Comparitive delusions

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Mostly the ToE where I would try to track down the evidence for some scenario or another, in layman's terms of course, and couldn't.

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Just because the explanation is not available in layman terms does not mean it is unavailable. Mostly "science-lite" soundbites are distilled for the general public. But to track the evidence down for specifics requires an effort on your part to understand the primary literature where scientists communicate with each other. Maybe surprisingly for you, scientists are not consumed with making sure you understand what they say in seminars, scientific literature, etc. but rather that those in their fields do. It is up to the layman whether they want to do the work to learn enough to be fluent in science (some on this site have made that effort..none of them YECs)...don't complain that you can't read a menu in Rome if you don't bother to learn Italian. Your lack of knowledge of Italian does not suggest that pasta is not on the menu.

That is not the point. If you admit that you only look for scientific evidence in popularized accounts of science then you have de facto conceded that you do not have a clue what scientific evidence exists. You are admitting you are not in a position to make any claims about who has what evidence or what that evidence is. Thus, your claims about scientists unsupported assertions are pure wild conjecture on your own part. And your assertions that creationists are just interpreting the facts differently is also falsified. If you do not even bother to find out what the facts are by examining the primary literature (or better, the available raw data) then you are not "just interpreting facts"..you are ignoring them.

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and tend to present it MORE that way to the poor layman who has no way to question it.

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The layman is only poor when they refuse to follow up on the facts on subjects that supposedly interest them. Your ignorance of the facts is not equivalent to their non-existence. Or will you tell me now that you have read and understood the references in the paper? That is what those who are interested do after all. You don't read a paper and say that is the sum total of the evidence. There is a reference section to each paper which cites further evidence. At least for the primary literature in which science is communicated. In many cases there is a link to the raw data. Science is accessible but you seem to indicate you want to be spoon fed everything and then complain when it does not happen. Your laziness is not equivalent to the non-existence of facts either...you are basically saying Jesus does not exist because I have not read the bible.

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Clever to demand that the poor layman become a scientist in order to protect himself against possibly false information which is really no more than propaganda.

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I don't demand anything of you except that you back up your assertions or stop making them if you cannot. I do not demand a layman become a scientist to protect themselves. I SUGGEST a layman research subjects they are interested in, update themselves on the available facts before coming to a conclusion one way or another. Otherwise, they should exhibit a modicum of honesty and say they do not actually know what the state of a given field actually is.Lots of them do..including many on this site...you unfortunately apparently have no desire to. Just because you read a National Geographic article on DNA for example hardly puts you in a position to make claims as to the veracity of genetics and molecular biology. And it is not up to scientists to spoon feed you remedial biology to convince you of the veractiy of their methods...you can stay 2000 years behind the times as you like...science will march on providing new facts, theories and applications because anybody can check the facts, reproduce the findings, test their hypotheses or falsify them.....can you say that about any of your claims with respect to creationist "interpretations"?

So what you are telling me and others is that you have enough time to make damning proclamations on this forum about what evidence does or does not exist, how science is done, and the motives of scientists but don't have the time (or desire) to actually determine what the facts actually are because all those little silly experiments, papers, citations and technicalities are too tedious? You do realize this is a "dog ate my homework" arguement that you are using. It does not work for the students who use it and it certainly is not a robust defense of your position. I really cannot fathom why creationists expend so much energy opposing things they have no background in yet are fully resistent to expending one iota of energy to actually get a background...other laypeople seem to manage....it reminds me of the people who protest films without actually having seen them because maybe it could be offensive.

