h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm quite enjoying the debate, Ste and Nerd.

Nerd, I'm glad to see you feeling less 'defensive' here on this thread and taking a bit more time with your replies to Ste.


az

"What if I were to (though I have no plan to at this point) present you with some compelling evidence that evolution/evolutionary-biology may be a valid philosophical idea but is NOT a scientific theory? Or even, what if it weer somehow disproven? How would you deal with that conflict?"

Two things:
1) If it were thoroughly disproven I would drop it like a sack of bricks. Right away.
2) It is a scientific theory AND philosophical idea, as science is a philosophy.

Ok. Posting this now. Answering the rest of your post...

Ste

"Would this inform your faith-based position on evolution?
How would you deal with that conflict?"



Well that's my question really. I'm asking how evolutionary biology would INform your belief. I'm not making that assumption. I'll explain better:
- You currently believe in a form of divine creation, not evolution
- This is based on two things: Your faith; your objective appraisal and rejection of evolutionary biology.
- Your understanding of evolutionary biology is very poor
- Someone describes the whole evolution thing to you and you totally get it. You see that it is a valid scientific theory backed by centuries of evidence
- How would this new information inform your position on evolution?

Because your position on evolution is based upon two things discussed above (faith, evolution), when one of them is modified (in this case the rejection of evolution part) how does that affect your overall position on evolution? How does it inform that position? Seeing as you seem to have two factors involved in your position, when one of those positions is modified it would inform the whole, right?

So, would a complete understanding and acceptance of evolution inform your belief on evolution itself? Would you become agnostic on the matter? Does your faith win out every time? Would you reject your faith? Would some more subtle thing happen? This is what I meant by "conflict".

Yes, it is a hypothetical situation. It's one that deals with how your faith interacts with other factors to produce opinions/beliefs/positions. But it's a fun one, and one that would enable this discussion to move forward at a rapid pace.

Also, I don't really "get" faith. It's always fascinating to me to discuss it and how it factors in to people's lives.

Cheers
Ste

"There may well be less data further back"
Not only is there less data, there is less certainty as to it's accuracy and correct interpretation the further back you go. I can observe this effect even in human history. As far as I can tell, there is nothing that is billions of years back that I can be absolutely certain of, particularly since there is heated debate even on the basic fundamentals of what happened in that extreme distant past.

By putting the origin of life back millions and/or billions of years, in my opinion what has effectively happened is that it has been put out of observable range.
Nerd42

"Nerd, I'm glad to see you feeling less 'defensive' here on this thread and taking a bit more time with your replies to Ste."
Oh good. I think that is an effect of not having to deal with that Son of so-and-so person.
Nerd42

"Because your position on evolution is based upon two things discussed above (faith, evolution), when one of them is modified (in this case the rejection of evolution part) how does that affect your overall position on evolution? How does it inform that position? Seeing as you seem to have two factors involved in your position, when one of those positions is modified it would inform the whole, right?"

Er ... I would come to view evolution as a more valid viewpoint. from a scientific standpoint. Would that effect my life? I don't think so.

"So, would a complete understanding and acceptance of evolution inform your belief on evolution itself? Would you become agnostic on the matter? Does your faith win out every time? Would you reject your faith? Would some more subtle thing happen? This is what I meant by "conflict"."
Er, you probably need to understand something here.

I am not placing my faith in whatever ICR says or whatever current ID ideas are.

My religious faith is in God, in the validity of my church's claim to be the true church of Christ and in the Scriptures as being the word of God. (which, for my church (the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) include the RLDS Inspired Version of the Bible, the RLDS 1908 Authorized Edition of the Book of Mormon and RLDS Doctrine & Covenants sections 1-144)

Of course, before that comes the existance of absolutes (like my slogan/motto "Truth is Constant") and the self-evident truths listed by the Declaration of Independence, and the four principles I outlined in the other thread, among other things that I am continually working to define in writing.

"Also, I don't really "get" faith. It's always fascinating to me to discuss it and how it factors in to people's lives."
Well you already have it, for one thing. I'm pretty sure I already covered that. Understanding faith better is something I am also interested in. I hope I haven't made a major blunder in typing this post and implied anything I didn't mean to imply ... because something isn't sounding right when I read it over again but I can't put my finger on it. Oh well.
Nerd42

Er ... when I said "You already have it" I meant you already have faith in something. I think you may have defined what it is or part of what it is earlier on the other thread ... but I don't remember exactly.

