Can the history of life on earth be proven to be the result of any natural process?

[Roy]

@Buzzard

@Roy

Since you’ve responded to me saying nothing about evolution can be proven

I don’t recall saying “nothing about evolution can be proven”. Please point out where i said that. Thanks.

You didn’t say that. I didn’t say you’d said that. I said that:

Since you’ve responded to {me saying [nothing about evolution can be proven]} by {asking me [what I can prove]}…

Is English your first language?

[Roy]

@Buzzard

@Roy

Prove 100% that fingerprints at crime scenes are never planted by demons.

Prove 100% that DNA at crime scenes isn’t sometimes created by leprechauns.

Can you prove that demons and leprechauns exist?

I don’t have to.

You said you could “100% prove that fingerprints and DNA come from natural processes”.

That requires proving that they can’t be planted/created by demons/leprechauns.

Get on with it, or admit you can’t.

[Buzzard]

Why would you suggest that fingerprints and DNA could have been left by demons or leprechauns if it can’t be proven that demons and leprechauns exist?

[Roy]

@Buzzard

Why would you suggest that fingerprints and DNA could have been left by demons or leprechauns if it can’t be proven that demons and leprechauns exist?

I didn’t suggest that - but it is a possibility that you should have already eliminated in order to “100% prove that fingerprints and DNA come from natural processes”.

That requires proving that they can’t be planted/created by demons/leprechauns.

Get on with it, or admit you can’t.

[Buzzard]

@Roy

You didn’t say that. I didn’t say you’d said that. I said that:

Since you’ve responded to {me saying [nothing about evolution can be proven]} by {asking me [what I can prove]}…

Is English your first language?

I apologise for misunderstading what you wrote.

[Roy]

@Buzzard

@Roy

Is English your first language?

I apologise for misunderstading what you wrote.

I’ve noted a correlation between question avoidance and ineptitude.

[T_aquaticus]

@Buzzard

Name one evolutionery transition evident in the fossil record that you can prove was the result of a natural process.

We can’t prove that anything around us is the product of natural processes because some supernatural deity could have created the entire universe and all our memories 2 minutes ago. What you are asking is just silly.

What we have is an observed natural process in the present. From our understanding of this process, we can predict which mixture of features we should see in the fossil record, and which mixtures of features we shouldn’t see. We see exactly what we would predict from a natural process. This is evidence for the natural process.

[T_aquaticus]

@Buzzard

Can you prove that demons and leprechauns exist?

I can no more prove that demons and leprechauns exist than you can prove fossils were created through a supernatural process. So it would appear that fingerprints and DNA at crime scenes are just as much the product of the supernatural as fossils are.

[T_aquaticus]

@Buzzard

My argument is that the “process” that was responsible for evolution cannot be known.

The processes are known. They include natural selection, random mutation, neutral drift, and speciation to name a few.

@Buzzard

Evolution cannot be proven to be the result of a natural process any more than it can be proven to be the result of divine creation.

Yes, in the same way that DNA and fingerprints at crime scenes can not be proven to be the result of natural processes.

Once you introduce the supernatural you can no longer make any sense of nature because any observation can be directly attributed to the supernatural. You lose the ability to falsify your ideas. Any supernatural explanation is of equal explanatory power.

If, as you seem to be saying, we can not accept scientific theories even if they make extremely accurate predictions then we can no longer make any sense of what is going on in the world around us. George Romanes spoke about this very thing, clear back in 1882.

For, be it observed, the exception in limine to the evidence which we are about to consider, does not question that natural selection may not be able to do all that Mr. Darwin ascribes to it: it merely objects to his interpretation of the facts, because it maintains that these facts might equally well be ascribed to intelligent design. And so undoubtedly they might, if we were all childish enough to rush into a supernatural explanation whenever a natural explanation is found sufficient to account for the facts. Once admit the glaringly illogical principle that we may assume the operation of higher causes where the operation of lower ones is sufficient to explain the observed phenomena, and all our science and all our philosophy are scattered to the winds. For the law of logic which Sir William Hamilton called the law of parsimony—or the law which forbids us to assume the operation of higher causes when lower ones are found sufficient to explain the observed effects—this law constitutes the only logical barrier between science and superstition. For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards. Therefore I have no hesitation in saying that this way of looking at the evidence in favour of natural selection is not a scientific or a reasonable way of looking at it, but a purely superstitious way. Let us take, for instance, as an illustration, a perfectly parallel case. When Kepler was unable to explain by any known causes the paths described by the planets, he resorted to a supernatural explanation, and supposed that every planet was guided in its movements by some presiding angel. But when Newton supplied a beautifully simple physical explanation, all persons with a scientific habit of mind at once abandoned the metaphysical explanation. Now, to be consistent, the above-mentioned professors, and all who think with them, ought still to adhere to Kepler’s hypothesis in preference to Newton’s explanation; for, excepting the law of parsimony, there is certainly no other logical objection to the statement that the movements of the planets afford as good evidence of the influence of guiding angels as they do of the influence of gravitation.
–George Romanes, “Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution”, 1882
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution, by George J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.

