Coffee House Musings on Creationist Topic Proposals

Well, maybe we'll be forced to agree with your self characterization, because that is clearly the statement of someone devoutly stupid.Religion plays no role in the modern synthesis and is the product of people of many religions and of no religion. Atheists, by definition, have no religion, and scientific theories are not religions anyway.You are welcome at any time to actually engage in constructive discussion.--Percy

Well, thank you for that bizarre interlude.You are still welcome to engage in constructive discussion at any time.--Percy

What impression of you specifically and Catholics in general are you hoping to leave here?--Percy

I think you and Dredge are both thinking about things and working things out, but unlike you he isn't interested in figuring out how best to communicate. More importantly, he has different goals from you. Your goals are to exchange information, increase your understanding, and hone the arguments for your point of view.Dredge's goals are pretty much the opposite, plus he is operating under some constraints. He doesn't understand evolution or even science in general, so even if he were so inclined he isn't able to carry on a technical conversation. His goals are to frustrate, display his contempt, and to make the same persistent unsupported claims over and over while ignoring almost all refutations. Some of the illogic he often displays is innate, some is just part of his strategy to frustrate.Put succinctly, Dredge's goals are to stymie constructive discussion. It pleases him when people become frustrated while attempting to constructively engage with him because it means he is achieving his goals.--Percy

Well, sure, he's a troll, but what I wonder is why? Most people think they're doing the right thing, so if we assume he's just a normal person then he thinks his behavior is fine. It's not impossible that he actually has a screw loose, but let's ignore that possibility for the time being.The only reason for his behavior that makes sense to me is that he thinks we're mostly atheists and so deserve to be treated this way. That he's able to draw other people out into bad behavior of one form or another probably reinforces this belief.Even after all these years I'm still puzzled that appeals to the better angels of our nature almost never work with very devout people who are behaving badly. That religion, particularly Christianity which is underpinned by Christ's teachings, should be a guide to how to behave toward one's fellow man seems a foreign concept to many of them. It's almost as if their thought process is, "You're arguing with me, a believer in Christ, and therefore deserve whatever abuse I want to dish out." They use religion as a license for bad behavior.--Percy

I wish you had responded to a different part of my message, the part where I asked why you're repeating the same question over and over again while never addressing any of the many times it's been answered.--Percy

Just out of curiosity, if we keep telling you over and over again that science isn't in the business of proving things, that theories are accepted, not proven, will there come a point where the lightbulb finally goes on for you, or is that never going to happen?Trying to put a finer point on it, your argument only makes sense if science *were* in the business of proving things. But it's not. So your argument just makes no sense. There's that word "prove" again. Well now you're just shouting to the world, "I'm fairly unfamiliar with the creation/evolution debate in which I'm attempting to participate anyway." Haeckel is one of the most famous biologists in history. He did most of the work he's famous for in the latter half of the 1800s.Until recently he was the constant focus of creationists arguing how wrong was his claim that "ontogeny recapitulates ontology," and that Darwinists were trying to indoctrinate generations of school children by including that point as established science, even including embryo drawings from Haeckel's papers in biology textbooks, which may still be true in school districts that haven't replaced their textbooks in a really long time, like since the 1950's."Ontogeny recapitulates ontology" is just a biologically concise way of saying that embryo's go through the same stages of development as the organism's evolutionary development. Haeckel was very influential during his lifetime and was able to make this questionable claim stick. His arguments and drawings began appearing in biology textbooks, and they survived in them for a long, long time (there's a lot of inertia in the textbook industry), long after we knew Haeckel had only uncovered a sort of general tendency, not a law.Hope that clears it up for you, but the key issue is that you need a better understanding of what it is that science actually does, which definitely isn't proving anything.And you also need to take on more responsibility for moving the discussion forward. Many of your messages say almost the exact same thing, that we can't prove evolution explains the fossil record. Any sane person would recognize that not only is your broken record approach not working, it's also a horrible way of conducting yourself in a discussion. You should give some thought to alternative approaches to the discussion, ones that might actually make your point for you if it happens to be correct. The other side is telling you there are a couple important concepts that you're missing, so maybe you could look there first and see where it leads you.--Percy

You're repeating yourself once again. Maybe it would help if I pointed out that science has never proven anything in its entire history.Gravity? Unproven.Theory of Relativity? Unproven.Boyle's Gas Law? Unproven.The Standard Model? Unproven.Theories become accepted amongst the relevant scientific community via replication and the accumulation of evidence.When we say we *know* something we mean it in the scientific sense of having a broad body of supporting evidence and interpretation, not in a "rigorously proven" sense. Science doesn't deal in truth, either.--Percy

While there's no basis for the old saw that insanity is doing the same thing and expecting something different to happen, the determination with which you repeat yourself almost word for word while completely ignoring the rebuttals does bring it to mind.--Percy

You remind me of a turtle retreating into its shell.--Percy

I don't think you've given any consideration to the implications of this claim. It's not just the ToE that Science can't prove, it's everything else, too. Science can't prove anything. Proving things is not what science does.What science does do is build interpretational frameworks of understanding around bodies of evidence, and it attempts to add to the evidence and understanding through replication and further investigation. When a framework of understanding convinces enough members of the relevant scientific community then it is said to have become accepted, but definitely not proven because, again, nothing is ever proven in science. In an informal sense we say that we now *know* something.So if you're right that science doesn't know how evolution works, then it follows that science doesn't know anything else, either. Of course we know that's not true, so your claim that science can't know how evolution works is disproven.Oh, since I've used the word "disproven" I should say that science *is* in the business of disproving things, more formally, falsifying hypotheses. A famous disproven hypothesis is that of the luminiferous ether.Another important scientific concept is tentativity. A falsified hypothesis is only tentatively falsified. Further investigation and study may force a reconsideration. Similarly, an accepted theory is only tentatively accepted. Further investigation and study may force a reconsideration.--Percy

There's that word again. Science doesn't prove things. In the entire history of science it has proved nothing.I know playing the idiot is sort of your schtick, but give it a break now and then. Some people are trying to have a serious discussion with you.--Percy

There's that word again. You must believe that if you repeat an erroneous statement enough times that it eventually becomes right.--Percy

Yes, the village idiot does apparently think he knows this. How odd - I also seem to recall you making such claims. For example, didn't you say words to the effect that we can't possibly know how evolution worked in the past? I don't think I've ever seen theory defined this way.--Percy

In the US, only about 5% to 10% of lawyers are trial lawyers.--Percy