Re: Theory of gradual evolution finally on Wikipedia
- From: backspace <sawireless2000@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 09:39:48 -0800
On Nov 10, 4:56 pm, Inez <savagemouse...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Lets rephrase:
I an individual using the alias Inez hereby formally propose a
conjecture:
The survival of animals leads to overall changes in the population of
animals.
Thus says Inez why should we bother with your conjecture?
Note also that you say that first say the ToE is undefined and demand
a definition, and then when given one claim that such a definition is
meaningless because I gave it to you, and I am not an authority.
And neither am I but when we say that "..the pull between two objects
are proportional to their distances squared..." everybody knows who we
are quoting. And when you tell me about this much vaunted ToE you need
to tell me where did you get your theory from? We need to give credit
to this author and how this author derived his theory from first
principles...."
Berlinski asks for example that the concept of "fitness" be derived
from first principles in Black Mischief
p.277
'..In general, trouble arises simply because the connection between
biological traits and fitness is never derived from first principles.
If the pig were to be born with wheels mounted on ball bearings
instead of trotters, would it be better off on some scale of porcine
fitness? No one knows, although some guesses are possible..."
p.294
I have spoken ...now of a specific protein. If any protein will do,
the odds improve. In a uniform
probability space , it is certain that one among the possible events
will occur. The British biologist Peter Medawar has seized upon this
point...and went in the wrong direction with it.
<quoting medaware>
In the games of whist or bridge any one particular hand is just as
unlikely to turn up as any other. If I pick up and inspect a certain
hand and then declare myself utterly amazed that such a hand should
have been dealt to me , considering the odds against it, I should be
told by those who have steeped themselves in mathmatical reasoning
that its prob. cannot be measured retrospectively, but only against a
prior expectation. For much the
same reason it seems to me profitless to speak of natural selection's
'generating improbability"...it is silly to be thunderstruck by the
evolution of organ A if we should have been just as thunderstruck by a
turn of events that had led to the evolution of B or C instead.
<End quoting medaware>
Berlinski says:"... Medawar is roughly right about probability. The
fallacy he refers to is retrospective specification and consists
precisely in reading back into an original sample space information
revealed only on the realization of the actual event. In poker , a
deal distributes n hands of equal probability: 1 in 2598160 as it
happens. This sample space is specified retrospectively if one hand in
particular is contrasted with 2598159 hands that remain; and
probabilities assigned to the partition so created. What appears
initially as one among equiprobable events becomes under RS an
improbable event in a sample space of only two points. It is
embarrassing for an author to point out such things...."
Here are the broad fallacies committed:
1) Retrospective specification
2) Confusing the cause with the effect. Harshman on NS says it is an
effect and then it is a cause. Chris Colby that NS is an effect but
what then is the cause? And Colby stating that SoF is "misleading" is
not exactly helping him out on NS because Darwin said SoF is a better
expression.
3) Tautologies - http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/TheoryOfGradualEvolution
4) Circular reasoning ... First common ancestor
5) Terms that nobody has defined are used - "differential reproductive
success" Who says so?
6) Semantic impossibilities "Triangular circles" and "natural
selection".
7) Confusing (patterns,detection) with (designs,selection) finches,
bacterial resistance, peppered moth, sexual selection stories are
patterns not designs. Even the creationists fail to see an obvious
pattern since their language with NS is confused as well.
8) Refusal to communicate intent in sentences that are grammatically
correct.
9) Words are undefined - evolution. See http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/SapolskyPragmatics
10) Unfalsifiable stories. The white moths get eaten - natural
selection. But if it was the black moths we would have been told the
same story.
11) Appeal to abstract authority... Mr.Sciense says so and he doesn't
exist.
12) Argument from authority. A materialist overlord and priest Miller
simply decrees that NS is "blind". But why is NS never "stupid"?
.
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