DARWIN VS. GENESIS

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Exactly. IMO, the divine meaning (or, more properly, divine will) of evolution would be a proper theological question. Biological origins would not.

Cheers,

Mark

Last edited by nominalist on 30 Sep 2007, 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

One more thing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlatio ... _causation

Therefore Evolution and Creation are speculations,not science.

Rationalize it all you want but I still believe in God and I won't accept any blasphemous notions about my ancestors being a bunch of dirty apes.

Now I've spoken my mind on it.

By definition, we (hominids) are apes (hominoids), too.

Cheers,

Mark

Maybe you are. I aint.

Well, of course, the scientific method is substantially induction. Deduction applies when deriving hypotheses from theory. However, the process of data analysis is inductive.



Creationism claims to be inductive, but it is almost entirely deductive. If you look through the major creationist organization sites (and I am not including those devoted to so-called intelligent design, which has its own problems), they require that members subscribe to a fundamentalist (or conservative evangelical) belief system.



Evolutionary biology is involved with creationism???

Cheers,

Mark

As was proposed by Francis Bacon.
But:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method




And:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deductive_reasoning





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning





A strong induction is thus an argument in which the truth of the premises would make the truth of the conclusion probable, but not definite.



However, the link between the premise and the inductive conclusion is weak. No reason exists to believe that just because one person hangs pictures on nails that there are no other ways for pictures to be hung, or that other people cannot do other things with pictures.



Perhaps..Creationism has its own agenda,but Evolution also has its own.
Lots of Evolutionists are radical atheists and materialists.
I'm from former communist country,so I know what I'm talking about.
Both Creationism and Evolution are agendas,not science.



No.It is involved with ontological interpretation of reality,like Creationism.A job that does not belong to science,but belief system.
And for me (personally) a belief system is 'religion'.

Science has to do with observation of empirical facts,not about speculations of origins of these facts.

P.S

I'm fully agnostic on question of genesis/evolution.

I can think of only one thing that is all deduction: mathematics. All the natural sciences have more induction than deduction. You make observations, you see a pattern in your observations, you come up with a hypothesis or theory to explain the pattern, you make predictions, you see whether the predictions are correct in cases you have not yet observed and where your theory should apply. This is induction. If you could use deduction, you wouldn't need to test your predictions, because as long as your deductions are correct, they necessarily follow from your premises.

By the way, you can generate and test predictions without doing experiments. Look at cosmology for examples. Cosmology is rather short of experiments, but lots of predictions get tested anyway.


But that assumption can be tested at least against specific alternatives. And it is a simple assumption if there is no reason to believe that the rules have changed. If you have a theory which depends on the rules having changed, you better have a good reason for that assumption.


When you apply evolutionary theory to specific events, it works like forensic science. You try to reconstruct an event you did not observe directly. By your criterion, police forensic scientists are theologians.


Not true. Evolutionary biology merely gives a naturalistic explanation, which means it is not necessary to postulate supernatural influences. Evolutionary theory claims absence of evidence for supernatural influences, not evidence of absence of supernatural influences. Confusing these two things is a basic logical fallacy on your part.


Show me where.


Again, show me. I did not claim that existing species are in the process of evolving flight. I did not claim that the functions of wings besides flight that you see in speccies that live today are definitely the functions which in the past bridged the gap between no wings at all and wings capable of supporting true flight. I argued against the claim that any intermediate stage would be maladaptive. I wrote the things you outlined in bold font exactly to make that distinction clear. I am sorry that it was not clear enough. Does this extra explanation help?


Think of forensic science again, and make your claim more specific. Right now, I am not sure what you are arguing. Are you saying that no attempt to reconstruct a specific past event can ever have any value?

It all depends of interpretation...
For example:

What is this?



1.It's a rose.
2.It's a picture of rose.
3.It's a flower.
4.It's a picture of flower.
5.Its a red rose.
6.It's a plant.
7.It's a organism.
8.It's a carbon-based life form.
9.It's a symbol of love.
10.Its a gift.
11.Its a material object.
12.Its a 'rosa'.
13.Its a red thing.
14.Its a thing that smells nice.
15.Its a Rosie.
16.Its a non-moving organism.
17.Its something.

Etc...

What definition from above is right one?
They all are.

So why one interpretation needs to be 'superior' from another?

Compare this:

to this:

The observations and measurements of the definition you quote rarely comprise the set of all possible observations. The whole point of your theory or hypothesis is to generalize beyond the set of observations. That is the inductive element of the natural sciences.


Sounds to me like theories in the natural sciences.


Surely you are not using a correlation to imply causation. You clearly know better than that. So what link are you making between your claim that evolution has an agenda and the observation that many evolutionists are atheists and materialists?

