, on the topic of being a role model that: "It depends on what your idea of a role model is," and continued with, "If your idea of a role model is somebody who’s gonna preach to your kids that sex before marriage is wrong and cursing is wrong and women should be this and be that, then I’m not a role model. But if you want your girls to feel strong and intelligent and be outspoken and fight for what they think is right, then I want to be that type of role model, yeah."

PZ Myers · 8 June 2010

Enough. "meganfox" is done, and is going away right now.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

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meganfox · 8 June 2010

This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

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PZ Myers · 8 June 2010

I'm serious, meganfox. Further comments by you will simply be banished to the bathroom wall. You are obsessive and tiresome and are not promoting any kind of useful conversation.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

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meganfox · 8 June 2010

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meganfox · 8 June 2010

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Mike Elzinga · 8 June 2010

Now that we have a clear record of intent by this troll, I don’t think any of the monitors here on PT can be criticized for banning this troll permanently.

meganfox · 8 June 2010

This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.

Peter Henderson · 8 June 2010

He’s also a maverick when it comes to Young Earth Creationism - our Dave believes the early to be as old as 10,000 years and that the Flood deposited only the very earliest part of the geologic record. He thinks outside the box does David J Tyler.

Yep, you have Tyler well pinned down Steve. Here's dossier about him over on the BCSE: http://www.bcseweb.org.uk/index.php/Main/DavidTyler I had a bit of a run in with him on Premier Christian Radio's discussion forum where he was posting for a while, along with Paul Garner, his collague at BCS: http://thenewcreationism.wordpress.com/

Peter Henderson · 8 June 2010

P.S. Nice article on the eye PZ. I liked the cartoon.

I might post it on Premier's forum just to annoy the fundees !

raven · 8 June 2010

megan fox being totally wrong: meganfox said: for instance how can you falsify that natural selection works? what would we see in the natural world if it did not work? see there is no answer.

I'm late to the troll bashing party. 1. Scientists have been trying to falsify natural selection for 150 years. We would see a world where species don't evolve, just poof into existence like the creationists claim and no one has ever seen. 2. Natural selection by now is almost impossible to falsify. The reason is simple. The hardest theories to falsify are the ones that happen to be true. I gather meganfox has been sent to the dunce corner so will ask a rhetorical question. How would you or anyone falsify The Germ Theory of Disease. Hard to do isn't it? The theory is so well tested and true that we take it for granted and the only people who don't believe it are crackpots who occasionally die of infectious diseases e.g. Christine Maggiore, the AIDS denier who died of....AIDS.

David Utidjian · 8 June 2010

Gawd that was painful reading to get through... I seem to recall we had another troll here on PT that had a similar style as MF. The same stultifying inability to directly address a question or point, the same misdirection, and the same style of quoting posts it was responding to. I can't recall the previous troll's handle or the particular subject... but reading all the previous comments was like deja vu all over again.

eddie · 8 June 2010

raven said: 1. Scientists have been trying to falsify natural selection for 150 years. We would see a world where species don't evolve, just poof into existence like the creationists claim and no one has ever seen. 2. Natural selection by now is almost impossible to falsify. The reason is simple. The hardest theories to falsify are the ones that happen to be true. I gather meganfox has been sent to the dunce corner so will ask a rhetorical question. How would you or anyone falsify The Germ Theory of Disease. Hard to do isn't it? The theory is so well tested and true that we take it for granted and the only people who don't believe it are crackpots who occasionally die of infectious diseases ...

Raven, you are confusing falsification with proving something false. Falsifiability is an experiment or observation which would prove a particular theory to be wrong. It does not have to be wrong to imagine the experiment which would prove it so. For example, to falsify Newtonian gravitation (let's leave Einstein out of the picture) all you have to do is find a body with a gravitational attraction greater or less than its mass would predict. The fact that we don't find such bodies is evidence in favour of Newton's theory. To falsify evolution there are a number of observations which could be made (and rabbits in the Precambrian is not a good example, despite the attractive picture it paints). For example, if it could be demonstrated that all mutation leads to less complexity in offspring compared to the parent (or better still always leads to sterility), evolution has failed as a theory. It is not necessary to believe that mutation will lead to a decrease in complexity to envisage that, if it did, evolution would be false. And to answer your germ theory question, it's easy. Find someone suffering from measles who doesn't carry the virus. If you can't, you have helped confirm the theory of the origin of that particular disease

David Utidjian · 8 June 2010

raven said: I'm late to the troll bashing party.

As am I...

1. Scientists have been trying to falsify natural selection for 150 years. We would see a world where species don't evolve, just poof into existence like the creationists claim and no one has ever seen.

Well I think the experiments verifying natural selection have been running for at least as long as we have been trying to breed animals and plants with certain characteristics. IOW a very long time.

2. Natural selection by now is almost impossible to falsify. The reason is simple. The hardest theories to falsify are the ones that happen to be true.

I like that!

I gather meganfox has been sent to the dunce corner so will ask a rhetorical question. How would you or anyone falsify The Germ Theory of Disease. Hard to do isn't it? The theory is so well tested and true that we take it for granted and the only people who don't believe it are crackpots who occasionally die of infectious diseases e.g. Christine Maggiore, the AIDS denier who died of....AIDS.

One word: pellagra There are many afflictions that are called diseases that are non-infectious. There is no germ that causes them. Scurvy, heart disease, rickets, and various genetic disorders are a few more examples. Then there are a few infectious diseases that don't rely on a germ of some kind. Scrapie, mad cow disease, kuru. These are caused by an infectious protein called prions. I am not aware that prions are considered germs yet. Then there are the diseases caused my minerals. Lead, asbestos, silica, mercury... they aren't infectious but I suppose one can "catch" them by eating tainted food.

harold · 8 June 2010

David Utidjian - The germ theory of disease does not suggest that all diseases are caused by self-replicating microscopic infectious agents. It is the theory that at least some diseases are caused that way. The anachronistic sounding terminology "germ theory" reflects the fact that it has been a long time since this idea was controversial. It once was, with even some brilliant scientists denying ANY role of "germs" in disease. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virchow

One word: pellagra There are many afflictions that are called diseases that are non-infectious. There is no germ that causes them. Scurvy, heart disease, rickets, and various genetic disorders are a few more examples.

Come on, you didn't really think that anyone didn't know that there are deficiency diseases and genetic diseases that are not caused by "germs" did you? By heart disease you probably mean atherosclerosis related diseases like myocardial infarction. (Viral myocarditis, bacterial endocarditis, and bacterial pericarditis, on the other hand, are examples of infectious diseases of the heart.)

Stanton · 8 June 2010

harold said: ... By heart disease you probably mean atherosclerosis related diseases like myocardial infarction. (Viral myocarditis, bacterial endocarditis, and bacterial pericarditis, on the other hand, are examples of infectious diseases of the heart.)

What about "heartworm"?

David Utidjian · 8 June 2010

Harold,

I understand your point. It is just that I often hear about the Germ Theory of Disease from creationists (I know Raven isn't a creationist). The creationists try to make out that they are the ones that came up with the theory (or some such.)

If I understand it correctly there are exceptions to each of Koch's Postulates such that one or more of them may not (or can not) be fulfilled and that the disease is still caused by a particular pathogen.

The reason I brought up pellagra is because it was originally thought to have been caused by a pathogen but turned out to be a deficiency disease.

Yes, I should have been more clear about what I meant by heart disease(s).

Dave Luckett · 8 June 2010

Meganfox seemed to have been noodling around with Popper's observation that naive falsification - that is, one definite, undeniable, contrary datum - does not actually cause a theory well-supported by other evidence to be completely discarded. He observed that if the contrary datum were verified by repeated observation, then the eventual upshot was that the theory was only modified in an attempt to accommodate the datum. Even if this were impossible, the theory would remain until or unless some new theory that explained all the data were produced and its predictions tested against all data, old and new.

This, I understand, for example, is the current state of play with the contradictions between the Theory of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Neither explains all the data sets. The search is on for a theory that does. Meanwhile, physicists use the theory they have.

But Popper (nor anyone else, so far as I know) did not by this observation discard the concept of falsification. Late in life he recognised that the Theory of Evolution was falsifiable by observation. He would still have held that such a falsification would not cause it to be discarded instantly, and in this he was certainly right. But he did not deny that falsifiabity exists, and (at least late in life) agreed that it could apply to the Theory of Evolution, contra meganfox.

But, as I remarked some time back, this theoretical and philosophical quibbling is almost irrelevant to science in general as it is actually done, and to the Theory of Evolution in particular. For actual scientists doing actual science, the point is that no falsifying datum has been adduced that would be vital to evolution.

Yes, succeeding waves of scientific discoveries have modified some aspects of the theory. But the fundamental concepts of universal common descent, with speciation arising over very deep time from individual difference, hereditable traits and natural selection are unshaken, and are now pretty well unshakeable. In fact, they were so in 1880.

Now, meganfox says s/he accepts the TOE, and is not a creationist. Fine. But I think Matt Bright's June 8, 2010 2:32 PM nailed it. Fox is making an attempt to argue that the Theory of Evolution is unfalsifiable in the same way as religion is unfalsifiable.

Like Max, I very strongly suspect the motives and the bona fides of anyone trying to make such an argument, especially in so obscure and obfuscatory a manner as this. If it were slipped through, it would make it possible to argue further that the lack of falsifiability undermined the status of the Theory of Evolution as a "scientific" theory.

Fortunately, this development falls to the ground. The prior argument is false. The Theory of Evolution is falsifiable, but has not been falsified. It is a scientific theory, and should be taught as science. Special creation by supernatural or unknown means is not falsifiable, is not a scientific theory, and shouldn't be.

mplavcan · 8 June 2010

Perhaps a better example from the fossil record than the rabbit would be to find no record of progressive change at all -- a record of extant species found throughout the geological column, as you would expect from the flood model. This of course is not what you find. But it would have falsified the hypothesis by demonstrating stasis.

eddie said:
raven said: 1. Scientists have been trying to falsify natural selection for 150 years. We would see a world where species don't evolve, just poof into existence like the creationists claim and no one has ever seen. 2. Natural selection by now is almost impossible to falsify. The reason is simple. The hardest theories to falsify are the ones that happen to be true. I gather meganfox has been sent to the dunce corner so will ask a rhetorical question. How would you or anyone falsify The Germ Theory of Disease. Hard to do isn't it? The theory is so well tested and true that we take it for granted and the only people who don't believe it are crackpots who occasionally die of infectious diseases ...
Raven, you are confusing falsification with proving something false. Falsifiability is an experiment or observation which would prove a particular theory to be wrong. It does not have to be wrong to imagine the experiment which would prove it so. For example, to falsify Newtonian gravitation (let's leave Einstein out of the picture) all you have to do is find a body with a gravitational attraction greater or less than its mass would predict. The fact that we don't find such bodies is evidence in favour of Newton's theory. To falsify evolution there are a number of observations which could be made (and rabbits in the Precambrian is not a good example, despite the attractive picture it paints). For example, if it could be demonstrated that all mutation leads to less complexity in offspring compared to the parent (or better still always leads to sterility), evolution has failed as a theory. It is not necessary to believe that mutation will lead to a decrease in complexity to envisage that, if it did, evolution would be false. And to answer your germ theory question, it's easy. Find someone suffering from measles who doesn't carry the virus. If you can't, you have helped confirm the theory of the origin of that particular disease

Torbach · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: The Theory of Evolution is falsifiable, but has not been falsified. It is a scientific theory, and should be taught as science. Special creation by supernatural or unknown means is not falsifiable, is not a scientific theory, and shouldn't be.

but this seems to be nothing of any importance. am i even understanding this? i'm still trying to fully grasp the term falsifiable is just a term for hypothetically describing an event that would contradict an observation, but independent of any actual falsification? so scientific theories must be falsifiable because; theories have data and data must always have the appearance of being able to be found wrong? basically data is only real when it has an appearance of being able to be wrong? isn't that just the concept of duality, that things are defined by having an opposite state? i don't see anything special about that, it seems self evident...is it inaccurate?

SWT · 8 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: Now, meganfox says s/he accepts the TOE, and is not a creationist. Fine. But I think Matt Bright's June 8, 2010 2:32 PM nailed it. Fox is making an attempt to argue that the Theory of Evolution is unfalsifiable in the same way as religion is unfalsifiable. Like Max, I very strongly suspect the motives and the bona fides of anyone trying to make such an argument, especially in so obscure and obfuscatory a manner as this. If it were slipped through, it would make it possible to argue further that the lack of falsifiability undermined the status of the Theory of Evolution as a "scientific" theory. Fortunately, this development falls to the ground. The prior argument is false. The Theory of Evolution is falsifiable, but has not been falsified. It is a scientific theory, and should be taught as science. Special creation by supernatural or unknown means is not falsifiable, is not a scientific theory, and shouldn't be.

meganfox was actually attempting to make two arguments: 1) That modern evolutionary theory is not falsifiable and 2) That ID is falsifiable Had she been able to get agreement on those points, it would set the stage for a new username to appear, crowing that the Darwinists had admitted that Darwinism was pseudoscience and the ID was science after all. Unfortunately, for all her claims of nuanced understanding of Popper's positions, she blew the game totally with her assertion that Popper considered astrology to be science. I confess, I literally laughed out loud when I read that ... astrology was in fact one of Popper's examples of pseudo-science. So, scientists will continue to formulate and test hypotheses and refine their theories based on objective observations while the cdesign proponentsists continue to play word games rather than doing the hard work of actual scientific inquiry.

Dave Luckett · 8 June 2010

Torbach said: falsifiable is just a term for hypothetically describing an event that would contradict an observation, but independent of any actual falsification?

As I understand the concept, "falsifiable" when applied to a theory means that an observation is conceivably possible that would contradict some vital part of the theory. It does not mean that such an observation has actually been made, simply that such an observation, if made, would contradict the theory. (A quibble: "conceivably possible" I take to exclude observations that might be possible but could not actually be made.)

so scientific theories must be falsifiable because; theories have data and data must always have the appearance of being able to be found wrong?

Not quite. A hypothesis, I believe, must account for the data generally available when it is proposed, or it does not reach the status of theory. If, after that, new data is observed that the theory does not explain, the theory is falsified.

basically data is only real when it has an appearance of being able to be wrong?

No. Data is real, always. It is necessary to check it by repeating the observations, and these checks include manipulating the conditions of the observation, using experiment, where possible. It is not the data that is falsifiable, in this instance. It is the theory. Data that is checked and found not to be correct is not data. It is merely error.

isn't that just the concept of duality, that things are defined by having an opposite state?

In a sense, yes. It relies on the observation that no general rule (which is what a theory is, at base) can be proven correct by finding examples where it applies. Find as many as you like, it doesn't matter. The rule can only be proven incorrect by finding an example where it does not apply.

i don't see anything special about that, it seems self evident...is it inaccurate?

No, I don't find anything special about it either. I can't imagine why it seems to be so contentious.

Torbach · 9 June 2010

right i see, data is just data, but the question one posits based on the data must be testable, and verifiable.
So If it is impossible to verify, we can also say it is impossible to falsify?
thus not scientific.

verification (to find something true) and falsification (to find something false) exists only as a pair.

Well the only thing ID had was irreducible complexity. So IC would have to make a prediction off the premise that an organ formed without any gradual change?

And how (rhetorical) could it be possible to verify an organ just appeared from nothing? Even if a bunch of chemicals in a bucket, struck with a zeus like bolt of lightning that created a protein, is still a gradual chain constructed by chemical pieces + energy in a measurable and observable process.

Even a strand of DNA is made of PARTS that when you remove a couple they still do something in the universe, they just don't do the same function, that doesn't mean they have no function.

You know what gets me, the idea of Irreducible complexity is almost brilliant imo, it has this simple and almost pedestrian logic to it at first glance. I know i'm not smart/creative enough to imagine it, so How could Behe be smart enough to come up with the concept yet NOT be wise enough to know it is not science?

Ok well, let me see if i'm still grasping this 100% by constructing a falsifiable scenario

verifying Natural selection means seeing a dominating moth color (hunted by birds that rely on brightness) match that of the environment and change with it gradually.

Should it be observed (with no other variables creating error) at nearly any point ('nearly' because we need a few thousand births and deaths to rule out random static) that the average tone in moths create GREATER contrast compared to the environment the prediction of NS would be shown falsified?

is that good enough?

Scott · 9 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: No, I don't find anything special about it either. I can't imagine why it seems to be so contentious.

As I understand it (if I'm picking the right "it" you're talking about), the "contentious" part comes from a misunderstanding of science. The lay person believes that a scientist is trying to prove that his theory is "true", that there is some critical observation or experiment that will be irrefutable "proof". In fact (as you note), the scientist is trying to disprove the negative of her hypothesis: "If my hypothesis is wrong, I should see X. After testing, I don't see X, so my hypothesis has not been shown to be wrong. (Yet!)". (I think I got the sense of that right. :-) The negative of a negative is difficult for most folks to wrap their heads around, whereas "Q.E.D." is much more intuitive. It's the old high school physics experiment. In high school, the point of an "experiment" is to prove to yourself that the theory under discussion is correct. If the "experiment" deviates from theory, that's what fudge factors are for: you "correct" the observations to match the theory. That's the only exposure that most people have to experiments and observations. (I'm sure the science teachers in the room will correct me; that that is not how science is taught. Perhaps by the better teachers. And I was fortunate to have one of the best high school chemistry teachers. Yet, even so, that's how the purpose of most "experiments" come across most of the time.)

Mike Elzinga · 9 June 2010

Dave Luckett said:
Torbach said: falsifiable is just a term for hypothetically describing an event that would contradict an observation, but independent of any actual falsification?
As I understand the concept, "falsifiable" when applied to a theory means that an observation is conceivably possible that would contradict some vital part of the theory. It does not mean that such an observation has actually been made, simply that such an observation, if made, would contradict the theory. (A quibble: "conceivably possible" I take to exclude observations that might be possible but could not actually be made.)

The fundamental idea behind falsifiability comes from logic. If P implies Q, then NOT Q implies NOT P. The difficulty comes in establishing the truth of NOT Q, especially when P already has many other implications that have been observed and checked. It may be the case that a particular Q is not observed because of incompetence on the part of an observer. On the other hand, Q may be at the limits of technology. It may also be swamped by other confounding factors or noise. So not observing a particular Q is not necessarily fatal to P. Experienced researchers have a much broader picture than ideological critics. They know the history, the outstanding issues, the experimental techniques or observations currently in play, and they know the talents of the people working on the issues. ID/creationists know none of this because of their self-imposed isolation from the research community. That’s why their critiques make no sense.

