"Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think"

humble brother wrote:

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Apparently you did not notice but this hypothesis can not be tested.

Of course it can.

One falsification test would be if a fossil was found that predated any of its antecedents. Passive observation too weak for you?

Then try this: Another would be if ubiquitous proteins were found to follow a pattern of variation that conflicted with the specific nested hierarchy posited by evolution and consistent with the fossil record.

Very testable, very falsifiable. But never yet falsified.

humble brother wrote:

There it is, as expected. Their twisting of their own holy scriptures.
To hypothesize the past you need faith. I see you have that. Faith is found in you.

No you don't.

So long as you accept the possibility that your theory is wrong, it is not an act of faith to have confidence in a theory supported by multiple lines of corroborating evidence. You only trip over into faith if you do not admit the possibility that your theory may be wrong. As a rational empirical skeptic, one always keeps that possibility open for any scientific theory, not just those involving the past.

15th Dalai Lama wrote:

Determination of common ancestry is not an hypothesis. It is a test performed by sequencing the DNA of the descendents; testable, repeatable, observable data.
Isn't that what the voices in your head are telling you cannot possibly exist on account of the voices in your head?

Your friend here thinks it is an hypothesis. So he failed to begin with? Is that your view?

humble brother wrote:

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Well then. When you encounter something that deviates from your "tree of life" how do you differentiate between a new species and a falsification of the whole thing?
If you have to hypothesize about it, then you have lost all falsifiablity. Falsifying is not done through hypothesizing. Falsification is immediately noticed through the model being broken.
Your model actually can not be broken. Everything odd is just declared as some new species and then you look for missing links.
Your hypothesis is not falsifiable.

False. A mammal fossil found in Cambrian strata would immediately falsify the theory, because no amount of "just declaring it an odd species" or whatever you are suggesting could alter the fact that it preceded all possible antecedents.

humble brother wrote:

And a hypothesis of common ancestry can NOT be falsified. It is absolutely impossible. If you disagree. Please explain how you can falsify a hypothesis of common ancestry.

As per my previous post. That is one way.

Chimney1 wrote:

Of course it can.
One falsification test would be if a fossil was found that predated any of its antecedents. Passive observation too weak for you?
Then try this: Another would be if ubiquitous proteins were found to follow a pattern of variation that conflicted with the specific nested hierarchy posited by evolution and consistent with the fossil record.
Very testable, very falsifiable. But never yet falsified.

Wait. Are you trying to imply that "evolution" can not produce e.g. chips, then they die off and then they evolve again? Is that your claim? Yes or no?

And why would your ubiquitous proteins falsify anything? Why would you not call it contamination? How do you differentiate between contamination and actual find in such an event?

polymath257 wrote:

Sure it can. It leads to predictions about what we can observe *now*. That is testability.

Testability requires falsifiability. Your hypothesis does not have that.

Chimney1 wrote:

False. A mammal fossil found in Cambrian strata would immediately falsify the theory, because no amount of "just declaring it an odd species" or whatever you are suggesting could alter the fact that it preceded all possible antecedents.

And why would you not conclude that separate branches of evolution have been in place? Can evolution not go "backwards" and "forwards" as then environments change?

humble brother wrote:

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Now then. Your scientific hypothesis must explain how it occurs.
So please do model how it occurs :D

Are you seriously asking how a fossil is formed?

We are talking high school level geology here, is your level of understanding below that? Seriously!?

It aint necessarily so wrote:

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This is the part of the psychology of Christianity - the intense misanthropy. To you, man is depraved and imbecilic. You've been calling mankind stupider than bacteria - a ridiculous claim that shows a betrayal of your own species.
Your religion is the only philosophical system I know of that teaches that man is born wretched, has no good in him, can decide nothing correctly without divine guidance, and who, without god, is fit for eternal torment.
If there were a second verbal species sharing this planet with us, and they made those kinds of comment about our species, I'll bet there'd be war, with Christians leading the charge. But if you think your god says so, you accept it. I can't respect that.
The rest of your religion's psychology is the same - doom, pessimism, apocalypse, decay, sin, the flesh, Satan running a world of moral collapse. Somebody's been arguing that our DNA has been degrading since Adam.

It seems by your claim, that you let other people make up your mind for you. That is never a good or intelligent thing to do.

Subduction Zone wrote:

Are you seriously asking how a fossil is formed?
We are talking high school level geology here, is your level of understanding below that? Seriously!?

Are you trying to say that you can observe the fossil forming?

You must model that which you observe. Not that which you do not observe.

humble brother wrote:

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Wait. Are you trying to imply that "evolution" can not produce e.g. chips, then they die off and then they evolve again? Is that your claim? Yes or no?

If you knew anything about evolution or mammalian anatomy, you would realise that if we started evolution running again from 600 million years ago until now, a thousand times, we would be incredibly unlikely to get another creature indistinguishable from any mammal in the geologic record. So no, that would be the most feeble defense possible of evolution, if in fact a rabbit was found in the Cambrian. A single verified find of that nature would be enough to bring the whole edifice down. Yet in 150 years, no such example has been found.

