Re: The nature of debates

In message <qjfwj.3747$St5.3188@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, tony <tony.deeney@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

"AC" <mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:slrnfrjo6g.95d.mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 17:36:47 GMT,
tony <tony.deeney@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Josh Hayes" <joshno@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns9A45DB3923D66joshblargnet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have been discussing, cordially, with a creationist correspondent, the
value of debates in the creation/evolution argument.

I've been trying to put forward the case that debates are only useful in
subjective matters. I was a debater (and sure, to forestall the
inevitable joke, I was a "master debater") in high school, good enough
to go to the state championships where we lost to those bizarre
cloneboys from Detroit Catholic Central, but am I bitter? -- now, where
was I?

Oh, right, the value of "debate" in establishing "truth".

There is none. In various tournaments and leagues, I won close to 95% of
the debates I engaged in, according to the judges. But I only knew which
side I'd be on when we flipped a coin 10 seconds before the start of the
debate. Doesn't this say something about the utility of debates in
deciding truth?

I think it's useful to debate subjective issues -- and here I don't mean
things which are hopelessly vague, but rather, issues of policy or
judgement, for which evidence can be marshalled on both sides, which
nevertheless do not avail themselves of objective categorization.

We can debate the utility of establishing, say, a single-payer health
care plan under the Federal government in the US. We can debate whether
Robert Frost was a good poet or a hack. We can debate whether
Impressionism is the bee's knees, or the end of civilization as we know
it.

But we can't debate whether the Earth is round, or flat. It's round.
That's an objective truth, and there's simply no evidence to be
marshalled for the opposing perspective. Similarly, we can't debate
geocentrism versus heliocentrism.

And -- surely you saw where I was going -- we can't debate evolution
versus creationism to any useful purpose. You can only debate when there
are two sides; it's like the old middle-school insult: "I'd engage you
in a battle of wits, but I never fight an unarmed man."


I can't disagree with anything that you say here - except to point out
that
the debate continues. So your statement that there aren't two sides
is....well, debatable!
While you believe that Evolution is beyond dispute and you compare it to
geocentrism and heliocentrism. I have to state that, in all honesty, I
can't see that all branches in science are the same. Gravity is beyond
dispute - it is testable, measurable, demonstratble and repeatable.

While there is compelling arguements and interesting evidence to support
evolution a great deal of what is argued over is inference. While
certain
things about evolution can be demonstrated as a fact - gene
mutation/drift
etc. There are anomolies and inconsistencies that are enough to
convince a
sceptic and are convenienlty ignored/dismissed by evolutionists. I browse
this group often, and I see a great deal of postings - I notice that a
lot
of people start to throw insults. Which achieves nothing!!

Everything we *know* is ultimately inferred. Even you reading my response
is an inference, based upon your brain's translating, collating,
processing,
storing (and eliminating a good deal of) the raw sensory data. If
inference
is somehow a weaker form of knowing, then I'm afraid you're wandering down
a
course towards epistemological nihilism.


Sorry for the apparent delay in responding to this. I worked on a lengthy
response and posted it using a web browser rather than an email client...
Result a large waste of effort. My closing statement was that I took too
long in responding and could ill afford the time - which is why I browse
more than post! So I am annoyed that it is lost! (Of course the points made
in the lost post were all articulate expressed and incontravertable in
nature! ;) ).


I am clear in my own head in this even as you 'infer' I drift towards
'epistemological nihilism' in suggesting that all observation are
inferences. I suggest that you fog the issue.


If you want to convince a moderate sceptic that the earth is round - then
take him into space. If you want to convince him that we orbit sun - show
him star charts. Planets in telescopes - chart orbits and loops of inferior
and superior planets. Explain the seasons - show space probe data,
stonhenge. Take him into space again. The planets will 'roll' through the
stars like clockwork he will be hard pressed to deny this, year after year.
If you want to convince him of Gravity or Newtons laws. show him all the
F=ma experiments and Cavendish boyd. These are all demonstratable and
repeatable over and over.

If you want to convince a moderate sceptic of evolution - you can present
arguments about naturilism, descent with modification. You can point to
similarities between species eg the five digit fingers and birdwing bones
etc. You can show Dna similarties between human and chimp etc. You can
demonstrate small morphilogical changes and minor speciation events - ie.
two species which are no longer able to crossbread but seem to have a common
past and you will prove beyond reasonable doubt that natural
selection/evolution is a 'fact' but if he asks about large scale hard
evidence of 'Macro evolution.' You are thrown onto a patchy fossil record
of which anti - evolutionists bang the drum. You have to explain that the
record is incomplete, that stasis is evident - but this can be explained by
arguments. If you want to show him some hominds - he can ask "how do you
know that these are ancestors of man?"

The fossil record is not the whole of evidence for macroevolution (or common descent if you prefer); in fact it is only a small part of it. You even seem to recognise this, when you refer to anatomical and genetic homologies. (You did however overlook the biogeographical and palaeobiogeographical evidence, and some other items.)