I still don't think you get my point. If I write or read a scientific paper on let's say the genetics of flies, the paper will not describe the structure of DNA, will not explain the theory behind the polymerase chain reaction, will not explain Mendelian inheritance etc. etc. The paper will describe a set of facts, usually experimental, that support a hypothesis. The explanations of the background science on which the study rests will be CITED in the text. This means, if you want to know what evidence the current study rests on (beyond anything novel presented) you have to go to the cited references and the citations within them. Sounds like a lot of work? It is...that is why it takes a lot of work to be a scientist or to be an informed layperson. Once you are familiar with a field you don't need to go to every citation since you will already know the background. But up to that point, just picking a paper and claiming they are making wild speculations when you yourself have no idea what evidence they have should disturb you more than how scientists present their research...again, it is like protesting a film or book you have never seen or read respectively.

Hi Faith,
I do see your point actually. But I see you conflating evidence that is not presented but cited with speculation.What you object to is for example, if someone says T. rex skin was green and that it is a fact. That would be speculation. The Discovery Channel and BBC often have ancient animal specials where they do, in my opinion, mislead people into believing what they are presented are established fact rather than a scenario. On this we are in agreement. But you conflate ALL evidence presented with this type of speculation. Curiously, you are exceptionally uncritical about the wild speculation of a literal account of the bible but that is for another thread.Here is a different example which touches on your criticism of the study of the past. I have no records, evidence, or information about my great great great great grandfather on my maternal side. However, it is a fact that I had one, that he reproduced sexually, that he transmitted DNA to the next generation that eventually winded up with me sharing many versions of his genes by identity by descent. That is also not repeatable or observable. My own specific conception was not observed nor is it repeatable. Do you doubt that I had a such an ancestor and that I am genetically related to him? Do you doubt that I was the result of a conception event? I can infer both by examining my genes and those of my parents (I have actually done this for my own mitochondrial DNA), other humans etc. without directly observing either. I can establish both as fact from thousands of scientific experiments in thousands of different species that show that this type of inheritance is how it works. Forensic science, genetics, population genetics, the genetics of speciation, phylogeny, identity by descent all rest on the same process. One can go back in time with ancient DNA and see exactly the same processes operating in the past as the present. There are other independent lines of evidence such as the study of fossils that support the same conclusions without reference to DNA. Thus, one can make very concrete statements about past events using current experiments and observations without it being unsupported speculation. One can use that information to make future predictions which is in effect how anti-viral medicines against HIV for example are developed. Contrary to your opinion, it is highly effective science that is even used in application based research.I am not defensive but am trying to get you to see my point.

I have to second mark24's question...what repeatable experiments demonstrate that we have ancestors? How do I know that I am the product of an egg fertilized by sperm...never saw that and I cannot go back and demonstrate it for me specifically.
I have as much information (or lack thereof) of my great great great great grandfather as I do of the intermediate relatives of the mammoths that I sequenced DNA from and modern elephants...yet I know for a fact that mammoths are extinct elephantids and I know I had a great great great great grandfather...Actually, have more info on the mammoths than my own relatives since I have the bones, the locality they were found in and their radiocarbon ages...according to you, my having ancestors is all wild speculation based on propaganda..or it should be if you want to be consistent

But that is not my point. She is saying forensics, genetics, or merely the principle of genetic relationships to ancestors you have no records of are fine because it is reproducible science. But she then says anything in the past is speculation. This is completely inconsistent the study of heredity always has a component in the past. I have absolutely no information about even my recent ancestors back a few generations. No records, no bones, no eye witness accounts, no experimental evidence. If she is consistent, she should claim that it is wild speculation on my part that I ever had any ancestors other than the ones I personally know..and even that is tenuous because I did not actually measure each conception event up to and including my own to determine if I am actually related to my known relatives.She is cherry picking evidence to fit her worldview and rejecting evidence of equal or better merit on completely inconsistent (and false) grounds.

