Your mistake lies in believing that when you’re reasoning by analogy you’re reasoning abstractly. That’s not what analogies do. Analogies are useful for explaining concepts (including abstract ones) to those unfamiliar with them, particularly for those who are not comfortable reasoning about abstractions. (I use them for understanding things, but I tend to be pretty concrete in my thinking.) They can also be of some help in formulating hypotheses about how something unfamiliar might work. They’re just about useless, however, for actually establishing anything new, since you have to know how accurate the analogy is to know whether conclusions drawn from it are valid, and to do that you have to already understand the thing being analogized.
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Even here you are misunderstanding me. KO comes from “Dyslexia urles KO” (but you wouldn’t necessarily know that.) but why should scientists govern what is considered fact or not? They have no more right to than the church has or did.
The church withheld information and governed what was available in such a way as to prevent argument. Science does this as well. We have to believe/accept what you tell us because there is not enough information to contradict it. (even if the general public could understand it the effort involved is not worth it.)
Richard
You don’t have to believe anything. However, if you want to convince scientists that the theory of evolution is false you need to produce scientific evidence. You also need to address the evidence that scientists already have, such as the bias in substitution mutations discussed here:
https://biologos.org/articles/testing-common-ancestry-its-all-about-the-mutations
In general, you need to understand the evidence that has already convinced scientists. Given your inability to understand the importance of a nested hierarchy, I don’t think you have a full grasp of the situation. It’s ok to not understand the biological sciences since most people also lack that understanding. The problem, however, is in thinking you can falsify one of the foundational theories of an entire field of science without understanding the science.
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And your missed my lame attempt at humor. Sorry I forgot the 
Still don’t know what you meant. KO = knock out?
They don’t, but you don’t accept that.
So now science is engaging in a vast conspiracy theory? Given science is conducted in public I don’t see how you can believe this.
OK, if there isn’t enough information to contradict it (what ever that means) why shouldn’t we accept it?
So you are suggesting that the general public, with no training in the sciences, should be able to understand the science with the same level of understanding as someone who has studied for years? Does not compute.
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WOW… that is God-of-the-gaps argument where the gap in scientific knowledge is vanishing VERY fast. LOL! How are such arguments made with a straight face?
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I’m truly grateful to Richard, although I can’t see a thing he writes, as he functions like the primus inter pares BBC interviewer Stephen Sackur on HARDtalk, bringing out the very best in interviewees by being formally adversarial. He always shakes hands at the end. Unlike Richard, Stephen doesn’t necessarily believe the provocative, although genuinely challenging things in his case, that he says.
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You may be right but it is also possible that he would otherwise accept the science if he weren’t motivated theologically to hold his ground. Maybe others will at least see how unappealing such a stand really looks to any fair minded person.
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That’s like saying because you can do the math in relativistic physics you are unable to recite the alphabet.
Sorry, no. The flaws I see have little or nothing to do with my faith or any biblical precident.
The one thing i object to here, is the notion that I have no idea what I am talking about. Or that the concepts I describe have no existence let alone value.
I cognisise using analogies. It is very Scriptural I admit but that does not make it wrong (or right for that matter). What gets my goat is pig-headed stubborness and a refusal to try and understand becaue it just might mean they have to adjust their thinking.
Can I adjust my thinking about Evolution? If I got valid answers to my challenges instead of personal insults and narrow minded reptitions, yes.
Personally, I do not understand how anyone cannot accept the possibility of the impossible jump or progression. If you understood any of what I have written it would be inescapable. But, if that notion entered into Evolutionary theory it might just shake its foundations.
I repeat, I am not trying to kill Evolution. I am not disputing the findings or the methods from which they arose. I am just adding a dimension that appears to be being overlooked. (at least here)
On a slightly humourous note, I did wonder whether an analytical Scientist was an oxymoron, as it involves combining two disparate and almost opposite disciplines of thought?
Ah well, I had enough of all this. It appears that I really am wasting my time.
Richard
It is supposed to read “Dyslexia rules OK!” But because the stereotypical trope is that all dyslexic people are poor at spelling and proof reading they wouldn’t notice (implication: are too stupid to notice) that they’ve missed spelled ‘rules’ and ‘OK’. Haha… good one 
.
Basically, “dyslexia urles KO” is a poor attempt at humour at the expense of the neurodivergent.
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Fair mindedness is in short supply in our species. Closer to extinction that it’s been for forty years. Sixty.
possibility != probably
It is easy to pose the impossible, build a bridge to the moon, but that has no bearing on evolution. And it never will for the simple reason that you can’t define something that is truly impossible. This is just the standard ID argument for why evolution isn’t true and nobody in that camp has been able to come up with one either.
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Fair-mindedness does not deny objective evidence.
I have tried to define it several times, Why do you thnk I keep on about halfwayhouses and metabolisms? The “gaps” exist but Evolutionists refuse to identify them.
It is not so much a paradox as a mental attitude. My argument involves something that Evolutionists almost dare not see, because if they saw it then they would have to concede that Evolution might not do what they say it can do. They have no motivation to find the sort of “Jump” or progression that the process might not bridge and every motivation not to.