"Not only is there less data, there is less certainty as to it's accuracy and correct interpretation the further back you go. I can observe this effect even in human history. As far as I can tell, there is nothing that is billions of years back that I can be absolutely certain of, particularly since there is heated debate even on the basic fundamentals of what happened in that extreme distant past."

Fossil evidence is problematic, but still presents a wealth of evidence supporting evolution. More convincing evidence comes from molecular data.

Darwin had two really cool ideas when he formulated his theory of evolution, natural selection and common descent - that everything living today shares a common ancestor somewhere in the past. It sets up the evolutionary tree of life. One of the *testable predictions* that arises from common descent is that things that share more features in common are more closely related.

This is highly intuitive to people. You bear a higher resemblance to your family than to your friends. You bear a higher resemblance to people in your own race, than to other ethnic groups for the same reason.

There are clear patterns in life that can be elegantly explained by common descent. Homologous structures in mammals, for example the five-digit limb found in bats, whales, humans, dogs, horses, etc. Flowers are shared by types of plants called angiosperms; they are all descended from one flowering-plant. Certain types of bacteria with a certain shape are also related. A red-tailed hawk is related to other birds.

Here's where it get's really cool: When you look at different organisms on the molecular level (DNA), then these homologies become evident too. We share many, many genes with other distantly-related organisms. But the thing is, our genes are more similar to, say, mammalian genes than to plant genes. If you then look at just the mammals only and look for gene differences/similarities you find that our genes are most similar to other primates. The less physically similar an organism is to use, the less molecularly similar they are also! This is what you'd intuitively expect and it is what evolutionary biology predicts.

This objective molecular view matches very very well with the view of common descent. Sometimes it tells us we got the relationships wrong, and science modifies itself accordingly.

Some clever chap (Carl Woese) found a gene that was common to ALL life - bacteria, fungi, plants, animals, the lot. He then went around sequencing this gene from all over the place and made the first tree of life. If life weren't fundamentally similar at a basic level this would not be possible. It is. All life uses DNA to make RNA to make protein (this is evidence for common ancestry itself) and Prof Woese exploited that to find the relationships between all these things. There is heated debate about pre-DNA life, but we have all the DNA life you can shake a stick at right now (but dissapearing fast due to climate change bought on by global warming, and other ways we are destroying the environment).

With common descent, Darwin was right. Science has tested the predictions arising from this theory and they have remained true. You don't need to go trawing through billions of years old goo to prove it.


Ok, so I suppose I should reply to your post Nerd. brb...

Ste

"I am not placing my faith in whatever ICR says or whatever current ID ideas are."

I realised that from when you stated you didn't think ID was science.


"Er ... I would come to view evolution as a more valid viewpoint. from a scientific standpoint. Would that effect my life? I don't think so."

So, you faith would say one thing, your science would say another. Is that not a conflict? How do you deal with that? Modifying a faith-based position on something would be a very difficult thing to do, so I applaud you for it.

I also asked you this question because I could easily see this going down a path where I argued for evolution, citing evidence. It would be a total waste of my time if I knew it wasn't going to convince anyone.


"Well you already have it [faith]"

How? I have no God, so how can I have faith?



Ste

Seriously Ste, I have heard all of the evidence you just cited before. All of it can be interpreted a bunch of different ways. The creation science bunch makes a compelling argument that similarities in organisms point to a common Designer - something that I, considering my field is in computer programming, think makes alot of sense.
Nerd42

"How? I have no God, so how can I have faith?"

If you recall my definition of faith, it is the assumption of the truth and/or falseness of information. On some level, everyone has to assume certain things in order to be what most consider "realistic". Someone who sits in a corner their entire life staring at a wall going "i don't know whether there is a universe or whether i exist to not know it" would be an example of someone trying to eliminate faith from their thinking processes, and IT NEVER WORKS. So in order to /know anything/ you have to make assumptions, which collectively make up your faith.
Nerd42

"Seriously Ste, I have heard all of the evidence you just cited before. All of it can be interpreted a bunch of different ways..."

Fair enough. But can you see how this is a scientific process? There are observations that lead to testable predictions and hypotheses. These are then tested and theories produced.

Darwin observed (for example) finches of different species on the Galapogas and thought up a mechanism for how they diversified from a common ancestor. Extrapolating this to the diversity of all life he made a testable prediction that all life is related. Mountains of observations, experimentation and evidence supports that prediction. This is the scientific process. Evolutionary biologists predicted the existence of genes over 60 years before the structure of DNA was worked out by looking at how traits (like flower colour, for example) are inherited.

When you can refute all of this evidence from disparate fields of science can you refute evolution. If that happens then fair enough, but I'm not holding my breath.

