RE: Regulating Evolution (Full Version)

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swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/13/2008 2:48:20 PM)

quote:

It maybe the case that such evolution takes 10,000 years, but at the moment, this is unfalsifiable and hence unscientific.

Bah. What a dance of logic.
There is no "at the moment" definition of unfalsifiable. You are confusing the term unfalsifiable with impractical. This case is falsifiable, but practical. It is not unscientific to make predictions that cannot be confirmed in one's lifetime or even millions of years in the future. It is not unscientific to operate an experiment that operates beyond one's lifetime.

quote:


it does not gain it back unless it acquires the necessary traits from outside.

or acquires the lost traits from random mutation.

Yes, new information is possible, new information requires many generations to emerge.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/13/2008 10:07:03 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
Bah. What a dance of logic.
There is no "at the moment" definition of unfalsifiable. You are confusing the term unfalsifiable with impractical. This case is falsifiable, but practical. It is not unscientific to make predictions that cannot be confirmed in one's lifetime or even millions of years in the future. It is not unscientific to operate an experiment that operates beyond one's lifetime.

...

or acquires the lost traits from random mutation.

Yes, new information is possible, new information requires many generations to emerge.


Okay, I predict that God will prove creationism sometime in the future (maybe within 10 million years from now). By your standards, this is a falsifiable and scientific statement. Falsify it.



drj11 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/13/2008 10:27:28 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize
Okay, I predict that God will prove creationism sometime in the future (maybe within 10 million years from now). By your standards, this is a falsifiable and scientific statement. Falsify it.


What few disjointed, non-sensical, and in many cases mutually exclusive claims and supposed evidences that make up creationism have long since been falsified... I hesitate to say creationism itself has been falsified, because certain parts (ie, the existence of God) are in fact unfalsible in any scientific sense. I don't want to imply it deserves credit as even a falsified scientific theory... But all of it's falsible claims (sun shrinking, helium in the atmosphere etc etc) have been proven wrong long ago. No need to falsify your statement... it is false by default.



swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:25:32 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
Bah. What a dance of logic.
There is no "at the moment" definition of unfalsifiable. You are confusing the term unfalsifiable with impractical. This case is falsifiable, but practical. It is not unscientific to make predictions that cannot be confirmed in one's lifetime or even millions of years in the future. It is not unscientific to operate an experiment that operates beyond one's lifetime.

...

or acquires the lost traits from random mutation.

Yes, new information is possible, new information requires many generations to emerge.


Okay, I predict that God will prove creationism sometime in the future (maybe within 10 million years from now). By your standards, this is a falsifiable and scientific statement. Falsify it.


Now you are almost making sense. Set aside that God would use non-scientific and super-natural methods to prove creationism, let's have a cup of coffee in 10 million years and discuss your results. I understand what you are getting at, you think because an explanation is impractically unverifiable that the explanation is not a scientific theory in the strong sense of the term. That is just plain incorrect but more importantly, it is unhelpful.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:36:01 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
Now you are almost making sense. Set aside that God would use non-scientific and super-natural methods to prove creationism, let's have a cup of coffee in 10 million years and discuss your results.


What is supernatural to us is natural to God. That which is observable is natural. My prediction is that God will prove creationism within 10 million years (and since he will use processes that we will be able to observe at the time, then those processes will not be defined as supernatural). As far as non-scientific methods, science is that which can be falsified. My theory is falsifiable (by your standards) and hence scientific.

Of course, I am not really making these predictions, they are hypothetical to show how silly swan42's claims are. But I guess that's all evolution can do, promise future results and deliver nothing.



swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:39:14 AM)

quote:

What is supernatural to us is natural to God

Yes... true.. so what? This is why creationism and science do not mix.
We cannot apply the methods of science (the natural) to understand God (the supernatural).

also
You are explicitly equivocating the word "natural" to mean two different things. Thus I cannot use any standard of logic to process the sentence.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:40:42 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
Yes... true.. so what? This is why creationism and science do not mix.
We cannot apply the methods of science (the natural) to understand God (the supernatural).


You're still missing the point. My hypothetical prediction is that some time in the future we will be able to. By your standards, this is a falsifiable and hence scientific.



swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:43:12 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
Yes... true.. so what? This is why creationism and science do not mix.
We cannot apply the methods of science (the natural) to understand God (the supernatural).


