You were complaining about what responses were in what forums... so I just copied and pasted my other one (from the "why I rejected evolution as an atheist" forum) here. If there's a better forum for it, let me know, and I can copy and paste it there for you.
Here it goes...
Why do men have nipples? Why do humans have tailbones and appendices? Why are female orgasms hardly correlated with sexual intercourse? Why are there oftentimes complications with the female pelvis during birth? Why are 99.9% of the species in the fossil record now extinct? Why would God have such a fascination with beatles (I believe there are 250,000-350,000 unique species)? Why are completely arbitrary sequences of nucleotides in the genetic code conserved in nearly all species, but with slight variations?
Theories in science work through models, which can be modified by interpretation of new evidence, etc. Evolutionary theory is a model that can explain all the evidence we see without any contradictions. ID and creationism simply cannot. It sounds like you are claiming to not accept ID and creationism, either? Convenient. Can you at least concede that ID and creationism cannot satisfactorily explain these? And by satisfactorily, I mean by not using the fallback answer I provided in an earlier post.
Did you honestly attempt to make a counterpoint out of the fact that I said 99.8 instead of 98.5? Your article strongly supports the idea of evolution, and does NOT support the idea of creationism or ID.
As far as the word games with science. I agree that science is usually repeatable. In fact, I contend that evolutionary theory IS repeatable. The problem only arises when you say that "microevolution is different from macroevolution, and macroevolution can't be repeated!" But macroevolution is simply a whole lot of microevolution happening over the course of a very long time to a group that is relatively isolated reproductively. Evolution IS repeatable. It's done all the time. Macroevolution, by it's very nature, can't be done in a simple experiment because of the time scale on which it takes place. There are many scientific processes of this nature, but no one disputes whether or not they are science. Look at the movement of the tectonic plates. Long ago there was Pangea (abundant evidence for this), and at the rate of the growth of your fingernails, they started separating. Now South America and Africa are far away. We can study the rate at which the plates move, and we can find plenty of evidence that they were together long ago. We both acknowledge that the movement occurs, and that the result is oceans of space between two land masses. We both know this probably happened because we can see plenty of fossil evidence for it and because we can fit South America and Africa together like puzzle pieces. But we can't exactly prove that this actually happened, because we don't have a video tape of it. There's also evidence that the magnetic poles actually move around and switch at times. We couldn't do an experiment to prove this unless we had literally tens of thousands of years at our disposal. This is still science, however. And it is repeatable on a "micro" scale, but it is left to our common sense what will happen on the "macro" scale. To argue against macroevolution through its irrepeatability is a copout. By nature it's impossible without massive time-scale experiment. That doesn't mean it's not science, though, and I hope you can agree.
You say:
"Expanding your definition of 'science' so as to make historical assertions like "George Patton... etc" and like "Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away, man began to think and think rationally" does not remove the difference. It just papers over them."
But evolution does not only explain, it also predicts... we both know this.
You say:
"Well, convergent evolution would be begging the question, wouldn't it?"
Do you know what convergent evolution is? It's a pretty sound argument against ID and creationism as far as I'm concerned. Why would God create completely independent, unique forms of wings in animals that operate in the same environments, e.g. birds and bats? Evolution explains this through sufficiency and the fact that it has the capability to provide multiple, different solution to the same problem.
You say:
"Dude. Would you look at yourself? Don't you understand that in a creationist pov there are NOT intermediate species in the sense you put forth here."
Way to totally avoid the question. Maybe if I word it differently for you. There are dozens of fossilized organisms that are human-like. They were clearly bipedal animals, and their brain cavity size (and therefore probably brain size) increase as you move from deeper sites in the fossil record to more shallow sites. And different species are sometimes found in the same geographical locations! Don't ID and creationism have to say that God made all of these species separately, and it just so happened that they all went extinct, in order of increasing brain size, until only humans were left? I hope you can see why that's ridiculous. What would be the point in creating them in the first place. I understand that you contend that you can't prove evolution by disproving ID and creationism, but can you at least concede that evolution provides a logical answer here, while creationism and ID struggle?