Also, as we discussed before, science is the philosophical study of the natural world. If you want to say "God made everything" then you are entitled to that belief, but you are not entitled to call it science because it is a supernatural, untestable belief more in the realm of theology.

Your insistence that evolutionary biology is not a science is not based in reality and you have nothing but your disbelief to back your opinion up. Not good enough.

Ste

I was thinking you were talking about that, but wasn't sure. This goes back to the assumptions that all science is based upon: Cause and effect and the existence of an objective reality. If you want to define those as faith then ok. I call it common sense because for everything we've observed that's the way the universe seems to work. A God is a totally different kettle of fish.

Ste

Yeah, I think there's probably a connection between faith and common sense - you may be on to something there.

"Darwin observed (for example) finches of different species on the Galapogas and thought up a mechanism for how they diversified from a common ancestor. Extrapolating this to the diversity of all life he made a testable prediction that all life is related. Mountains of observations, experimentation and evidence supports that prediction."
Not quite. So far you've only presented information that don't CONTRADICT your idea but also does not prove it, since there are other possible explanations for all of this.

"If you want to say "God made everything" then you are entitled to that belief, but you are not entitled to call it science because it is a supernatural, untestable belief more in the realm of theology."
*sigh*
Do you remember what I've been saying? Do you!? Are you sure you don't have me confused with somebody else here perhaps? This is exactly what I've been talking about when I said you haven't listened to what I have been saying.

Creationism says, "God created everything" and has NOT BEEN PROVEN BY SCIENCE.
Intelligent Design says, "Something created everything" and has NOT BEEN PROVEN BY SCIENCE.
Evolution says, "Nothing created everything, it just showed up on it's own" and has NOT BEEN PROVEN BY SCIENCE.
Science says, "Some things exist and they have these properties. Beyond that, we don't know."

My argument has been that science doesn't nessicarly point to any one of the other three, since it is possible to interpret the data to reach any of those conclusions and possibly several others.

All orgaisms having some of the same DNA doesn't nessicarly mean all organisms descended a common ancestor. It just means that all organisms have some of the same DNA.

Different animals having similar bone sturctures doesn't nessicarly mean those animals descended from a common ancestor. It just means they have similar bone structures.

That these creatures may have descended from a common ancestor may be a POSSIBILITY but is not by far the ONLY possibility.

This stuff doesn't prove your theory. You can perform tests that might DISPROVE things, but you can only prove things once you have disproven every other possiblity.

One of the assumptions you seem to be making is that the existance of God is impossible. You seem (I could be wrong, but this is a general impression I'm getting) to consider "God is impossible" to be common sense, and then use Holmes's maxim, "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains however improbable must be the truth." (i.e. since there is no God, evolution must be true)

However, you are beginning from the assumption that there is no God. I'm saying that the non-existance of God or of the supernatural is not scientific law. It is merely out of the range of science. Just because science can't prove or disprove something doesn't mean that it is scientific to assume/pretend that that thing does not exist. It would be equally unscientific to assume (as I do) that the supernatural DOES exist.

The main difference between you and I is that I do not consider the existance of God to be impossible. In fact, I consider it quite probable, as I can observe positive effects associated with religion working in people's lives. I can also observe the negative/self-destructive effects associated with religion and/or the lack thereof working in people's lives (the Holocaust and 9/11 are good modern examples of this) which, to me, makes the existance of evil seem quite probable. But I go further than that when I actually put my religious faith into it. I could pass a lie detector test saying that God exists and that evil exists. Those are two points I am absolutely certain of.
Nerd42

"Not quite. So far you've only presented information that don't CONTRADICT your idea but also does not prove it, since there are other possible explanations for all of this."

But that's the point. If you have a testable/falsifiable prediction that leads to a hypothesis you then go about trying to disprove this hypothesis. If you cannot disprove it, if other people cannot disprove it after enough time of this happening it ends up being a pretty robust theory. This is science. This is evolution. In science this is as good as it gets. It is also one of the reasons science cannot absolutely prove anything for certain. Science deals with probabilities, not absolutes.


"*sigh*
Do you remember what I've been saying? Do you!? Are you sure you don't have me confused with somebody else here perhaps?"

Ummm, I know that's what you think. What are you talking about? Don't freak out on me here. You offered an alternative explanation from a creationist standpoint (not necessarily yours, I know) and I reminded you that was not a valid scientific alternative and why.

