You were given an example. It demonstrated that your conception is invalid.
If the development of one is not impeded by the development of another, there’s no point in addressing them “in one go”. It’s why history can be taught for the most part as a number of histories running in parallel: until transportation improved to facilitate commerce between cultures, each developed in its own path.
So you’re going to have to provide a solid argument that the development of some systems are not independent of the development of others.
A mathematical calculation can be shown to be wrong, but the absence of a mathematical calculation can’t be wrong, because there’s nothing there to be wrong.
It’s all assertion and opinion, with no substance beyond the occasional misunderstanding.
You left out proving that no member of P is a factor of Q; we had to include a full proof of that. That’s what took up most of the space. I could have done it in a slightly more efficient way given some thought afterwards, but this was on a timed test.
Tadpoles start off with gills and no limbs, and become frogs having lungs and limbs. Just looking at these two stages, the whole creature superficially appears nothing alike. Recapping this progression, fish and amphibians are biological neighbors; there are no traits between them that could not bridge in a gradual way. After all, the environment itself transitions in gradual fashion. Found between open water and high and dry land are shallows, tide pools, estuaries and shorelines. There are reasons of safety and resources to progressively exploit and colonize each, and select for variation best suited to each ecology. The transition from fish to amphibian was more inevitable than astonishing.
You may as well cite any foetal growth, it is exactly the same and nothing to do with evoltionary development. Human babies have gills! Brilliant. That argument was dismissed even when i was at College.
I
Really!
Fish have scles, Amphibianns have a porous skin.
Amphibians have four limbs
Amphibians have muscuar and sensory togue, Fish have a Basihyal which is nether.
Amphibians breathe through their skin with some muscuargulping. (Oh dear a few still have gills, so I should give you that one)
Yes, it is easy to see how similar they are (sacastic font)
How many of those unique differences can a transitional creature have or do without? (and still pass natural Selection)
I suppose you could claim that if there are no other land animalls any abiltiy to live on land will be enough to pass natural selction. (They have no competitors)
And, yes, a land only creature will have a natural advantage over an Amphibian, at least inland away from water
And the claim is that Mamalian self regulating temerature is the advantage over reptiles? (But that changeover is the most difficult to expalin away in small steps.)
The point being that the differences are marked, which is where the original classification used.The final results are clearly advantageous enough to claim evolution, but these basic differences are harder to change (be transient) because they are interdependent, not just one characteristic but several.
You can quote as many examples of “transients” you like but they have all got a fully developed, if uncharacteristic, transient element. (I just love the idea that a few feathers could be called advantageous enough to justify them becoming flight feathers)
IOW There s no undeveloped limb, or incomplete skeleton, or a fish with breathing skin, infact the lungfish bypasses amphibians altogether,(Perhaps Amphibians are an offshoot rather than in direct line?)
We were only allowed to use properties of numbers that we had done proofs for in class, so going directly to a mod was out. That’s basically what one of the intermediate steps I used was, but I had to get there from the definition of a prime number and basic properties of multiplication and factorization. I’ll try to find the proof some time.
Are you claiing tht to make a bird, we have several converging lines of evolition whereby
makes featers
has a honeycomb bone structure (why?)
Develops a large sturnum
Gets a beak instead of jaws
Has an enhanced metabolism to enable severe excersise
Each trait deelops on its own for its own sake and then, somehow, all are combined together (Polygamy?) to make a bird!
Not only would some of those be dubious as advantages outside avians, it implies a preparation and building that defies chance, let alone bringing them to gether.
The alternative is for a single creature to develop each trait, on its own, and suddenly find that they combine perfectly!
IOW
The creation of birds has not been thought through. Just because you have found some stray feathers does not make it certain that birds derived from that creature. And just because you have found a diosaur with an enlarged sturnum, the same thing applies.
The ability to inhale while flying can only occur if the creature is flying, and then, if it can’t, it would be too late (Flapping enhanced breathing)
Even with the best will in the world, I fail to see how such systems could just “appear”, let alone combine.
If you try and research avian bones and feathers all you get is waffle and posturing.
“It came from dinosaurs”
even better
“Jumping dinosaurs developed wings”
Are you kidding!
There is no justification for any of it. A few feathers without barbs and you get a flying bird. Assumption doesn’t even come close, and neither does naive.
The whole notion that nature could accidentally learn to fly when it has taken man over 100 years (probably longer) just to produce a working facsimile that bypasses most of the actual mechanisms involved (yes i have seen the video)
From what i have read the Dinosaurs that had hollow bones were eithet already flying , or very heavy. Correct me if i am wrong , but birds do not dervive from flying dinosaurs,or heavy ones.
