Ken Miller: scientist and believeing Catholic

[NotReady]

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but IF god made the world to look like evolution happened, that doesn't mean he also said "in the beginning."


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The fossil record is more consistent with creation than evolution. You're confusing "age of the earth appearance" with "evolution appearance". The first is one of the reasons I tend more toward an old earth. There is nothing like the same "appearance" regarding evolution.

[Subfallen]

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Just a few words, if that's possible to achieve.


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Typical atheist on this forum:

"Logic and evidence don't matter. God can't exist. Evolution must be true. Don't confuse me with the facts."

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Actually, I think the typical atheist is more along these lines:

Logic and evidence don't matter.
"Logic and standards of evidence matter a lot!"

God can't exist.
"'God exists' is a nonrational proposition that is neither true nor false. To those who honestly struggle to experience something transcendent in life: you have our respect!"

Evolution must be true.
"Evolution is the best (and only) predictive explanation of biodiversity. However, there are very few, if any, specific evolutionary mechanisms that we believe 'must' be true."

Don't confuse me with the facts.
"May we all become better acquainted with that youngest virtue---honesty!"

[bunny]

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Just off the top of my head, here are a few pieces of evidence which, if found, would falsify evolution:

* If a fossil of a mammal dated to have lived 600 million years ago were found.

* If many (fossils of) species were found which combined characteristics of different nested groupings.

* If phylogenetic trees independently inferred from morphology and molecular sequences did not match.

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I doubt evolution would be discarded if any of these occurred (at least in isolation). In the first instance, I expect people would be surprised and assume that previous dating of mammals appearance were incorrect. In the second, perhaps they would look for some previously unnoticed process of gene exchange between species.

To be falsified it would either take lots and lots of these anomalous events, or the theory would need to make a prediction which didnt hold true. (I'm speculating out of my field again, but perhaps something like cultivating successive bacteria under higher and higher temperatures and then discovering that the later generations preferred cooler environments).

Of course, I think the reason scientists would cling to it is that it is used so widely and so well-confirmed. I'm sure the standard would be lower in any attempt to falsify string theory.

[Sephus]

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but IF god made the world to look like evolution happened, that doesn't mean he also said "in the beginning."


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The fossil record is more consistent with creation than evolution. You're confusing "age of the earth appearance" with "evolution appearance". The first is one of the reasons I tend more toward an old earth. There is nothing like the same "appearance" regarding evolution.

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no i'm not. whether the earth actually looks like evolution happened has nothing to do with what i'm takling about.

this is what you wrote

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When you accept myths like evolution and require no evidence exactly who's playing the trick?

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the answer is no one, obviously, but since madnak is so far from acknowledging that he requires no evidence it's an entirely irrelevant point to make.

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What God actually declares is "In the beginning ... etc." Where's the trick?

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if it's a trick then God either didn't declare that at all or if he did gave people reason to believe he didn't. that's what makes it a trick.

saying "since god declared this, where's the trick" is completely pointless because if it's a trick, god didn't "declare" that, and madnak is obviously operating on the assumption that god hasn't done it.

that's what i'm talking about. i'm not talking about whether the earth looks like evolution happened. i just thought you made a particularly irrational post and i was trying to show why. from now on i'll just say "this post sucks ass" without trying to back it up. it will save both of us a lot of time.

[madnak]

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Evolution is falsifiable.


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Christianity is falsifiable. Produce the bones of Christ.

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That isn't empirical because there is no way to distinguish the bones of Christ from any other bones. Even if we could prove that we have the bones of Christ, would that cause you to abandon Christianity NR? It may, but many Christians have stated here that it would not (that, in fact, nothing could).

Some specific versions of Christianity are indeed falsfiable. They are also empirically unsupported. Being falsifiable is just the minimum requirement to be considered as valid evidence. The claims of Christianity that are falsifiable have never been tested, or have simply failed scrutiny. A hypothesis must make concrete, specific, accurate predictions to be compelling. And that's the reason falsifiability is considered important.

[tame_deuces]

Woot. God is omnipotent and works in mysterious ways isn't an adequate hypothesis for ya? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[madnak]

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I doubt evolution would be discarded if any of these occurred (at least in isolation). In the first instance, I expect people would be surprised and assume that previous dating of mammals appearance were incorrect. In the second, perhaps they would look for some previously unnoticed process of gene exchange between species.

