Scientists are following the evidence, the facts of the world. If you don’t think it is appropriate to use the scientific method and the facts we observe to reconstruct the history of life, then you need to explain why. Trying to deny the objectivity of science isn’t going to cut it.
There is nothing uncomfortable about your tendency to follow your own intuition instead of following the evidence. We just point out that it isn’t science. We developed the scientific method because our intuitions are often very wrong, so we decided we could discover more about how the universe works by testing our ideas against the data found in the universe instead of our intuitions.
The motto of the Royal Society, the oldest scientific academy in existence, is “Nullius in verba” which means “take nobody’s word for it”. That is the scientific method in a nutshell. No conclusion in science can be based on “because so and so says so”. Scientific conclusions need to be based on objective data.
If you are apologizing for falsely accusing scientists of using biased methods, then I will gladly accept the apology and also extend hope that our future conversations won’t include these types of accusations.
I have heard of dry British humor and can usually identify it, but your posts did not seem humorous.
The theory of evolution can be argued against. Scientists have absolutely no problem if someone argues against a theory based on evidence. It’s that last bit you seem to ignore. Arguing against a scientific theory based on personal incredulity is not valid within science, and I fail to see why it should be valid.
It is also interesting to note that you speak against science (even if in humor), but then try to portray the theory of evolution as not being science (i.e. subjective). It seems you still hold science in high regard which is why you try to portray the theory of evolution as not being science.
I see it, and I could be mistaken, more like whether the milk prematurely spoiled in your fridge. Without being able to look, it’s difficult to say with great certainty whether it hadn’t spoiled, especially when your 4 yo said the milk tasted sour.
We have concrete evidence for evolution and common ancestry.
This only illustrates that you don’t know what subjectivity is. Extrapolations are objective predictions because they are based on objective data. If you are travelling at 100 kph I can objectively predict that you will be 100 km away in an hour if you continue at the same speed and travel in a straight line. This isn’t subjective.
And if I ask what those parameters are I will probably get a lot of smoke and mirrors, right?
No, it isn’t. For example, if species evolved from a common ancestor then we should observe a nested hierarchy. We do observe a nested hierarchy. That’s not extrapolation, and it is completely objective.
Well, it may explain some things about his behavior…just kidding. I don’t know him either.
However, I think that the question of cyber warthogs with mind control makes it extraordinary enough I would question it.
G K Chesterton had Father Brown say,
“It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it’s only incredible. But I’m much more certain it didn’t happen than that Parnell’s ghost didn’t appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Complete Father Brown
It reminds me of the question of The Professor (Digory Kirk) in talking to Peter, Susan, and Edmund about whether to believe Lucy had gone into Narnia through a wardrobe.
Interesting conundrum. Thanks!
No, you have limited data which you interpret as evidence
But the data in ToE is not comparable. You compare changed beak to a pair of wings.
I answered it above. You compare simple changes to complex ones (and claim they are not complex)
Common ancestry is not ToE… ToE is the change from single cell to Human (et al) That is what you are asserting. That the change is possible.
Common ancestry does not prove the change is possible. And your smoke and mrrors is the scope of Evolutionary change. You refsue to lay it out or define it. And it is that process that governs ToE not ancestry.
If God created, He would use the same building bricks which would produce the look of caommon ancestry. And you cannot prove otherwise, because that is subjective. Common Ancestry is coroborative at best. It is not proof that the change occurs as you claim, it only proves that the same DNA is used throughout.
ToE is as much a beleif as any religion. It is based on beleif that the changes can occur and that the circumstances for those changes did occur, nether of which you can view or record.
And I would be grateful if you did not try and hide behid other Science. This is about ToE not Cosmology, the Weather, or geology (to name a few disparate scientific areas.
What is the interpretation, and how is it subjective?
We have facts, and scientific hypotheses that can be objectively tested by those facts.
What are you even talking about???
You haven’t shown that these are different parameters. What you consider simple or complex is entirely subjective.
Common ancestry is part of the ToE.
We are concluding universal common descent based on objective evidence.
We are concluding changes happened based on objective evidence. For example, if these changes are possible then we should find fossils with a mixture of dinosaur and bird features. That’s exactly what we find.
What you seem to ignore is that theories make objective predictions that can be tested.
We have laid it out and defined for generations now. It is mutation, natural selection, neutral drift, speciation, vertical inheritance, horizontal inheritance, and a handful of other mechanisms.
Almost everything you wrote in that paragraph is wrong. You can use the same building blocks and not produce a nested hierarchy. For example, if you combine the building blocks of fur and flow through lungs then this would violate a nested hierarchy. You clearly don’t understand what a nested hierarchy is.
