Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,815 Year: 3,072/9,624 Month: 917/1,588 Week: 100/223 Day: 11/17 Hour: 0/7


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Transitional Forms
nibelung778
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 35 (43)
01-09-2001 3:59 PM


This is a reply to post 3
T-Thus, Creationism is falsifiable.
And you argue that fossil evidence is not falsifiable?
By your same argument alone, the creator could also come down and announce that evolution or the fossil record is wrong thereby providing equally valid falsification according to your logic. Since the likelihood of the creator coming down and doing either appears to be remote, the validity of this argument to provide evidence of falsibiablity of anything is highly questionable to say the least. I am sure you were just trying to be amusing by making that argument.
T- this faith system does not actually fall into the framework provided by the scientific method.
It is always odd how nonscientists act as if they are better qualified to determine what is scientific than scientists. Creationists think that one small flaw in evolutionary theory will cause the whole system to crumble to dust, and this feeling is reflected in your example. No single out of place fossil find is going to invalidate the entire theory. As gene says, your example is a strawman. No good scientist is going to rationalize this way and if he or she did it would be hailed by the scientific community as the BS that it really is.
T-How can a theory claim to be falsifiable if you alway have the ability to rely on the conjectur of absence data to corraborate the data.
Two different things. Conjecture from an absence of data is idle speculation, but idle speculation has no basis for falsification and doesn't get papers published.
According to you, evolutionary theory does: not predict the evidence, (is) an origin narrative, (and is a) faith system...
That's really several different topics to try to debate. You make many claims (acting almost as if making a claim makes it valid) but provide no substantiation. Perhaps you should try to stick to one point at a time.
What kind of evidence would falsify the theory of evolution? That is a good thought question (but another topic). My opinion is that it would almost take God coming down here and settling all this once and for all (heaven forbid!) to actually falsify evolution, since there is so much evidence across so many different scientific fields of study which support this theory. Falsifying the theory would presumably create havoc in general biology, biochemistry, paleontology, geology, archeology, molecular biology, and physics. Perhaps you think those are nonscientific disciplines? I think you trivialize the scientific process to think that your example would provide adequate falsification. The scientific method provides the framework and freedom in which theories can objectively be falsified based on evidence. The history of scientific progress provides numerous examples of how the process of falsification works and works well in science.
How does all this relate to the topic, transitional forms? If I understand it all correctly, the concern seems to be that scientists fill gaps in transitional forms with faith and that because their thinking is based on faith, it is not falsibiable. The only 'faith' that is used is the faith in logical, predicable, and orderly processes that obey natural physical laws. If Mr X was seen at 4th and Main at 7pm on 1/6/01 when my car was stolen and my car was found in Mr. X's driveway with his fingerprints on the inside, I don't need spiritual faith to conclude that Mr. X took my car. I don't need to fill in the gaps (seeing Mr. X get into my car and drive off). I have a chain of evidence, as science does for evolution with a sequence of transitional fossil forms. My theory that Mr.X took my car is perfectly falsibiable if I find more evidence that contradicts my theory. It is the same with scientific theories.
[This message has been edited by nibelung778 (edited 01-09-2001).]

nibelung778
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 35 (46)
01-09-2001 5:48 PM


reply to message 6
Chris B-You seem to be saying that....
Oh, come on Chris, you can do better than that. Are you going to make a strawman argument (a silly one, too), suggest that I said it, and then easily refute it because it is silly?
[Reading the subsequent reply of gene90 (post 9), it sounds like your comment was not intended as a reply to my post. If this is so, please disregard].
[This message has been edited by nibelung778 (edited 01-10-2001).]
[This message has been edited by nibelung778 (edited 01-10-2001).]