"Creationism says, "God created everything" and has NOT BEEN PROVEN BY SCIENCE.
Intelligent Design says, "Something created everything" and has NOT BEEN PROVEN BY SCIENCE.
Evolution says, "Nothing created everything, it just showed up on it's own" and has NOT BEEN PROVEN BY SCIENCE.
Science says, "Some things exist and they have these properties. Beyond that, we don't know.""

Yes. Yes. No. No.

Evolution says "every living thing descended from (aka has a common ancestor to) other living things" - it doesn't talk about how it all got started 4 billion years ago, just that when it did, it evolved. For all we know God created the very first life-form and from then on evolution happened - it would look exactly the same. But since science looks for natural explanations people are hypothesising different mechanisms for how it all got started.
Science says "This is X and it probably happens like this". X can be evolution if you like.


"All orgaisms having some of the same DNA doesn't nessicarly mean all organisms descended a common ancestor. It just means that all organisms have some of the same DNA ... Different animals having similar bone sturctures doesn't nessicarly mean those animals descended from a common ancestor. It just means they have similar bone structures."

You're right. There is a possibility that these similarities mean nothing. As humans, as scientists, we see patterns. We seek explanations for these patterns. That's a part of our natural curiosity.

Do you really expect people just to go "hm, look, these things are exactly the same, even though they're in totally different species" WITHOUT asking "why's that then?"??? One of science's jobs is to come up with explanations for phenomena. These similarities are one such phenomena and science's beautifully elegant explanation is common descent.

You cannot expect people just to switch off their brains after noticing the same bones in the fin of a whale, the wing of a bat and the human hand, and not think of why the hell that happens. The devout may work like that, but curious scientists sure the hell don't.


"That these creatures may have descended from a common ancestor may be a POSSIBILITY but is not by far the ONLY possibility."

It DOES remain a possibility, a really really good one. It's BY FAR the most probable. In fact, it goes beyond any reasonable doubt. What other *scientific* possibilities are there?


"This stuff doesn't prove your theory. You can perform tests that might DISPROVE things, but you can only prove things once you have disproven every other possiblity."

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection blew every other competing evolutionary theory out of the water. The truth of evolutionary biology has been wittled down and corrected ever since, but has retained the core elements of common descent and natural selection because according to every person who has looked at it to be the way things work.


"One of the assumptions you seem to be making is that the existance of God is impossible."

No I am not. I am saying that God does not enter into it. I am not mentioning either way if God exists or not. His existence is irrelevant. God is not a part of the scientific process. This is why I had to repeat former statements like the one you got mad about.


"Just because science can't prove or disprove something doesn't mean that it is scientific to assume/pretend that that thing does not exist. It would be equally unscientific to assume (as I do) that the supernatural DOES exist."

I'm not sure you get it. Science doesn't say whether God does or does not exist. It doesn't get that far. It cannot even make either conclusion to begin with. It doesn't even try because it's nothing to do with God.


Ste

"But that's the point. If you have a testable/falsifiable prediction that leads to a hypothesis you then go about trying to disprove this hypothesis. If you cannot disprove it, if other people cannot disprove it after enough time of this happening it ends up being a pretty robust theory. This is science. This is evolution. In science this is as good as it gets. It is also one of the reasons science cannot absolutely prove anything for certain. Science deals with probabilities, not absolutes."

All right, let's say I live in early colonial America, and I have a theory that there are witches in Salem. Several things have happened that point toward witchcraft - though there are alternate explanations. But the establishment believe(s) that several people are witches. So they are executed.

Disprove to me that there were witches in Salem. Because if I can't disprove something, and the establishment accepts it, it constitutes scientific proof according to what you just said.

"
Evolution says "every living thing descended from (aka has a common ancestor to) other living things" - it doesn't talk about how it all got started 4 billion years ago, just that when it did, it evolved."
So where are you getting the 4 billion year timeframe from then!?!?

"For all we know God created the very first life-form and from then on evolution happened - it would look exactly the same. But since science looks for natural explanations people are hypothesising different mechanisms for how it all got started.
Science says "This is X and it probably happens like this". X can be evolution if you like."
I am discounting the probably, and the X has to be something that we can isolate, observe and record and/or repeat.

Perhaps what I am really rejecting here isn't "evolution" per se, but what is called "natural history".
Nerd42

Science in action:
"There is a simple way to figure out if she is a witch or not. Witches burn, and what else burns?"
"Wood!"
"Yes, and wood floats. What else floats?"
"... A duck?"
"Yes! So if this woman weighs as much as a duck, than she is a witch!"