Dave Luckett · 9 June 2010

If the moth were actually edible to its possible predators, yes. If the moth were poisonous (or even merely bad-tasting) to possible predators, the opposite would apply. Predators would learn to avoid it, and it would get eaten only by mistake. Individuals with colouration that made such mistakes less likely would than be advantaged - ie, such individuals would actually be advantaged by being conspicuous.

Hence, a moth that was poisonous or bad-tasting would actually be likely to brighten its coloration, over time, once its poison or bad tasting qualities evolve.

eddie · 9 June 2010

Torbach said: Ok well, let me see if i'm still grasping this 100% by constructing a falsifiable scenario verifying Natural selection means seeing a dominating moth color (hunted by birds that rely on brightness) match that of the environment and change with it gradually. Should it be observed (with no other variables creating error) at nearly any point ('nearly' because we need a few thousand births and deaths to rule out random static) that the average tone in moths create GREATER contrast compared to the environment the prediction of NS would be shown falsified? is that good enough?

No. Because any sufficiently complex system is capabale of ad hoc rationalisation to explain (almost) any observed phenomenon. Why are these moths camouflaged? Because predators can't see them and don't eat them. Why are these moths brightly coloured? Because predators associate those colours with a warning signal and don't eat them. In this very limited sense of explaining observations through a 'just-so' story, evolution is unfalsifiable, just as its critics allege. What survives is that which is adapted to survive. That which is adapted to survive, survives. But falsification as a philosophy of science is not intended to show the truth or falsity of a theory. Many theories are true and unfalsifiable. Many long-standing theories are (or, at least, have been) untrue and falsifiable. Popper's philosophy was intended to do three things at the same time: solve Hume's problem of induction, critique the then-fashionable concept of science as an inductive process, and to demark scientific practices from the non-scientific and pseudo-scientific. Yes, Popper believed that science did progress through proposing falsifiable (but not false) propositions. But he didn't believe that it was the only way to produce truthful claims. For example, psychoanalysis, said Popper (and me), is unfalsifiable and produces lots of true claims.

Mike Elzinga · 9 June 2010

In the logic of P implies Q, then NOT Q implies NOT P, the implied Q could also be a mistake.

There have been a number of cases in physics, for example, where an experiment did not produce the expected results. It later turned out that the very complicated theoretical calculations predicting results contained an error.

So in these cases, the implied Q was wrong; and it took a lot of effort and cross-checking to find the errors.

Torbach · 9 June 2010

right so i cant say "with no other variables creating error" that is the ad hoc, of course anyone can say "assume the variables favor the point i'm making so that it is true, so it is so!"

eddie said: What survives is that which is adapted to survive. That which is adapted to survive, survives.

so to falsify NS you would need to observe something (long term) not adapted to survive, surviving? But in practice it is impossible, i mean it would be finding Q != P when Q = P but just because something is impossible to find false, it is not unfalsifiable.

eddie · 9 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: In the logic of P implies Q, then NOT Q implies NOT P, the implied Q could also be a mistake. There have been a number of cases in physics, for example, where an experiment did not produce the expected results. It later turned out that the very complicated theoretical calculations predicting results contained an error. So in these cases, the implied Q was wrong; and it took a lot of effort and cross-checking to find the errors.

The danger of seeking NOT Q as a confirmation of hypothesis P is well known as Hempel's Ravens. All Ravens (P) are black (Q). Therefore, all non-black things (NOT Q) are not ravens (NOT P). This green caterpillar is not black (NOT Q) and is not a raven (NOT P), so I have confirmed the NOT Q implies NOT P hypothesis. Consequently, by logic, I have confirmed the P implies Q hypothesis at the same time. Since there are many, many not black things in my office, all I have to do is look at a hundred of them, check they are not ravens and, bingo!, I have good evidence for all ravens being black. Don't even have to look for one raven. Logic makes doing science very easy.

Dave Luckett · 9 June 2010

eddie said: Why are these moths camouflaged? Because predators can’t see them and don’t eat them. Why are these moths brightly coloured? Because predators associate those colours with a warning signal and don’t eat them.

The flaw in this is that it neglects underlying cause for proximate cause. Yes, the predators don't eat the brightly coloured moths, because they associate the coloration with warning. But for them to do that, there must be an underlying cause - the poisonousness or bad taste of the moth. This would also explain why some good-tasting moths mimic the coloration of the bad tasting ones - but only if they are found in the same environment. It would not, however, explain an observation that good-tasting moths, not found near a poisonous species, become more conspicuous over time. The theory of evolution predicts that such moths would not evolve conspicuous coloration, unless in mimicry, and would, in fact, evolve camouflage in background colours - and this prediction is, so far as I know, correct. The famous peppered moth research would seem to apply here. Hence, the observations and reasoning from them is not an ad hoc rationalisation, but an explanation from underlying theory.

Rolf Aalberg · 9 June 2010

PZ Myers said: I'm serious, meganfox. Further comments by you will simply be banished to the bathroom wall. You are obsessive and tiresome and are not promoting any kind of useful conversation.

IMHO, he got lots more rope than deserved. Since he is such a smart guy I trust he may get a blog of his own where interested people may enjoy his company. I did not enjoy it here.

Christina Hendricks · 9 June 2010

Matt Bright said: Ok, I have a hypothesis. If you will. Meganfox is a new and comparatively clever ID troll, retreating to an even thinner end of the Wedge. It accepts evolution, but denies that it's falsifiable - it must therefore be accepted at least partially on faith*. If it creates enough confusion, it hopes to elicit an unthinking agreement with the pro-evolution part of a post that through lazy phrasing might appear also to agree with the falsifiability argument. It can then triumphantly claim it has unmasked the truth - that 'evolutionists' really do believe through faith after all. Note, for example, the absurd phraseology of '[Popper is not] god or Darwin...' upthread. It's mimicing what it thinks 'evolutionists' really believe in the hope of catching them agreeing with it.

I said this here , she is trying to project the "God-did-it" mentality onto people who agree that TOE does the best job of explaining speciation. Past that, this has all been quite entertaining, as she is a good Troll.. As a matter of fact, I think Ms. Fox and I might be able to settle this, in a kiddie pool, filled with Tapioca Pudding......mmm..Tapioca.

Ntrsvic · 9 June 2010

Christina Hendricks said:
Matt Bright said: Ok, I have a hypothesis. If you will. Meganfox is a new and comparatively clever ID troll, retreating to an even thinner end of the Wedge. It accepts evolution, but denies that it's falsifiable - it must therefore be accepted at least partially on faith*. If it creates enough confusion, it hopes to elicit an unthinking agreement with the pro-evolution part of a post that through lazy phrasing might appear also to agree with the falsifiability argument. It can then triumphantly claim it has unmasked the truth - that 'evolutionists' really do believe through faith after all. Note, for example, the absurd phraseology of '[Popper is not] god or Darwin...' upthread. It's mimicing what it thinks 'evolutionists' really believe in the hope of catching them agreeing with it.
I said this here , she is trying to project the "God-did-it" mentality onto people who agree that TOE does the best job of explaining speciation. Past that, this has all been quite entertaining, as she is a good Troll.. As a matter of fact, I think Ms. Fox and I might be able to settle this, in a kiddie pool, filled with Tapioca Pudding......mmm..Tapioca.

Sorry, on Norway time, you know, doing Science with the Collaborators, and posted this before meganfox got the Bathroom Break...

Robert Byers · 9 June 2010

A few points here.
I have had serious problems with eyesight and am blind in one eye.
I know there is not competent science bringing an end to blindness. so why do evolution fans say they know how eyes came about?! If they can't fix what's staring us in the face?!
The eye is so complex in its machine that its construction is likely also complex.
So how does My myers know its not right or the way he would of done it?!
Present the better model, maybe by computer and not a working one, and show how the better eye would handle all needs.
I got a hunch its reasonable to conclude the imperfect eye is dealing with concepts not understood by folks today.

Another point for biblical creationists is that upon the historic fall, and so death/decay, its a option that all body parts had to react to a new universe. so its possible our present eye is a change from the original. like women acquiring changes that made them newly have grea birthing pains.
As in our DNA and everything we could also have had profound eye change in order to deal with a new type of world.
I'm just saying again that the original creation was corrupted by the fall in ecery way and so all of biology can't confidently be a trail back to a perfect creation.
Present biology is a very poor memory of the eternal biology we had before Adam/Eves fruit ambitions.

The eye, by the way, is a historic good point of the wonderful complexity and impossibility of the throw of the dice. Historic.

Dave Luckett · 9 June 2010

Verging on the completely incoherent, with the necessary interlarding of "Biblical references", several of which aren't actually there (a new universe, I mean, really!) A straight-out lie to begin with (competent science can end blindness - see the work of Fred Hollows), an admission of desperate ignorance (the eye's 'construction is likely also complex') and a piece of drooling idiocy (why can't we repair the eye, if we know how it evolved?) that quite takes the breath away.

Back on song, Byers. A good 7.5, maybe an 8.

Ntrsvic · 9 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: Verging on the completely incoherent, with the necessary interlarding of "Biblical references", several of which aren't actually there (a new universe, I mean, really!) A straight-out lie to begin with (competent science can end blindness - see the work of Fred Hollows), an admission of desperate ignorance (the eye's 'construction is likely also complex') and a piece of drooling idiocy (why can't we repair the eye, if we know how it evolved?) that quite takes the breath away. Back on song, Byers. A good 7.5, maybe an 8.

Maybe he just fails to understand Popper?

eddie · 9 June 2010

Dave Luckett said: The theory of evolution predicts that such moths would not evolve conspicuous coloration, unless in mimicry, and would, in fact, evolve camouflage in background colours - and this prediction is, so far as I know, correct. The famous peppered moth research would seem to apply here. Hence, the observations and reasoning from them is not an ad hoc rationalisation, but an explanation from underlying theory.

Yes, but mostly no. When we do discover species that are conspicuous and have stupidly long brightly-coloured tails, it is rationalised as sexual selection. A completely unfalsifiable hypothesis. (Again, please note that unfalsifiable does not mean false.)

Kevin B · 9 June 2010

Ntrsvic said:
Dave Luckett said: Verging on the completely incoherent, with the necessary interlarding of "Biblical references", several of which aren't actually there (a new universe, I mean, really!) A straight-out lie to begin with (competent science can end blindness - see the work of Fred Hollows), an admission of desperate ignorance (the eye's 'construction is likely also complex') and a piece of drooling idiocy (why can't we repair the eye, if we know how it evolved?) that quite takes the breath away. Back on song, Byers. A good 7.5, maybe an 8.
Maybe he just fails to understand Popper?

Perhaps he just can't tell the difference between Popper and video head-cleaning fluid. I think that "the imperfect eye is dealing with concepts" warrants special mention. Can we add a "*" to the score as a mark of distinction?

MrG · 9 June 2010

eddie said: What survives is that which is adapted to survive. That which is adapted to survive, survives.

Urr ... this is hardly different from saying: businesses survive because they are profitable. Businesses that are profitable survive. It's a completely correct and obvious rule of raw capitalism. There's nothing to object to in it aside from the problem it's terse and boring. In business studies the interesting consideration is WHY they are profitable. Ditto for evolutionary studies -- WHY did they survive?

Dave Luckett · 9 June 2010

eddie said: Yes, but mostly no. When we do discover species that are conspicuous and have stupidly long brightly-coloured tails, it is rationalised as sexual selection. A completely unfalsifiable hypothesis. (Again, please note that unfalsifiable does not mean false.)

Wrong. It is falsifiable. Sexual selection has been observed in the wild and in the laboratory. Artificial aids have been used to enhance sexually selected physical traits - longer tails, for example, have been placed on male widowbirds which had been unsuccessful at attracting females. These aids, even though artificial, were shown to enormously increase their mating success, and the rest is heredity. See http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Sexual_Selection.htm Had converse results been obtained, sexual selection by females for longer tails in males would have been falsified. Hence, sexual selection is falsifiable, but was not falsified.

W. Kevin Vicklund · 9 June 2010

Dave Luckett said:
eddie said: Yes, but mostly no. When we do discover species that are conspicuous and have stupidly long brightly-coloured tails, it is rationalised as sexual selection. A completely unfalsifiable hypothesis. (Again, please note that unfalsifiable does not mean false.)
Wrong. It is falsifiable. Sexual selection has been observed in the wild and in the laboratory. Artificial aids have been used to enhance sexually selected physical traits - longer tails, for example, have been placed on male widowbirds which had been unsuccessful at attracting females. These aids, even though artificial, were shown to enormously increase their mating success, and the rest is heredity. See http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Sexual_Selection.htm Had converse results been obtained, sexual selection by females for longer tails in males would have been falsified. Hence, sexual selection is falsifiable, but was not falsified.

Furthermore, we can test hypotheses as to why a sexually selected trait is favorable, at least in many cases. Often it is an indicator of health (look, no parasites) or prowess (I'm so badass I don't need to hide from predators). Not always, sometimes it seems to just be a matter of preference (red rocks, blue blows).

raven · 9 June 2010

Natural selection as a concept doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is a component of a larger theory, the modern Darwinian theory of evolution.

Evolution is nonrandom survival (natural selection) of randomly varying (mutation) replicators.

If natural selection was false, evolution would not occur. This is easily falsifiable. It happens that after 150 years and an enormous amount of effort to be asymptopically approaching true.

Next up. Falsifying the Theory of Internal Combustion Engines which states (among other corollaries) that engines burning combustible liquids in enclosed chambers are capable of driving wheeled vehicles.

Going to repeat my earlier point. The hardest theories to falsify are ones that are true.

Today evolution looks like an unmovable object. But during the last 150 years, it wasn't so. The mechanism of heredity was unknown till Mendel. The molecular basis of genes, DNA was unknown. The fossil record was very incomplete. The age of the earth wasn't known except that it was old but old enough? For 150 years, any new discoveries could have falsified evolution. The fact is, all new discoveries only strengthened and expanded the theory.

raven · 9 June 2010

One word: pellagra There are many afflictions that are called diseases that are non-infectious. There is no germ that causes them. Scurvy, heart disease, rickets, and various genetic disorders are a few more examples. Then there are a few infectious diseases that don’t rely on a germ of some kind. Scrapie, mad cow disease, kuru.

This strawperson already fell apart. The Germ Theory of Disease doesn't state that all diseases are caused by "germs". Germ is a nontechnical term that could cover prions.

I understand your point. It is just that I often hear about the Germ Theory of Disease from creationists (I know Raven isn’t a creationist). The creationists try to make out that they are the ones that came up with the theory (or some such.)

Maybe a creationist or two did. IIRC, Pasteur was a creationist. But, it is irrelevant and senseless. Because someone is right about something doesn't mean they are right about everything. If that were the case, we would (almost all of us) be right all the time about everything.

Scott · 9 June 2010

Robert Byers said: So how does My myers [sic] know its not right or the way he would of done it?! [...] I got a hunch its reasonable to conclude the imperfect eye is dealing with concepts not understood by folks today.

No guessing is necessary. Science knows that the human eye could be made better, because there are examples in nature where it is better: 4-color vision; vision of polarized light; sharper vision; better night vision. There are animals with each of these eyes. We understand perfectly well how these work, down to the molecular level. Read the article and comments.

Robin · 9 June 2010

Robert Byers said: A few points here. I have had serious problems with eyesight and am blind in one eye. I know there is not competent science bringing an end to blindness. so why do evolution fans say they know how eyes came about?! If they can't fix what's staring us in the face?!

You have my sympathy on being blind in one eye - sorry for that difficulty. That said, there's a big difference between knowing how something came about and having the tools and skills to fix that thing. For example, I know quite a bit about how kidney's function, how immunosuppression works, and how the body heals. Doesn't mean I can perform a kidney transplant.

The eye is so complex in its machine that its construction is likely also complex. So how does My myers know its not right or the way he would of done it?! Present the better model, maybe by computer and not a working one, and show how the better eye would handle all needs. I got a hunch its reasonable to conclude the imperfect eye is dealing with concepts not understood by folks today.

See Scott's reply above.

Another point for biblical creationists is that upon the historic fall, and so death/decay, its a option that all body parts had to react to a new universe. so its possible our present eye is a change from the original. like women acquiring changes that made them newly have grea birthing pains. As in our DNA and everything we could also have had profound eye change in order to deal with a new type of world.

If such were the case, why don't all people have eye problems?

I'm just saying again that the original creation was corrupted by the fall in ecery way and so all of biology can't confidently be a trail back to a perfect creation. Present biology is a very poor memory of the eternal biology we had before Adam/Eves fruit ambitions.

If that were the case, then all people would have pretty much the same exact declines, deseases, and longevity. We don't see this in reality though. Your 'hypothesis' isn't fitting the data.

The eye, by the way, is a historic good point of the wonderful complexity and impossibility of the throw of the dice. Historic.

You can believe anything you wish, but there's no evidence to support your claim.

Natman · 9 June 2010

Robert Byers said: I know there is not competent science bringing an end to blindness. so why do evolution fans say they know how eyes came about?! If they can't fix what's staring us in the face?!

Actually, for a lot of conditions that effect the eye, they can fix it, and if they can't then they certainly know what the problem is, it's just modern medicine isn't able to repair the damage. This is an issue with modern medicine not being advanced enough, not that the eye is too complicated.

Another point for biblical creationists is that upon the historic fall, and so death/decay, its a option that all body parts had to react to a new universe. so its possible our present eye is a change from the original. like women acquiring changes that made them newly have grea birthing pains. As in our DNA and everything we could also have had profound eye change in order to deal with a new type of world. I'm just saying again that the original creation was corrupted by the fall in ecery way and so all of biology can't confidently be a trail back to a perfect creation.

So the fall resulted in all the blood vessels in the retina suddenly flicking around to the 'wrong' side? This is as good an argument as saying the devil put dinosaur fossils in the ground to deceive the Faithful. Once you start introducing supernatural causes post-creation then you can do anything. In fact, I might make the claim that the whole universe was created Last Thursday. It's no less provable, or believable, than saying the Fall resulted in massive physiological changes to the body. Undocumented in the bible, I might add.

Present biology is a very poor memory of the eternal biology we had before Adam/Eves fruit ambitions. The eye, by the way, is a historic good point of the wonderful complexity and impossibility of the throw of the dice. Historic.