And why would your ubiquitous proteins falsify anything? Why would you not call it contamination? How do you differentiate between contamination and actual find in such an event?

Too easy. We would test it again. Finding haemoglobin or cytochrome-c from a sheep or a lizard is not that hard, so retesting would be simple. No doubt a deviant result WOULD be tested again before we accepted the conclusions, but if repeated testing showed the pattern was violated, that would be a strong falsification of evolution.

Another point here is that the null hypothesis is the expected one for any version of the real world where common ancestry was false. The chances of the pattern occurring if evolution with common ancestry is NOT true would be exceedingly remote. Therefore, you should not ignore the extremely strong positive evidence this represents.

And note too, that analogous evidence is testable for pseudogenes and ERV's as well as many ubiquitous proteins, and they all give the same nested hierarchy result independently, which happens to match the nested hierarchy of the fossil record. Slam dunk. Its not a question of "faith" to say that today evolution with common ancestry is one of the most comprehensively confirmed theories in all of science. In scientific circles, the only debates revolves around minor variations in the theory, such as the role of genetic drift and the degree of punctuated equilibrium.

humble brother wrote:

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And why would you not conclude that separate branches of evolution have been in place? Can evolution not go "backwards" and "forwards" as then environments change?

At one time it might have been tenable that evolution proceeded from more than one early branch, as if life originated in more than one case independently.

This possibility was extinguished by the same genomic research that I have been discussing above.

As for "backwards"? Never. Evolution is always propelled "forwards" by natural selection. This CAN involve the loss of parts or function previously evolved, as we see in sightless cave rats or snakes, for example. But this occurs because those parts, for whatever reason at the time, are no longer useful. Increasingly complexity is not a "drive" in evolution, but only occurs when that increased complexity happens to enhance survival. The assumption of a ladder of directionality in evolution is one of the main misconceptions of the public, including many who think they agree with evolution (but do not quite understand it).

humble brother wrote:

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Are you trying to say that you can observe the fossil forming?
You must model that which you observe. Not that which you do not observe.

We can observe enough of the process to see how the whole process works. We also have younger samples in various stages of preservation / fossilisation. Therefore your question is not a hard one to answer. Fossilisation is not a mystery.

And today, neither is the origin of the species we have found fossilised.

Chimney1 wrote:

If you knew anything about evolution or mammalian anatomy, you would realise that if we started evolution running again from 600 million years ago until now, a thousand times, we would be incredibly unlikely to get another creature indistinguishable from any mammal in the geologic record. So no, that would be the most feeble defense possible of evolution, if in fact a rabbit was found in the Cambrian. A single verified find of that nature would be enough to bring the whole edifice down. Yet in 150 years, no such example has been found.

So if the environment changes back to something it was before, mr.evolution would then say "oh no, can't have those, they have already existed"?

Is not evolution dictated entirely by the environment? If there is some kind of cycle in the environment, will not evolution be running in that cycle?

You babble a lot and you didn't answer the question.
AGAIN:
Are you trying to imply that "evolution" can not produce e.g. chips, then they die off and then they evolve again? Is that your claim? YES or NO?

Are you trying to imply that there can not be different amount of evolutionary advancement in different branches? YES or NO?

Chimney1 wrote:

Too easy. We would test it again. Finding haemoglobin or cytochrome-c from a sheep or a lizard is not that hard, so retesting would be simple. No doubt a deviant result WOULD be tested again before we accepted the conclusions, but if repeated testing showed the pattern was violated, that would be a strong falsification of evolution.
Another point here is that the null hypothesis is the expected one for any version of the real world where common ancestry was false. The chances of the pattern occurring if evolution with common ancestry is NOT true would be exceedingly remote. Therefore, you should not ignore the extremely strong positive evidence this represents.
And note too, that analogous evidence is testable for pseudogenes and ERV's as well as many ubiquitous proteins, and they all give the same nested hierarchy result independently, which happens to match the nested hierarchy of the fossil record. Slam dunk. Its not a question of "faith" to say that today evolution with common ancestry is one of the most comprehensively confirmed theories in all of science. In scientific circles, the only debates revolves around minor variations in the theory, such as the role of genetic drift and the degree of punctuated equilibrium.

You would test again something that is contaminated? How does that work? You know that it is contaminated, you then make sure that there are no contaminations found on it, then you test it again?-> not contaminated?

You failed to differentiate between contamination and some real thing. There is no differentiation. It is absolutely impossible. If there is a protein on some rock and you don't know how it got there, you then most certainly will not find out how it got there. It just is there, and you don't know where it came from.

