Re: Common Descent non-Falsifiable?

"On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:38:48 -0700, in article
<tpxMk.5909$be.3572@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, John Harshman stated..."

chris thompson wrote:
On Oct 24, 5:12 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Vend wrote:
On 24 Ott, 15:24, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Greg Guarino wrote:
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:23:40 -0700, John Harshman
<jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
All kidding aside, I honestly don't see how you can seriously
challenge this hypothetical. Do you really believe that most
scientists would maintain the CD view given a very young age and
catastrophic formation of the fossil record and geologic column?
Yes, in the absence of any other credible explanation. So far you have
not proposed any other credible explanation.
That
seems so far fetched to me as to be downright preposterous - obviously
so. Would anyone else, even within this forum, agree with you on this
one?
Good question. Is anybody reading this?
Branching descent produces a pattern that cannot be sensibly exlained
except by branching descent. So even in the fanciful scenario
presented, common descent would have to be at work. Ask Behe why he,
who likely would have preferred to be able to support fiat creation,
could not,
Well, there you have it: one data point at least. Now, to be fair, Behe
also accepts the standard chronology, and you don't know what he'd do if
the evidence favored a 6000-year-old biosphere. So it's not two data points.
What was the question, exactly?
The question was whether, in the unlikely event it were known that life
was only a few thousand years old, you would still consider common
descent to be the best explanation for the nested hierarchy of life.

And we still see the same nested hierarchy of genetic and
morphological structure?

That's right.


This reminds me of the problem faced by Darwin and others in the
late 19th century, when the physicists (such as Kelvin) had very
good evidence that the earth was only a few million years old.

Wasn't one common reaction to this not to withdraw "common
descent", but to accept a mechanism which would speed up the
rate of change, to allow some form of "lamarckianianism"?

The problem would be much more severe if there were not millions,
but only thousands of years available.

As to whether CD would still be held as the best explanation,
I'm afraid that I don't know of any other explanation. I am
aware that some creationists have attempted an explanation of
sorts for similarities between living things (that similarity
is a mark of a single designer), but I am not aware of any other
explanation which accounts for the nested-hierarchy pattern of
similarities and differences. There was the short-lived theory
of quinarianism, but (if I am not mistaken) predicted a somewhat
different pattern.

I don't know. It seems to me that, lacking an alternative, the
options available would be (1) try to find some way that CD
could occur so very rapidly (2) try to falsify the nested
hierarchy.


--
---Tom S.
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
attributed to Josh Billings

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Common Descent non-Falsifiable?
    ... in the absence of any other credible explanation. ... Branching descent produces a pattern that cannot be sensibly exlained ... descent to be the best explanation for the nested hierarchy of life. ... good evidence that the earth was only a few million years old. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Common Descent non-Falsifiable?
    ... in the absence of any other credible explanation. ... Branching descent produces a pattern that cannot be sensibly ... The nested hierarchy as a gloable exceptionless rule was ... ways significant horizontal transfer is more likely to be beneficial ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Common Descent non-Falsifiable?
    ... in the absence of any other credible explanation. ... Branching descent produces a pattern that cannot be sensibly ... The nested hierarchy as a gloable exceptionless rule was ... ways significant horizontal transfer is more likely to be beneficial ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Bad design
    ... those potential falsifiers have actually occurred yet). ... of a nested hierarchy would indicate something is badly wrong with our ... understanding of "descent with modification." ... I'm not sure what your point is here WRT the hardware store example, but for what it is worth, I don't have too much of a problem with IDists that admit that common decent is a fact but that the "designer" tweaks it every now and then. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Common Descent non-Falsifiable?
    ... in the absence of any other credible explanation. ... Branching descent produces a pattern that cannot be sensibly exlained ... descent to be the best explanation for the nested hierarchy of life. ... good evidence that the earth was only a few million years old. ...
    (talk.origins)
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