The problem with comparing evolution with dice throws is that regardless of the chances of something occuring, once it has occurred, despite it being highly unlikely it has just happened. You can claim improbablity all you like, but improbability is not the same as impossibility.

eric · 9 June 2010

Robin said: That said, there's a big difference between knowing how something came about and having the tools and skills to fix that thing.

Another example: we all know how the current oil spill in the gulf of Mexico came about...

[Byers] The eye, by the way, is a historic good point of the wonderful complexity and impossibility of the throw of the dice. Historic.
You can believe anything you wish, but there's no evidence to support your claim.

Byers is technically right that the eye has historically been cited by creationists. This is why Darwin took the time to talk about it - because it was specifically cited by Paley and others as an example of design. As a follower of the second-youngest major world religion, Byers probably understands that age doesn't make an idea right. Its just an argument of convenience.

MrG · 9 June 2010

raven said: Going to repeat my earlier point. The hardest theories to falsify are ones that are true.

That is sort of the ironic ... issue, isn't it? Not really a problem. Certainly someone could cry: "No matter what happens you guys always have an explanation for it! It explains everything and explains nothing!" "Well ... if it's actually the way things work, then wouldn't you EXPECT it to explain everything?" That takes that line of discussion to the end of its usefulness. We'll need to go on to something else.

harold · 9 June 2010

eddie said:

Yes, but mostly no. When we do discover species that are conspicuous and have stupidly long brightly-coloured tails, it is rationalised as sexual selection. A completely unfalsifiable hypothesis. (Again, please note that unfalsifiable does not mean false.)

This is completely wrong. The suggestion that long tails may be due to sexual selection is not a post-hoc rationalization at all. It is a reasonable and highly testable hypothesis about long tails. In no way does it, merely by being stated, rule itself in or rule out all the other potential testable hypotheses about long tails. The next step is to develop a protocol of direct experiments or rigorously objective observations which will test the hypothesis. The protocol should be such that even a reasonable, objective very strong opponent of the hypothesis would agree that certain results are consistent with the hypothesis being true, and that certain results are not consistent with the hypothesis being true. If the former are obtained, the hypothesis is strengthened. If it is a very simple hypothesis, one experiment/set of observations may be sufficient to confirm it. Sexual selection has been extensively discussed and studied, and although widely accepted in many individual instances, is still controversial in other circumstances. As you could have found out on your own, if you were honest and curious, instead of a troll playing games.

harold · 9 June 2010

David Utidjian -

I understand your point. It is just that I often hear about the Germ Theory of Disease from creationists (I know Raven isn’t a creationist). The creationists try to make out that they are the ones that came up with the theory (or some such.)

This is not really true, and I don't agree that Louis Pasteur was a "creationist" in the modern sense. ID/creationists often falsely conflate historical mainstream scientists who happened to be religious and who lived before the modern evidence for evolution was fully developed with modern science-denying ID/creationists who deny the evidence now that it is known. However, many scientists are religious now, without denying the theory of evolution. No important figure in microbiology or infectious disease has ever been a denialist of the major biomedical scientific knowledge available when they were active.

If I understand it correctly there are exceptions to each of Koch’s Postulates such that one or more of them may not (or can not) be fulfilled and that the disease is still caused by a particular pathogen.

Yes. Koch's postulates reflect what I explained before. That the idea that any disease can be caused by microscopic, biological infectious agents was once controversial. Koch made his postulates so rigorous that even a biased but ultimately reasonable and objective opponent of the existence of infectious disease would accept his demonstration of it. They can be modified for modern use, and indeed must be when dealing with many types of pathogens. Koch's original postulates are anachronistic. Koch's basic idea of rigorous scientific demonstration of the relationship between pathogens and the diseases they cause is not.

The reason I brought up pellagra is because it was originally thought to have been caused by a pathogen but turned out to be a deficiency disease.

A valuable point, although not, as we both now agree, a "falsification of germ theory".

Mike Elzinga · 9 June 2010

eddie said: The danger of seeking NOT Q as a confirmation of hypothesis P is well known as Hempel's Ravens. All Ravens (P) are black (Q). Therefore, all non-black things (NOT Q) are not ravens (NOT P). This green caterpillar is not black (NOT Q) and is not a raven (NOT P), so I have confirmed the NOT Q implies NOT P hypothesis. Consequently, by logic, I have confirmed the P implies Q hypothesis at the same time. Since there are many, many not black things in my office, all I have to do is look at a hundred of them, check they are not ravens and, bingo!, I have good evidence for all ravens being black. Don't even have to look for one raven. Logic makes doing science very easy.

:-) That’s a pretty good parody of a lot of the sectarian pseudo-science. Then there are the other forms of the logic chain, if P implies Q, then Not Q implies NOT P. There is the case where Q is observable ONLY IF you already believe P is true. Then there is the case where NOT Q turns into a redefinition of Q (moving the goalposts). Or Q is observable only to selected sectarians. Or Q always remains down in the noise no matter how sensitive and advanced the technology for detecting Q becomes. Then there is the case where NOT Q is asserted by not informing your audience that the meaning of Q has been changed to something different from what is meant in science. There is the common case in which Q is not observable by any scientific means, but you extend the definition of science to include the supernatural in which the truth of Q is simply asserted. Or the case where NOT Q is simply asserted, therefore NOT P. Then there is conflation; NOT R is asserted to be the same as NOT Q. I don’t think I have exhausted all the distortions I have seen over the years. If there is one thing ID/creationists are good at, it is mangling logic. (This is a second try at posting; the first try apparently went into the ether.)

Robin · 9 June 2010

eric said:
Robin said: That said, there's a big difference between knowing how something came about and having the tools and skills to fix that thing.
Another example: we all know how the current oil spill in the gulf of Mexico came about...

Ahh...touche!

[Byers] The eye, by the way, is a historic good point of the wonderful complexity and impossibility of the throw of the dice. Historic.
You can believe anything you wish, but there's no evidence to support your claim.
Eric said: Byers is technically right that the eye has historically been cited by creationists. This is why Darwin took the time to talk about it - because it was specifically cited by Paley and others as an example of design. As a follower of the second-youngest major world religion, Byers probably understands that age doesn't make an idea right. Its just an argument of convenience.

Hmmm...good point. Ok. I sit corrected.

harold · 9 June 2010

For completeness, I should note that the existence of elaborate anatomic and behavioral displays which seem to be exclusively related to mating is, in itself, to a reasonable person, an observation which supports the idea of sexual selection.

Again, the idea of sexual selection is a testable hypothesis, not a post hoc rationalization.

fnxtr · 9 June 2010

harold said: ...elaborate anatomic and behavioral displays ...

Is anatomic the opposite of atomic? I just started thinking about anatomic bombs... which leads us back to meganfox...

Helena Constantine · 9 June 2010

This probably helps to explain what Megan Fox was up to:

http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2032#more-2032

Robin · 9 June 2010

eddie said:
Mike Elzinga said: In the logic of P implies Q, then NOT Q implies NOT P, the implied Q could also be a mistake. There have been a number of cases in physics, for example, where an experiment did not produce the expected results. It later turned out that the very complicated theoretical calculations predicting results contained an error. So in these cases, the implied Q was wrong; and it took a lot of effort and cross-checking to find the errors.
The danger of seeking NOT Q as a confirmation of hypothesis P is well known as Hempel's Ravens. All Ravens (P) are black (Q). Therefore, all non-black things (NOT Q) are not ravens (NOT P). This green caterpillar is not black (NOT Q) and is not a raven (NOT P), so I have confirmed the NOT Q implies NOT P hypothesis. Consequently, by logic, I have confirmed the P implies Q hypothesis at the same time. Since there are many, many not black things in my office, all I have to do is look at a hundred of them, check they are not ravens and, bingo!, I have good evidence for all ravens being black. Don't even have to look for one raven. Logic makes doing science very easy.

Fortunately in science falsification is not used in place of confirmation. Falsification is used to test and discard concepts that don't pass the test. Those that do pass the test just keep getting more tests. The accumulation of test passing is what ultimately presents a strong case for certain concepts (like evolution) but even still such concepts are never actually confirmed per se, though they are taken with steadfast confidence in such cases.

Ntrsvic · 9 June 2010

Helena Constantine said: This probably helps to explain what Megan Fox was up to: http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=2032#more-2032

She also knows something that we do not know...She is not left handed!

harold · 9 June 2010

Helena Constantine -

That's "meganfox". That poster conceded that he or she was not the entertainer Megan Fox.

Anyway, yes, I think you are on the right track.

My personal guess (more or less a testable hypothesis, should verifying observations become available) is that both the nut you reference and meganfox, assuming that they are not the same individual, are in fact creationists of the type who become so obsessive that they feel the need to "disguise" themselves as "atheists" or "humanists" in the hopes of setting up some crazy "gotcha" game. PZ Myers said approximately the same thing about meganfox hundreds of posts ago, of course.

I've seen this strategy used before...

"I'll claim to be an atheist, then spin some crazy semantic game designed to confuse and trick people into 'conceding' that 'evolution' is ultimately 'no more scientific' than 'creationism', and then I'll 'win' by claiming to have 'proved' that 'you might as well arbitrarily choose creationism'".

I have no idea what kind of sweaty torments would provoke this kind of behavior - essentially, a desperate effort to, at best, keep up some bamboozling, nihilistic con game. Clearly, this type of thing has nothing to do with traditional Christianity, and a lot to do with a paranoid obsession with "winning" an imagined "debate" by any means possible. Arguing against their own cognitive dissonance may be an element.

harold · 9 June 2010

Self-correction! I said -

I have no idea what kind of sweaty torments would provoke this kind of behavior - essentially, a desperate effort to, at best, keep up some bamboozling, nihilistic con game.

Oops. Of course, it's actually obvious what generates such behavior. Fantasies of court room games. Anything goes as long as it gets creationism into a public school science classroom. That's why this kind of stuff was actually more common before Dover. If you think about it purely in terms of "winning in court", it all makes sense. Disguise yourself as an "atheist" who has "discovered" an argument that "evolution is no more scientific than/just as religious as creationism". Why, therefore, it's "discrimination" to "allow evolution without allowing creationism". At a minimum, that poster's behavior mimicked the behavior of known creationists who employed this "strategy". (Lest anyone be confused - such arguments are trivially false. It is also a non-sequitur to argue that finding some aspect of a curriculum "unscientific" by some standard would be a reason to put more unscientific things in.)

MrG · 9 June 2010

Explaining the thinking of a baloney peddler such as MF is a dubious game, but some things are apparent.

People in a position of authority or with a professional reputation to maintain tend to be careful about what they say because talking foolish baloney is likely to cost them.

Now if Joe Baloney isn't either in a position of authority or have a professional reputation to maintain, he can say ANYTHING HE LIKES! Blatant baloney that everyone knows is baloney, what of it? And on the other side of that coin, lacking authority or professional achievements -- this ends up being the closest thing Joe B. can come to feeling clever about anything. He's got nothing else to write home about.

Intelligent Designer · 9 June 2010

SWT said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Luckett said: What would falsify evolution?
Why not ask what would falsify the idea that evolution is the result of random mutation and natural selection?
Perhaps because that's not what modern evolutionary theory posits. "Random mutation and natural selection" is a straw man caricature of the theory of evolution; there are additional mechanisms.

PZ (or anyone else) do you agree with SWT? Is Randon mutation and natural selection a strawman caricature of the theory of evolution?

harold · 9 June 2010

MrG -

Yep, that's part of it, too.

I first became aware of creationists in 1999 (much later than veterans like Mike Elzinga).

The model that really helps me to predict their behavior (not understand their inner thoughts, but predict their behavior) is to note tendency toward authoritarian behavior.

What we view as "true" or "false" or "rational" doesn't seem to matter to them in the same way. The truth to them is apparently whatever you can convince, force, or trick other people into openly claiming they believe. Objective evaluation of the other person's arguments has no role. The only goal is to prevail over their arguments, by any means you can. Anything that "hurts evolution" is fair game.

This makes sense of so many things that otherwise seem mysterious.

For example, traditional Christian martyrs suffered and died rather than deny their openly declared faith in a very specific deity.

Whereas we see creationists hide or even misrepresent their own beliefs (to the extent that the actual specific beliefs of some prominent DI types can't be determined), dissemble about the identify of the "designer", make alliances of convenience with those whose beliefs are antithetical to their own except for mutual denial of evolution, use arguments that they know are wrong (sometimes trivially wrong) when they think the audience they are in front of will be fooled, ignore questions that clearly challenge their position without being bothered by their inability to answer, seem to seek out inappropriate venues to express their beliefs when there are numerous private schools and churches in which they can freely express their beliefs all day long, focus heavily on pseudo-legal logic games, insult and exclude those whom they see as opponents when they think they have power (in sharp contrast to traditional Christian efforts to save the sinners), etc.

I learned this the hard way. I went through a brief period of thinking that these might be sincere people torn between a comforting faith and an imperfect but disturbing awareness of science. Such a conception led to expectations of finding common ground, mutual willingness to consider the argument of the other person, not expecting unjustified and unprovoked insults, not expecting to see really obvious falsehoods repeatedly stated even after correction, etc. But I learned.

harold · 9 June 2010

Intelligent Designer -

Is Randon mutation and natural selection a strawman caricature of the theory of evolution?

Yes. It omits many important aspects of evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection, etc. Now that I've answered you, will you answer some questions for me? All of them, in this order? 1) Who is the designer? 2) Could any conceivable evidence convince you of the accuracy of the theory of evolution? If so, what? If not, why not? 3) Is there a convincing experiment (even an imaginary one) that I could do to rule in or out the actions of the designer?

Mike Elzinga · 9 June 2010

harold said: My personal guess (more or less a testable hypothesis, should verifying observations become available) is that both the nut you reference and meganfox, assuming that they are not the same individual, are in fact creationists of the type who become so obsessive that they feel the need to "disguise" themselves as "atheists" or "humanists" in the hopes of setting up some crazy "gotcha" game. PZ Myers said approximately the same thing about meganfox hundreds of posts ago, of course.

I suspect PZ picked up on misconceptions that are characteristic of ID/creationists. After one has seen these for a number of years, they are recognized as a kind of shibboleth that singles out patterns of thinking and speech based on these misconceptions. I don’t think ID/creationists realize just how stereotyped their particular patterns of thinking and argumentation have become. But there are fundamental misconceptions, going back to Henry Morris and Duane Gish, which have not changed during all the political morphing ID/creationists have done to get by the courts. These patterns appear in every offshoot of the Institute for Creation Research and in every competing organization attempting to grab its own share of the sectarian market. When the concepts of science are being bent to fit sectarian dogma, there are only a limited number of distortions that fit the criteria, and the ID/creationists seem to have found all of them. And after 40+ years of this crap, I think we have identified them all.

Mike Elzinga · 9 June 2010

harold said: I learned this the hard way. I went through a brief period of thinking that these might be sincere people torn between a comforting faith and an imperfect but disturbing awareness of science. Such a conception led to expectations of finding common ground, mutual willingness to consider the argument of the other person, not expecting unjustified and unprovoked insults, not expecting to see really obvious falsehoods repeatedly stated even after correction, etc. But I learned.

We all went through this, harold. My first impressions back in the late 1960s and early 70s was that these were just honest misconceptions that could be cleared up with some careful and sympathetic explanations. It wasn’t until we saw these creationists, especially Duane Gish, turning right around and sneeringly using the exact refuted misconceptions in every new venue that we realized this was a political tactic to leverage visibility and respectability from legitimate scientists. Then some of those who debated Gish, Ian Plimer in Australia, for example, who played right into Gish’s hands by viciously attacking Gish and the creationists. The creationists are still replaying that debate to this very day and attempting to gain sympathy. Of course, they never admit to the tactic of misrepresentation and taunting these creationists themselves used to set up scientists for just these kinds of accusations.

MrG · 9 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Of course, they never admit to the tactic of misrepresentation and taunting these creationists themselves used to set up scientists for just these kinds of accusations.

I recall a great line from my Civil War studies about the dubious information Union soldiers got from Confederate deserters: "Whether they told the truth or told a lie, they were certain to deceive."

eddie · 9 June 2010

harold said: eddie said:
Yes, but mostly no. When we do discover species that are conspicuous and have stupidly long brightly-coloured tails, it is rationalised as sexual selection. A completely unfalsifiable hypothesis. (Again, please note that unfalsifiable does not mean false.)
This is completely wrong. The suggestion that long tails may be due to sexual selection is not a post-hoc rationalization at all. It is a reasonable and highly testable hypothesis about long tails. In no way does it, merely by being stated, rule itself in or rule out all the other potential testable hypotheses about long tails. The next step is to develop a protocol of direct experiments or rigorously objective observations which will test the hypothesis. The protocol should be such that even a reasonable, objective very strong opponent of the hypothesis would agree that certain results are consistent with the hypothesis being true, and that certain results are not consistent with the hypothesis being true. If the former are obtained, the hypothesis is strengthened. If it is a very simple hypothesis, one experiment/set of observations may be sufficient to confirm it. Sexual selection has been extensively discussed and studied, and although widely accepted in many individual instances, is still controversial in other circumstances. As you could have found out on your own, if you were honest and curious, instead of a troll playing games.

The trolling allegation is a little harsh. Especially as at no point did I every imply that sexual selection is not one of the driving forces of evolution. There are many aspects of nature (and me) for which it seems the only reasonable explanation. I was demonstrating in a few lines (rather than a comprehensive essay) why evolution at the level of an observational activity has widely been seen as not falling within Popper's definition of a falsifiable activity. (Not quite sure why I put so much effort in since, as I noted above, I have never found Popper to be of much use in explaining the history of science, instead preferring Lakatos and even [but only sometimes] Kuhn and Feyerabend.) Is sexual selection a reasonable hypothesis? Yes. Is it currently one that convinces me as to why some birds have bright long tails? Yes. Do I think it falls within Popper's original definition of a falsifiable science? No. This is a moot philosophical point, though. Not a critique of the hypothesis per se.

