"gravitationist" and "Newtonist".

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Belief is irrelevant, except in religion.

Empirical data is all that matters in science. The data indicate certain verifiable events that did occur 1,000,000 years ago, whether you believe they did or not. They were valid before you were born, and will still be valid long after you are dead. Your opinion does not have any effect on their validity or their existence.

technically, you're right. we only have good reason to believe certain things have happened millions of years ago. One of the good reasons is that we haven't come up with a rival theory that accounts for all the things we can see have happened, and we have lots of supporting evidence.
The world being created 4004 B.C. has no supporting evidence and can't explain much - therefore, as a rival theory to evolution, it's easily disproven.
Newton's sravity couldn't account for a bunch of things in the universe, so the paradigm shifted to a theroy that could - Einstein's conception of gravity - for a good reason.

But not only do we only have good reason to belive evolution is true (one does not believe "in" evolution), we also only have good reason to believe that stuff exists, that the world is here and not something a giant bug is dreaming.
The giant-bug-dreaming-the-world is not a theory in a scientific sense at all, because there's no way you could disprove it. Unlike the old testament mythology, which has been disproven by conflicting evidence.

true, we don't know what happened. but we don't make stuff up, anymore, either.

This is known as changing the result by measuring twice.

One key difference between science and mere belief is that science sets such a high standard for theory-based predictions that only one failure out of one hundred attempts is sufficient to invalidate the theory, while mere belief sets such a low standard for faith-based "prophesies" that only one success out of one hundred attempts is sufficient to validate the "prophet".

You don't have to be Nostradamus to read a few tree rings.

True, but you do have to be a scientist to know why the tree rings form certain patterns and how those pattern correlate with known past events. Same for geologic core samples, radioactive decay products, electromagnetic spectra, DNA sequences, and a host of other phenomena throughout the physical world.

Or you could just pray for enlightenment with one hand and barf into the other, and see which one fills up faster.

I think it's because lots of words ending with the suffix ism refer to ideologies. "Evolutionist" is supposed to convey connotations of evolution being merely an ideology. "Gravitationist" makes that bit of propaganda a bit more obvious. You might as well call someone an oxygenist for their belief that humans need oxygen to survive. Just an ideology, see? Like the second law of thermodynamics: https://www.theonion.com/christian-right-lobbies-to-overturn-second-law-of-therm-1819565726. You really can't trust those entropists. Nobody has ever seen or touched entropy.


What is your objection? That it is impossible to make inferences about events that happened in the past?

What's the point of conjecture? At the end of the day, logically, we just don't know.

Sure, maybe dragons existed, maybe the Lost City of Atlantis existed, but why not confront the truth head-on and honestly admit, we don't know?

1.That's a comfortable, logical position to take.

2. Picking a particular conjecture is close-mindedness.

How evolution could give rise to real-life dragons.
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160929 ... fe-dragons

Scientists Say They May Have Found Lost City of Atlantis Near Spain
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/ ... ay-tsunami

So, unless we can say with 100.0% absolute certainty and with picture-perfect accuracy what was and wasn't in the past, anything anyone might dream up on no foundation whatsoever is just as likely as any other thing? Probability judgements are useless, in your view? Seems legit.

Also, finding your own position comfortable should be a red flag.

I would prefer to hear the truth of "we don't know", rather than a supposed X% probability pretending to be truth.

So, I reject the necessity to make a "probability judgement".

I say be honest.

You keep going on about logic. That is what I am asking about. Please explain how logic forbids inferences about past events. That is what I don't understand.


Do you believe that probabilistic inference is invalid? That it is not truth?


Does Wolfram87 describe your view accurately?

Technically, we can't even say what is, with certainty, but only with probabilistic inference.

As an example: most of my perception of the world is based on vision. But that means I infer what's out there from photons that accidentally bounce into my eyes and trigger the neurons of my retina. I can also trigger them through pressure. I need to understand the difference to understand that the patterns I can see when I massage my eyeballs aren't useful data to say anything about the world. But then: neither are photons, because I could be wearing VR glasses. So.... I need to make a lot of assumptions and second guess my assumptions before I can say something about the world.
Tbh.: We kniw nothing with certainty.
Demanding certainty is an impossible demand.
This discussion is pointless.

But we can infer stuff, and we can infer things that happened a million years ago.

I actually had a biology teacher in high school who called herself an evolutionist. So apparently some supporters of evolution do use the word "evolutionist" to refer to themselves.

You just posted links to a scientific magazine as evidence that scientists have lied to you. It's about margin of error, if you assume science is a charade & offer Popular Science as proof of this, your likelihood of substantial vindication is low. Obviously it's blissful to ignore conclusions you don't like but manufactured bliss won't do anything for you in reality.

The court of public opinion needs something beyond reasonable doubt if you're actually serious about invalidating science as a whole via semantics.

There are multiple likely sites for Atlantis but Plato was not a scientist. Natural philosophy would probably suit your sensibilities better.

I say that using the myth of Atlantis as 'proof' that scientists are dishonest is disingenuous. The myth of Atlantis was created by Plato to explain the concept of cultural hubris as a cautionary tale for his contemporaries. There is no proof for the existence of Atlantis, even though there are multiple claims in multiple locations to the contrary. Only this, and nothing more.