Is providing data to creationists a waste of time?

[Zosimus]

All I have to do is point to every computer ever made.


Wow, way to move the goalposts.

Tell you what - how about YOU build a computer only using mathematics and without using science? Do you think that's a reasonable request?

Charles Babbage already did so. What would the point be?

 

[Zosimus]

Are you serious?

"Sometimes the fittest animals in a population die without breeding" ≠ "Animals which are more likely to successfully reproduce aren't more likely to have their genes proliferate throughout subsequent generations."

Do you honestly not see the flaw in your logic here?

It's not a flaw in logic. I understand the claim of natural selection better than all of you put together.

It's just that the claim put forth by the previous poster—that the strongest, fastest, sexiest, whatever... breeds more is demonstrably false.

Yet merely pointing out that the fastest, strongest, ablest horse doesn't always breed doesn't fundamentally falsify the central tenet of natural selection.

Partially that's because the central tenet of natural selection isn't falsifiable, but my point was that the definition above-provided is a bad one.

 

[sayak83]

All right. Let's see you do it. If science can let you make a computer, then I'd like to see you make a computer using science.

Where's my popcorn? This is going to be awhile.

P.S. You cannot solicit any help nor can you use math because math isn't science.

You are seriously suggesting that the principles discovered by science are not used to make computers? That you can make a working computer without using any of the results of quantum mechanics, solid state physics, electronics and information theory? Are you daft?

Also do not deliberately misinterpret me. When I said you, it was being used generically. I was claiming that you cannot furnish an instance where a computer was made without relying on principles of electronics, information theory or solid state physics discovered by science. You do not have to make a computer, you have to show me a computer that was made not relying on the recipes developed from such sciences.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So you think that changing the words in the tautology affect something?

All right. Let's try this simple experiment. A real scientific theory (like gravity) can make specific, measurable predictions.

If I take a 3 kg object and drop it from a height of 25 feet, how long will it take to hit the ground? You can easily use calculus to make a specific, measurable prediction.

All right. Now let's try natural selection. You have a 25 sq. km. island populated with Darwin finches. There are no predators on the island. You release a breeding pair of domestic housecats on the island. What will happen?

A) The housecats will fail to catch enough finches to live, fail to breed, and die out completely?
B) The housecats will breed out of control and kill all the finches only later to starve to death?
C) Certain types of finches (which?) will die out whereas the finches that display adaptation (which?) will survive?
D) The finches will evolve a new defense (which?) against the cats and this new trait will become dominant in the finch population?
E) The cats will evolve a new hunting adaptation (which?) against finches and this new trait will become dominant in the cat population?
=================================
In reality, natural selection cannot make any kind of viable prediction in this situation.

So what? Why is that relevant? Mutation also makes no predictions.

It will simply claim, after the fact, that the result (whatever it may be) is consistent with the tautology/theory of natural selection.

Natural selection is not a scientific theory, which is why it predicts nothing. It's the name for an observed processes: the differential survival and reproductive capacity of variants within a population of organisms. Natural selection is the name for that phenomenon, not a prediction.

Another observed and named process is mutation. It also predicts nothing. Such is the nature of names.

I'll bet that you have a name. What does it predict?

Also, natural selection is not a tautology any more than any other name for a physical process is. Is mutation also a tautology?

One can play the tautology game with any definition. Let's define the even integers as those integers that yield another integer when divided by two. Well, if we can substitute "those integers that yield another integer when divided by two" for "even integers," then we get that "Those integers that yield another integer when divided by two are those integers integers that yield another integer when divided by two."

 

[sayak83]

Bullcrud. You have done nothing of the sort. In fact, if you think about it carefully, you would realize that you are making a self-defeating argument.

The rationale of science is that all knowledge comes through sense experience. So to prove that all knowledge comes through sense experience, you have constructed a completely non-sensory, rational argument designed (supposedly) to convince me and impart in me new knowledge that (supposedly) all knowledge comes through sense experience.

So let's assume, for the sake of argument, that your argument really were completely convincing. All you would have succeeded in convincing me of is that knowledge can be gained through purely rational means and without sense experience.