Malchus · 9 June 2010

Since the term has been thrown about a great deal on this thread to apparently little purpose, what is your understanding of falsification - whether Popperian or more generally?

eddie said:
harold said: eddie said:
Yes, but mostly no. When we do discover species that are conspicuous and have stupidly long brightly-coloured tails, it is rationalised as sexual selection. A completely unfalsifiable hypothesis. (Again, please note that unfalsifiable does not mean false.)
This is completely wrong. The suggestion that long tails may be due to sexual selection is not a post-hoc rationalization at all. It is a reasonable and highly testable hypothesis about long tails. In no way does it, merely by being stated, rule itself in or rule out all the other potential testable hypotheses about long tails. The next step is to develop a protocol of direct experiments or rigorously objective observations which will test the hypothesis. The protocol should be such that even a reasonable, objective very strong opponent of the hypothesis would agree that certain results are consistent with the hypothesis being true, and that certain results are not consistent with the hypothesis being true. If the former are obtained, the hypothesis is strengthened. If it is a very simple hypothesis, one experiment/set of observations may be sufficient to confirm it. Sexual selection has been extensively discussed and studied, and although widely accepted in many individual instances, is still controversial in other circumstances. As you could have found out on your own, if you were honest and curious, instead of a troll playing games.
The trolling allegation is a little harsh. Especially as at no point did I every imply that sexual selection is not one of the driving forces of evolution. There are many aspects of nature (and me) for which it seems the only reasonable explanation. I was demonstrating in a few lines (rather than a comprehensive essay) why evolution at the level of an observational activity has widely been seen as not falling within Popper's definition of a falsifiable activity. (Not quite sure why I put so much effort in since, as I noted above, I have never found Popper to be of much use in explaining the history of science, instead preferring Lakatos and even [but only sometimes] Kuhn and Feyerabend.) Is sexual selection a reasonable hypothesis? Yes. Is it currently one that convinces me as to why some birds have bright long tails? Yes. Do I think it falls within Popper's original definition of a falsifiable science? No. This is a moot philosophical point, though. Not a critique of the hypothesis per se.

eddie · 9 June 2010

Malchus said: Since the term has been thrown about a great deal on this thread to apparently little purpose, what is your understanding of falsification - whether Popperian or more generally?

The best summary is Popper himself: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

Malchus · 9 June 2010

I'm quite familiar with Popper; my point was more precise: what is your understanding of falsification?

eddie said:
Malchus said: Since the term has been thrown about a great deal on this thread to apparently little purpose, what is your understanding of falsification - whether Popperian or more generally?
The best summary is Popper himself: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

DS · 9 June 2010

eddie wrote (about sexual selection):

"Do I think it falls within Popper’s original definition of a falsifiable science? No."

Please explain why the hypothesis of sexual selection is not falsifiable. Is natural selection falsifiable? Is descent with modification falsifiable? Is genetic drift falsifiable? Is the evolution of the eye falsifiable? Is any scientific hypothesis falsifiable?

eddie · 9 June 2010

Malchus said: I'm quite familiar with Popper; my point was more precise: what is your understanding of falsification?

Pure Popperian falsification depends upon designing an experimentum crucis. This (er..) 'crucially' involves a repeatable test in which the critical hypothesis of a theory would be undermined by the 'wrong' data being produced from the experiment. As such, it is (in the main) applicable only to the physical sciences, where the conditions of the experiment can (as far as is reasonable) exclude incidental factors. When Popper describes such experiments, all his examples are from the physical sciences. Take one very good example of why biological science does not conform to Popper's definition of falsifiability. Lenski's fascinating experiment provided excellent confirmation of the ability of bacteria to evolve a new trait in response to being put in less-than-ideal conditions. His mutant bacteria experiment thus provides confirming evidence for evolution. But what if the bacteria had failed to adjust? Well, it doesn't disprove their ability to do so. They just wouldn't have done so in this particular case. The problem is not that Lenski has failed to produce astounding evidence in favour of evolution. It's that I can't envisage how you could devise an experiment which would falsify the evolution of bacteria. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, an inability to fit Popper's description of a falsifiable program does not mean that the program will not produce true statements. (Far too many negatives in that last sentence, but I'm sure you get the point.)

SWT · 9 June 2010

eddie said: It's that I can't envisage how you could devise an experiment which would falsify the evolution of bacteria.

I think that ship has already sailed -- one of the critical challenges to evolution is genetics. The hypothesis that modern bacteria, for example, are the product of an evolutionary process has clear genetic consequences. A critical experiment, in this case, was the determination of the genetic relationship among bactrial species -- if these relationships were "wrong" we would have been forced to change radically our thinking about the origin of the diversity in bacteria.

DS · 9 June 2010

eddie wrote:

"Pure Popperian falsification depends upon designing an experimentum crucis. This (er..) ‘crucially’ involves a repeatable test in which the critical hypothesis of a theory would be undermined by the ‘wrong’ data being produced from the experiment."

So then, can an experiment be designed that could produce results that would not be consistent with the hypothesis of sexual selection? Have such experiments been designed and performed? Could they produce results inconsistent with the hypothesis? Do they always produce results inconsistent with the hypothesis? Do any produce results consistent with the hypothesis?

DS · 9 June 2010

eddie wrote:

"But what if the bacteria had failed to adjust? Well, it doesn’t disprove their ability to do so. They just wouldn’t have done so in this particular case."

How many experiments have been performed in which random mutations and natural selection produced adaptations? If no evidence of random mutations and no evidence of natural selection were ever found in any experiment, wouldn't that falsify the hypothesis? If no evidence of these processes were ever observed in nature, wouldn't that falsify the hypothesis? See, the thing is, that it is not necessary for the results of any one experiment or observation to falsify an entire theory in it's entirety. But every result for every experiment and every observation is either consistent or inconsistent with theory.

eric · 9 June 2010

eddie said: I can't envisage how you could devise an experiment which would falsify the evolution of bacteria.

Just to add or expand on what SWT said: If Generation N used a double helix as its genetic basis and Generation N+1 used a single alpha helix (as Pauling thought), that would falsify evolution because it would be a clear refutation of 'descent with modification.' Do we expect this after decades of studying genetics? Obviously not. But that's because we've already done the falsifiability experiment, and the TOE wasn't falsified. You are, like meganfox, conflating "not falsified" with "not falsifiable." When deciding whether a theory is falsifiable, you can't can't ignore all the past tests of it. They count too. I don't think you're trolling, specifically because I think this is a very common mistake. Everyone today knows about DNA. They just take its existence for granted. But Darwin predicted a common inheritance mechanism for all life (because its all related) about 100 years before it was discovered. That is quite astounding when you think about it. And discovering that there was indeed a common mechanism of inheritance was a huge test of his theory.

Malchus · 9 June 2010

Let's try a simpler case. A falsification for evolution would be a mismatch between the phylogenetic and morphological trees. Failure to observe variation in a child generation. Discovery of a chimera. All these things are falsification tests.

eddie said:
Malchus said: I'm quite familiar with Popper; my point was more precise: what is your understanding of falsification?
Pure Popperian falsification depends upon designing an experimentum crucis. This (er..) 'crucially' involves a repeatable test in which the critical hypothesis of a theory would be undermined by the 'wrong' data being produced from the experiment. As such, it is (in the main) applicable only to the physical sciences, where the conditions of the experiment can (as far as is reasonable) exclude incidental factors. When Popper describes such experiments, all his examples are from the physical sciences. Take one very good example of why biological science does not conform to Popper's definition of falsifiability. Lenski's fascinating experiment provided excellent confirmation of the ability of bacteria to evolve a new trait in response to being put in less-than-ideal conditions. His mutant bacteria experiment thus provides confirming evidence for evolution. But what if the bacteria had failed to adjust? Well, it doesn't disprove their ability to do so. They just wouldn't have done so in this particular case. The problem is not that Lenski has failed to produce astounding evidence in favour of evolution. It's that I can't envisage how you could devise an experiment which would falsify the evolution of bacteria. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, an inability to fit Popper's description of a falsifiable program does not mean that the program will not produce true statements. (Far too many negatives in that last sentence, but I'm sure you get the point.)

Malchus · 9 June 2010

It raises an interesting philosophical question, however. If a theory has satisfied all conceivable falsification tests - does it remain falsifiable?

eric said:
eddie said: I can't envisage how you could devise an experiment which would falsify the evolution of bacteria.
Just to add or expand on what SWT said: If Generation N used a double helix as its genetic basis and Generation N+1 used a single alpha helix (as Pauling thought), that would falsify evolution because it would be a clear refutation of 'descent with modification.' Do we expect this after decades of studying genetics? Obviously not. But that's because we've already done the falsifiability experiment, and the TOE wasn't falsified. You are, like meganfox, conflating "not falsified" with "not falsifiable." When deciding whether a theory is falsifiable, you can't can't ignore all the past tests of it. They count too. I don't think you're trolling, specifically because I think this is a very common mistake. Everyone today knows about DNA. They just take its existence for granted. But Darwin predicted a common inheritance mechanism for all life (because its all related) about 100 years before it was discovered. That is quite astounding when you think about it. And discovering that there was indeed a common mechanism of inheritance was a huge test of his theory.

eddie · 9 June 2010

I think the problem here is that (almost) everyone is confusing confirmation, falsifiability and whether a theory is true or false.

And yes, if a theory has passed every conceivable falsification test, it remains falsifiable. That merely adds to the likelihood of the theory being true. It remains the case that Newtonian gravitation (pace Einstein) is easy to subject to a falsification test. It hasn't been falsified, so it's likely to be true. That's the difference between falsifiability and proving something false.

There is plenty of confirmation of evolution. Loads and loads of it. Examples given above provide some of the evidence which confirms evolution. No question.

There are also some aspects of technical stuff related to evolution which can (probably) be falsified. But not, in my opinion, the central hypothesis itself.

The key issue seems to be that posters here want evolution to fall into Popper's definition of a falsifiable hypothesis. I would simply ask why?

He's just one bloke, with an idea of what constitutes a definition of a particular category of hypothesis.

So what if evolution is good at being confirmed but rubbish at being falsified (under Popper's definition of the term)? Why the desperate need to make it conform to Popper's definition?

Anyway, probably my last post on the subject since, as others have noted, this isn't really going anywhere. And I think the 'debate' is literally semantic and not substantial, since I don't disagree with the science but with the application of a philosophical term.

SWT · 9 June 2010

eddie said: ... The key issue seems to be that posters here want evolution to fall into Popper's definition of a falsifiable hypothesis. I would simply ask why? He's just one bloke, with an idea of what constitutes a definition of a particular category of hypothesis.

eddie, The demarcation between science and pseudoscience is important in maintaining the integrity of science education in the USA. In McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, the court found that

... the essential characteristics of science are: (1) It is guided by natural law; (2) It has to be explanatory by reference to nature law; (3) It is testable against the empirical world; (4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and (5) It is falsifiable.

Modern evolutionary theory meets these criteria. Intelligent design and other forms of creationism do not.

raven · 9 June 2010

eddie going off the deep end: There are also some aspects of technical stuff related to evolution which can (probably) be falsified. But not, in my opinion, the central hypothesis itself. The key issue seems to be that posters here want evolution to fall into Popper’s definition of a falsifiable hypothesis. I would simply ask why? He’s just one bloke, with an idea of what constitutes a definition of a particular category of hypothesis.

Popper himself decided after some long study that evolution was falsifiable. The US National Academy looked at the falsifiability and attempts to falsify evolution a few years ago. These are the best scientists in the USA. Their conclusion was..."after all the time and effort, evolution has not been falsified and most likely never will be." People have been trying to falsify evolution for 150 years. We knew very little about evolution or biology or molecular biology 150 years ago. Any new discovery could have falsified evolution. None did. This is what one expects of a theory that is true. It only looks unfalsifiable today because of all the tests it passed. Like the Germ Theory of Disease or the Theory of Internal Combustion.

eddie: So what if evolution is good at being confirmed but rubbish at being falsified (under Popper’s definition of the term)? Why the desperate need to make it conform to Popper’s definition?

Oh really? Why do you feel the need to start out being wrong and never changing your mind no matter how many times your fallacies are pointed out? Why do you feel the need to tell Popper, the US National Academy of Sciences, and a million (literally) biologists they are wrong? I will add here that biologists spend little time these days trying to falsify evolution. We knew many decades ago that it was correct and useful. Today evolution is the unifying basis of all the life sciences and we simply, as an operational matter, assume it to be true. No point in reinventing the wheel when there are nearly infinite numbers of answered questions in biology and medicine.

raven · 9 June 2010

Going to repeat once again a simple point.

Natural selection doesn't exist by itself. It is a critical part of the modern Darwinian Theory of Evolution. It is easy to falsify. No natural selection, no evolution.

Artificial selection is simply a subset of natural selection, applying nonrandom survival of randomly varying replicators. And equally easy to falsify. No artificial selection, no dogs, no cats, no domestic crops, no domestic animals, probably no modern civilization.

This is why no one spends too much time trying to falsify either. It is just plain glaringly obvious by now and we have better things to do.

Scott · 10 June 2010

I'd go with, "eddie's not a troll" :-). M.fox never even tried to answer a question. Eddie has done so. (Don't know if I agree or not, but he's being way more coherent than M.fox was.) If eddie is a troll, he's a much better class of troll that PT has seen recently.

I know nothing of Popper or his definition of terms. But in general, it seems to me the problem boils down to: If theory X can explain all possible observations, then X really explains nothing. By "possible observations", I don't mean "all observations that have been made", but rather "all observations that could ever be made", including those that we consider (today) to be impossible. For example, Last-Thursday-ism can explain anything, no matter what is observed. Last-Thursday-ism could explain the moon resting comfortably on the top of Mount Everest. (That's how the FSM made it.)

In contrast, there are potential observations that might (or might have in the past) not been compatible with ToE, as have already been given here. Just because the "unlikely" observations weren't observed doesn't mean that they couldn't have been observed.

I think that the need to conform to some definition of "falsifiable", is that a "scientific" theory needs to be "testable" in some sense. If there is no possible observation that could not be explained by a theory, then there can be no way to test if the theory is true or not true. If that isn't "Popper", then call it something else.

That's more hand waving than precision, but I hope it makes sense.

Of course by this reasoning, if we ever do come up with a "theory of everything", could it even be tested "scientifically" if it could explain "everything"? :-)

Dave Luckett · 10 June 2010

eddie's no troll. He's been around here for a while. He would appear (and I stand to be corrected if wrong) to be a humanities student (I mean in the broader sense), perhaps with a background in philosophy, but a reader of good "popular" science. He is defending a particular reading of Popper, and I think either the reading or Popper himself is incorrect, but it's not trolling.

I don't agree that theories in biology are unfalsifiable, even in the Popperian sense, any more than theories in physics are. I think it's clear that they are. Specifically, the Theory of Evolution is falsifiable in any of the ways that have been suggested above, but has not been falsified. Sexual selection is falsifiable, ditto, but has not been falsified.

John Wilkins · 10 June 2010

If science were done the way Popper intended, it would shortly grind to a halt. Falsification takes a theorem of logic (modus tollens) and treats it as the only way to justify, test and investigate in science. It is true that science "falsifies" in a general sense - we disprove hypotheses all the time, but we also verify them, and in either case we do it in a Bayesian fashion, but increasing likelihoods one way or the one until it becomes reasonable to take the hypothesis as demonstrated or disproven. This is very far from the spirit and technicality of Popper's approach. In short, induction works, bitches, so any philosophy of science that says otherwise can be safely put to one side. Every single time a scientist has said they were "Popperian" they have done so by reinterpreting him to suit actual scientific practice.

The testing of a theory or hypothesis must be done in a larger context, say of the entire discipline or the context of other theories, in order to be able to ascertain which of the alternative hypotheses works best; sometimes we overlook this context and treat model selection as a purely statistical matter, but it always relies upon other knowledge. In this sense, evolutionary hypotheses are entirely testable, for they always rely on extra-domain theories like the theories of biochemistry, geology, physics, and of course non-evolutionary biological theories, in order to test them. The so-called evo-devo" tradition uses developmental biology explicitly to illuminate and test evolutionary scenarios, and vice versa, for example.

Once a theory or hypothesis has been tested and found reliable it is rarely revisited unless some major problem pops up. Which is not, to state the obvious, the case with natural selection. Now the only question is how often natural selection occurs, and how we might be able to identify it when it does. There remain, of course, a number of philosophical issues, but they hardly affect the reality of selection; just its interpretation.

Malchus · 10 June 2010

What, in your mind, constitutes the "central hypothesis" of evolution. This may be our sticking point. From your posts, I suspect that you are confusing the fact of evolution with the theory of evolution. The fact of evolution - that heritable variation is subject to selection pressures - is simply an observation, in the same fashion that "masses attract each other" is an observation.

eddie said: I think the problem here is that (almost) everyone is confusing confirmation, falsifiability and whether a theory is true or false. And yes, if a theory has passed every conceivable falsification test, it remains falsifiable. That merely adds to the likelihood of the theory being true. It remains the case that Newtonian gravitation (pace Einstein) is easy to subject to a falsification test. It hasn't been falsified, so it's likely to be true. That's the difference between falsifiability and proving something false. There is plenty of confirmation of evolution. Loads and loads of it. Examples given above provide some of the evidence which confirms evolution. No question. There are also some aspects of technical stuff related to evolution which can (probably) be falsified. But not, in my opinion, the central hypothesis itself. The key issue seems to be that posters here want evolution to fall into Popper's definition of a falsifiable hypothesis. I would simply ask why? He's just one bloke, with an idea of what constitutes a definition of a particular category of hypothesis. So what if evolution is good at being confirmed but rubbish at being falsified (under Popper's definition of the term)? Why the desperate need to make it conform to Popper's definition? Anyway, probably my last post on the subject since, as others have noted, this isn't really going anywhere. And I think the 'debate' is literally semantic and not substantial, since I don't disagree with the science but with the application of a philosophical term.

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

Eddie said,

I think the problem here is that (almost) everyone is confusing confirmation, falsifiability and whether a theory is true or false.

I’ll take another crack at this. Going back to the logic angle; suppose P implies Q₁, Q₂, …, Q_n. Suppose lots and lots of Q’s. Suppose many of those Q_i have been observed as confirmations of P; some of them spectacular confirmations. In other words, P is pretty well supported (but, of course, not “proven”). Now what do we do about those Q’s that have not been observed (yet)? What if we don’t yet know how to observe those Q’s? Suppose that some of those unobserved Q’s would take many human generations to observe convincingly? Suppose we are looking at the possibility of never getting a chance to observe an instance of one or more NOT Q_j that might just falsify P. The periods of such observations are simply too long or too far down in the noise to observe. Does that mean that P is not falsifiable? Does that mean it is not falsifiable even in principle because we may never get a chance to observe some of these Qs? I suspect the confusion here is in the meaning of falsifiable in principle as opposed to being falsifiable in practice. The way to handle this – and I think this is true of most theories – is to simply accept the fact that the theory has many instances of confirmation, thus making support for the theory “strong”, but we can imagine ways the theory can be falsified even if the possibility seems remote. The abuse of this situation is the one that creationists often make; namely, if there is any conceivable observation they can think of that could falsify a theory, there is no reason to believe the theory is true. In science, we live with the best reality we can verify. We are always aware that something different may turn out to be the case. Life is too short to wait around for perfection. Besides, if something better comes along, what we currently have may simply be a special case of a more comprehensive theory. We just can't see that far into the future.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

harold said: Intelligent Designer -
Is Randon mutation and natural selection a strawman caricature of the theory of evolution?
Yes. It omits many important aspects of evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection, etc. Now that I've answered you, will you answer some questions for me? All of them, in this order? 1) Who is the designer? 2) Could any conceivable evidence convince you of the accuracy of the theory of evolution? If so, what? If not, why not? 3) Is there a convincing experiment (even an imaginary one) that I could do to rule in or out the actions of the designer?