You say:
"See how you beg the question? You are not showing how or that orgasms are adaptive, you are assuming they are 'adaptive' and justifying it by intuition!
That's SCIENCE?"
I assumed it was obvious why orgasms are adaptive for men. I'm sorry. Here it is: if survival and reproduction are the goals of organisms in an evolutionary system, then the coupling of ejaculation with pleasure would encourage males to reproduce, etc. Are you asking for some kind of fossil evidence of how the orgasm became pleasurable? This is impossible. We have bones, not brains. What would you expect to see if evolution HAD occurred? Well, exactly what you do see.
You say:
"You have no concrete evidence to show me. Indeed, you have argued it would be unreasoanble to expect that evidence. However, you personally can see how it 'could have' 'probably' happened. That is enough for you, but it is an argument from credulity. I need not be as credulous as you."
This is not an argument from credulity. This is honest interpretation of the facts. Are fossils and DNA analyses not "concrete" enough for you? And the fact that the results from DNA analyses and fossil analyses, studied independently, almost always converge on the same evolutionary relationships?
You say, again:
"If the primary engine for evolution is selecting on survivability and reproduction, it follows that every aspect of the biological creature will be selected on those principles. That would include our mind. But it then follows that the very most we could reliably say about our minds is that they have been minimally configured for reproduction and survival. You do not need rationality to achieve these. Trees reproduce and survive but are not rational. However, we are using our rationality to deduce that our rationality is minimally configured for reproduction and survival. Therefore, evolution produces in principle- regardless of how much 'evidence' you would like to marshal for its 'probability'- a scenario that undermines the very means used to detect it. Our rationality detects a process that in principle calls into question our rationality itself."
I understand. The point is that intelligence, or rationality, WAS needed to survive. Humans aren't that fast or strong, and they aren't amazingly impressive climbers or swimmers, either. The argument would clearly be that we outcompeted our competitors in whatever our niche was by outsmarting them. ASSUMING EVOLUTION IS TRUE, I hope you don't dispute that evidence for this is found in the increasing brain cavity sizes in our ancestors. And no, other organisms, like trees, found different solutions to the problem of survival. Just because we're rational doesn't mean that rationality is necessary for survival, it only means that it was sufficient. I'll address the epistemological part of your argument later.
"But 99.99% of the living species on our planet get by without 'rational thought.' They get by on principles geared towards selection in terms of survivability and reproduction, which do not require rationality. There is no reason to think that we are not like that tree I described above. It is conceivable that there will come yet another species after us with even greater rationality and in their eyes we will be like the tree."
Again, to repeat myself: No, rationality was not required. It was merely a sufficient solution to the problem of survival. Do you see why evolution merely selects for sufficiency, and not necessity? And I hope we wouldn't look like trees. Trees don't have nervous systems and don't move about, make their own tools, etc.! You're point is well-taken, though. Yes, conceivably a more intelligent species could evolve. It just so happens that we're the most intelligent species, and that's why we can sit around and discuss stuff like this. Other species have extensive thought processes, as well. You should read some about squids, chimps, and dolphins (maybe you already have!). They are capable of solving quite complex problems, and chimps have a nice understanding of fairness, as well. The ability to make simple causal connections formed the basis for the development of rationality. We perceive ourselves as being rational because the extent of our ability to make causal connections is great, much greater than any other species, and we have been able to use them to manipulate our environment into the world we see today (if only we were more rational we would see we are destroying earth...). I understand your issue. You're concerned that hey, if evolution is true, then it created our rationality, and how do we know that rationality produced in this imperfect system can be trusted? I contend that it can be trusted. It was created to make judgments about a natural world operating by the contant, natural laws of the universe. We make causal connections based on these laws. Of course, our rationality isn't infallible, as Dawkins pointed out. But it is sufficient. If I release a ball, I expect it to fall. We can both trust in this prediction, and that's what I was trying to get at. Yes, I concede that humans are capable of being irrational, as Dawkins said. But my point was that in general, our rationality provides a sound basis from which to make decisions and predictions about our world.