Since that's my very point, you seem to be arguing with me by agreeing with me.

Might I suggest that if you want to construct some sort of an argument about how wonderful empiricism is, you might want to try making it an empirical argument. Just a thought.

P.S. I never drink water.

Ridiculous. Science considers sense experience a vital but not the only source of (fallible) knowledge about the world. Since science so strongly relies on mathematics, logic and inference, it would be ridiculous to claim that science relies only on sense experience. You are confusing how science actually works with what a bunch of clueless philosophers have been saying about how science works.

Further the fact that I use inference from past experience everyday to live successfully is entirely based on the data of these past experiences. How are you making the absurd claim that my argument does not rely on sense experience as well as reasoning.?

How do you reliably distinguish between which liquids to drink and not to drink using infallible rationality untouched by corruption of experiential data.? Stop dodging the question.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

All right. Let's see you do it. If science can let you make a computer, then I'd like to see you make a computer using science.

Where's my popcorn? This is going to be awhile.

P.S. You cannot solicit any help nor can you use math because math isn't science.

So your argument is that if each individual cannot make a computer, then computers aren't a scientific creation.

Bullcrud. You have done nothing of the sort. In fact, if you think about it carefully, you would realize that you are making a self-defeating argument.

The rationale of science is that all knowledge comes through sense experience. So to prove that all knowledge comes through sense experience, you have constructed a completely non-sensory, rational argument designed (supposedly) to convince me and impart in me new knowledge that (supposedly) all knowledge comes through sense experience.

So let's assume, for the sake of argument, that your argument really were completely convincing. All you would have succeeded in convincing me of is that knowledge can be gained through purely rational means and without sense experience.

Since that's my very point, you seem to be arguing with me by agreeing with me.

Might I suggest that if you want to construct some sort of an argument about how wonderful empiricism is, you might want to try making it an empirical argument. Just a thought.

P.S. I never drink water.

You: "The rationale of science is that all knowledge comes through sense experience."

What is the "rationale of science"? It's methods? Assumptions? Use?

The empirical argument for the validity of the scientific method is its fruits.

Also, science isn't about all knowledge. It's about knowledge of the workings of nature. We're all aware of a priori truths.

Of course, their value comes when we yoke them observations. 2+2 = 4 isn't very useful until I apply it to two pairs of objects or processes that combine under the laws of addition.

So just what is your complaint? That science isn't good enough? That it shouldn't be trusted?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Untrue. It can be asserted of anything.

Not true. Supernatural causation is, by its very nature, contrary to observations of the natural world and thus immune from testing, enabling it to explain any potential gap in our understanding. This isn't true of any scientific theory, which stands on the merit of the evidence only.

You must realize how stupid this argument is. If a steak ends up on your plate and it's cooked, you assume it has been cooked? Of course cooked steaks have been cooked! Geez, man—you're making this too easy!

Congratulations - you noticed the exact argument I was trying to make.

What you really mean to say is that if you see a steak, you assume that an intelligent actor has created this steak in the form in which we see it. This theory has a name. It's called the theory of intelligent design.

That's not a theory.

It's not irrelevant if your claim is that food exists because of chefs.

Which is obviously a silly claim to make. However, to say "scientific progress is a result of science" is blatantly obvious.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Charles Babbage already did so. What would the point be?

You mean Charles Babbage the mechanical engineer?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

It's not a flaw in logic. I understand the claim of natural selection better than all of you put together.

Posturing doesn't work in a logical argument, Zo.

It's just that the claim put forth by the previous poster—that the strongest, fastest, sexiest, whatever... breeds more is demonstrably false.

No, it isn't. You're committing the faulty generalization fallacy - asserting that because 'x' may not be true in ALL situations that 'x' cannot be demonstrated to be true as a general rule.

Yet merely pointing out that the fastest, strongest, ablest horse doesn't always breed doesn't fundamentally falsify the central tenet of natural selection.

So what's your point?

Partially that's because the central tenet of natural selection isn't falsifiable, but my point was that the definition above-provided is a bad one.