Harold, Genetic drift and sexual selection are derivatives of random mutation and natural selection. You asked me who the Designer is and I have already given you the most honest answer I can which is "I don't know". I think the Designer is God but I don't know what God is. I have ideas about what God might be but I wouldn't try and defend them intellectually. I don't think God is all knowing or all powerful. I see this blog entry by PZ to be more about atheism than science. I could summerize his argument like this: the human eye is poorly designed, therefore it couldn't have been designed by an all knowing Being, therefore there is no God. This is a silly argument. PZ isn't even capable of designing a single celled life form let alone an eye so he is not really in a position to say that humans eyes are poorly designed. He is also arguing against his strawman idea of what God should be. PZ is a biologist and I am an engineer, so we see the world from different perspectives. Engineers second guess the designs of other engineers all the time, and more often than not it turns out the original designer knows something about the requirements or design constraints that the second guesser does not. PZ does not have an engineering mind and wouldn't know a good design from a bad one if it bit him in the ass. I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.

Dave Luckett · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: Genetic drift and sexual selection are derivatives of random mutation and natural selection.

Genetic drift is caused by random mutation that is neutral with respect to reproductive fitness, true. But sexual selection is only "natural selection" if you include preference by potential mates under "natural", and even then you have to stipulate that in the case of sexual selection reproductive fitness is not determined by survival or even thriving to reproductive age. It is selection, but difficult to describe as "natural selection" without that caveat.

You asked me who the Designer is and I have already given you the most honest answer I can which is "I don't know". I think the Designer is God but I don't know what God is. I have ideas about what God might be but I wouldn't try and defend them intellectually. I don't think God is all knowing or all powerful.

I have no idea myself. I have no quarrel with you in such an area. There is no evidence. For what it's worth, I too do not accept the arguments either way. But if there was a Designer, it was at the most basic level from the foundational laws of the Universe, the fundamental properties of matter and energy, time and space. Given those, natural processes that are mostly understood at a general level even now, are almost certainly sufficient to explain the emergence of life, and certainly sufficient, given life, to explain eyes. Of course this doesn't mean that anybody can design an eye. Not yet.

I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.

This is begging the question. You are assuming that the eye is designed. This assumption is unfounded. There is no reason at all to assume so.

Big Sonichu Fan · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
harold said: Intelligent Designer -
Is Randon mutation and natural selection a strawman caricature of the theory of evolution?
Yes. It omits many important aspects of evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection, etc. Now that I've answered you, will you answer some questions for me? All of them, in this order? 1) Who is the designer? 2) Could any conceivable evidence convince you of the accuracy of the theory of evolution? If so, what? If not, why not? 3) Is there a convincing experiment (even an imaginary one) that I could do to rule in or out the actions of the designer?
Harold, Genetic drift and sexual selection are derivatives of random mutation and natural selection. You asked me who the Designer is and I have already given you the most honest answer I can which is "I don't know". I think the Designer is God but I don't know what God is. I have ideas about what God might be but I wouldn't try and defend them intellectually. I don't think God is all knowing or all powerful. I see this blog entry by PZ to be more about atheism than science. I could summerize his argument like this: the human eye is poorly designed, therefore it couldn't have been designed by an all knowing Being, therefore there is no God. This is a silly argument. PZ isn't even capable of designing a single celled life form let alone an eye so he is not really in a position to say that humans eyes are poorly designed. He is also arguing against his strawman idea of what God should be. PZ is a biologist and I am an engineer, so we see the world from different perspectives. Engineers second guess the designs of other engineers all the time, and more often than not it turns out the original designer knows something about the requirements or design constraints that the second guesser does not. PZ does not have an engineering mind and wouldn't know a good design from a bad one if it bit him in the ass. I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.

Darwinian retards are as arrogant as they are stupid. They do not see design in nature due to their sexual fetishes. Since they think any random hole is suitable for penetration or that any random rod is similarly suitable in the other direction they do not recognize that certain organs are designed for such purposes. Ergo, they reject the idea of design in toto.

duncan cairncross · 10 June 2010

I am interested in the cephalopod color vision issue,
I have recently seen an article that said that octopus ignored older TV displays but responded to hi-def displays.

I wonder if the failure to react to colors could be related to superior optics so what we saw as a simple color was in some way "muddy" to the cephalopod confusing the beasts

Dave Luckett · 10 June 2010

Big Sonichu Fan said: Darwinian retards are as arrogant as they are stupid. They do not see design in nature due to their sexual fetishes. Since they think any random hole is suitable for penetration or that any random rod is similarly suitable in the other direction they do not recognize that certain organs are designed for such purposes. Ergo, they reject the idea of design in toto.

In the spirit of the discussion about falsification of hypotheses, I don't suppose the datum that I have been happily married (to a woman!) for 26 years, and have never had any sexual experience of the sort insinuated, nor desired any, would falsify the hypothesis that such experience or desire explains rejection of the idea of design...? No, thought not. Thus we observe the difference between religion and science. Scientists would consider the hypothesis falsified. But being a religious loon, this spiteful little dudhead will just repeat it.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Big Sonichu Fan said: Darwinian retards are as arrogant as they are stupid.

I call loki troll.

Big Sonichu Fan · 10 June 2010

Dave Luckett said:
Big Sonichu Fan said: Darwinian retards are as arrogant as they are stupid. They do not see design in nature due to their sexual fetishes. Since they think any random hole is suitable for penetration or that any random rod is similarly suitable in the other direction they do not recognize that certain organs are designed for such purposes. Ergo, they reject the idea of design in toto.
In the spirit of the discussion about falsification of hypotheses, I don't suppose the datum that I have been happily married (to a woman!) for 26 years, and have never had any sexual experience of the sort insinuated, nor desired any, would falsify the hypothesis that such experience or desire explains rejection of the idea of design...? No, thought not. Thus we observe the difference between religion and science. Scientists would consider the hypothesis falsified. But being a religious loon, this spiteful little dudhead will just repeat it.

Well, why should I accept your testimony as valid. After all, that is what all the Darwiniacs say.

Dave Luckett · 10 June 2010

Well, there's a confirmation of my hypothesis, anyway.

eric · 10 June 2010

eddie said: The key issue seems to be that posters here want evolution to fall into Popper's definition of a falsifiable hypothesis. I would simply ask why? He's just one bloke, with an idea of what constitutes a definition of a particular category of hypothesis.

Two reasons, one substantive, one educational. Substantively, some form of falsification is important to science. It may not be the only criteria we use, and it may not be strictly Popperian, but the concept of falsification is intimately connected to testing, confirmation, reproducibility, etc... all of which are important concepts in science. So even if we don't care about what Popper meant by it, we do care about it as a broader, hazier concept. Educational: creationists are fond of using scientific terms in order to mislead the public. This includes switching definitions of terms mid-argument, making up new definitions for old terms, and quote-mining comments about scientific terms (think about the shenanigans they play with "entropy" or "information"). I guarantee you, a microsecond after some prominent scientist says the TOE is not falsifiable according to Joe Bob's definition of falsification, you'll get some creationist yahoo claiming that the entire scientific community admits that the TOE is completely unfalsifiable. The best way to prevent such quote-mining and misinformation is to not let get drawn into a conversation about Joe Bob's definition in the first place. If someone wants to talk about testability in science, fine, but if someone wants to talk about Joe Bob the philosopher, go somewhere else.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Big Sonichu Fan said: Well, why should I accept your testimony as valid.

And why should anyone care whether you did or not? If you want to believe that Mickey Mouse lives at the North Pole with his elves or whatever, it's not like it's a matter of interest to anyone. I don't know if you're a loki troll or someone externally indistinguishable from one, but I can say for certain that you are going to keep right on barking as you have, and that at least I have better things to do with my time than humor you. "The show must go on, but I don't need to stay and watch."

harold · 10 June 2010

Eddie said -

The key issue seems to be that posters here want evolution to fall into Popper’s definition of a falsifiable hypothesis. I would simply ask why?

No, the key issues are that 1) the theory of evolution is falsifiable by any reasonable standard and has already been subjected to innumerable potential falsifying tests by any reasonable standard, and 2) Popper is not a magical infalliable authority, but he himself viewed evolution as falsifiable. Therefore, the argument that "the theory of evolution is not falsifiable according to Popper", whether posed as a an argument against TOE, or as an argument against Popper, is incorrect.

harold · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer - You answered one of my questions, but evaded the other two. I will repeat them over and over again until you answer. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer? Without meaning to be rude, you reveal ignorance, flawed logic, and questionable ethics.

Genetic drift and sexual selection are derivatives of random mutation and natural selection.

Sexual selection can be seen as a variant of natural selection, yes. Random genetic drift is not by any means. You obviously couldn't or wouldn't understand the article I linked. Your original straw man remains a straw man. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

You asked me who the Designer is and I have already given you the most honest answer I can which is “I don’t know”. I think the Designer is God but I don’t know what God is. I have ideas about what God might be but I wouldn’t try and defend them intellectually. I don’t think God is all knowing or all powerful.

You "don't know" who the designer is, you "think the Designer is God", yet you claim not to be religious. You use the term "God", and assign the ability to "design" living things by magic to God, yet don't think that this designer is all knowing or all powerful. So why call it God? I will note that this seems to be a God who doesn't care if you say that you aren't religious. First of all, your justification for belief in a designer is essentially incredulity toward the theory of evolution. Yet you reveal significant ignorance of biology and evolution. So your incredulity is not justified. This is in contrast to the logically acceptable position of theistic evolution, which I don't hold but respect. In theistic evolution, scientific reality is accepted, but a deity is postulated to also exist, and intend, give meaning to, and/or inscrutably guide the natural world. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

I see this blog entry by PZ to be more about atheism than science. I could summerize his argument like this: the human eye is poorly designed, therefore it couldn’t have been designed by an all knowing Being, therefore there is no God. This is a silly argument.

You misunderstood completely. The argument is that the human eye has features that are best explained by the fact that it evolved. This isn't remotely an argument against God, and plenty of pro-science posters here who think the eye evolved also believe in God. But it is a good argument against magical, instantaneous creation of the human eye. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

PZ isn’t even capable of designing a single celled life form let alone an eye so he is not really in a position to say that humans eyes are poorly designed.

I pointed out to you before that this is a perfect expression of why simply arbitrarily declaring things to be designed by a supernatural entity is NOT science. Of course the Flying Spaghetti Monster or your non-omnipotent-but-magical God "could have" designed the eye and "made it look evolved". No-one can ever rule that in or out. But the idea that the human eye evolved is amenable to testing. Other testable explanations can be ruled out. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

He is also arguing against his strawman idea of what God should be. PZ is a biologist and I am an engineer, so we see the world from different perspectives.

Yes, he is an expert in biology, and you are ignorant of biology. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

Engineers second guess the designs of other engineers all the time, and more often than not it turns out the original designer knows something about the requirements or design constraints that the second guesser does not.

I explained to you before that this is a false analogy. The analogy to cases where the designer is known and natural, and uses a natural mechanism of design that humans can easily reproduce, is a false one. In fact, it's a pretty good argument against assuming design of other things. How many times do you have to hear that? 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

PZ does not have an engineering mind and wouldn’t know a good design from a bad one if it bit him in the ass.

Irrelevant, and a non sequitur. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.

Irrelevant. That doesn't mean it didn't evolve. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

Robin · 10 June 2010

Malchus said: It raises an interesting philosophical question, however. If a theory has satisfied all conceivable falsification tests - does it remain falsifiable?

I don't find such particularly interesting. Or at least, I find it no more interesting the positing the philosophical question of what color a red ball would be if it wasn't red. The problem, at least as I see it it, is really just one of semantics at this point. The concept of falsification is really focused upon hypotheses and not per se theories since the latter in many cases is a conglomerate of numerous observations, hypotheses, data discoveries and analyses, examples, previous technological developments, new technological developments, etc. The constituent parts were - as a number of folks have noted, and Mike most eloquently I think - where falsification would have impacted the developing theory. At this point asking whether the theory is unfalsifiable is, to me anyway, meaningless.

Big Sonichu Fan · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Big Sonichu Fan said: Well, why should I accept your testimony as valid.
And why should anyone care whether you did or not? If you want to believe that Mickey Mouse lives at the North Pole with his elves or whatever, it's not like it's a matter of interest to anyone. I don't know if you're a loki troll or someone externally indistinguishable from one, but I can say for certain that you are going to keep right on barking as you have, and that at least I have better things to do with my time than humor you. "The show must go on, but I don't need to stay and watch."

Well, in my clinical experience with recovering Darwiniacs they would only remember their actions under hypnosis. It is often the case that normal-appearing Darwiniacs will often have fetishes with metallic objects such as can openers or soldering irons. Do you own such devices, or know of any other evolutionist who does? Do you always remember what you do with them?

MrG · 10 June 2010

Robin said: I don't find such particularly interesting ... The problem, at least as I see it it, is really just one of semantics at this point.

The thing of it is that one could come up with an endless list of evidence that would be clearnly inconsistent with, inconvenient to, evolutionary science. Rabbits in the Precambrian is actually as good a one on the list as any other -- notice plural "rabbits", only one would likely be judged some geological anomaly. Other inconveniences would be no evidence of evolution in the fossil record (all same species as we have now); evidence for a young Earth; absurdities like the "crocoduck"; blending instead of discrete inheritance; and so on. Are any of these absolute falsifications of evo science? Do they blow it into a smoking crater in the ground? No, but since evo science is an integrated whole of a set of notions that would be hard to do. Evidence could chip away at the various underlying notions until it fell over. More likely, however, it would just lead to a modified theory. If we did find some serious Lamarckian mechanisms at work, for example, we would just revise existing theory to accommodate it.

Dave Lovell · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.

Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

harold said: Intelligent Designer - You answered one of my questions, but evaded the other two. I will repeat them over and over again until you answer. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

Harold, I didn't evade your questions. I just didn't have time to do them justice. Like a lot of other people, I am busy. However, PZ is absolutely sure there is no God so he must have conducted and experiment to rule out the existence of a designer. Why don't you ask him.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.

Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.

If I get sand in my eye I can close them and the sand will be slowly rotated out. What man made image capturing systems have the ability to do that?

MrG · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?

Do any man-made image capturing systems have the ability to evolve to better adapted versions? Now that would be a REALLY neat trick, wouldn't it? The ultimate DESIGN -- a machine that over time adapts on its own to operate in altered environments.

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.
Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?

Yes. CCD imaging systems operating in hostile radiation environments can self-repair.

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Intelligent Designer said: Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?
Do any man-made image capturing systems have the ability to evolve to better adapted versions? Now that would be a REALLY neat trick, wouldn't it? The ultimate DESIGN -- a machine that over time adapts on its own to operate in altered environments.

Imaging systems that fly in outer space and are subjected to the radiation in the Van Allen belts have to have the capability of self-repair and adaptation. Similarly, any imaging system that gets exposed to potentially debilitating conditions in extreme environments has to have the capability of adaptation and self-repair. There are a number of techniques and designs that allow for this. It extends the life of the system. And when you think about it, it would be stupid to send an expensive imaging system into a hostile environment without these capabilities. Those systems that are going to spend years in these environments are built to adapt.

Malchus · 10 June 2010

Before spending time engaging Intelligent Designer, I would suggest reviewing the several hundred posts he made on the Bathroom Wall. Some facts for consideration: he is not an engineer, he is a programmer; his understanding of evolutionary theory is highly limited and fundamentally colored by his preconceptions and biases; he is unwilling to educate himself on basic biological theory and statistics; and he has appeared on this thread primarily - I suspect - because he remains annoyed at Myers who banned him for blog-whoring and outright lying.

These are merely facts; make of them what you will, but I caution you that discussion with him is unlikely to be profitable.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Similarly, any imaging system that gets exposed to potentially debilitating conditions in extreme environments has to have the capability of adaptation and self-repair.

Ah. But none of these machines can actually evolve into an entirely new machine that has a different function. And so I can maintain that the capability to evolve represents a far more refined Design in organisms than can be found in any machine. Or at least I could maintain that, if I had any reason to bother to do so.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.
Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?
Yes. CCD imaging systems operating in hostile radiation environments can self-repair.

Are they capable of self-assembly? Can they interface with a human brain? Are they part of a system that can reproduce itself?

MrG · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: Are they capable of self-assembly? Can they interface with a human brain? Are they part of a system that can reproduce itself?

And add to the list: Are they capable of spontaneous adaptation via evolution to changed environments? Organisms are the ULTIMATE Design! No machine can touch that!

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Mike Elzinga said: Similarly, any imaging system that gets exposed to potentially debilitating conditions in extreme environments has to have the capability of adaptation and self-repair.
Ah. But none of these machines can actually evolve into an entirely new machine that has a different function. And so I can maintain that the capability to evolve represents a far more refined Design in organisms than can be found in any machine. Or at least I could maintain that, if I had any reason to bother to do so.

Actually there are situations in which this could indeed happen. One of my areas of research in my previous life dealt with just his issue. If a function became degraded, there are ways to continue using the device in its modified form for another function. I suspect some of this work is still classified, but when designing systems that operate remotely in hostile environments, we had to anticipate and understand how to make the best use of systems under all conditions. That meant doing a considerable amount of research on just what happens to imaging systems in hostile environments. And just as in evolution, modifications and adaptations extend to ajacent niches incrementally.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Actually there are situations in which this could indeed happen.

Really? A ground-living beast can evolve into a sea-going beast -- whales as a good example. But are you saying a truck can become a submarine? Dun't make me laff. There is no machine that has an ability to evolve comparable to that of an organism, and so on that basis I can maintain that machines are superior Designs. Or at least I could if I could figure out what it would buy me to do so.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Make that "organisms are superior Designs".