So we get all these arguments about Endothermic and ectothermic, or the creation of feathers, or fish out of water and so on and so on. I wonder if they (you, anybody?) understands that all these are related to the defining of that impossible change? (Or rather changes. I am almost certain that there is more than one change in the line from microbe to human that the Evolutionary process cannot accomplish)
Perhaps that is the missing link in my arguments that has not been visible? (I hope you can see some irony or humour in that statement)
Richard
Oh - they see them! Because they’ve been busy filling them. So there are always ever-smaller gaps for you to desperately point at. When I pass half a dozen road signs along a highway announcing the distance to a city ahead, and a radicalized skeptic wants to plant doubts in my mind about the highway actually leading to that city - I’ll probably find the signs more convincing to pay attention to than any of the empty expanses between those road signs that the skeptic tries to use to plant doubts in my mind.
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Another thing is that the gaps are not really about did evolution occur, but how exactly did it occur specifically which is harder. We see more than enough evidence to all that all humans , including the extinct ones, were humans, and that all humans belong with other animals like chimps are primates and that all primates are mammals and that all mammals are animals. What we dont have is the very specific answers to all the species, hybrids, bottlenecking of genetics and so on involved. But there is nothing to say humans are not primates, mammals or animals.
What I always think when someone wants to mentions gaps in the theory of evolution is that there is far far far more gaps in things like ID or YEC/OEC. It’s like we are looking at a broke down car missing tires, a engine and a top and I’m like this is a car and this is why and they question me about very specific things and I don’t know the answer and so they say see, that gap is best filled with airplane technology and this was a airplane. They would have a far harder time trying to explain why it was a plane when it’s clearly just a car.
Any “gaps” would be in our knowledge, not in the ability of evolution to bridge them. Whales for example. Evolution says they should have evolved from a land mammal but there wasn’t a lot of evidence. Now years later there is a fairly complete fossil sequence that shows the transition and DNA (yes I know you don’t accept DNA) evidence that shows their nearest land based cousins. So your argument really boils down to a “God of the shrinking gaps”.
Problem being they are motivated to constantly find the evidence that fills the knowledge gaps. What else is a paleontologist going to do in their career? It certainly isn’t going to be to try to cover up gaps.
First I will admit that the fossil record is
- incomplete
- doesn’t record all of the changes between species
But we do have
- “micro evolution” changes that can be observed in real time and illustrate the basic principles
- Predictions made by the theory that can be confirmed by measurements (basic scientific method)
No I am sure everyone is aware of the links in your argument, but you have to admit they are created by your personal incredulity which is driven by what appears to be your theological position.
So what would be the result if everybody did accept your argument? It would mean that there had to be an Intelligent Designer behind evolution who could give the process a nudge when needed. And the only candidate for that position would be God, in some form or fashion. Am I wrong?
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Precisely what I have always said
Also what I have always said
You base your predictions on micro changes and expect them to apply to macro changes.
But you still cannot prove even the 1st step to change a microbe into either an insect, mollusc, or even better a vertebrate.
Yet, you are convinced that it can do the whole thing. To be honest, your faith and beliefs are stronger and based on less than mine.
Make that any change between species
It would make my theory more plausible, but it would not prove it in the way you claim non-theistic Evolution has been up to now.
IOW it is not the theory that I dispute, completely, only the dogmatic conclusions contained in it.
Probability would suggest that the actual history is a combination of the present Evolutionary theory and something else. Whether that is God or not may well still end up in the realm of faith
Probability also dictates that one of the many examples of “Gaps” (shrinking or otherwise) will prove to be too large for the Evolutionary process as it stands. I only need one.
But then again the definition of the process as it stands still seems to be a bit wooly.
It seems to be at the molecular level? So the scope would depend on how much detail one deviation/mutation/change can provide. If the process could change multiple characteristics most of my criticisms would collapse. But
1 multiple changes was never part of Evolutionary theory.
2 The bigger the number of changes the less likely it would occur. There would be too many variables that needed to coincide. Probability would work against it happening once let alone more than once, especially if the actual changes are a different combination from each other. The numbers would be astronomical mathematically
The alternative is where my criticisms are sat, The current process does not have the scope to make the changes necessary to fulfill the predictions and expectations laid upon it.
Richard
PS
My theological position does not affect my criticisms. They are not biblically or theologically based. They are based on biological knowledge (that you claim I don’t have) and philosophical criticisms (that you claim do not apply) However,
None here has demonstrated the type of Biological knowledge needed to answer my biological criticism (And dismissing them is not an answer)
and
No one has even tried to answer the philosophical arguments because they do not think they apply. So they cannot possibly dismiss them as wrong.
No they are based on the theory. Basic part of the scientific method that you don’t seem to grasp. When a paleontologist makes a prediction on where to find a fossil based on the theory of evolution how exactly is he using micro changes?
The theory doesn’t predict that you would see a single step of such a magnitude so of course you will never see it.
They are, just not all made at the same time. The theory predicts the multiple changes needed to get from a microbe to a man.
Again you don’t understand the theory and more importantly how it actually works.
Please point to one prediction that has not been fulfilled.
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that a microbe can change into anything other than a microbe. A virus into anything other than a virus, and so on and so on ad infinitum.
Richard