nibelung778
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 35 (53)
01-10-2001 11:49 AM


reply to Thmsberry-
T-You seemed to avoid completely my falsify point.
not at all. As I said, "Mr.X took my car is perfectly falsifiable if I find more evidence that contradicts my theory. It is the same
with scientific theories." Simply by finding a proponderance of new evidence that contradicts evolutionary theory. That is the way science has always worked in discarding worn out theories. Why is that a difficult concept for you?
T-Can you explain how you can falsify your claim that the fossil record supports evolution?
see above. What is the communication problem here?
T-You are claiming it is scientific evidence. Please provide the means to falsify it.
Please present your argument that I haven't.
T-You also argue that the claim that God could falsify christian creationism is improbable.
As improbable as the idea that He will falsify evolutionary theory.
T-Interesting. You can't argue that.
I can argue anything I please, thank you.
T- There is now way to argue what God will and will not do and then to set a probability to it.
Very good! If there is no way to say what God will or will not do, then how can that be any argument for falsification? If we don't know, then we can not know if it is falsifiable. Therefore, it is not a valid argument. Let's try to remain in reality as we know it.
T- The chance of God falsifying christian creationism is probably the same as all the missing transitional forms...
Now who is trying to assign probabilities? There are lots of transitional forms. Why are you always focusing on the gaps? That is like having a jig saw puzzle partially put together and claiming that the puzzle is meaningless just because there are some missing pieces. What about all the pieces that are there? How do you explain them?

nibelung778
Inactive Member


Message 28 of 35 (72)
01-12-2001 8:39 AM


(reply to post 19)
___________________________________
T-Show me how you can falsify evolution using the fossil record.
___________________________________
I frankly doubt that evolution can be completely falsified with the fossil record alone, never claimed it could be. It would, however, falsify part of the theory and shake it to its roots. I do appreciate your problem with falsification of the theory of evolution. How did this turn into a falsification topic by the way? I don't have any quick and dirty falsification of the entire theory. Part of the problem, as it is with so many of these discussions, is definitions. Falsification doesn't have to be all or none. Falsification can be piecemeal. Falsification doesn't have to be easy, either but it does have to be the result of scientific physical evidence (not your God-coming-down-maybe-he-will-maybe-he-won't-nobody-can-know kind of evidence). Because beyond that, a major part of the problem is the vast amount of evidence that scientists have already accumulated to support the theory. It would be difficult to beat it. I agree that even the idea of finding Homo sapiens fossils in preCambian geological layers wouldn't kill evolution immediately. There is too much at stake, too much energy, time, and emotion invested, and too much evidence. It would definitely shake the theory to its roots but you are right that some scientists would try to rationalize around it-- say there were two overlapping evolutions or there must be transitional fossils even before the preCambian ones, or more likely yet, just scream "it just isn't true, it must be a fraud!". What can I tell you, the theory of evolution is a huge complex edifice that is all wrapped up in and integrated with other fields of science. It isn't going to fall down if you throw a rock at it. That has been true of many of the theories in the history of science. They don't go away very easily. But they do change and they will go away eventually if enough real contradictory evidence is brought to bear on them. Falsification isn't necessarily all or none. Part of the evolutionary theory would be falsified if the above preCambian discovery were made. Additional discoveries would be required to continue the process of piecemeal falsification until nothing was left of the theory.Sure, some would rationalize, 'maybe earlier fossils weren't preserved' but lack of evidence does not support or detract from a theory. The presence of the preCambian evidence would force scientists to change the theory. The lack of other earlier fossils would not change a thing, nor should it.
Here is a better way to completely falsify the theory without fossils. Creationists admit that microevolution is possible but act like there is a barrier to macroevolution. It is almost impossible to imagine but suppose the next great molecular biology discovery is that there actually is, surprisingly and unexpectedly, some barrier beyond which an organism can not accumulate mutations making it impossible for macroevolution to occur. Maybe, as in apoptosis, there is a self destruct gene and this self destruct (or evolution destruct) gene is turned on when a certain number of mutations accumulate in the genome. If this finding were confirmed and found to be a general mechanism in biological organisms, that would be a death blow to evolutionary theory. Again, it would not die easily or quickly. Science isn't quick to make changes. It would be a bloody terrible and slow death but it would be inevitable if this imaginary discover were made.

Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024