But seriously, witches clearly fall in the realm of the supernatural. Can you think of a natural, scientific example for me to work with here?

When science says "disprove" or "falsify" it means that if anyone finds evidence that contradicts a theory or hypothesis then those data count against the theory/hypothesis, either weakening it or killing it outright.

For example, you have hypothesis X, that predict A will happen if B happens. You test this by making A happen. You actually find C happens. It has been falsified. You modify your hypothesis in light of this new observation to predict A -> C. Re-test and bingo, X is on its way to theory-hood. Someone else does the same experiment and find A -> C also. Cool! X is now a stronger theory as it has been independently verified. However, other people test theory X and find when A happens something different happens: D. The theory is contested and controversial and not as strong as it once was.


"So where are you getting the 4 billion year timeframe from then!?!?"

That is the rough age of the Earth. People think life got started somewhere between then and 3.5 billion years. It's a very rough estimate. Different scientific disciplines inform biology.


"I am discounting the probably..."

You cannot. You are not allowed. Science uses inductive reasoning to make its conclusions, as we've gone over before. It does not deal with certainty. There is no "certainly" in science.

"...and the X has to be something that we can isolate, observe and record and/or repeat."

Ok.

***This has been performed over and over again over many decades***

What more do you want? Evolutionary biology fulfils all criteria of science, it even fulfils everything you demand of it. It's been isolated, observed, recorded AND repeated. Is this something you simply don't believe?


"Perhaps what I am really rejecting here isn't "evolution" per se, but what is called "natural history"."

Hm, I'm not sure. I think it's the other way around. Natural history was what biology used to be before evolution came along. Natural history is just a description of nature, and was not a predictive science. Evolution put the guts into biology and unified it as a single hard science and enables it to make solid, testable precitions. When I think of natural history I think of independently wealthy Victorian gentlemen wondering the counryside drawing beautiful pictures in their books. One of natural history's original motivations was to catalogue God's creation (see Carl Linnaeus) - which is something modern science has to thank religion for.



Ste

"Yes! So if this woman weighs as much as a duck, than she is a witch!"
good one.

"But seriously, witches clearly fall in the realm of the supernatural. Can you think of a natural, scientific example for me to work with here?"
It really seems like a good example to me. The Salem trials were based on things people could observe in the courtroom or testimony of people who claimed to observe things. The tests they devised seem very similar to the ones you have noted so far to *prove* evolution. None of them really proved witchcraft (there were other explanations) but because none of them managed to disprove it, witchcraft was assumed.

"There is no "certainly" in science."
I think I've said this already, but if that is the case, then there is no certainty in evolution, as I've said repeatedly.

"You cannot expect people just to switch off their brains after noticing the same bones in the fin of a whale, the wing of a bat and the human hand, and not think of why the hell that happens."
Relevence? I was talking about what *proves* things, not what makes people curious. There are many different conclusions that are reachable as to why that happens. One of them is common descent. Another is common design. So far I haven't seen or heard anything that *proves* either one of those, and it appears to me that they are both dealing with things we can't observe since we can observe neither God nor the common ancestor. Both of them have been put rather conveniently out of reach of scientists, freeing them from having to follow normal procedure because normal procedure seems "unreasonable". (we can't go back in time and observe the evolution of man)
Nerd42

"Yes! So if this woman weighs as much as a duck, than she is a witch!"
good one.

"But seriously, witches clearly fall in the realm of the supernatural. Can you think of a natural, scientific example for me to work with here?"
It really seems like a good example to me. The Salem trials were based on things people could observe in the courtroom or testimony of people who claimed to observe things. The tests they devised seem very similar to the ones you have noted so far to *prove* evolution. None of them really proved witchcraft (there were other explanations) but because none of them managed to disprove it, witchcraft was assumed.

"There is no "certainly" in science."
I think I've said this already, but if that is the case, then there is no certainty in evolution, as I've said repeatedly.

"You cannot expect people just to switch off their brains after noticing the same bones in the fin of a whale, the wing of a bat and the human hand, and not think of why the hell that happens."
Relevence? I was talking about what *proves* things, not what makes people curious. There are many different conclusions that are reachable as to why that happens. One of them is common descent. Another is common design. So far I haven't seen or heard anything that *proves* either one of those, and it appears to me that they are both dealing with things we can't observe since we can observe neither God nor the common ancestor.

Both of them have been put rather conveniently out of reach of scientists, freeing them from having to follow normal procedure because normal procedure seems "unreasonable". (we can't go back in time and observe the evolution of man)
Nerd42

oops ... doublepost. Read the second one.