Have you thought of the possibility that the natural sciences attract people who already are atheists and materialists? Or the related possibility that they might be overrepresented because there is a personality factor which predisposes some people both to naturalistic explanations and to an interest in science, while others are predisposed to spirtual beliefs and non-science subjects? Neither of these explanations would imply that evolutionary theory is atheistic or makes people atheists.


Would you tell us why? For example, is it because you feel you personally don't have the information you would need to decide? Or do you think itis not possible to get the information you would need to decide? Or something else?

I am talking about the modern research process, as it is generally understood by scientists. It is substantially an inductive method (hypothesis testing), but it also has a deductive component (developing hypotheses from theory).



I think you are conflating evolution as theory (or theories) and evolution as fact. As theory, yes, evolution refers to the interpretation (or explanation) of the data. The dominant theoretical approach today is called the modern evolutionary synthesis. However, evolution as fact refers to the broad consensus of natural scientists (naturalists). When one says that most naturalists recognize evolution as without significant doubt, one is saying it is a scientific fact.



As a nominalist, I agree with you about avoiding unnecessary metaphysical speculations. However, due to the inductive character of the scientific method, no proposition, not only those in evolution, is beyond all doubt. One is also not required to speculate in order to note that the vast body of evidence supports biological evolution.



Well, if you are using the term agnostic as did Huxley, you would be compelled to be agnostic about, not only evolution, but all scientific discoveries.

Cheers,

Mark

In this case, we are talking about systems of nomenclature, not interpretations. You can call apes hominoids or your can call them apes. However, the term still refers to the same category.

Cheers,

Mark

I believe that's why most scientists use mathematical calculations to support their theories.



But when you already made up your mind in ideological sense,you will make interpretation that would always fits in this framework.
Therefore,you would always have illusion that your 'ideology' is right one.

Creationism also use observation of natural things and interprets it in its own way.

Evolution-"Sediment rocks are result of long sedimentation of material through millions of years".

Creationism-"Sediment rocks are sedimentation of material that occurred during some great catastrophe (flood)".



You can also generate and test predictions in computer games,but this does not imply that there is something in real world that is identical with this computer game.



Science is not about assumptions,fiction is.





Same could be said about applying Creationist theory.



Yes.But this goes to paleontology,not evolution.

While forensics can reconstruct event,based on solid evidences,they don't have right to speculate about entire picture of event.
This belongs to witnesses.
Sometimes forensics can be wrong.



Thats normal,since naturalism is basic postulate of Evolution.
Naturalist would always interpret everything in naturalist sense,in same manner that poet would interpret everything in poetic sense.
If someone claims that Sun is living being,that belongs to his interpretation of 'living'.
Naturalist has its own interpretation.

Problem is that naturalist insists that his interpretation is right one.
Even if God,for example reveal himself to naturalist,naturalist would then try to interpret God in naturalist terms,since this is his world-view.
Naturalism,by definition reject supernatural,since it interprets everything within its own framework.
In same manner that Communism interprets everything as result of class-struggle.

I mean,its ok for naturalist to see things in his own way,but why he needs to deny other interpretations?



I'm argue against arrogance of some people who try to push their believes through the mask of 'scientific objectivity',while their beliefs are just based or speculations or statistical probability.
While some people have nerve to call others 'stupid' and 'fanatical',they are just using cunning sophisms that may appear reasonable at first glance.

As forensics,forensics is also just best guessing.Not all reconstructions of forensics are accurate,and its accuracy depends on number of material evidences,and can be fully justified through testimony of witnesses.



It has psychological value to believers,but no scientific value.
There is Evolutionist reconstruction,and there is Creationist reconstruction....
I simply don't see why naturalist one have to be the best one?

Some individuals may have agendas. However, evolution is a fact and a theoretical tradition. What matters, from a scientific perspective, is the evidence.

Cheers,

Mark

You can make generalizations,but you don't have right to claim that these generalizations can be applied in all cases.



I didn't say that all evolutionists are radical atheists,only that lots of them are.And I know some of them personally.
If I said 'all',then I would made error of induction.
There are theistic evolutionists as well.
However,if you are an Atheist and materialist,its highly likely that you would be Evolutionist,since Atheism rely on naturalistic explanation of reality.



The one that is marked.
We cannot go beyond what is given to us here and now.Everything beyond that is speculation,that may be or not be correct.




So,what you are saying is that naturalism is science,according to you interpretation?
It's somehow logical that naturalists would support Evolution,since Evolution is naturalistic theory.

And something is a 'fact' if naturalists have consensus about it?
So if they have consensus that colors does not exist(for example),that means that this is a 'fact'?



This statement contradicts with your previous one:



Second,'evidences' that you have mentioned can be interpreted in creationist sense..

I didn't perceive your post to be offensive, PLA. I already admitted my "1+1 does not equal 3" example was ill chosen!