Re: Evolution confuses an observation with a theory

On May 23, 1:20 am, backspace <sawireless2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 22, 10:43 am, j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx (John Wilkins) wrote:>.Neither term is wholly satisfactory, but not because there is a problem with natural selection, but with ordinary
*language*."

These sort of self-defeating statements is the same logical error
Gould made. He said:"... consciousness is an illusion created by the
brain." But that very sentence of Gould was created by his his brain
therefore he is stating that his brain consists of illusions and why
should we then believe a word he said including the statement itself?
And your statement is a a rephrasing of what Gould said. You made that
statement by your brain in a language and therefore there is a
"problem" with your language itself and a "problem" with everything
you state including the statement itself.

I am not weaseling about anything. NS is not a tautology because a tautology doesn't imply anything not included in the
defining terms.

And as stated under the thread "What Naturaled and who did the
Selecting"http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/38df...
I agree. Natural Selection is not a tautology it is nature as a force
with a mind all of its own.

A mind of its own? Are you being poetic or trying to push some form of
ID?

And if not then don't hijack the word
"selection".

?? Are you implying that 'selection' should only be used to describe
conscious choice? Am I reading this right? If so, what word would you
suggest to use?

Just like Prof. Sapolsky should'nt use the word
"Evolution" to describe his process of something not having
directionality to it as he explained in Scientific American March 2003
and the word "mutation" should'nt be used in modern journals because
it can't mean the same thing Darwin meant by it since he did'nt know
about genes.

So? Words change meaning over time and mean different thinks in
different contexts. Should we refrain from using most of the human
language? In case you haven't noticed, the theory has changed a bit
since Darwin.


Darwin certainly had no clue what he meant by it when stateing that
"Survival of the Fittest" is "Natural Selection" because he could'nt
even specify the problem: Genes and life itself is not like a language
it is a language.

Could you explain what you mean?

Listen to the Perry Marshall audio I gave in this
thread. The basic problem is that Dawkins, Darwin, Gould have no idea
of what it is that they are trying to state.

Have you ever read any of their books? I've seen half-page-long
definitions for terms in Dawkins' books, for instance.

All they know is that
their metaphysical materialism must not be undermined.

Metaphysical materialism? What exactly does that mean?

And they will
do this even to the point of making the English language itself
undefined. Apparantly I -http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/TongueSpeaker
- is the only YEC taking the position that everybody refuting
"Evolution" Dembski, Ken Ham and defending "Evolution" Dawkins, are
wasting their time, since the very phrases themselves at worst are not
defined and at best is restated as an equivocation with an
observation. No mechanistic theory is given of why organisms survive.

These things are only briefly explained because they're obvious to
every person on the planet except, apparently, you. Stick insects who
look more like sticks than average are less likely to be seen and
eaten. Gazelle who can run faster than average are less likely to be
eaten by lions. Bullocks who can digest tougher grass than average are
going to have an easier time finding food on already well-grazed land.
How is that in any way complicated?

We might never even be able to because that would mean that we could
reduce "Life" itself to a mechanistic process.

Isn't it? I'm sorry, I think I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.
Are you suggesting that life is more than the interactions of
molecules in cells? Have I misunderstood what you meant by
'mechanistic'?


The problem is far deeper then we have realised. We essentially are
asking: What is Life? And the phrase "Theory of Evolution" could just
as well have been "Theory of Everything". Given your materialist
premises you in a sense have to explain everything so as to prevent a
Deity foothold in the door as the ex head of Harvard put after he
himself reaped the intolerance that he sowed. We can't apriori
predetermine the form the answer must take. My only constraint on
metaphysical discussions would be some sort of falsification test.
Some believe in reincarnation, others that they are space aliens from
the planet Xeno. There is no way of falsifying such beliefs.

The theist position is that there are absolutes. Materialists that
everything is relative even morality. But taken to its full logical
conclusion it means that language, words and phrases becomes relative
to the point that they can mean anything you want it to mean.

Words mean what we agree them to mean. Their meanings are totally
arbitrary. I wasn't aware that there was any disagreement over this.
When I say the word chair, we both think of the same object; this is
why it has meaning.

Words are only tools for communication. How is this a problem?

One
federal US judge said:"There are two kinds of truth, one for the
defendent and one for the claimant". This "evolution theory" whatever
it might be has not only led to a moralist relativism but a language
relativism. And if the very words we use become relative and
meaningless, we will have meaningless debates as this forum is ample
evidence off.


Words have the meanings we give them...

.

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