Natural selection is an observable phenomenon. Your lack of understanding of it, and the fallacies you employ to try to denigrate it, doesn't change that fact.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Once there was a group of horses. The king wanted to go to war. So he selected the very fastest, strongest, and fittest horse and rode him into war. During the battle, the king was targeted by a cannon and both the king and the horse were killed.

The horse never bred.

Thus, your definition, stated above, that natural selection = "The fastest, strongest, most intelligent, best camouflaged, most sexually appealing - whatever - reproduce more than others" is demonstrably wrong.

"Wrong" only if you care to leave out the unstated aspects of the process. The context was biological evolution, which applies to populations, occurs over generations, and is a blind and unguided process without purpose or intent. The scenario you provided, was very different from that.

For starters, the horse wasn't competing with other horses for scarce resources, another one of those unstated aspects of natural selection. What you described is not related to natural selection.

Furthermore, the theory of evolution does not say that beneficial mutations will always establish themselves. The mutant needs to reproduce it's beneficial mutation, and eventually, there needs to be multiple copies of the new gene in the gene pool. There is no guarantee that that will happen in every case, just that that will be the trend in general over large populations and multiple generations..

But if you want to try to make this fit the evolutionary paradigm, you need to recognize that war horse is at a survival disadvantage compared to one used to pull a cart in times of war. Here, being fast and strong not only won't help you survive if you are hit by a cannonball, it tends to get you shot at.

Did you answer my last request for an explicit statement of your position - just exactly what it is that you are criticizing or objecting to, and what you recommend doing about it?

And given whatever answer you provide, should we toss this scientific theory out? Modify it? Do nothing different?

 

[Jose Fly]

This argument is based on the unproved assumption that science created the computer and the Internet.

I'm sorry, but this is just too stupid to bother with anymore. Thanks for your time.

 

[Polymath257]

Again, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Imagine that you see an emerald and you say, "This is another green emerald. All the emeralds I have seen so far are green. Thus, the next emerald I see will be green." This is a classic formation of the problem of induction.

Nelson Goodman adds on the wrinkle of what happens if you meet an alien who says that the emerald is grue? By talking with him you discover that grue means:

Green until 3000 AD
Blue thereafter.

"So, the color will change at 3000 AD?" you ask.
"No," insists the alien. "It will still be grue."
"How do you know that every emerald is grue?"
"Because every emerald we have seen so far is grue."

Okay, so in 3000 AD you will know whether the alien is right. If the emeralds suddenly look blue to you you will say:
"Holy crap! Emeralds are now blue!"
"No," the alien will insist. "They are still grue!!"

Whereas if in AD3000 they still appear green the alien will say:
"Holy crap! Emeralds are now bleen!"
"No," you will reply. "Emeralds are green as they always were."

The problem is that both theories are very well confirmed by by sense observation and induction.

Then what will you do if you encounter an alien species that insists that the emeralds are really gred? (Green until AD3000 and red thereafter?)

How can you determine which of these theories right (before AD3000 that is).

This is the problem of grue. It's not about calling something a different name.

I would submit that a grue detector isn't available. And that is the basic asymmetry that you seem to be missing.

For example, if I measure a piece of wood and find that it is 1 meter today, and 1 meter yesterday, and 1 meter the day before that, the natural deduction, assuming no outside intervention, is that it will be 1 meter tomorrow. There are measuring rods that will detect '1 meter long', but none that will detect '1 meter long until today and 2 meters long until tomorrow' as a basic measurement. So the grue analogy fails for distances.

But green is *actually* simply light with a certain wavelength--a distance. That reduces the color green to a basic measurement of a distance. There is no basic distance of '520 nm until 2018 AD and 400 nm after that'. So grue is not a 'natural' color. It is a contrived color for philosophers only.

Furthermore, since there is no natural 'grue detector', the aliens will not and cannot naturally default to grue. The emeralds keep the same spectrum of wavelengths hroughout. They don't change from a 'grue wavelength' to a 'bleen wavelength' because neither is well-defined.