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Mike Elzinga said: Actually there are situations in which this could indeed happen.
Really? A ground-living beast can evolve into a sea-going beast -- whales as a good example. But are you saying a truck can become a submarine? Dun't make me laff. There is no machine that has an ability to evolve comparable to that of an organism, and so on that basis I can maintain that machines are superior Designs. Or at least I could if I could figure out what it would buy me to do so.

Not as literally as your skepticism suggests; but the underlying principles are the same. The adaptations and adjustments may not be as spectacular as comparing a whale with a hippo – none of these systems can “evolve” that distance – but nevertheless they adapt and change function automatically under a variety of changing conditions.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Not as literally as your skepticism suggests ...

"Skepticism"? MrE, you need to take your irony supplements.

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Mike Elzinga said: Not as literally as your skepticism suggests ...
"Skepticism"? MrE, you need to take your irony supplements.

Ah. Well I just got called to lunch. Apparently I have an irony deficiency today. Sorry about that. ;-)

MrG · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Apparently I have an irony deficiency today.

Heh! You were getting into my line of fire. Notice how carefully ID was evading that idea. Goes like this: "Organisms show defects of Design and so they are not designed like machines!" "Well, organisms can reproduce and self-repair and so they are BETTER Designs than our machines!" "OK, so if they can actually evolve into new species with different specializations that makes them the ULTIMATE Design!" "Urr ... " Oh, looks like the idea of endorsing Theistic Evolution is a sticky point there. Being an apatheist I don't have a dog in the fight on TE, but on that score I have nothing to argue about it either. In sum: taking the Paley argument to its logical conclusions tends to make it look a bit silly.

harold · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer -

Harold, I didn’t evade your questions.

Yes, you did. Everyone can see that you are evading. Everyone thinks it's because you can't handle the questions. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

I just didn’t have time to do them justice. Like a lot of other people, I am busy.

That's an explanation for evading them. 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

However, PZ is absolutely sure there is no God so he must have conducted and experiment to rule out the existence of a designer. Why don’t you ask him.

This is a very illogical thing to say. I'm not talking about PZ Myers or religion here at all. I already told you that plenty of pro-science posters here are religious. Why do I have to keep repeating myself? 1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate? 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer? Now I'll tell you what I think your true answers are. Everyone will see what I say. They'll know I'm right, unless you prove me wrong by providing your own answers. 1. "No evidence can ever convince me, Intelligent Designer, that the theory of evolution. I've invested a lot of my big fragile ego into denying evolution. Denying evolution probably fits with some kind of agenda or group membership desire I have, as well. In fact, I can never even honestly learn about biology or evolution. It would look convincing, and that would greatly upset me and cause cognitive dissonance. Actually learning the evidence is the last thing I would ever do." 2. "There is no possible experiment, not even an imaginary one, that you, Harold, could ever do, and I secretly know it. I'm bluffing. I'm just hoping that I can look like a 'genius' repeating the same false analogy over and over and over again, and it isn't working. But I can't admit this! It would upset very much! As I said, you can prove me wrong by posting different answers. And I've got some good news. I'm going to keep up those questions, here, and anywhere else I see fit. So you have plenty of time to work out your answers, because I'm not going to stop asking.

harold · 10 June 2010

Pardon the typos above. I'd still love some answers to those questions.

Helena Constantine · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Mike Elzinga said: Actually there are situations in which this could indeed happen.
Isn't Mg called doing what is called shifting the goal-posts here? He asked for a self-repairing imaging system, ignorantly confident that there is no such thing. When told otherwise, he asked for one that could adapt. Same result. Now he wants a truck that becomes a submarine (I won't mention the names of any James Bond films). Whatever his point was or is--exalting the divine creator over human engineering, perhaps, but it's recondite--it seems to have been disproved, yet he pretends not to notice. Really? A ground-living beast can evolve into a sea-going beast -- whales as a good example. But are you saying a truck can become a submarine? Dun't make me laff. There is no machine that has an ability to evolve comparable to that of an organism, and so on that basis I can maintain that machines are superior Designs. Or at least I could if I could figure out what it would buy me to do so.

Helena Constantine · 10 June 2010

Sorry, I believe the names got a confused a bit in that rather intricate part of the thread, I believe Big Sonichu Fan and Intelligent Designer are the ones doing the shifting.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Helena Constantine said: Sorry, I believe the names got a confused a bit in that rather intricate part of the thread, I believe Big Sonichu Fan and Intelligent Designer are the ones doing the shifting.

Yes. Do kindly distinguish between people being silly, and people being silly on purpose.

Robin · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Robin said: I don't find such particularly interesting ... The problem, at least as I see it it, is really just one of semantics at this point.
The thing of it is that one could come up with an endless list of evidence that would be clearnly inconsistent with, inconvenient to, evolutionary science. Rabbits in the Precambrian is actually as good a one on the list as any other -- notice plural "rabbits", only one would likely be judged some geological anomaly.

Yep. I agree.

Other inconveniences would be no evidence of evolution in the fossil record (all same species as we have now); evidence for a young Earth; absurdities like the "crocoduck"; blending instead of discrete inheritance; and so on.

Quite so, but as I noted, I think the opportunities for such examples have now passed.

Are any of these absolute falsifications of evo science? Do they blow it into a smoking crater in the ground? No, but since evo science is an integrated whole of a set of notions that would be hard to do. Evidence could chip away at the various underlying notions until it fell over. More likely, however, it would just lead to a modified theory. If we did find some serious Lamarckian mechanisms at work, for example, we would just revise existing theory to accommodate it.

Well, I see this philosophical exercise as applying 20/20 speculation retroactively. For instance, we'd be hard pressed to find evidence today to support a young Earth, but back 150 years ago that wasn't the case. And a young Earth really would have falsified the concept of evolution as Darwin presented it. Thinking about what the impact would be now however doesn't make a lot of sense though since it just isn't the case.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Robin said: Quite so, but as I noted, I think the opportunities for such examples have now passed.

Quite so indeed. Evo science is as validated as, say, the pathogen theory of disease. However, to argue as creationists do that evo science is just a bunch of tapdancing that could flexibly accommodate any evidence -- IT JUST EVOLVED THAT WAY! -- is not true. It is very EASY to imagine a long list of evidence that would be inconsistent with the science, at least demanding modifications. The fact that evo science IS consistent with the evidence is not a sign of its evasiveness, but of its robustness. Now compare to creationism: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY! It is impossible to even IMAGINE any evidence that would be inconvenient to the theory. It can accommodate ANY pattern of evidence, even evidence postulated as sheer fantasy. Of course this is belaboring the obvious and no one here would have any reason to disagree. The whole falsibility argument is simply a red herring, an attempt to deflect skepticism over: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY -- into: IT JUST EVOLVED THAT WAY.

fnxtr · 10 June 2010

Seems to me there was a sodomy-fixated troll here before, maybe last year, sounded a lot like B.S.Fan.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.
Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?
Yes. CCD imaging systems operating in hostile radiation environments can self-repair.

What kind of self repair can CCD imaging systems do? What is a typical mean-time-to-failure for a CCD imaging system?

MrG · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: What kind of self repair can CCD imaging systems do? What is a typical mean-time-to-failure for a CCD imaging system?

Yes, MrE, and what real ability to CCD imaging systems have to spontaneously evolve into new species? Any organism can do that. Obviously a SUPERIOR Design.

fnxtr · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
Mike Elzinga said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.
Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?
Yes. CCD imaging systems operating in hostile radiation environments can self-repair.
What kind of self repair can CCD imaging systems do? What is a typical mean-time-to-failure for a CCD imaging system?

He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you. It's amazing how these trolls turn every posting into an angels-on-pinheads conversation.

SWT · 10 June 2010

fnxtr said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Mike Elzinga said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.
Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?
Yes. CCD imaging systems operating in hostile radiation environments can self-repair.
What kind of self repair can CCD imaging systems do? What is a typical mean-time-to-failure for a CCD imaging system?
He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you. It's amazing how these trolls turn every posting into an angels-on-pinheads conversation.

I think it's interesting that he has time to post responses like the one above, but doesn't have time to address harold's questions.

harold · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer -

1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate?

2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

SWT said:
fnxtr said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Mike Elzinga said:
Intelligent Designer said:
Dave Lovell said:
Intelligent Designer said: I think the design of the eye is marvelous and is vastly superior to anything humans have ever engineered.
Also speaking as an Engineer, I think you are wrong. On almost any measure of performance, man made systems are better at producing and capturing an image than a mammalian eye. The subsequent image processing is the area where nature is still well ahead of our capabilities.
Do any man made image capturing systems have the ability to self repair?
Yes. CCD imaging systems operating in hostile radiation environments can self-repair.
What kind of self repair can CCD imaging systems do? What is a typical mean-time-to-failure for a CCD imaging system?
He could tell you, but then he'd have to kill you. It's amazing how these trolls turn every posting into an angels-on-pinheads conversation.
I think it's interesting that he has time to post responses like the one above, but doesn't have time to address harold's questions.

Good point, SWT. We need to hear these answers from ID. He is using others to avoid answering pointed questions.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: Good point, SWT. We need to hear these answers from ID. He is using others to avoid answering pointed questions.

He really doesn't like the idea that organisms that can evolve are clearly superior Designs to those that couldn't. One could just imaging the Designer muttering: "Oh, these annoying organisms, I've always got to be tweaking with their genomes, it's such a bother. I wish they could just adapt and evolve on their own ... wait a minute, THAT's an idea! That's a really good idea!" Not that I am expecting or even want an answer in my case. The silence speaks volumes.

harold · 10 June 2010

SWT -

Cherry picking is the lowest strategy of a troll.

"Intelligent Designer" is relatively civil. I thought that there might be some chance for an intelligent discussion.

Unfortunately, I see now that, despite his relative civility (except to PZ Myers), he has all the traits of the lowest, most dishonest types of trolls.

He cherry picks, failing to address the most salient responses to his posts. This is an unequivocal sign of dishonesty. An honest person would be bothered by major basic questions he couldn't answer in a satisfactory way. A liar just hopes it will all be forgotten and he can repeat the same BS claims.

He dissembles about his actual beliefs and agenda.

He puts up logic flaws that ANY honest adult can identify - false dichotomies, straw man misrepresentations, claims of expertise in irrelevant areas, and non sequitur arguments at a minimum. This is another sign of dishonesty. I don't want to give too much credit, but he's probably smart enough to see these flaws, and just hoping he can "trick" people into not noticing.

He claims, and in my view grossly exaggerates, expertise in an irrelevant area, in a vain effort to intimidate.

harold · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer -

Let me clarify this for you.

Nobody accepts the theory of evolution because of "evidence against magic design".

People accept the theory of evolution - across many religious backgrounds - because of the evidence for the theory of evolution.

Therefore, all your silly arguments that "magic design is possible" are a waste of time.

1. What evidence, if any, would convince you that the theory of evolution is accurate?

2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

MrG · 10 June 2010

harold said: He dissembles about his actual beliefs and agenda.

Obviously he prefers to program at the dissembly language level.

SWT · 10 June 2010

harold said: 2. Is there an experiment that I can do to rule in or rule out the existence of the designer?

I would really, really like someone from the ID camp to make an honest effort to answer this question. What data would a design proponent consider adequate to reject the "design inference"?

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Mike Elzinga said: Good point, SWT. We need to hear these answers from ID. He is using others to avoid answering pointed questions.
He really doesn't like the idea that organisms that can evolve are clearly superior Designs to those that couldn't. One could just imaging the Designer muttering: "Oh, these annoying organisms, I've always got to be tweaking with their genomes, it's such a bother. I wish they could just adapt and evolve on their own ... wait a minute, THAT's an idea! That's a really good idea!" Not that I am expecting or even want an answer in my case. The silence speaks volumes.

Yeah; if scientists and engineers can appreciate the superiority of and can build systems that can “fend for themselves”, certainly one would expect a deity that made it all would have come up with the same idea. It really points up the inferiority of a fundamentalist, control-freak deity.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Mike Elzinga said: It really points up the inferiority of a fundamentalist, control-freak deity.

Fundies do not like the idea of evolution being part of the "Design" because it starts to smell like Deism, which from their point of view is indistinguishable from atheism. Now obviously a Designer who built a machine whose only tending (as opposed to use) was to push the RUN button is a better engineer than one whose machine requires continuous fiddling to keep it going -- but fundies feel very uncomfortable with the "hands off" approach. Sorry for the "irony" crack, but I had the feeling I wasn't making myself clear. That's sort of a fault of arguments of this sort -- with this level of fog, it's hard to figure out what's there, much less determine if it's silly on purpose ... or just silly.

John Vanko · 10 June 2010

SWT said: What data would a design proponent consider adequate to reject the "design inference"?

Dying and realizing they are not in the arms of their Savior - nothing less.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

SWT said: I think it's interesting that he has time to post responses like the one above, but doesn't have time to address harold's questions.

It's hard but I am just trying to stay on topic. I think my questions regarding CCD imaging systems are relevant.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: It's hard but I am just trying to stay on topic. I think my questions regarding CCD imaging systems are relevant.

Every bit as relevant as my observations that organisms that evolve are better Designed than those that don't.

Mike Elzinga · 10 June 2010

MrG said: Fundies do not like the idea of evolution being part of the "Design" because it starts to smell like Deism, which from their point of view is indistinguishable from atheism.

I have long suspected that the real control-freaks in many of these fundamentalist personality cults are the humans at the top of these sectarian food chains. Most of them don’t really give a crap about any deity; they are too narcissistic to want to compete with any mere deity.

Sorry for the “irony” crack, but I had the feeling I wasn’t making myself clear.

:-) No offense taken; many of these troll-infested threads are a mess anyway. Half the time I don’t follow the train of “thought” presumably taking place in the presence of these trolls.

Malchus · 10 June 2010

But discussion of CCD syste s has no actual relevance to Myers original post. The question is not what the capacity of human-designed systems actually is. The point Myers makes is that the eye has a patchwork design consistent with evolution rather than design.

Intelligent Designer said:
SWT said: I think it's interesting that he has time to post responses like the one above, but doesn't have time to address harold's questions.
It's hard but I am just trying to stay on topic. I think my questions regarding CCD imaging systems are relevant.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

MrG said: Every bit as relevant as my observations that organisms that evolve are better Designed than those that don't.

Greg, I agree with you.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: Greg, I agree with you.

Ah, so you have given up Intelligent Design and have now adopted Theistic Evolution. Well, if you now accept evolutionary science I have nothing to argue about here -- but then again neither do you. I just have this strange suspicion that's not going to be the way things turn out.

SWT · 10 June 2010

Malchus said: But discussion of CCD syste s has no actual relevance to Myers original post. The question is not what the capacity of human-designed systems actually is. The point Myers makes is that the eye has a patchwork design consistent with evolution rather than design.
Intelligent Designer said:
SWT said: I think it's interesting that he has time to post responses like the one above, but doesn't have time to address harold's questions.
It's hard but I am just trying to stay on topic. I think my questions regarding CCD imaging systems are relevant.

Don't cloud the issue with facts.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Intelligent Designer said: Greg, I agree with you.
Ah, so you have given up Intelligent Design and have now adopted Theistic Evolution. Well, if you now accept evolutionary science I have nothing to argue about here -- but then again neither do you. I just have this strange suspicion that's not going to be the way things turn out.

Theistic evolution is intelligent design.

SWT · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
MrG said:
Intelligent Designer said: Greg, I agree with you.
Ah, so you have given up Intelligent Design and have now adopted Theistic Evolution. Well, if you now accept evolutionary science I have nothing to argue about here -- but then again neither do you. I just have this strange suspicion that's not going to be the way things turn out.
Theistic evolution is intelligent design.

What is your understanding of theistic evolution?

MrG · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: Theistic evolution is intelligent design.

Dembski: "Theistic evolutionists are no friends of Intelligent Design." There are plenty of TEs on PT. Do any agree with that statement?

MrG · 10 June 2010

Incidentally, the TE position is often summed up as: "God Intelligently Designed evolution."

I merely present this as a summary of their beliefs by one otherwise disinterested in the matter and neither endorse nor criticise it.

And any sensible TE, if asked the question: "Does any part of evolutionary science work differently whether you accept TE or not?" -- will answer: "No."

As far as I am concerned, TE is merely a simple statement of religious doctrine, saying: "Our religion has no problem with evo science." To which I can sincerely reply: "That is a relief to hear."

MrG · 10 June 2010

OK, here's the proper quotes from Dembski:

"As far as design theorists are concerned, theistic evolution is American evangelicalism's ill-conceived accommodation to Darwinism." - What Every Theologian Should Know about Creation, Evolution, and Design, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Transactions 3(2): 1-8, 1995

"Design theorists are no friends of theistic evolution." -What Every Theologian Should Know about Creation, Evolution, and Design, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies Transactions 3(2): 1-8, 1995

SWT · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Intelligent Designer said: Theistic evolution is intelligent design.
Dembski: "Theistic evolutionists are no friends of Intelligent Design." There are plenty of TEs on PT. Do any agree with that statement?

I think I would be considered by most to be in the "theistic evolution" camp, since I am a Christian who recognizes that modern evolutionary theory is that best available scientific explanation for the diversity of modern life. You might also have been able to pick up that I am no friend of intelligent design. This is why I want to understand what Intelligent Designer means by "theistic evolution".

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

MrG said:
Intelligent Designer said: Theistic evolution is intelligent design.
Dembski: "Theistic evolutionists are no friends of Intelligent Design." There are plenty of TEs on PT. Do any agree with that statement?

I don't agree with Dembski's statement above. It is silly to dislike someone because you disagree with them. The only thing I have read by Dembski is a webpage critisizing the Weasel Program -- and I think he is mostly right about that. I am aware that there are plenty of TEs on PT. One of them has even told me that I am going to hell and claims to be praying for me. I am not a Christian nor do I subscribe to any religion.

MrG · 10 June 2010

Yep -- that wasn't the way things turned out.

Stanton · 10 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said:
MrG said:
Intelligent Designer said: Theistic evolution is intelligent design.
Dembski: "Theistic evolutionists are no friends of Intelligent Design." There are plenty of TEs on PT. Do any agree with that statement?
I don't agree with Dembski's statement above. It is silly to dislike someone because you disagree with them. The only thing I have read by Dembski is a webpage critisizing the Weasel Program -- and I think he is mostly right about that. I am aware that there are plenty of TEs on PT. One of them has even told me that I am going to hell and claims to be praying for me. I am not a Christian nor do I subscribe to any religion.