Chimney1 wrote:

At one time it might have been tenable that evolution proceeded from more than one early branch, as if life originated in more than one case independently.
This possibility was extinguished by the same genomic research that I have been discussing above.
As for "backwards"? Never. Evolution is always propelled "forwards" by natural selection. This CAN involve the loss of parts or function previously evolved, as we see in sightless cave rats or snakes, for example. But this occurs because those parts, for whatever reason at the time, are no longer useful. Increasingly complexity is not a "drive" in evolution, but only occurs when that increased complexity happens to enhance survival. The assumption of a ladder of directionality in evolution is one of the main misconceptions of the public, including many who think they agree with evolution (but do not quite understand it).

So if the natural environment for some reason changes back to something it was a long time ago, evolution will not cause organisms to adapt and develop the "old" features that suited that environment?

Your fairy tales make absolutely no sense.

Chimney1 wrote:

We can observe enough of the process to see how the whole process works. We also have younger samples in various stages of preservation / fossilisation. Therefore your question is not a hard one to answer. Fossilisation is not a mystery.
And today, neither is the origin of the species we have found fossilised.

Well actually you don't observe "the process". Tell me what you claim to observe and watch how you fall down. I've been in this discussion many times. One more will definitely not hurt. What have you got as observation of the actual process of evolution?

Evolution will not work "backward". That is because there were many possible pathways to get where life is today. Life will evolve to fill open niches by finding new ways to evolve. Look at whale evolution. Animals left water to fill the niche made available by the land. Many Many Many years later a specie of animal living on the shore started wandering back into the sea and its descendents evolved to fill that niche. There are similarities between whale and fish, but there are also many big differences too.

I see that you cannot even follow grade school science. Perhaps instead of claiming we are wrong you spend a bit more time educating yourself. There are countless videos on YouTube that deal with evolution. In fact you have given me a very excuse to post this link for the first time here.

http://introducedrat.com/evolution.htm

That is a link to a list of the best evolution videos on YouTube. You could spend days there. They will all be in English, but it seems you are at least half way competent in that language. There are over a 1,000 links to videos. Why don't you watch one or two and ask us questions about it.

Subduction Zone wrote:

Evolution will not work "backward". That is because there were many possible pathways to get where life is today. Life will evolve to fill open niches by finding new ways to evolve. Look at whale evolution. Animals left water to fill the niche made available by the land. Many Many Many years later a specie of animal living on the shore started wandering back into the sea and its descendents evolved to fill that niche. There are similarities between whale and fish, but there are also many big differences too.
I see that you cannot even follow grade school science. Perhaps instead of claiming we are wrong you spend a bit more time educating yourself. There are countless videos on YouTube that deal with evolution. In fact you have given me a very excuse to post this link for the first time here.
http://introducedrat.com/evolution.htm
That is a link to a list of the best evolution videos on YouTube. You could spend days there. They will all be in English, but it seems you are at least half way competent in that language. There are over a 1,000 links to videos. Why don't you watch one or two and ask us questions about it.

According to the theory, evolution HAS NO DIRECTION. You people are now saying that in can only work in some single direction and something that has evolved in the past can not evolve again.

Is not evolution dictated by the environment? If the environment goes back to some condition it was a long time ago will not evolution cause the species to adapt? Are you really trying to say that it is impossible in evolution for some species to evolve then disappear and then evolve again? REALLY????

humble brother wrote:

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Well actually you don't observe "the process". Tell me what you claim to observe and watch how you fall down. I've been in this discussion many times. One more will definitely not hurt. What have you got as observation of the actual process of evolution?

You should ask one question at a time. We don't have to understand the exact process of evolution to know that it happened. We can observe all sorts of evidence that supports the theory.

Let's go back to the fossil record. The fossil record is not complete, geology and the TOE predict that it will be incomplete. We can still make theories based on our observations and test that theory. One test of the TOE was done and the result was the finding of the fossil Tiktaalik. Let's compare that and contrast it with creationism. First off there is no proper theory of creationism. No one has used it to find fossils that were not found beforehand. No one has used creationism for any positive means that I am aware of. Creationism would not have predicted we would have found a fossil like Tiktaalik since creationists did not believe that it existed.

Let's look at the geologic column next. The geologic column is consistent with the Theory of Evolution, it is not consistent with Creationism. Plants appear at the wrong time, both too early and too late. Land plants appeared before land animals, which makes sense if evolution is true. The Bible says otherwise. Flowering plants appeared much later than other plants, but if creationism is true they should all have appeared at the same time. And of course the ultimate killer of creationism in the fossil record are index fossils. Index fossils are fossils that are found only within certain well defined eras. And they are widespread globally. That means you are usually dealing with the smallest of fossils. There is no flood explanation why one particular foraminifera is found in only certain beds. The same goes for all sorts of other brachiopods, crinoids, diatoms etc.. All throughout the geologic column worldwide you will find fossils that are only in certain strata. And worse they are consistent. They overlap each other a bit and the overlap is the same throughout the world. How do you get the flood to sort materials that are of the same rough size, density and shape?