We can't wait to witness this large scale evolution - because we could be in
a period of stasis. Eventually evolution can be proved as a fact when
records track the large scale change of some species beyond anyones
reasonable arguments. However interpretation 'after the fact' with a
pressuposition of evolution doesn't cut for some.

I don't doubt there is real science being undertaken in this field, but at
present we have a narrow window in time and anything outside this window is
extrapolation and scientist know that the longer you extrapolate results the
more uncertain they become. Dawkins claims that you have to accept
Macroevolution you must accept microevolution there is no wall - but that
fits his world view e.g. Small populations appear to grow exponentially, but
can often suddenly end in a "J" or "S" curve or plataue .Interestingly I
often read that evolutionists claiming equivical status to other science
disciplines - I never have read physicists reciprocating. However, they are
perhaps less challenged by passionate antagonists.

I hope you mean equivalent status.

A famous physicist, Richard Feynmann, ranked the theory of evolution 3rd amongst scientific theories, after quantum mechanics and general relativity.


Even amongst evolutionists there is debate about the mechanisms of
evolution. I am refering to the debate of punctuated evolution vs
gradualistic evolution.

Just as is there are huge debates over the nature of gravity. Part of the
process is measurement (which we can do with gravity), the other is
explanatory. I'll go out on a limb and say we understand a great deal
more
about the fundamental nature of biological evolution than we do about
gravity. We can't even make gravity make sense within quantum mechanics
at
the moment, and it is the chief thorn in the side of unifying QM and GR.


"Over the last twenty years, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould and
thier
supporters have been engaged in a savage battle over evolution, which
continues to rage on even after Gould's death in 2002." Kim Sterenley
(Dawkins versus Gould, Survival of the fittest)

This is a real overstatement of the debate. Underneath, i suspect, is a
lack of understanding what PE is, and of what Dawkins has to say on it.


It is a quote from the book, written by an evolutionist in which she
articulates the difference between theorres! She herself favours Dawkins in
the debate! I think she understands.

I've read both Gould and Dawkins, and see very little difference between their positions.


I am quoting from the back cover. I read this book last summer - very
interesting and very readible. It discussess the evolutionary arguments
very well, but all the arguments are basically natural selection.

Gould is an evolutionist - but he found that the fossil record does not
support the gradualistic evolution his famous statement "Stasis is data"
has
been quoted over and over again by Creationists and no surprise - it was
refreshingly honest and brave to hear an evolutionist admit that the
fossils
don't support evolution except in the broadest sense.

That's a horrible mutiliation of what Gould said. I think a better source
of what Gould says would be to read something by Gould, rather than
someone's "take" on it.


Apologies - my take!!



Now while he has interpreted the fossil record as demonstrating mass
extinctions - Dawkins would argue that the fossil record is incomplete,
and
be satisfied with that. Creationists would argue that the record does
not
support evolution at all - some argue that it is evidence of the flood!!!
:@

My point is that, as I have discovered, living with my wife for 20yrs!
Two
people can see the same evidence and be convinced that the interpretation
is
beyond dispute. They may even consider that the other opinion's sited
are
being dishonest - and I have heard both sides of this forum claim that
the
other lies. My definition of a fact - eg gravity, heliocentrism - is
that
it is beyond dispute. If a sizeable group argue about it, and this seems
to
be the case for evolution, rather than Heliocentrism, then it remains a
theory to be proven.

You've so badly undermined your point that I'm not sure where you can go
from here.


No .. there is no one here arguing for geocentrism?

Why does only here matter? There are people out there who argue for geocentrism. (And surveys suggest that considerable proportions of the populace believe it.) There may even still be flat-earthers out there.

The physics newsgroups are infested with relativity deniers. We recently here had an outbreak of plate-tectonics deniers. A lot of people believe that America never sent men to the moon. Astrology may even be believed in by a majority.



I agree however, that debates are poor means of finding truths. They
seem
more about articulate delivery and scoring points as you say.
Creationists
and Evolutionists both have questions they don't like to be asked.

And what questions are there that "evolutionists" don't like to be asked?


I will not troll out a whole load of creationist questions - which may or
may not have been answered - ie. to somones satisfaction, but not everyone's

e.g. What will it take to disprove evolution?

I have heard an answer like 'mouse bones in dino droppings' but i suggest
that this will only be called a hoax, or move the view of the fossil record.

The usual offering in this vein is a Cambrian rabbit fossil. Mouse bones in dinosaur coprolites is somewhat ambiguous - rodents at least (if not murids in particular) may well predate the K-T boundary. (Because of the possibility of errors, hoaxes, etc, looking for a single fossil to overthrow all the evidence in favour of evolution is vainglorious - we can't be sure that the fossil is correctly interpreted.)

The claim that evolution is not falsifiable is false. It only appears (superficially) to be so because it has already passed so many possible falsifications.