The nested hierarchy is dependent on DIFFERENCES, both at the genetic and morphological levels. If you think the nested hierarchy means all DNA is the same, then you don’t understand what a nested hierarchy is.
We can also present objective evidence that the proposed source of genetic variation is the cause of differences between species. It is all laid out here:
The known mechanisms producing mutations in the present were also responsible for the mutations that happened in the past, and this is based on objective evidence.
That’s not true. We can view the changes in the genomes of living species, and we can use objective tests to determine what caused them. See the article above.
The ToE is as scientific as any other field in science.
That is your answer to everything. The truth is, from your answers, you haven;t addressed anything I say.You do not answer, you state. You do not undrstand, you just trot out your dogma.
Aain,you do not understand me.
That is a subjective answer wihich is a get out.
It doesn’t exist so we do not have to allow for it.
Brilliant.
I have had enough again.
We have been here before and nothhing has changed.
My view is there is absolutely no historical evidence for the resurrection. Like science, history is an academic discipline that employs methodological naturalism and reconstructing miracles historically is similar to putting God in gaps in scientifically. If miracles have occurred in the past they are beyond the scope of the historian to reconstruct and historical method will not be able to get the past right where they occur. It’s just not a tool fit for the job. You don’t cook pasta with a pillow.
Even as one who accepts miracles, religiously charged documents-- whose authors are difficult to determine, whose date and provenance are hard to pin down-- that are only preserved in copies of copies 100 or more years removed from ay hypothetical autographs are hardly good enough to establish a nature defying miracle 2,000 years ago. Even if we knew the apostle Peter told us first hand he saw and spoke with Jesus after his death many times–something we just don’t know happened even though we can have faith it did, this is still just the claim of an unlettered fisherman from 2,000 years ago in a pre-scientific time. Whether or not that is convincing enough may be different from person to person. From my perspective, there are a lot of crazy miracle claims from the past I reject out of hand. It would be special pleading to treat the Biblical ones any different on purely historical grounds.
What I can say without hesitation–on purely historical grounds–and provide ample evidence for, is that Jesus was scandalously and shamefully crucified on a Roman cross towards the end of the first third of the first century and some of his original followers believed that He rose from the dead and appeared to them very shortly after this incident.
I think some have misunderstood my intention for making this thread. I think historical reconstruction works much the same way as science but where there is interpretation its certainly not as secure as the findings of harder science. It is difficult figuring what happened 2,000 years ago based on a few documents or one side of a conversation (e.g. a letter from Paul). I mean what really happened when Paul opposed Peter to his face? Like many historians, I do not think that actually ended well for Paul. But none of us were there and have any real inside details about it. We just lack data. If we could interrogate 20 other people at the event then we could piece together what may have happened in more detail. But when dealing with ancient texts, we rarelyy have access to so many puzzle pieces.
But I find Christians are often just as dismissive of historians as they are of science. In fact, many Christians who are not dismissive of science often are dismissive of history when it says something they don’t like, much like YECs are when science says something they don’t like. They use the same sort of shoddy tactics James outlined in the other thread. Hence my copy/pasta.
Shame. It worked better as a parody, but you make some interesting comments on history. As far as historical accuracy goes, that was never the intent of the Gospels, They are clearly propaganda based, trying to encourage faith.and should be taken in that light. Miracles, and the resurrection itself are subject primarily to that area also. Once you start trtrting ot prove or rationalise the text faith is basically lost.
When humans make things, those things do not generally have the look of common ancestry. The things don’t fall into nested hierarchies, even when humans use the same building bricks.
So when you say that things created by God would produce the look of common ancestry, you are effectively putting a constraint on God, by saying that God cannot do something that humans can do.
It is possible this is something you believe. But it is much more likely that, like so many other evolution deniers before you[1], you simply do not understand what is meant by ‘nested hierarchy’ in evolution. Your failure to even attempt to describe a nested hierarchy also indicates this.
In order to effectively criticise an idea it is necessary first to understand the idea. You don’t understand evolution, so your criticisms are ineffective - and always will be.
I should mention that just because I am more familiar with Gladstone’s personality than with the question of ghosts, doesn’t make it more likely I will believe in the ghost story. If I were Kirk (interestingly, I just realized that’s the same pseudonym Lewis gave his own, acerbic tutor in his autobiography) or Lucy’s siblings, I would still find madness more likely than a new world; I would doubt my own eyes, or my wakefulness, if I saw Mr Tumnus tripping through a snowy wood now, as well. So, I am not so sure I do feel the illustration of Chesterton or Lewis is that helpful. To extend that to trustworthiness in other areas, I trusted my parents and Pensacola Christian Correspondence School about the age of the earth, but that was not at all their area of expertise. Just because they were trustworthy in other ways, does not mean that they could not be honestly mistaken.
Thanks.