To be falsified it would either take lots and lots of these anomalous events, or the theory would need to make a prediction which didnt hold true. (I'm speculating out of my field again, but perhaps something like cultivating successive bacteria under higher and higher temperatures and then discovering that the later generations preferred cooler environments).

Of course, I think the reason scientists would cling to it is that it is used so widely and so well-confirmed. I'm sure the standard would be lower in any attempt to falsify string theory.

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It's very important to note here that evolution is no longer just an explanation of biodiversity. The theory of evolution is inseparable from the science of biology and its concrete applications (including medicine, etc).

If our understanding of the cell and DNA is correct, then evolution must be true. Evolution is a necessary consequence of DNA replication, it's a necessary consequence of mitosis (and especially meiosis), and many of the predictions made in all sorts of studies have implicitly depended on evolution. A clear example of the latter is David Pfennig's snake study. Some whole fields, like genetics, are based on evolution. And there are many examples in controlled and natural settings of evolution actually happening - the peppered moths are the classic example. Even technologies, like genetic modification, work according to assumptions we get from evolutionary theory. And the technologies do work, the predictions are accurate, the observations are precisely recorded and independently verified.

It's hard to express just how much evidence there is for evolution.

[bunny]

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I doubt evolution would be discarded if any of these occurred (at least in isolation). In the first instance, I expect people would be surprised and assume that previous dating of mammals appearance were incorrect. In the second, perhaps they would look for some previously unnoticed process of gene exchange between species.

To be falsified it would either take lots and lots of these anomalous events, or the theory would need to make a prediction which didnt hold true. (I'm speculating out of my field again, but perhaps something like cultivating successive bacteria under higher and higher temperatures and then discovering that the later generations preferred cooler environments).

Of course, I think the reason scientists would cling to it is that it is used so widely and so well-confirmed. I'm sure the standard would be lower in any attempt to falsify string theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's very important to note here that evolution is no longer just an explanation of biodiversity. The theory of evolution is inseparable from the science of biology and its concrete applications (including medicine, etc).

If our understanding of the cell and DNA is correct, then evolution must be true. Evolution is a necessary consequence of DNA replication, it's a necessary consequence of mitosis (and especially meiosis), and many of the predictions made in all sorts of studies have implicitly depended on evolution. A clear example of the latter is David Pfennig's snake study. Some whole fields, like genetics, are based on evolution. And there are many examples in controlled and natural settings of evolution actually happening - the peppered moths are the classic example. Even technologies, like genetic modification, work according to assumptions we get from evolutionary theory. And the technologies do work, the predictions are accurate, the observations are precisely recorded and independently verified.

It's hard to express just how much evidence there is for evolution.

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That's why I think it wouldnt be discarded if there was a pre-mammal mammal discovered, or any of the other purported falsifiers of evolution. I think it would take much more than one or two unexplained phenomena. To falsify it would require producing a prediction of the theory and then finding it wasnt fulfilled, rather than some anomalous discovery.

[hexag1]

Taraz wrote:
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I was simply pointing out that if God exists he likely exists outside of our observable Universe and that Biology can't tell us anything about what is outside the observable Universe. So while you can claim that we have no physical evidence of God, you can't start making scientific claims about him.

Honestly, I don't think that we can even say that Biology tells us much about life outside of our solar system. We have no way of knowing what else is possible because we have such a limited set of observations compared to the size of the observable universe.


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hmmm this is getting sticky.
How do I know that we are not part of some multiverse? I don't, but since there is no evidence of it, I have no reason to believe. I'm an atheist with respect to the multiverse.
Sure, the laws of physics could be different in the 99.9% of the universe that we can't see, but we have no reason to believe that they differ. Maybe God could exist out there, in the unknown. But all we can see is that the laws of physics are universally true. For this reason, I think that biology -can- tell us about life outside the observable universe. The laws of physics are universally applicable, and these laws are the foundations of biology. Biology tells us that a complex being like God can only arise from a long, evolutionary process. Since the existence of the universe is a prerequisite for such a process, a creator God cannot exist.

[qwnu]

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The fossil record is more consistent with creation than evolution.

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Approximately 100% of those who reject evolution and common descent are motivated by religious ideology. Why do you suppose that is?