On Jul 4, 2:19 pm, T Pagano <not.va
...@address.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Jul 2008 22:57:48 -0700 (PDT), "Devil's Advocaat"
> <mankyg...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >Many creationists claim that evolutionary theory is dogmatic,
> >unquestionable, inviolate or otherwise unassailable,
> 1. The creationist claim is not that evolutionary theory, in and of
> itself, is dogmatic or unquestionable but that it is treated so by
> secularists and atheists. In what way is it treated this way?
> Evolutionists make no effort to genuinely test the theory; that is,
> they make no effort to search for refutations.
Every new organism that is found and every organism that has any of
its proteins or genome sequenced is a test of evolution. Every
observation that natural selection both occurs and is a cause of
change in genomes is a test of evolution. Every rock or geological
strata that is dated by multiple methods is a test of the age of the
earth, which is a necessary condition for the mechanisms of evolution
to work. Every new fossil that is found can be a test of evolution.
That nearly all of these tests are consistent with evolution is
considered to present support for the explanation. So much so that
most of the time the only results that are interesting are those in
which there is some reasonable hope (because, for example, the
organisms are poorly preserved in the fossil record and the morphology
is highly simplified) that new findings might reveal some discrepancy
in previous thought. An example can be found in the recent re-working
of bird phylogeny (birds fossilize poorly and bird morphology is
frustratingly similar) through analysis of DNA. Of course even then
the changes often were previously suspected as possible and no such
evidence has ever been so strange (except for the fraudulent ones such
as human footprints with the dinosaurs) as to call the entire
mechanism of common descent into question.
> 2. Remember that only a theory which can be refuted can be considered
> scientific.
Yes. And evolution clearly qualifies while so-called "intelligent
design" does not. Again, every time a sequence is determined, every
time a fossil is found in some geological layer, every time a new
organism is discovered, every time a layer is dated, we have a test of
evolution.
> However, since the atheists make no attempt whatsoever to
> search for falsifications they treat the framework of evolutionary
> theories as inviolate and unquestionable. Discordant observations are
> ignored as anomolous.
Not always. Sometimes the observations discordant with the past
observations are accepted. For data to be "anomolous" there has to be
a body of evidence to which it is "anomolous".
> The lion share of work is to amass
> cooroborative evidence which every false theory in history has been
> able to accomplish.
When a theory is as well-established as evolution, prediction of
expected results becomes easier. But any time one collects evidence
that tests a theory, it has the possibility of disagreement with
expectations. That that has not been the case, by and large, to any
great extent with common descent merely makes it more likely that
scientists are right.
> The creationist claim that atheists hold
> evolutionary theory as inviolate is an historical, psychological, and
> sociological statement of fact.
It is a lie, cloaked in wishful thinking, that is oft repeated by
creationists. But how is it not a test of common descent to predict a
particular pattern of change that arises naturally from common descent
and pointing out, quite regularly, that the evidence is consistent
with that theory *even when* there is no reason why that would be
expected from any non-duplicitous intelligent designer? The pattern
of change *looks* like and is *consistent with* a historical pattern
of change. The only reason why known intelligent designers produce
that pattern when, in fact, that was not the pattern, is to lie about
history to other intelligent agents (faking a geneology to pretend
noble birth or getting an inheritance being examples).
> 3. The fact that random mutations combined to natural (or even
> artificial) selection has NEVER been observed to result in the
> emergence or development of some novel structure, system, or organ has
> never bothered atheists.
Neither has the fact that no one has seen a quark, but only the
expected and predicted consequence of its existence. Testability does
not demand direct observation of all events and processes. It demands
that the mechanism have specific testable consequences and that the
underlying assumptions of the mechanism be testable.
> Recall that this mechanism is supposed to be
> the engine for the emergence and development of EVERY biological
> structure, system and organ that has ever existed.
But NOT by magical poofing by design, but by a serendipitous process
with intermediates. The *process* of mutation and selection has been
observed and tested. And the process predicts that (although evidence
will not always be available at the present time or perhaps never)
biological structures, systems, and organisms must always be a
modification of a previously existing ancestral feature. And
generally that the intermediate stages have *some* potential utility.
> The fact that the
> fossil record which should have captured some of this emergence and
> develpment of novelty shows NOTHING BUT sudden appearance of "mature"
> structures and stasis of those structures over millions of years never
> bothered the atheists.
The fossil record only catches an insignificant fraction of all the
organisms that have existed. If you only get one fossil every 10,000
years, you will see the amount of change that can occur in 10,000
years. And that includes the *disappearance* of species as well as
their appearance. The dodo and passenger pigeon fossils, for example,
could possibly have been found even 1000 years ago. They have now, on
a 10,000 year time frame, disappeared. The English sparrow and
starling, OTOH, has suddenly appeared in abundance in the Americas
(cane toads and rabbits in Australia).
> 4. What guides the atheist to treat evolutionary theory as inviolate?
What requires that creationists must lie about this?
> The underlying atheistic philosophy (not scientific fact) is that
> matter, its properties, and space have existed for a long time, that
> small changes occur over time, and that these changes can be
> aggregated progressively and coherently over long periods of time.
I see you have no idea what science says happened. Supernovas are not
slow, small changes. The Big Bang was not a slow change. The time
available is constrained to what the evidence supports: 13 billion
years since the Big Bangaroo, 4.5 billion since the formation of the
solar system, at least 3.5 billion since life on this planet occurred,
500 million years since the rapid (if 10 million years is rapid)
formation of hard-shelled multicellulars, a few million since the
split between the lineage leading to the two chimp species and the
multiple hominid species.
> It
> is this underlying naturalistic philosophy (not science fact) which
> guides the atheist to ignore the significant problems with
> evolutionary theory and only look at the corroborative observations.
> 5. Finally atheists have cloaked their underlying naturalistic
> philosophy in scientific language and then recast it as an underlying
> pillar of scientific practice.
> > yet when they are
> >asked questions such as, “where is your supporting evidence?” or “can
> >you provide citations for your source materials”, they either become
> >abusive, repeat their previous claims (as if repetition reinforces the
> >truth) or remain strangely silent on such issues. Why is that I
> >wonder?
> I'll cite two off the top of my head:
> "What Evolution Is," Ernst Mayr, 2001, Basic Books, see especially
> Chapter 1.
> "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science," 1998, National
> Academy Press, see especially Chapter 3.
Can you point out where those say any of the things you pointed out?