Nope, you cannot prove that the witness actually witnessed what they say they did..or that they are not lying..or that they have bad memories etc. Written testimony takes you even further from the actual event. If you wish to be truly consistent, you should say the only things that you can say exist are those that YOU personally have witnessed.But in any case, one cannot prove anything is what you are saying..fine, science does not set out to prove....it can falsify and can make develope hypotheses that are supported by many lines of evidence and that have predictive power. That is why it is such a successful endeavor compared to wishful thinking and believing in witnesses and completely untestable unreliable testimonials. Besides, if witnesses were so great, why do courts rely on DNA forensics among other non-witness based evidence because witness testimonials are so unreliable?Actually we have TONs for human pre-history..even DNA from pre-historic humans not to mention their bones, their artifacts, their tools, their clothes their paintings and carvings, the animals they lived with..and their descendents. We have studies that follow generation after generation of variation in hundreds of species at the morphological and genetic level. These are compared to fossil series and other independent lines of evidence.Really Faith, it is rather ridiculous to keep making claims about what scientific evidence exists or does not when you have exhibited time after time a lack of understanding of how science works and a complete lack of knowledge of the state of the fields you are criticizing.Your arguments are bobbing and weaving all over the place from forensic evidence based on DNA is reliable to only eye witness accounts that you believe are acceptable evidence. You need to pick a position and defend it or just admit that you really do not know.This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 03-23-2006 06:35 AM

But she has no consistent view. On the one hand she claims that DNA forensics is repeatable and valid science and on the other, only things that are witnessed have evidence which negates DNA forensics.If she wishes to believe in 2000 year old myths as literal truth, fine...my cat did not understand genetic imprinting either but managed to live out a long life...but her attempts at commentary on scientific subjects are so completely inconsistent as to be comical.My only point is she HAS to reject ALL scientific evidence and theories because they are accumulated and developed the same way regardless of the field. Not cherry pick sciences like forensics that she knows nothing about and proclaim them valid while then turning right around and contradicting herself.I am wondering why she chooses not just to reject all science and cling to a consistent argument. If her faith is really so strong as a fundamentalist, why does she make haphazard appeals to science to bolster her beliefs? Perhaps it is the stunning successes of modern science that has the fundamentalists quaking in their boots and trying to suppress it?

I agree. But I find it would be a more consistent and parsimonious position to take for a literalist that all science is irrelevant and false. It works for the Amish..sort of.Put another way, if you don't like, don't understand, or are ignorant of science and the conclusions drawn from scientific work, why appeal to it in defense of your beliefs in the first place? Afterall, as you point out, no evidence of any kind will disuade her from her irrational views so why go to all the contortions to try to accomodate those views with science in a completely inconistent way?

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Guess it's easier than thinking for yourself, though.

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This may be a key point crash. An appeal of fundamentalism is the "leave your brain at home" clause. It says, don't question anything we (preacher, church leadership, book) say...just rest your head and be confident that it is correct..trust us. In fact, fundamentalism of any kind, evangelical, Islamic fundamentalism, all of them strongly surpress any questioning...often by killing those who do. It in principle gives you permission if not outright license to feel superior, enlightened, informed without actually knowing anything...and allows you to paint those that actually are informed as evil.Contrast that with being a skeptical layperson. They have to inform themselves by, reading difficult texts, study popular and scientific literature..and question those in authority i.e. scientists. It is much more difficult and time consuming which for a sad number of Americans seems to be an easy excuse to cop out.The thread should probably be titled Comparative intellectual laziness

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BUT the argument is that the evidence CANNOT BE TESTED.

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Fallacy..bordering on a lie since you keep repeating an assertion you are unwilling to back up and admit you do not have the patience to back up because it might be tedious...you must have a hungry dog that eats all of your homework for you.The past can be tested hundreds of different ways even if the actual event cannot be observed..one cannot observe an electron either but we know they exist. I know I had ancestors for whom I have no records from analysis of my genes. I ate cereal for breakfast and nobody saw me do it...I guess there is no way to find out what I had for breakfast according to you..hmmmm? I can think of several ways to test for this past event...and it would be the same way one can determine what giant ground sloths ate 20,000 years ago....testable and tested hypothesis...And then you claim that biblical writings are evidence? What tests were done to verify anything in the bible i.e. were are the cud chewing rabbits for example?..chortle yourself.

