Sarkus
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Originally Posted by lightgigantic
until that evidence enables repeatability it is a theory - is that not the general principle that the integrity of science operates on?
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Evolution has been repeatedly observed.
Unfortunately evolution is not as simple as C + O2 --> CO2, in that it doesn't follow the same path each time - due to the vast array of environmental and genetic factors involved.
But evolution has been observed repeatedly.
repeatedly observed or repeatedly tentatively suggested?
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the foundation for evolution is abiogenisis, or perhaps in a more general sense, that matter is the essential property of life.
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Bollox. Evolution makes NO attempt to state that life = matter / matter = life, or deal with abiogenesis at all.
It merely requires the existence of an adapting / mutating medium.
and that adapting mutating medium they happen to accept as matter
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Regardless on one's thoughts on the matter, speciation is not evidence of evolution, since transitions between genus is not evidenced by it
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Excuse me? Are you now changing the world's understanding of evolution, redefining it to suit your argument?
If evolution is not evidenced by speciation, what is evolution???
erm - theory
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therefore inquiry into the origins of life is another aspect of knowledge that is impenetrable by empiricism.
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No one disagrees, I think.
phew - thats a relief
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I don't think it is reasonable for science to say "Since we cannot know it our ideas on how it might be real must be accepted as the truth"
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Strawman logical fallacy, LG.
Noone in the scientific community says this!
academics, particularly in the field of analyzing the social implications of science disagree
Science, as we have already discovered, is outrageously demanding. It demands that it is not simply a way of explaining certain bits of the world, or even the local quarter of the universe within telescopic range. It demands that it explains absolutely everything.*
Benjamin Wooley, Virtual Worlds, 1992, p. 100.
All we can provide, regarding the origin of life on this planet, is theories of how it happened - and try and recreate that in the lab.
If we manage to do so then it certainly adds weight to the theory (pushing it beyond mere hypothesis) but it can NOT claim to have solved how life on earth started, merely claim to be a possibility.
all I am arguing is that evolution is a theory - I am not aiming to establish how all of science is theory - I am establishing however that those ideas that are not repeatable or verified by anyone's direct perception are theory
Your ideas of science and what it claims are warped, LG.
And while they continue to be warped you will continue to argue out of your depth in the matter.
If you cannot see the distinction between theory and practice your objective analysis of th e world can be easily dismissed
Let's get this straight, LG....
Evolution IS fact.
Evolution happens.
Evolution has been observed.
Its been observed?
What you might argue is that it is not applicable to the macro- point of view, but that does not detract from the point that EVOLUTION IS FACT.
seems my apparent strawman (and the quote by wooley) bears some relevance
Me - I don't think it is reasonable for science to say "Since we cannot know it our ideas on how it might be real must be accepted as the truth"
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You - Strawman logical fallacy, LG.
Noone in the scientific community says this!
does this mean you are outside the scientific community when you say it is a fact (in caps lock too I might add ...)?
Let's use an analogy - as you are so fond of doing...
Waves are a fact, yes?
You agree that there are waves on the oceans?
yes - after all they are directly perceivable
You might not agree that "super-waves" (100+m waves) can exist without some major catastrophe (e.g. tsunami) - but you can surely not deny the existence of waves.
Or do you?
What is stopping you from getting past the understanding, and thus accepting, that EVOLUTION IS FACT?
there are persons on the platform of directly perceiving such waves - there are no such persons on the platform of directly perceiving evolution - on the contrary it is a tentative claim based on a body of empirical knowledge
Prince James:
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until that evidence enables repeatability it is a theory - is that not the general principle that the integrity of science operates on?
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Or at least observability. Which one could say is found in the fossil record all ready.
surely you don't suggest that the fossil record has lent itself to anything close to a singular consensus - just consider the variety of interpretation that has been read into the fossil record over the past 50 years (considering it often alludes to substantiating 'observations' many hundreds of thousands of years ago
"We really don't know what the Earth was like three or four billion years ago. So there are all sorts of theories and speculations. The major uncertainty concerns what the atmosphere was like. This is a major area of dispute" Stanley Miller
But then again, I do believe eugenical research can produce new species in theory at the very least. I'd like to try to find some evidence of simple sexually producing organisms doing so.
I am not contending speciation - I am contending evolution however
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again this is tentative theory - like for instance if I insist on using a screw driver as a lever to open a paint tin and also as a chisel it also contains some "junk" properties not suited to either application - in other word if I use the same design for two or more applications, you would expect some "junk" elements of the design to be apparent
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I am not so sure this could be applied to the evolutionary issue. For assuming a designer of some intelligence, the superfluous elements (I.E. junk DNA) would simply be removed and not kept.
intelligence is not behind my use of the screw driver as both a chisel and lever?
Presuming junk DNA serves no purpose, mind you.
of course
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the foundation for evolution is abiogenisis, or perhaps in a more general sense, that matter is the essential property of life.
Regardless on one's thoughts on the matter, speciation is not evidence of evolution, since transitions between genus is not evidenced by it
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Isn't it rather a logical progression that once you have speciation, you also have genus-ication?
Is this logical?
A x time = A1
B x time = B1
therefore B1=A1
For presuming breeding advantages in natural selection can differentiate a duck from a loon, then said duck could go one route, said loon another, and end up radically different from one another.
for that to be logical one would need evidence of inter genus movement - hence it remains theoretical
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therefore inquiry into the origins of life is another aspect of knowledge that is impenetrable by empiricism. I don't think it is reasonable for science to say "Since we cannot know it our ideas on how it might be real must be accepted as the truth" (unless of course one wants to talk about scientific theory)
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Well theoretically, the ideas behind abiogenesis could be proven if we understood the composition. For instance, the famous amino acid experiments that showed that complex molecules can result from a super heated soup with no rhyme or reason. It seems only a matter of time before real abiogenesis is shown.
Thats my point - Things that could theoretically be true remain theories (at best)
just because one can synthesize the chemicals that life utilizes does not mean one has made any substantial progress in synthesizing life
Leslie Orgel did a scientific analysis of the dominant ideas of how life could have been generated materially and concluded .....
"there are several tenable theories about the origin of organic material on the primitive earth, but in no case is the supporting evidence compelling"