[Paraleptopecten (Timothy Campbell)]

@Buzzard

Did the theory of evolution predict that the ancestors of vertebrates would be non-vertebrates?

Did the theory of evolution predict that the ancestors of organisms that reproduce sexually (male and female) would be organisms that reproduce asexually?

Yes and yes. Because the extant organisms that lack those characteristics are less similar to each other than some of them are to vertebrates or to sexually-reproducing organisms.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Roy

The scientific community generally accepts that it’s a fact that the history of life on earth is the result of neo-Darwinian evolution because decades of evidence that could have disproven evolution hasn’t done so

My turn

Richard

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Buzzard

Name one evolutionery transition evident in the fossil record that you can prove was the result of a natural process.

All of them.

[Roy]

Feel free to name any piece of evidence that has disproven evolution, or explain why no evidence could.

[St.Roymond]

@Buzzard

@St.Roymond

Why would you propose that what we see happening around us is not the same as what has been happening all along? Everything we observe is happening via natural processes, so the burden of proof should be on the claim that anything has ever been otherwise.

Name one (alleged) evolutionery transition in the fossil record that you can prove was the result of a natural process.

That doesn’t meet the burden of proof.
Why would you propose that what we see happening around us is not the same as what has been happening all along?

@Buzzard

Evolution cannot be proven to be the result of a natural process any more than it can be proven to be the result of divine creation.

If there is a Creator, why would you think that Creator is capricious rather than faithful?
And if faithful, why would you propose that what we see happening around us is not the same as what the Creator has been doing all along?

[St.Roymond]

@Roy

You said you could “100% prove that fingerprints and DNA come from natural processes”.

That requires proving that they can’t be planted/created by demons/leprechauns.

To play this game . . . prove you’re not a demon or leprechaun.

And if you can’t, at least demonstrate why anyone should pay attention to you since you can’t prove you’re not a demon or leprechaun.

[St.Roymond]

@T_aquaticus

Once you introduce the supernatural you can no longer make any sense of nature

Not quite – it’s when you introduce a capricious supernatural that making sense of nature goes out the window.
With a non-capricious supernatural, the logical assumption is that things all along have been proceeding as we presently observe.

@T_aquaticus

For it is manifest that it is always possible to give a hypothetical explanation of any phenomenon whatever, by referring it immediately to the intelligence of some supernatural agent; so that the only difference between the logic of science and the logic of superstition consists in science recognising a validity in the law of parsimony which superstition disregards.

Which interestingly casts YEC into the realm of superstition.

[T_aquaticus]

@St.Roymond

Which interestingly casts YEC into the realm of superstition.

I wouldn’t use “superstition” in this instance, although in Romanes’ time that may have had a different connotation. But yes, YEC is in the same realm as thinking angels move planets around the Sun, and it is just coincidence that they follow the paths predicted by Newton’s and Einstein’s equations.

[Roy]

@St.Roymond

@Roy

You said you could “100% prove that fingerprints and DNA come from natural processes”.

That requires proving that they can’t be planted/created by demons/leprechauns.

To play this game . . . prove you’re not a demon or leprechaun.

And if you can’t, at least demonstrate why anyone should pay attention to you since you can’t prove you’re not a demon or leprechaun.

Maybe I am a leprechaun.

Prove I’m not!

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Roy

Feel free to name any piece of evidence that has disproven evolution, or explain why no evidence could.

Sorry, that is not the point.

The point is that Science does not recognise the criticisms that disprove ToE, because they are not “scientific” enough.

IOW You co an Admiral Nelson and “see no ships”

Richard
PS I thought science wasn’t about “proof” or disproof". Just something I read around here .

[St.Roymond]

@T_aquaticus

But yes, YEC is in the same realm as thinking angels move planets around the Sun, and it is just coincidence that they follow the paths predicted by Newton’s and Einstein’s equations.

So we have angels pushing tectonic plates . . . actually it would be more respectable if they just said that, and added in angels (Maxwell’s angles?) removing the excess heat (and joining hands to hold the Ark together).