Among other things, Theistic Evolution differs from Intelligent Design ~~Theory~~ in that the former is the belief that God creates and guides Life as we know it through evolutionary processes: its adherents make no presumptions that Theistic Evolution is science, nor do its adherents attempt to bend, destroy or stop doing science simply to suit their beliefs and vanity the way Intelligent Design proponents seek to bend, destroy and stop doing science. That, and Malchus' condemnation of you stems from deliberately conflicting statements you made about your own alleged religious beliefs, as well as the fact that you are also a liar and you assume that you can make authoritative statements about evolution and biology despite having zero knowledge or interest in evolution or biology.

MrG · 10 June 2010

He doesn't sound like a liar. More like an illucid schizophrenic.

Intelligent Designer · 10 June 2010

MrG said: He doesn't sound like a liar. More like an illucid schizophrenic.

I am not schizophrenic. How could you get that idea?

Dave Lovell · 11 June 2010

Intelligent Designer asked of imaging systems: Can they interface with a human brain?

Sure they can. All that is required is a CRT or LCD monitor. As I said before, the optic nerve and its associated data processing capability is incomparable as a means of getting data into a brain, but the image forming and capture elements of the eye are nothing special. Photo-multipliers considerably more sensitive than the eye, and thermal imagers with a spectral response in the infra-red turned the Gulf Wars into one sided turkey shoots. Other imaging systems allow a signal response across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and at vastly improved angular resolution.

Intelligent Designer said: If I get sand in my eye I can close them and the sand will be slowly rotated out. What man made image capturing systems have the ability to do that?

Why do they need it? This ability has evolved to patch a limitation of the eye; that critical components have to be kept moist and exposed to their external environment or they will die. Man made systems have these components sealed against their environment, perhaps with a sacrificial protective layer as used in motor racing car cameras.

MrG · 11 June 2010

Intelligent Designer said: I am not schizophrenic.

"The voices told me so."

DS · 11 June 2010

So here is a guy who believes that god must guide evolution because it just couldn't accomplish all those complexified things by itself and yet he claims that he does not worship that god. Then he wonders why others think that he is schizophrenic.

Maybe he should explain exactly what he believes unguided evolution is not capable of, along with how when and why god intervened to accomplish those things. After that he can explain why such a god should not be worshipped. After that he can explain why anyone should care about his opinion.

Stanton · 11 June 2010

DS said: So here is a guy who believes that god must guide evolution because it just couldn't accomplish all those complexified things by itself and yet he claims that he does not worship that god. Then he wonders why others think that he is schizophrenic. Maybe he should explain exactly what he believes unguided evolution is not capable of, along with how when and why god intervened to accomplish those things. After that he can explain why such a god should not be worshipped. After that he can explain why anyone should care about his opinion.

Or, he should at least explain why his computer programs, which he's already admitted as being inaccurate, should trump realworld observations

Robin · 11 June 2010

MrG said:
Robin said: Quite so, but as I noted, I think the opportunities for such examples have now passed.
Quite so indeed. Evo science is as validated as, say, the pathogen theory of disease. However, to argue as creationists do that evo science is just a bunch of tapdancing that could flexibly accommodate any evidence -- IT JUST EVOLVED THAT WAY! -- is not true. It is very EASY to imagine a long list of evidence that would be inconsistent with the science, at least demanding modifications. The fact that evo science IS consistent with the evidence is not a sign of its evasiveness, but of its robustness.

Oh absolutely! Indeed, as I noted to meganfox, the precambrian rabbit (well, rabbitS, as you noted above) is still a good example of a possible falsification. And I completely agree that had the geological and elemental evidence pointed to a younger Earth, the current theory would not be acceptable. I just don't think there's anything philosophical to consider interms of evolutionary theory no longer being falsifiable. Such, I think, is mischaracterizing falsification. That certain hypotheses turned out to be true and thus passed by the attempts to falsify them doesn't mean they aren't falsifiable. They were at that time, thus they demonstrate that evolution is valid science.

Now compare to creationism: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY! It is impossible to even IMAGINE any evidence that would be inconvenient to the theory. It can accommodate ANY pattern of evidence, even evidence postulated as sheer fantasy. Of course this is belaboring the obvious and no one here would have any reason to disagree. The whole falsibility argument is simply a red herring, an attempt to deflect skepticism over: IT WAS JUST MADE THAT WAY -- into: IT JUST EVOLVED THAT WAY.

Quite so. And bah humbug to such disingenous endeavors. :)

MrG · 11 June 2010

Stanton said: Or, he should at least explain why his computer programs, which he's already admitted as being inaccurate, should trump realworld observations

Ah, they're playing the game of: "I cannot provide any evidence that I am right in practice but I can prove that you are wrong in theory." The real punchline to this gag is that they never understand that it's a gag.

fnxtr · 11 June 2010

MrG said:
harold said: He dissembles about his actual beliefs and agenda.
Obviously he prefers to program at the dissembly language level.

(LIKE) ;-)

MrG · 11 June 2010

fnxtr said: (LIKE) ;-)

Thanks. I was worried that was too geeky a joke to fly.

Mike Elzinga · 11 June 2010

Stanton said: Or, he should at least explain why his computer programs, which he's already admitted as being inaccurate, should trump realworld observations

It is a classic example of falsification by means of incompetence.

Robert Byers · 12 June 2010

Scott said:
Robert Byers said: So how does My myers [sic] know its not right or the way he would of done it?! [...] I got a hunch its reasonable to conclude the imperfect eye is dealing with concepts not understood by folks today.
No guessing is necessary. Science knows that the human eye could be made better, because there are examples in nature where it is better: 4-color vision; vision of polarized light; sharper vision; better night vision. There are animals with each of these eyes. We understand perfectly well how these work, down to the molecular level. Read the article and comments.

Really. These would be better for us. Are they better options for apes? Night vision is for creatures who need and not for just walking around. No need for this for us. God expected us to conquor night right away. The other things likewise are your idea of what we need better. our eyes are fine. Besides in a advanced state of ability God may of expected us to manipulate our eyes to give us sight of any kind. What animals have is a possible option for us with some tinkering.

Robert Byers · 12 June 2010

Robin said:
Robert Byers said: A few points here. I have had serious problems with eyesight and am blind in one eye. I know there is not competent science bringing an end to blindness. so why do evolution fans say they know how eyes came about?! If they can't fix what's staring us in the face?!
You have my sympathy on being blind in one eye - sorry for that difficulty. That said, there's a big difference between knowing how something came about and having the tools and skills to fix that thing. For example, I know quite a bit about how kidney's function, how immunosuppression works, and how the body heals. Doesn't mean I can perform a kidney transplant.
The eye is so complex in its machine that its construction is likely also complex. So how does My myers know its not right or the way he would of done it?! Present the better model, maybe by computer and not a working one, and show how the better eye would handle all needs. I got a hunch its reasonable to conclude the imperfect eye is dealing with concepts not understood by folks today.
See Scott's reply above.
Another point for biblical creationists is that upon the historic fall, and so death/decay, its a option that all body parts had to react to a new universe. so its possible our present eye is a change from the original. like women acquiring changes that made them newly have grea birthing pains. As in our DNA and everything we could also have had profound eye change in order to deal with a new type of world.
If such were the case, why don't all people have eye problems?
I'm just saying again that the original creation was corrupted by the fall in ecery way and so all of biology can't confidently be a trail back to a perfect creation. Present biology is a very poor memory of the eternal biology we had before Adam/Eves fruit ambitions.
If that were the case, then all people would have pretty much the same exact declines, deseases, and longevity. We don't see this in reality though. Your 'hypothesis' isn't fitting the data.
The eye, by the way, is a historic good point of the wonderful complexity and impossibility of the throw of the dice. Historic.
You can believe anything you wish, but there's no evidence to support your claim.

Your kidney thing doesn't work here. Knowing how the kidney works and fixing it are two things. Knowing the origin of how the kidney came about is three. Evolution fans here are trying to say they know how the eye evolved and why it couldn't be a created concept but can't cure blindness. They can't move around it or readapt or tinker to any positive way for modern blindness. This is evidence of the eyes basic profound complexity in nature. So knowing how it evolved and how its wrongly developed is unreasonable from such philosophers. even fixing it wouldn't give much authority to its origin. Yet a little credibility. I don't see why the corruption of our bodies and so our eyes possibly at the fall would bring your idea of sameness of problems.?

Robert Byers · 12 June 2010

Natman said:
Robert Byers said: I know there is not competent science bringing an end to blindness. so why do evolution fans say they know how eyes came about?! If they can't fix what's staring us in the face?!
Actually, for a lot of conditions that effect the eye, they can fix it, and if they can't then they certainly know what the problem is, it's just modern medicine isn't able to repair the damage. This is an issue with modern medicine not being advanced enough, not that the eye is too complicated.
Another point for biblical creationists is that upon the historic fall, and so death/decay, its a option that all body parts had to react to a new universe. so its possible our present eye is a change from the original. like women acquiring changes that made them newly have grea birthing pains. As in our DNA and everything we could also have had profound eye change in order to deal with a new type of world. I'm just saying again that the original creation was corrupted by the fall in ecery way and so all of biology can't confidently be a trail back to a perfect creation.
So the fall resulted in all the blood vessels in the retina suddenly flicking around to the 'wrong' side? This is as good an argument as saying the devil put dinosaur fossils in the ground to deceive the Faithful. Once you start introducing supernatural causes post-creation then you can do anything. In fact, I might make the claim that the whole universe was created Last Thursday. It's no less provable, or believable, than saying the Fall resulted in massive physiological changes to the body. Undocumented in the bible, I might add.
Present biology is a very poor memory of the eternal biology we had before Adam/Eves fruit ambitions. The eye, by the way, is a historic good point of the wonderful complexity and impossibility of the throw of the dice. Historic.
The problem with comparing evolution with dice throws is that regardless of the chances of something occuring, once it has occurred, despite it being highly unlikely it has just happened. You can claim improbablity all you like, but improbability is not the same as impossibility.

I have had many things fixed with my eyes yet NO they don;t fix blindness. not even close. They can't stop most declines into still. You say its modern medicine that is the problem and not the complexity of the eye. No. The complexity is still too great to fix or make new eyes and the intelligence in medical fields is just a revealation of this. It is so complicated like crazy. Upon the fall all biology was shattered. So an option is that eyes had to be innately redisn themselves to deal with a new universe. Just like out DNA or atomics having to deal with disease and all kinds of new concepts. I know evolutionists are far from accepting the fall impact on biology but nevertheless to YEC folks this can always explain away anything in biology that seems not like the way a creator would first do it. Thats because its imperfect to deal with imperfection thats new. I.D. folks however have more problems.

Dave Luckett · 12 June 2010

About 2 points for one piece of original Byerlogic (Some blindness is incurable. This proves that eyes didn't evolve) but only 1 for another (I can't understand this, therefore it's too complex to have evolved.) The latter is very unoriginal. Every pig-ignorant creationist whackaloon uses it, therefore the mark-down. We expect museum-quality dementia from our resident moron.

Two more points, though, for the classic shot in the foot, where he admits that knowing how something works and fixing it are two different things, and then blithely ignores that obvious fact. The last two sentences of the first paragraph get a point for incoherence, but the last sentence of all is a severe disappointment, almost making sense if you overlook the insanity of the proposition. (Our bodies were corrupted by listening to talking snakes and eating the wrong fruit, and this explains everything that goes wrong with them.)

So I make that a 6.

Just Bob · 12 June 2010

6.2

"God expected us to conquor night right away." That's worth an extra 0.2 for the hubris that will surely send him to Hell of daring to speak for God when there's no relevant clue in the Bible.

Hey Byers, what else do you know that God did or intended that isn't in the Bible?

Keelyn · 12 June 2010

So, Byers, you’re blind in one eye? That’s not the only part of you that is blind. Anyway, I’m totally deaf in two ears since birth – the auditory nerves did not form properly and make connections to my brain. However, my vision is better than normal in both eyes. In fact, I know a number of deaf people who have better than normal visual acuity. Does your “Fall hypothesis” have an explanation for that? By the way, just what, exactly, is “so complicated like crazy” about the eye? Is it any more complicated than the ear and the origin of hearing? Oh, and:

Delusional Byers said:
I know evolutionists are far from accepting the fall impact on biology but nevertheless to YEC folks this can always ~~explain~~ handwave away, without providing a single scrap of evidence, anything in biology...
That's much more accurate.

I agree with Dave – it just isn’t museum quality delusions. More like common old fossils. 6.1

Helena Constantine · 12 June 2010

Robert Byers said: I have had many things fixed with my eyes yet NO they don;t fix blindness. not even close. They can't stop most declines into still. You say its modern medicine that is the problem and not the complexity of the eye. No. The complexity is still too great to fix or make new eyes and the intelligence in medical fields is just a revealation of this. It is so complicated like crazy...

So what you're trying to do here is rewrite the book of Job? Now that we have answers to all of god's taunts from the whirlwind, you're trying to think of new ones: Hey, Job, do you understand how to make an eye? Nice of you to help god out there.

Andrew Stallard · 12 June 2010

Robert Byers said: Your kidney thing doesn't work here. Knowing how the kidney works and fixing it are two things. Knowing the origin of how the kidney came about is three. Evolution fans here are trying to say they know how the eye evolved and why it couldn't be a created concept but can't cure blindness. They can't move around it or readapt or tinker to any positive way for modern blindness. This is evidence of the eyes basic profound complexity in nature.

Former YEC here-- Mr. Byers, I think you are right here but only in a trivial sense. Of course doing eye surgery is very complicated and often goes awry because it is very hard for to understand the anatomy and physiology of our peepers and operate all that ultra-sophisticated, ultra-sterile equipment that you can't even buy at Home Depot. However, to say something is simple or complicated has only meaning with respect to subjective human understanding. "Complexity" is not a physical quantity like force, velocity, temperature, or electric current. It refers only to difficulty in understanding and not any property of the phenomenon itself. (Now, there is such a quantity called Kolmogorov Complexity that concerns the maximum compressibility of bit strings, but that is not what you are talking about.) Blathering about complexity or anything else that exists only in your head has nothing to do with whether evolution occurs, whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe Last Thursday, or why cats have kittens. If you want to challenge me on that point you must explain exactly how we measure or calculate this quantity, what dimensions it is measured in, and what the consequences with respect to other physical quantities are when it goes up and down. It also helps if you explain whether it is an intensive or extensive property. (An intensive property like temperature does not depend on system size. An extensive property like mass does.) I asked you this once before, and you merely brushed me off.

So knowing how it evolved and how its wrongly developed is unreasonable from such philosophers. even fixing it wouldn't give much authority to its origin. Yet a little credibility. I don't see why the corruption of our bodies and so our eyes possibly at the fall would bring your idea of sameness of problems.?

"Corruption" is even more nebulous than complexity. This refers not even to human thinking, but only to human values. If "corruption" just means things that are deleterious to human fortunes then what does it have to do with science at all? Try to understand the difference between "How I think and feel about things" as opposed to "How things are." I realize you're probably a Poe troll who will most likely respond, if at all, with brush-offs, insults, and higher levels inanity. Nevertheless, you're thinking is close enough to real Creationists that this post might inform some lurkers. And, what the heck, I'm bored.

Andrew Stallard · 12 June 2010

Just Bob said: 6.2 "God expected us to conquor night right away." That's worth an extra 0.2 for the hubris that will surely send him to Hell of daring to speak for God when there's no relevant clue in the Bible. Hey Byers, what else do you know that God did or intended that isn't in the Bible?

To say nothing of the fact it is completely senseless given the context it was made. Byers tried to make the case his God made human eyes are somehow "perfect" for us. Then, he claims this same deity wills us to conquer night right away. Well, if that's true his original claim is wrong because we just can't see that well at night; you would expect a diety who gives those orders to assign us some innate night vision capability like the goggles issued by the Marines. Just sayin'

Stanton · 12 June 2010

The Creationist concept of ~~explaining/handwaving~~/poo-pooing away everything "bad" in life and reality as a result of The Fall really irks me.

To claim that death, disease, faulty biology and other unpleasantries are ultimately the fault of the sins of ~~a talking snake, Adam and~~ Eve suggests that God is petty, cruel, merciless, and incompetent.

Henry J · 12 June 2010

Evolution fans? Does this guy think people accept evolution theory because they like the conclusions?

Somehow I doubt if many of these "fans" want bacteria (or other pathogens) to develop resistance to drugs, or that they'd want diseases of some other species to adapt to attack humans or their food sources or pets.

Understanding how something works and liking the conclusions are two different things (e.g., consider global warming - nobody with sense (and who cares about other people) likes the conclusions of that).

Henry

MrG · 12 June 2010

Henry J said: Evolution fans? Does this guy think people accept evolution theory because they like the conclusions?

I keep wondering that myself. I keep telling these guys: "I have absolutely NO reason to accept evolutionary science except for the fact that the evidence demands it. If things worked some other way, I would accept that instead." I believe the Sun is yellow because that's the color I observe it to be. It could in principle be orange if it were a bit cooler, and if it were, I would accept that it is orange with no difficulty -- but it's NOT. I have never had one of them answer me on this. Of course I generally add that I feel more reassured in my acceptance by the fact that all the criticisms of evo science are obvious baloney that make Marvel comics looks like the Encyclopedia Brittannica in comparison. Given the astounding level of effort they've invested, if there was much honestly wrong with evo science, they'd have come up with something more impressive.

slp · 13 June 2010

FL said: Regarding the Muller cells, Myers wrote:
"This a wonderful innovation, and it is entirely true that in principle this could improve the sensitivity of the photoreceptors. But again, this would not perturb any biologist at all — this is what we expect from evolution, the addition of new features to overcome shortcomings of original organization."
Hmm. "This is what we expect from evolution"? According to David Tyler, that's simply not correct. Evolutionists didn't see it coming at all:
"Darwinists never predicted the function performed by Muller cells, but once they were recognised, they are dubbed a "retrofit", with credit given to the amazing powers of mutation and natural selection (without any valid supporting evidence). This strategy is to Darwinism what epicycles were to the Ptolemaic cosmology." --David Tyler, "Post details: The contribution of glial cells to human vision acuity." http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/05/10/the_contribution_of_glial_cells_to_human
Always drawing more and more circles, it seems. Anything, anything, to keep evolution from dying a slow, painful, scientific death. FL

What, no Oro quotes? No claims that b ecause two things are mentioned in the same paragraph that they are thus the same thing?

stevaroni · 13 June 2010

FL said: Always drawing more and more circles, it seems. Anything, anything, to keep evolution from dying a slow, painful, scientific death. FL

Yeah. Any day now, FL, the entire house of cards will come crashing down. It's only a matter of time. After all, the TOE has only been around for 150 years, only been brutally attacked from every conceivable angle without anybody ever finding a significant flaw, despite mountains of potential refutations from new science - no, from entire new branches of science - that were inconceivable to Darwin in 1860. And now, in it's 15th decade, faces it's biggest challenge ever, having to refute exactly zero countervailing evidence, the shimmering product of a century and a half of hard "research" by the creationist nutjobs. Ya know, FL, I can't help but notice a distinct pattern of you talking a good game, but never, ever, ever actually putting anything solid on the table by way of actual evidence. Now, why might that be, FL?