You're still missing the point.


I know the your point of view. You are trying to turn the lingo of science against itself. Science is slippery enough to wiggle out of that technique.



swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:45:39 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
Yes... true.. so what? This is why creationism and science do not mix.
We cannot apply the methods of science (the natural) to understand God (the supernatural).


You're still missing the point. My hypothetical prediction is that some time in the future we will be able to. By your standards, this is a falsifiable and hence scientific.


Hypothetically I agree. We can scientifically falsify your predictive powers.
We cannot falsify creationism without invoking supernatural solutions to a supernatural problem. That's unscientific.

There is only one way I can think of to weakly prove creationism, and that's to directly falsify an infinite number of alternative explanations to creationism. The result is an enormous Occam's Razor leaving only creationism; but that too will take an infinite amount of effort as there are an infinite number of alternatives to creationism. The Wedge Document's content supports the idea creationists are currently attempting to disprove creationism in favor of a Genesis explanation. However, as a logical process, there remains Egyptian, Norse, Scientology, Myan and an infinite number other explanations to disprove once Evolution is disproven.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:46:35 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
I know the your point of view. You are trying to turn the lingo of science against itself. Science is slippery enough to wiggle out of that technique.


I am merely showing that you have no scientific bases to support your statements, you merely promise future progress. At the moment, your claims are faith based, not scientific. They may become scientific in the future (and if God does demonstrate that He created the universe in the future, my hypothetical may become scientific in the future), but at the moment your hypothetical is not scientific.



swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:54:18 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
I know the your point of view. You are trying to turn the lingo of science against itself. Science is slippery enough to wiggle out of that technique.


I am merely showing that you have no scientific bases to support your statements, you merely promise future progress. At the moment, your claims are faith based, not scientific. They may become scientific in the future (and if God does demonstrate that He created the universe in the future, my hypothetical may become scientific in the future), but at the moment your hypothetical is not scientific.


Hmm I have to review what my claims are.... we have strayed so far.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 12:57:45 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
We cannot falsify creationism without invoking supernatural solutions to a supernatural problem. That's unscientific.


Again, if God uses his powers to prove creationism true, then the processes he uses would no longer be considered supernatural because they would be observable. So, by your standards, my hypothetical is falsifiable and hence scientific.

Besides, I don't think there is any reason to limit science to naturalistic explanation. Doing so seems to undermine the purpose of science, to find the best explanation. If you only allow science to find the best naturalistic explanation and the best explanation is not naturalistic, then science will be unable to find the best explanation no matter what the evidence.



swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 1:01:37 AM)

Let's start with some home work.

How many chromosomal mutations per million base pairs per generation occur in a typical mammal species?
I'm taking about single nucleotide polymorphisms here, not large scale gene duplication.

What are the minimal number of SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) required to fundamentally change the expression of a gene?

Using the answers to the questions above, how many generations would statistically modify the expression of a particular gene?



swan42 -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 1:03:17 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bettawrekonize

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
We cannot falsify creationism without invoking supernatural solutions to a supernatural problem. That's unscientific.


Again, if God uses his powers to prove creationism true, then the processes he uses would no longer be considered supernatural because they would be observable. So, by your standards, my hypothetical is falsifiable and hence scientific.

Besides, I don't think there is any reason to limit science to naturalistic explanation. Doing so seems to undermine the purpose of science, to find the best explanation. If you only allow science to find the best naturalistic explanation and the best explanation is not naturalistic, then science will be unable to find the best explanation no matter what the evidence.


True. For matters that are not naturalistic we turn to Philosophy and Theology.
Science excludes non naturalistic explanations.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 1:04:15 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42

Let's start with some home work.

How many chromosomal mutations per million base pairs per generation occur in a typical mammal species?
I'm taking about single nucleotide polymorphisms here, not large scale gene duplication.

What are the minimal number of SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) required to fundamentally change the expression of a gene?


Not relevant.



Bettawrekonize -> RE: Regulating Evolution (5/14/2008 1:05:15 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: swan42
True. For matters that are not naturalistic we turn to Philosophy and Theology.
Science excludes non naturalistic explanations.


There is no reason for it to.



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