 

[sayak83]

"Wrong" only if you care to leave out the unstated aspects of the process. The context was biological evolution, which applies to populations, occurs over generations, and is a blind and unguided process without purpose or intent. The scenario you provided, was very different from that.

For starters, the horse wasn't competing with other horses for scarce resources, another one of those unstated aspects of natural selection. What you described is not related to natural selection.

Furthermore, the theory of evolution does not say that beneficial mutations will always establish themselves. The mutant needs to reproduce it's beneficial mutation, and eventually, there needs to be multiple copies of the new gene in the gene pool. There is no guarantee that that will happen in every case, just that that will be the trend in general over large populations and multiple generations..

But if you want to try to make this fit the evolutionary paradigm, you need to recognize that war horse is at a survival disadvantage compared to one used to pull a cart in times of war. Here, being fast and strong not only won't help you survive if you are hit by a cannonball, it tends to get you shot at.

Did you answer my last request for an explicit statement of your position - just exactly what it is that you are criticizing or objecting to, and what you recommend doing about it?

And given whatever answer you provide, should we toss this scientific theory out? Modify it? Do nothing different?

However the faster, stronger more resilient warhouse will have a statistically greater chance of surviving a battle among a population of warehouses. Either Zosimus has to admit this or state its irrational to breed faster, stronger warhorses for battle going against all historical evidence.

 

[Zosimus]

Do you or do you not understand that the prevalence of an allele frequency in a population is a product of beneficial mutations being selected for over negative or deleterous mutations?

Oh, I understand perfectly! You're the one who doesn't understand.

You have said that the prevalence of an allele frequency is a product of beneficial mutations being selected for.

Ahh, but how do you know that the mutations were beneficial?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Oh, I understand perfectly! You're the one who doesn't understand.

You have said that the prevalence of an allele frequency is a product of beneficial mutations being selected for.

Ahh, but how do you know that the mutations were beneficial?

Because it increased the chances of survival and production of progeny.

You really don't understand this stuff, no matter how much you try to convince yourself. Because you're certainly not convincing me.

 

[Zosimus]

I would submit that a grue detector isn't available. And that is the basic asymmetry that you seem to be missing.

For example, if I measure a piece of wood and find that it is 1 meter today, and 1 meter yesterday, and 1 meter the day before that, the natural deduction, assuming no outside intervention, is that it will be 1 meter tomorrow. There are measuring rods that will detect '1 meter long', but none that will detect '1 meter long until today and 2 meters long until tomorrow' as a basic measurement. So the grue analogy fails for distances.

But green is *actually* simply light with a certain wavelength--a distance. That reduces the color green to a basic measurement of a distance. There is no basic distance of '520 nm until 2018 AD and 400 nm after that'. So grue is not a 'natural' color. It is a contrived color for philosophers only.

Furthermore, since there is no natural 'grue detector', the aliens will not and cannot naturally default to grue. The emeralds keep the same spectrum of wavelengths hroughout. They don't change from a 'grue wavelength' to a 'bleen wavelength' because neither is well-defined.

Again, the only thing that you are showing is that you completely misunderstand the argument!

Let me explain it to you as simply as I can from the beginning. Goodman's argument is this:

P1. Induction ONLY WORKS when we are dealing with law-like properties.

Example: If we say "This icicle is cold. The last icicle I felt was cold. Therefore, the next icicle I feel will be cold." then most people would agree. Cold seems to be a law-like property. On the other hand if we say "The woman I see is wearing glasses. The last woman I saw was wearing glasses. Therefore, the next woman I see will be wearing glasses." then most people would disagree. Women and glasses don't seem to be a law-like property.

P2. We cannot tell when the property we are describing is a law-like one and when it is not.

Conclusion: We can never know whether induction is going to work.

So premise 1 is uncontroversial. The conclusion follows from the premises. Accordingly, what Goodman needs to do is to convince us that premise 2 is true, and he does this by using the Grue Thought Experiment.