Flint · 13 June 2010

Ya know, FL, I can’t help but notice a distinct pattern of you talking a good game, but never, ever, ever actually putting anything solid on the table by way of actual evidence. Now, why might that be, FL?

Probably because FL has placed a ton of religious evidence on the table, just no scientific evidence. Religious evidence consists of sincere assertions. SAYING that religious assertions are "scientific" MAKES them scientific, according to the rules of religious evidence.

Stanton · 13 June 2010

Flint said:
Ya know, FL, I can’t help but notice a distinct pattern of you talking a good game, but never, ever, ever actually putting anything solid on the table by way of actual evidence. Now, why might that be, FL?
Probably because FL has placed a ton of religious evidence on the table, just no scientific evidence. Religious evidence consists of sincere assertions. SAYING that religious assertions are "scientific" MAKES them scientific, according to the rules of religious evidence.

I never recall FL putting even "religious" evidence or even any "sincere assertions." After all, remember, all of the assertions FL has ever made have ultimately turned out to be false, or insincere, or snide yet hypocritically illogical.

Flint · 13 June 2010

After all, remember, all of the assertions FL has ever made have ultimately turned out to be false, or insincere, or snide yet hypocritically illogical.

That's not how I read it. I think FL actually believes everything he says. False is not possible to religious evidence, which is true by definitiion irrespective of any conceivable observation. I know he's snide, but I read that as misguided confidence in his own infallibility. Really, just because creationists are impervious to such inconveniences as truth, facts, logic, or integrity doesn't mean they are insincere. If it were otherwise, creationist evidence would look much like what you think of as evidence. So I'll try to make it more clear. Creationist evidence is anything supporting creationism, EVEN IF it's false, fabricated, illogical, or plain stupid. Anything that does NOT support creationism IS NOT EVIDENCE, and no possible weight of replicated observation or intersubjective validation can change that.

Stanton · 13 June 2010

FL believes everything he says?

Even when he claimed to know the exact location of the Garden of Eden, then suggested that I was a lunatic for asking him why he hasn't tried to find it? Or, how he claimed to be concerned for our spiritual wellbeing, even though he also lied about us allegedly chasing PvM out of Panda's Thumb for being a Christian, or how FL hopes that God will send us to Hell to burn forever for not mindlessly agreeing with him?

DS · 13 June 2010

Of course what FL doesn't seem to realize is that there is actually nothing contradictory about the two statements he quotes. He tries desperately to paint this as some kind of inconsistency and some kind of a problem for evolution. He tries desperately to insinuate that is is somehow something so preposterous that it means that all of evolution must be somehow be wrong. What he fails to realize is that evolutionary theory can easily account for these observations, his alternative explanations cannot.

Evolution is just what happened. Sometimes, the particulars cannot be accurately predicted, but the general principles always apply. We know that the original organization of the vertebrate eye was suboptimal because there was no foresight (no pun intended), planning or intelligence involved. We know that whatever adaptation evolved to improve the suboptimal function would involve "retrofitting". We might not have been able to predict exactly what "retrofit" would evolve, but that in no way invalidates the theory.

Dale Husband · 13 June 2010

Robert Byers said: Really. These would be better for us. Are they better options for apes? Night vision is for creatures who need and not for just walking around. No need for this for us. God expected us to conquor night right away. The other things likewise are your idea of what we need better. our eyes are fine. Besides in a advanced state of ability God may of expected us to manipulate our eyes to give us sight of any kind. What animals have is a possible option for us with some tinkering.

Robert Byers said: Your kidney thing doesn't work here. Knowing how the kidney works and fixing it are two things. Knowing the origin of how the kidney came about is three. Evolution fans here are trying to say they know how the eye evolved and why it couldn't be a created concept but can't cure blindness. They can't move around it or readapt or tinker to any positive way for modern blindness. This is evidence of the eyes basic profound complexity in nature. So knowing how it evolved and how its wrongly developed is unreasonable from such philosophers. even fixing it wouldn't give much authority to its origin. Yet a little credibility. I don't see why the corruption of our bodies and so our eyes possibly at the fall would bring your idea of sameness of problems.?

Robert Byers said: I have had many things fixed with my eyes yet NO they don;t fix blindness. not even close. They can't stop most declines into still. You say its modern medicine that is the problem and not the complexity of the eye. No. The complexity is still too great to fix or make new eyes and the intelligence in medical fields is just a revealation of this. It is so complicated like crazy. Upon the fall all biology was shattered. So an option is that eyes had to be innately redisn themselves to deal with a new universe. Just like out DNA or atomics having to deal with disease and all kinds of new concepts. I know evolutionists are far from accepting the fall impact on biology but nevertheless to YEC folks this can always explain away anything in biology that seems not like the way a creator would first do it. Thats because its imperfect to deal with imperfection thats new. I.D. folks however have more problems.

You keep babbling your silly arguments based on absolutely nothing but your desire to defend some 2000 or 3000 year old book and its dogmas. Why bother? If you blame the fall of man for the imperfections and failings of nature and humanity, you are saying that sin is a more powerful force in the universe than virture. You might as well disbelive in God and worship Satan instead, you blasphemous hypocrite!

fnxtr · 14 June 2010

... and you keep feeding their egos.

Stanton · 14 June 2010

fnxtr said: ... and you keep feeding their egos.

It would be helpful that, if it really is so bad to point out the fact that these Lying Idiots for Jesus are lying idiots, that the ability of these lying idiots to derail threads to be curtailed. As it is, this is like complaining about complaining about deranged vagrants deliberately relieving themselves on every public bench.

Robin · 14 June 2010

Robert Byers said: Your kidney thing doesn't work here. Knowing how the kidney works and fixing it are two things. Knowing the origin of how the kidney came about is three.

Fair enough. I'll accept that correction.

Evolution fans here are trying to say they know how the eye evolved and why it couldn't be a created concept but can't cure blindness. They can't move around it or readapt or tinker to any positive way for modern blindness.

Which, as you noted above, is fine since they aren't related. As you said, knowing how something came about, how it works, and how to fix it are three different things.

This is evidence of the eyes basic profound complexity in nature. So knowing how it evolved and how its wrongly developed is unreasonable from such philosophers. even fixing it wouldn't give much authority to its origin. Yet a little credibility.

Well, if one knows how something evolved, that person isn't going to think that something was wrongly developed. Those are two mutually exclusive perspectives. Be that as it may, a person who understands how the eye evolved could also understand in what ways the human eye is inferior to other species' eyes.

I don't see why the corruption of our bodies and so our eyes possibly at the fall would bring your idea of sameness of problems.?

Based on your statement: "its a option that all body parts had to react to a new universe. so its possible our present eye is a change from the original. like women acquiring changes that made them newly have grea birthing pains. As in our DNA and everything we could also have had profound eye change in order to deal with a new type of world." If the fall lead to "profound eye changes in or to deal with a new type of world", then by assocation there would be no one without eye changes to deal with the new type of world. We don't see this. Further, those with with unchanged eyesight would not be able to deal with the new type of world based on your statement. Clearly we don't see that either.

Michael · 14 June 2010

"In fact, cephalopods don't see as well as humans, e.g. no colour vision, and the octopus eye structure is totally different and much simpler," saith the creationist.

Once again, trying to understand creationist logic has left me confused. Isn't that the point? Isn't that quote just another way of saying the eye isn't irreducibly complex, and can work even without many of the fancy bells and whistles of the human eye?

Robert Byers · 15 June 2010

Andrew Stallard said:
Robert Byers said: Your kidney thing doesn't work here. Knowing how the kidney works and fixing it are two things. Knowing the origin of how the kidney came about is three. Evolution fans here are trying to say they know how the eye evolved and why it couldn't be a created concept but can't cure blindness. They can't move around it or readapt or tinker to any positive way for modern blindness. This is evidence of the eyes basic profound complexity in nature.
Former YEC here-- Mr. Byers, I think you are right here but only in a trivial sense. Of course doing eye surgery is very complicated and often goes awry because it is very hard for to understand the anatomy and physiology of our peepers and operate all that ultra-sophisticated, ultra-sterile equipment that you can't even buy at Home Depot. However, to say something is simple or complicated has only meaning with respect to subjective human understanding. "Complexity" is not a physical quantity like force, velocity, temperature, or electric current. It refers only to difficulty in understanding and not any property of the phenomenon itself. (Now, there is such a quantity called Kolmogorov Complexity that concerns the maximum compressibility of bit strings, but that is not what you are talking about.) Blathering about complexity or anything else that exists only in your head has nothing to do with whether evolution occurs, whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe Last Thursday, or why cats have kittens. If you want to challenge me on that point you must explain exactly how we measure or calculate this quantity, what dimensions it is measured in, and what the consequences with respect to other physical quantities are when it goes up and down. It also helps if you explain whether it is an intensive or extensive property. (An intensive property like temperature does not depend on system size. An extensive property like mass does.) I asked you this once before, and you merely brushed me off.
So knowing how it evolved and how its wrongly developed is unreasonable from such philosophers. even fixing it wouldn't give much authority to its origin. Yet a little credibility. I don't see why the corruption of our bodies and so our eyes possibly at the fall would bring your idea of sameness of problems.?
"Corruption" is even more nebulous than complexity. This refers not even to human thinking, but only to human values. If "corruption" just means things that are deleterious to human fortunes then what does it have to do with science at all? Try to understand the difference between "How I think and feel about things" as opposed to "How things are." I realize you're probably a Poe troll who will most likely respond, if at all, with brush-offs, insults, and higher levels inanity. Nevertheless, you're thinking is close enough to real Creationists that this post might inform some lurkers. And, what the heck, I'm bored.

Complexity is a valid interpretation of mankind to biological things. its valid to see things as so complicated that even if we understand we can still say that. Is nothing in scientific discoveries or conclusions in the last hundreds of years complex. Is physics not complex. If it is then surely biology is greater by leaps then physics in complexity. Subjective? well some subjective conclusions are true. Yes we can say the eye is complex and not yet understood because of this. When understood and healed that person will be called a genius. too much but the point is the eye complexity demands only the most careful thought before making conclusions. The stuff here about it being not well done or what they would do is coming from those who can't fix it, though staring at it, much less invent its principals. Those who can't ; speculate.

Robert Byers · 15 June 2010

Robin said:
Robert Byers said: Your kidney thing doesn't work here. Knowing how the kidney works and fixing it are two things. Knowing the origin of how the kidney came about is three.
Fair enough. I'll accept that correction.
Evolution fans here are trying to say they know how the eye evolved and why it couldn't be a created concept but can't cure blindness. They can't move around it or readapt or tinker to any positive way for modern blindness.
Which, as you noted above, is fine since they aren't related. As you said, knowing how something came about, how it works, and how to fix it are three different things.
This is evidence of the eyes basic profound complexity in nature. So knowing how it evolved and how its wrongly developed is unreasonable from such philosophers. even fixing it wouldn't give much authority to its origin. Yet a little credibility.
Well, if one knows how something evolved, that person isn't going to think that something was wrongly developed. Those are two mutually exclusive perspectives. Be that as it may, a person who understands how the eye evolved could also understand in what ways the human eye is inferior to other species' eyes.
I don't see why the corruption of our bodies and so our eyes possibly at the fall would bring your idea of sameness of problems.?
Based on your statement: "its a option that all body parts had to react to a new universe. so its possible our present eye is a change from the original. like women acquiring changes that made them newly have grea birthing pains. As in our DNA and everything we could also have had profound eye change in order to deal with a new type of world." If the fall lead to "profound eye changes in or to deal with a new type of world", then by assocation there would be no one without eye changes to deal with the new type of world. We don't see this. Further, those with with unchanged eyesight would not be able to deal with the new type of world based on your statement. Clearly we don't see that either.

Indeed however every living creature could have any change in its body , including eyes, to deal with the new world. For example in New Zealand there are lizards with a eye or a remnant of a eye above the other two eyes. Unless I'm dreadfully in error. The tuatara I think. Just to protect it from modern or ancient danger from above. yet this would not be its original state. its only after the fall it got another eye . The whole concept of looking at biology today to evaluate the creator doesn't work in a fallen world as historic Christianity and modern biblical creationist would insist. I.D does and has problems. If biblical creationism is true then our bodies before the fall would not have ability to fight disease for there was no disease. Everything would be so different. So after the fall anything could of been changed. So if somthing looks indeed imperfect one can say it was a reaction to other problems. Its not the original idea and creation. Its an option.

Dave Luckett · 15 June 2010

Five points for sheer delerious incomprehensibility. A wonderful effort, dancing right on the ragged edge of complete incoherence, without ever falling over into random word-salad.

But the tension between insanity and incoherence is a delicate one. How can you demonstrate that your ideas are barking mad if true incoherence makes it impossible to actually enunciate them? This is one of those tensions one finds inherent in all true art.

In this case, alas, the idea is a very old and somewhat hackneyed one: "biology is complex, therefore God". Only one, or at the most, two points for that, then. One more point for the opening sentence, which is worthy of Macgonigal at his finest.

I make it a seven.

Stanton · 15 June 2010

Robert Byers verbally crapped: Indeed however every living creature could have any change in its body , including eyes, to deal with the new world. For example in New Zealand there are lizards with a eye or a remnant of a eye above the other two eyes. Unless I'm dreadfully in error. The tuatara I think. Just to protect it from modern or ancient danger from above. yet this would not be its original state. its only after the fall it got another eye .

You are in dreadful error: the so-called "third eye" of the tuatara is not an eye at all: it is its pineal gland, which is so big that it has its own foramen in the skull, and is warmed by sunlight. That, and it is not a lizard at all.

The whole concept of looking at biology today to evaluate the creator doesn't work in a fallen world as historic Christianity and modern biblical creationist would insist. I.D does and has problems. If biblical creationism is true then our bodies before the fall would not have ability to fight disease for there was no disease. Everything would be so different. So after the fall anything could of been changed. So if somthing looks indeed imperfect one can say it was a reaction to other problems. Its not the original idea and creation. Its an option.

No it isn't: it's just using the Bible, God and Jesus as a pathetic excuse to bullshit and remain ignorant.

Robin · 16 June 2010

Robert Byers said: Indeed however every living creature could have any change in its body , including eyes, to deal with the new world. For example in New Zealand there are lizards with a eye or a remnant of a eye above the other two eyes. Unless I'm dreadfully in error. The tuatara I think. Just to protect it from modern or ancient danger from above. yet this would not be its original state. its only after the fall it got another eye .

Which has what exactly to do with my point?

The whole concept of looking at biology today to evaluate the creator doesn't work in a fallen world as historic Christianity and modern biblical creationist would insist.

The whole concept of a creator designing elements in certain organisms that do not function as well as they do in other organisms even after a fall is the concept that doesn't work. Actually the concept of the fall doesn't work either, but that's another subject.

I.D does and has problems.

A very true statement.

If biblical creationism is true then our bodies before the fall would not have ability to fight disease for there was no disease. Everything would be so different.

Here's the problem with the literal utopian concept of the "pre-fall" - to have life, one must have energy transfer. If there was no disease, carnivour consumption, and death, there could be no such thing as energy transfer. Under no circumstances can life exist without a complete energy cycle.

So after the fall anything could of been changed. So if somthing looks indeed imperfect one can say it was a reaction to other problems. Its not the original idea and creation. Its an option.

It's not a viable option.

Stanton · 16 June 2010

Robin said:
So after the fall anything could of been changed. So if somthing looks indeed imperfect one can say it was a reaction to other problems. Its not the original idea and creation. Its an option.
It's not a viable option.

And then there are the problems of how there is no way to test for "Pre-Fall/Post-Fall" changes, that there is no evidence of "Pre-Fall/Post-Fall" changes, and that the Bible never mentions organisms changing specifically due to Adam and Eve screwing up the entire universe.

Stanton · 16 June 2010

And there is the problem of how saying something changed because God got mad at the whole Universe because Adam and Eve screwed up does nothing to explain anything, nor does it help solve any problem.

Just Bob · 16 June 2010

Not to mention the fact that it makes God a pathetic, childish, psychopathic, Vengeance Master--who punishes babies forever into the future for what one couple did once.

And it calls to attention the fact that (in Genesis) God LIED about what would happen if the fruit were eaten. The snake told the truth.

Andrew Stallard · 18 June 2010

Robert Byers said: Complexity is a valid interpretation of mankind to biological things. its valid to see things as so complicated that even if we understand we can still say that.

Well, I don't know. I thought calculus was complex when I started to learn it. Now I think measure theory is complex since I have yet to master it. However, students who I tutored thought calculus, and even algebra, was dreadfully complex; my goal was to change their minds by explaining to them.

Is nothing in scientific discoveries or conclusions in the last hundreds of years complex. Is physics not complex.

Well, coming from a man who has stumbled, wheezed, and coughed his way to a B.S. in the subject it does seem that way when studying for a final in a class I could not attend due to my work schedule.

If it is then surely biology is greater by leaps then physics in complexity.

I was a biology minor. The above statement still applies.

Subjective? well some subjective conclusions are true.

Gee, I guess they are true for the people making them. See all the subjective statements above.

Yes we can say the eye is complex and not yet understood because of this. When understood and healed that person will be called a genius. too much but the point is the eye complexity demands only the most careful thought before making conclusions.

No doubt about it. However, the point I am trying to make is that you are talking only about human understanding of natural phenomena, not the phenomena themselves. Saying something is "simple" or "complicated" has no implications outside of human skulls, for you are only taking about ease or difficulty in learning and understanding. What you seem to be engaging in is a veiled argument from ignorance. You observe things are complex, that is, hard to understand, and you insert some deity in gaps in understanding. Human ignorance or confusion about phenomena is not evidence some deity is involved.

The stuff here about it being not well done or what they would do is coming from those who can't fix it, though staring at it, much less invent its principals. Those who can't ; speculate.