I wish you weren't so nit-picky with words. You've misspelled and missused plenty. I ignore it. You avoid larger points by attacking smaller ones. I laughed also when I read "rational laws of nature" this morning. Understand it was about 3:30 am and I was thinking about rationality. I apologize. I meant "constant." But please, you can rid your responses of the lol's. I laugh plenty, too, but I don't find it necessary to include these instances in my responses.
What I was trying to say is that clearly an ability to make causal connections in some sort of natural environment governed by constant laws would prove adaptive. If I'm standing by a cliff and I look up to see an object grow larger and larger by the millisecond, it would be wise to decide to move. I'm not arguing that this is how we survived. But again, if you're asking for fossils of rationality, that's impossible. Our opposable thumbs allowed us to make tools (which chimps also do, by the way), and we can both predict that intelligence would be selected for when coupled with tool use, right? And once the ball is rolling, it is certainly feasible that humans could have provided their own engine of selection by warring other tribes. In fact, there is discussion of evidence that something like this took place between homosapiens and neandertals. I would agree that our rationality couldn't be trusted if we were placed in a universe run by a completely different set of laws. But as long as we live in this one, we will be able to arrive at logical conclusions that explain things. It is only when we can't provide rational, logical explanations that we turn to the supernatural. But life on earth is certainly within the realm in which we can make rational judgments and decisions. Science isn't arguing, although some individuals may be, that evolution has instilled in us an ability to understand everything. Our intelligence is limited. But human rationality allows us to interpret evidence, form conclusions, and make predictions to an extent greater than any of our ancestors or cousins. I understand that there can be ways of understanding things that we might not possess. But we're on earth, and our rationality has been sufficient to survive thus far. Suppose this: Evolution happened. Maybe your conclusions against evolution are a product of the "imperfect rationality" for which you seem to say evolution must instill in us. After all, who's judging that your rationality is so trustworthy? You? Hmm....
Jedi mind tricks? No. It sounded like you were asking me to judge the outcome of a very complex situation. Put ten people in a room and say if one isn't alive in the morning you will kill them all. Who will win? It's an incredibly complex analysis and can't be done before morning... ID and creationism DO present a greater complexity, as Dawkins says. By answering the question "How did all this complexity of life get here?" with "From a super-being!" inherently requires that this super-being is more complex than the complex life observed. Complexity IS introduced. I'm not saying that this line of reasoning disproves ID or creationism, but it demands a further explanation. I am not explaining ANY system through a more complex system, as ID and creationism do. I am simply acknowledging that a system is already too complex for me to predict, in my lifetime, its outcome. I am not shifting anything...
I do own literature by Wells and Dembski, by the way.
I guess my overall problem with your argument is that IF evolution did happen, what would you expect to see? Delving into the philosophy of knowledge is a scary decision, and will inevitably lead to the conclusion that we can't really "know" anything for certain. To try to disprove evolution on these grounds is weak. What if Satan made you, and tweaked your rationality to conclude that evolution is wrong and that Christianity must be right? And what if he wrote the Bible through people, and rewards the infidels with eternal paradise? We can't know that this isn't true, but we can both probably agree that to believe this would be ridiculous. To me, your epistemological argument sounds equally ridiculous.
I've enjoyed the heated discussion, hopefully I will be able to find time to keep responding, but the posts are growing increasingly longer. I guess what I really want to know is:
If evolution was true, do you honestly think that it would be incapable of producing beings with thought processes as complex as ours? If you don't, then I don't think I can persuade you. There is literature on this subject though, and it spells out pretty clearly how very basic nervous systems would evolve and grow increasingly complex from there. I don't find any problem with evolution's ability to produce complex brains.
Finally, as for things like the female orgasm and male nipple, I still haven't received any sort of explanation from a creationist, ID, or any other view. Are you conceding that there are no logically satisfactory explanations? The mechanism behind the development of the male nipple is not disputed, but the female orgasm is. I gave you the most plausible evolutionary explanation, and if you'd like to read more about it, see "The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution" by Loyd.
Author
Topic: Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Falsifiability. (Read 18101 times)