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Real science starts when you can test your hypothesis and you cannot do that with the ancient past

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How do you know what real science does or does not do? You have admitted that you are too lazy and unmotivated to actually learn anything about science but are prepared to waste incredible amounts of bandwidth repeating the same fallacies over and over...amazing that just out of sheer boredom with repetition that you have never bothered to learn anything...but hey, whatever floats your boat....a chimp does not understand particle physics and can live a full life..I guess fundies can live in complete blind ignorance of science and the natural world and feel happy to.EVERY hypothesis in science is a testable hypothesis...even when it deals with the past. Only ridiculous pseudo-science like creationism or ID are untestable hypotheses. Any scientific hypothesis that is not testable is not a scientific hypothesis. That you are completely ignorant of how hypotheses about the past are tested is a poor reflection on you..but certainly not a deficiency of science.This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 03-27-2006 03:41 AM

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I still shy away from "difficult" texts, but I read more than the average...(I think!)

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That is fine but I don't think you would (or I would for that matter) classify you as a fundamentalist. In fact, in your response to boolean you indicate that you are not a fundie and feel better in your faith because of it. So what I wrote about fundamentalists would not apply to you since you clearly are able to think for yourself not to mention have an interest in the topics you debate.

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You have the evidence of the sloth's breakfast. All you have is inferences and interpretations for the Grand Stories of the ToE and OE, based on the fossil record and the geologic column and that's it. It's ALL interpretation of very vague clues.

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Ha..inconsistent again. You should really find out about the subjects you are debating before futher embarrassing yourself.The sloths breakfast is a past event that is inferred. For example, the gypsum cave is full of coprolites..meters deep in fact. However, nobody alive actually witnessed the sloths crapping them out. That they came from sloths is inferred from DNA evidence here: and here The only reason we know the sloths are the crappers is that the DNA contained is most closely related to those of extant sloths such as two and three toes sloths and other DNA evidence from additional extinct sloths such as the 12 foot tall Mylodon darwinii. We also know that none of the sloths examined exist anywhere anymore i.e. they are extinct sloths.None of this was witnessed. It was inferred via the FACT of heredity and the inference of identity by descent in this case that extinct sloths though very different from modern sloths are more closely related to sloths than to any other animal. That is nice since the fossils say the same thing completely independent of any of this analysis.And now moving to what the sloth had for breakfast, in both of those studies, there was morphological analysis of plants in the coprolites...most of those plants no longer exist in the places that the coprolites were found...not surprising since the Pleistocene-Holocene transition had a huge impact on the flora of North America. The sloth diet is inferred from plant morphology. It was confirmed in those studies by genetic analysis of the plant content...how was it confirmed? because the plant genes in the coprololites are similar to known extant species , genera, families of plants because genetic similarity is transmitted from generation to generation i.e. identity by descent.All of this is inference from morphology, genetics, and the fossil record and is based on the principles of genetics and evolutionary theory.Now, how could you establish what I had for breakfast? Or a more apt comparison to the sloths would be, how could you establish that a turd you find came from me and what did I eat? You would examine the feces for traces of my DNA...how would you know it is my DNA? You would have to compare it to other humans and other mammals to establish that it is human DNA and then more specifically that it came from me using common forensic markers. Why? because it is a past event and you don't know that I am the crapper. Why would the DNA evidence establish me as the culprit? For the same reasons that you can establish that a sloth crapped out a coprololite without having seen it do the deed!!!!What did I eat? morphological and genetic studies of the content would be done..the same way as with the sloth.So, on the one hand, you accept the inferences of a sloths diet and that sloths produce coprolites..the same way you say it is science to establish that one can identify me genetically from my feces and establish what I ate...but both are completely dependent on evolutionary principles which you claim are wild speculation or fraud...thus your argument is inconsistent, and you support is nil, and your reasoning is crap...and I don't need to do a genetic test on your reasoning to establish that it is crap