Imagine that someone sees an emerald and says, "This emerald is grue. The last emerald I saw was grue. Therefore, the next emerald I see will be grue." Most people would not agree that grue is a predictable predicate of emeralds. Few people believe that emeralds are suddenly going to emit bluish light after AD3000. Green, on the other hand, does seem to people to be a predictable predicate.

Why is this? Why is green law-like whereas grue is not? Goodman argues that this is because of entrenchment. Basically we are used to using words such as green and blue whereas we are not used to using words such as grue and bleen.

Now YOUR ARGUMENT against this is to say that distance is a law-like predictable predicate of wavelength. This answer, however, is begging the question. Goodman has challenged you to provide a general rule that will let you distinguish between predictable predicates and non-predictable ones. Simply claiming that distance falls in the former category is not a general rule that we can apply to all future situations thus ensuring that we will always know when induction will be reliable and when it will not be.

Furthermore, your claim that the wavelength is a certain distance and always has been is false. An emerald under blue light will reflect a different wavelength light than will an emerald under red light. Accordingly a person who uses adjectives such as greena and browna will confidently be able to say that the emerald he is looking at is either greena or browna just by looking at it whereas a person who uses adjectives such as green and brown will need to first determine what light is shining on the object in question before he can determine whether the object is green or brown.

So although some people might argue that grue is a bad adjective because you have to have a calendar on hand to determine what some color is, the greena and browna people would make the same argument against us. Just as grue requires external knowledge to determine whether something is grue, so too green requires external knowledge to determine whether something is green.

 

[Zosimus]

However the faster, stronger more resilient warhouse will have a statistically greater chance of surviving a battle among a population of warehouses. Either Zosimus has to admit this or state its irrational to breed faster, stronger warhorses for battle going against all historical evidence.

Point 1: The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Point 2: The statement "Either Zosimus has to admit this or state its irrational to breed faster, stronger warhorses for battle going against all historical evidence." is not parallel.

Point 3: I can understand you misspelling warhorse once, but misspelling it to warhouse and later to warehouses?!

 

[Zosimus]

Because it increased the chances of survival and production of progeny.

You really don't understand this stuff, no matter how much you try to convince yourself. Because you're certainly not convincing me.

Okay so beneficial mutations = mutations that increase your chance of breeding.

So the natural selection argument boils down to this: Mutations that increase your chance of survival and production of progeny increase your chances of survival and production of progeny.

Therefore, according to your own words, it's a tautology.

 

[Zosimus]

"Wrong" only if you care to leave out the unstated aspects of the process. The context was biological evolution, which applies to populations, occurs over generations, and is a blind and unguided process without purpose or intent. The scenario you provided, was very different from that.

For starters, the horse wasn't competing with other horses for scarce resources, another one of those unstated aspects of natural selection. What you described is not related to natural selection.

Furthermore, the theory of evolution does not say that beneficial mutations will always establish themselves. The mutant needs to reproduce it's beneficial mutation, and eventually, there needs to be multiple copies of the new gene in the gene pool. There is no guarantee that that will happen in every case, just that that will be the trend in general over large populations and multiple generations..

But if you want to try to make this fit the evolutionary paradigm, you need to recognize that war horse is at a survival disadvantage compared to one used to pull a cart in times of war. Here, being fast and strong not only won't help you survive if you are hit by a cannonball, it tends to get you shot at.

Did you answer my last request for an explicit statement of your position - just exactly what it is that you are criticizing or objecting to, and what you recommend doing about it?

And given whatever answer you provide, should we toss this scientific theory out? Modify it? Do nothing different?

Your question merely shows that you don't understand at all. The point that I am making is that natural selection is not a scientific theory.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Okay so beneficial mutations = mutations that increase your chance of breeding.

So the natural selection argument boils down to this: Mutations that increase your chance of survival and production of progeny increase your chances of survival and production of progeny.

Therefore, according to your own words, it's a tautology.

How are you failing to understand this? Natural selection is the explanation that accounts for how and why certain genes in certain environments proliferate greater than other ones and how this leads to overall changes in allele frequencies in living populations over time.

This is incredibly basic, simple stuff. Your deliberate ignorance, and your determination to over-simplify, only exposes your own desperation.