Downy feathers are a plausible enhhnacement, as long as the creature is self heat regulating (endothermic). But the flight feather is so advanced and specific you will hav difficulty developing it for anything other than flight which takes us back to either building, or advanced knowledge of what is required.
I am sorry, but flight feathers defy, accidental “invention”.
At the end of the day there is no certainty or proof of the development of birds other than the few fossils that basically are primal birds rather than dinosaurs. It is just one of those “convenient” proposals that tries to justify ToE.
If you want to beleive that birds are cosmic flukes rather than created specifically, go ahead. Even if you get all the componants together the thing still has to be able to use them and, as mentioned that motion is very complex.
I never commented on your status as a Christian. We don’t see eye to eye on the nature of scripture. Our underlying axioms are different so there appears to be little or no fruit to be had in us discussing any Biblical interpretation or traditional Christian doctrine based off the Bible. You are a cautionary example of what the conservatives try to reduce many of our interpretation to: picking and choosing.
I don’t use the word Apocrypha. It’s full scripture to me. My view on canonization is the same as my view on the textual integrity of the Bible and the issue of Biblical inerrancy. The Bible is good enough to serve the purposes for which God intends it.
I can’t understand how it’s hubris to simply point out the rational basis of a view point. We seem to be on different planets or talking about different things. In lieu of this, I find nothing productive or worth continuing here.
Yeah, for me, take seriously what the Church has virtually always had, apostolic teachings or Scripture, or what some guy late to the party is arguing on the internet 2,000 years later? Some consider it okay to dismiss the greatest intellectual tradition in the history of humanity with a wave. That, rather than neutrally explaining where a belief comes from is hubris.
Well, a lot of time is being spent, I believe on a minor issue of what qualifies as data, but here we go…
I’d say these observations are based on models and data that also assume the constancy of the laws of nature.
Feser: > Indeed, the problem was known even before Popper’s time, and famously raised by Pierre Duhem. A scientific theory is always tested in conjunction with various assumptions about background conditions obtaining at the time an experiment is performed, assumptions about the experimental set-up itself, and auxiliary scientific hypotheses about the phenomena being studied. If the outcome of an experiment is not as predicted, one could give up the theory being tested, but one might also consider giving up one or more of the auxiliary hypotheses instead, or check to see if the background conditions or experimental set-up were really as one had supposed. – A Note on Falsification
I don’t think there is a way around that circularity. It’s a belief and only once you grant it or certain assumptions can you use it to show that that laws of physics are constant through time and space. That the laws of physics and the ordered nature of reality will continue from moment to moment is also a belief and not a fact. We might base our trust in it on observational data or patterns but that is that also not a belief none the less?
And a lot of philosophical baggage goes into such a statement that you just made. For example, the belief in a shared external world with shared external rules that exists independent of our mind(s). Science and the scientific method does not exist in a vacuum. It has its own presuppositions and does make logical leaps (the problem of induction). I’m not knocking science. I love it. I’ve been fascinated by it since I was a teen and it pays the bills for me. I think it’s a reliable method of learning about specific aspects of reality. I don’t think my faith or metaphysics takes a back seat to it though as if my faith is just subjective opinion or belief but science represents the real facts. This is a modernist prejudice and I am simply not an atheist or an intellectually defeated Christian that agrees with that.
Yes and I am certainly only giving my view. What you wrote here is definitely part of my point. How we approach the world will determine what we see as data. For a non-theist I suspect science dominates often. Though I’m sure there are other options people take as we are very diverse. For a Christian, sometimes scripture dominates. For those like me, science, scripture, Church tradition, personal experience and metaphysics all have to exist together in a coherent whole…. each one having a say or providing data to complete my worldview. It’s a puzzle I have to piece together.
For me, a transforming experience with God alters how I view everything. As the C.S. Lewis quote goes: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” It is an axiom of my life now. It’s no more silly than positing the constancy or continued regularity of the laws of nature or expecting their continued regularity. The most recent systematic theology book I read by Wayne Grudem considered Biblical inerrancy an unprovable axiom all Christians should start with. I don’t share belief in inerrancy and Grudem’s point is not what a lot of post-Enlightenment thinkers want to hear but for many Christians the Bible does not take a back seat to science. Based on their belief in its inspiration they take what it says as the highest authority there is. So when trying to ascertain some truth about the world, I think a lot of Christians feel completely comfortable using writings in their Canon as valid data towards that end. And that is what my comment originally meant. What is and isn’t data towards making sense of the world will differ based on philosophical presuppositions, worldviews, personal experience, etc. I understand what a good scientist means by data but I am not required to limit the word data to scientific data. Data, by the definition I looked up uses facts and a fact is thing that is known or proved to be true. That leaves open a lot of room. I stand by my usage.