Evolution, in the sense you intend, would have been falsified if the geological column had failed to show faunal succession, or if the faunal succession didn't show correlation between the fauna of successive ages (for example if mammals and dinosaurs occupied alternate million years spans).

It would have been falsified if organisms had been found to have had different, randomly distributed, genetic codes.

It would have been falsified if the hierarchy inferred from sequences of genes were found to be uncorrelated with that inferred from anatomy, etc.

A complete absence of intermediates between modern groups in a sufficiently rich fossil record would cast considerable doubt on it, as would a distribution of organisms in the modern world where the distribution depends only on climate and substrate - for example if cacti were found in deserts worldwide, rather than just in the Americas [1].

Everytime a new fossil is studied, or a new bit of DNA is sequenced, there a potential of finding evidence against evolution. (With the amount of confirmatory evidence it would require striking evidence to overturn the theory from a single observation, but an accumulation of evidence would still do the trick - for example it could be the case that by some freak of chance we've only sequenced DNA from organisms and loci that support a hierarchy consistent with that inferred from anatomy, and as we continue to sequence more and more organisms and loci we will find that the apparent correlation was a chance illusion. (But, my impression is that the trend is in the other direction.)

[Given the current sample size, the chance that the observed correlation is a chance illusion, is minuscule, and no plausible argument has been offered that it is an artefact of bias in the sample selection.]

About 15 months back I wrote a post about another test of evolution which we are just beginning to perform.

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/93ef19a39010a794


Tony

(Just to be clear - I would describe myself as having previously being
convinced in evolution, then for a period as a Creationist, but now find
that I am somewhere 'inbetween' I am personally unconvinced by claims
that
'Macroevolution' is proven. I accept that the only reasonable
naturalistic
explanation for the existance is evolution - and acknowledge that there
are
convincing arguments. However, I find that there is something pretty
fantastic about this world and universe that will never be explained in
purely naturalistic terms. If evolution happened it does not explain
itself - sorry we are too fantastically complex. Dawkins - "meethinks it
is
a weasel" software is a joke. I find that Dawkins latest book - the God
delusion has not helped - and there are ripostes to much of his points.
I
resent that either side of a debate should resort to insult or dismissal.
I
sometimes cringe when I see some of the creationist posts - and can often
be
annoyed at evolutionist claims. I don't have the answers - many people
think they do!)

I'd dearly love to know what your definitions of some key words are here:

What do you mean by "macroevolution"?
.

You'll find it in dictionary.com it is a real word.

That's not a particularly responsive reply. Macroevolution is commonly understood among biologists to include speciation, so you have already conceded that macroevolution is observed (which I assume would mean that you would also concede it to be proven).

What do yu mean by "complex"?

I am complex, you are complex - dawkins' "methinks it is a weasel" program
is simple. Whatever the mechanism of 'creation' a human being is a
remarkable achievement for evolution/God/other. Dawkins 'methinks it is a
weasel' is a joke as a parody of this achievement and fundmently flawed.

Dawkins "methinks it is a weasel" is an illustration of the constrast between the effectiveness of variation and selection compared to that of a random search. To dismiss it as "as a parody of this achievement and fundmently flawed" indicates that you fail to understand his point.

What do you mean by "naturalistic"?


I have at no times refered to any 'Godidit' arguements and don't expect you
to accept them - I wouldn't either. However - there is much that will never
be explained and belongst to speculation and debate.

:)

My point is that - the debate is not over - 'cause one side declares
triumph.

--
Aaron Clausen mightymartianca@xxxxxxxxx

fnor


[1] One species of cactus, with a stick berry, is found in Africa and India. This is inferred to be a recent dispersal by birds.
--
alias Ernest Major

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: bats flew before echolocation
    ... What "quality conflicting evidence"? ... there is no evidence that the first humans were "ultra ... Creationists have always disagreed with one another, ... Evolution, however is quite true. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Can any Darwinist in this Forum....
    ... evidence for X", I can hardly provide my nonexistent evidence. ... I don't give creationists a pass. ... You have said that evolution is "just a theory", ... fossil record is ubiquitous and sudden appearance of species ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Can any Darwinist in this Forum....
    ... evidence for X", I can hardly provide my nonexistent evidence. ... I don't give creationists a pass. ... You have said that evolution is "just a theory", ... fossil record is ubiquitous and sudden appearance of species ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Can any Darwinist in this Forum....
    ... evidence for X", I can hardly provide my nonexistent evidence. ... I don't give creationists a pass. ... You have said that evolution is "just a theory", ... according the data from the fossil record. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Which Is More Plausible?
    ... amount of evidence can support the truth or falsity of a position. ... So we're 2.5 for 3 on t.o's most prominent three creationists. ... Evolution denial is only one facet of this; if astronomy or physics contradict religion, then they have to go in the trash as well. ... one trillionth of all the stars in the Universe. ...
    (talk.origins)