I understand the idea of facts vs beliefs. Something probably should separate, “I have two arms” from “there is an invisible pink unicorn hiding under my bed.” But I think it’s dangerously easy for people to call what they accept as true facts vs what they disagree with or are simply not convinced of as being beliefs. Even in conventional knowledge, “facts” change. That the earth didn’t move was once a fact. Now it isn’t. I mention this because we would also seemingly need to distinguish between the mere idea of a brute fact and identifying actual facts. It seems there is a social aspect to this. We have to approach the issue with similar axioms and rules and then a consensus forms. Can we ever even excise “facts” from a popularity contest? It seems me to our underlying metaphysics will largely dictate how we approach the issue of what is data and what is not about the world.
I don’t think my belief in God is subjective whereas my belief in the efficacy of the scientific method is not. Falsifiability is metaphysical, not scientific. Occam’z razor as well as far as I can tell. The existence of, comprehensibility of and ordered nature of the world around us all stem naturally from my Faith. For me, it is also a metaphysical fact that an all powerful, all good, omniscient God exists. I think this can be demonstrated through a number of rational arguments. I think chocolate being the best flavor of ice cream is a subjective opinion or belief. Belief in God can be based on rational arguments, evidence and personal experience. Metaphysical arguments may not be empirically falsifiable (that’s a category error anyways as they go deeper and underlie science and thought which presuppose them) but they can be rationally evaluated.
My belief on this is that a worldview that can’t state playing catch with babies using bayonets is actually wrong is not worth entertaining. Certainly, in my mind, that issue and why raping women is objectively wrong, are both a million times more important than whether or not some pew warmer thinks we evolved or not or whether or not Biologos thinks “science is good.”
Trying to turn science into facts and everything else into beliefs is what leads to this sort of problem. Maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic but I don’t subscribe to a world where you can’t even have moral progress because that implies moving towards some objective good that is a made up fiction. Objective good at one time was acquiring more slaves and increasing your families wealth and quality of life. To me a world mere you can only have brute, neutral moral change and not moral progress or reform seems completely at odds with reality and not very objective.
The way I see it, I’d call morality an objective reality because we observe it. It is there and a real part of life. Just as reality seems to be regular and ordered, morality is there. The problem is that materialist and most naturalists just cannot give a proper account of it and rather than let something more (than science?) get a foot in the door they would rather deem it subjective. Being for or against infanticide is not really a matter of personal preference to me --of dare I say for most of the world. Materialism is delusional.
It is not that there is no rationalle, only that it is an imposed rationalle. The moment you impose Scripture as being more than human writing you are indulging your own need rather than being true to Scripture. The “all or Nothing” principle of Scripture understanding is what invokes the “pick and choose” accusation. Both are subject ot personal beleif, rather than something you can dictate.
So you assert that God has some stake in Scripture as in either wote or vetted it. Scripture is human, it is not God intended as such. Scripture is human understanding of God and how He has been understood. it is not God revealing Himself, but perhaps you fail to distinguish the two.
IOW you are not even prepared to look beyond your fixed view of Scripture.
Fair enough, but that does not mean that your view is correct or beyond reproach.
Hmm
You beleive in evolution but not in theology changing and adjusting. Interesting.
You act as if you have nevr heard someone like me before. Do you really think that i am both unique and a heretic?
As someone who apparently recognises qualifications and study, I wonder where you think my views come from?
You would not be the first person to shout “Heretic” fallsely, just because they disagee with you.
Richard
PS
Slavery is not a metaphore. Calling sin slavery is a specific view and one that reality can refute. But, it seems, it is only scientific reality that you allow to affect your view of Scripture.
The moment you claim anything other than a historical view of Genesis 1 you are contradicting your view of God written Scripture.(do you agree @adamjedgar ?)
No, it’s my very uncontroversial Christian view that Christian scripture is more than mere human writing. This is the belief of virtually all Christians throughout the history of the Church. Jesus → Apostle → Apostolic Teachings/Scripture. Belief in inspiration does go beyond this for many. You accuse me of all or nothing but you know nothing about my model of inspirations. I have written against all or nothing here:vIf the Bible has errors isn’t it useless for faith? or How could God author a text with errors?
You assert the opposite., Pot meet kettle. I am a Christian. Asking why I believe in some form of Biblical inspiration is like asking a duck why it has a beak.
Are you? My view on scripture, like my view on other things evolves.
I think the scientific evidence in favor of evolution is strong. This does not mean I connect all the same dots the way naturalists or materialists do. Nor is science the sole arbiter in determining my world view. Metaphysics, scripture, personal experience, and church tradition all play a role.
No, your views on scripture, right or wrong, are a fringe minority but you come off as if you represent consensus opinion.
Nonsense for anyone with the word genre in their vocabulary. You also have a narrow view of inspiration. I doubt my view is what you are arguing against.
