- May 6th, 2011, 9:44 am
#58646
Hello Percival (hope you’ve been well),
Percival wrote,
“The instance you mentioned as an argument from incredulity was actually an argument that evolution cannot proceed in small, single steps. There is an important distinction there.”
Regardless, it is still a fallacious argument. Just because you do not or cannot believe in the probability of ‘how’ evolution works is not an argument against such a process of incrementalization. This process is how we observe evolution work, and it is a quite understandable and a rational explanation. Positing such things as ‘god’ creating a flood for the evils of humankind or “moving” evolution along is far from a clear or a clearly rational explanation.
Percival wrote,
“You're also saying that if we can't scientifically test the supernatural, it doesn't exist. Actually, if it exists it can't be scientifically tested “
I’m not saying this. I’m saying that if you wish for to us to consider a scientific alternative to an established science, you must provide reasons beyond mere hypothetical guess work that counts as (1) empirical proof of the existence of and rational meaning of god; (2) how god brought about a worldwide flood, which is what the above is premised on. Otherwise, we could simply concoct any notion and argue that such and such created these conditions this way as opposed to that way, and (3) how well does this worldwide flood adequately ANSWER the scientific objections to it (and there are responses to such a supernatural explanation)? We’re not obliged to entertain this creationist’s idea until these prerequisites are adequately dealt with.
Creatively imagining strange alternatives to evolutionary science as counting as an explanation doesn’t ACTUALLY count as a scientific explanation. If all you wish us to do is have us put on our creative caps and think about such alternatives without the empirical or rational requisites to reach whatever our minds lead us to, then that’s fine but it’s not science!
Sir Percival wrote,
“It is, though, logical to hypothesize something based on what is a necessary cause of what is observed. The theory of evolution really does the same thing; take what exists and think of a way it could have come about. That's not the only evidence for the supernatural, by the way.”
Nope! It is a logical process to hypothesize anything along some causal lines any which way to generate possible alternatives to an observable phenomenon (like fossils or gene variation would in this case). However, we have no reason to do this with evolutionary science. You’re falsely assuming that the work hasn’t been done. The works been done! Why should we, well within a scientific context, consider your hypotheses of strange and hardly definable supernatural forces having had some sort of relevant causal connection here over established scientific theory? That’s the issue. In science you must define your terms and make observations (which you can’t do with god…let alone god spontaneously creating things from nothing), structure hypotheses, and then test them. If they bear out over time, and tested properly over and over again, then such hypotheses may reach the noble label of “theory.” No such thing has been done here! Evolutionary science has been used to predict how certain diseases will work, finding certain fossil types in certain geological strata, and has catalogued numerous changes within animal biological types and social orders. Genetic science further confirms what evolution theory had posited etc. etc. Creationism has no ability to do this because it isn’t science! It’s religious belief! If so, show it!
Sir Percival wrote,
“You say evolution is not just mutations? I know natural selection does all the organizing, but it can only select what is there. How can anything get there without mutations?”
Perhaps you are referring to abiogenesis here? I would like to think that you wouldn’t be making such a simple error like this. How the genetic material emerged has nothing to do with evolutionary science. I think you may be asking how such diversity can, or what have you, emerge at all and how it can be selectively organized in the way that it is.
If this is so, then it reveals a huge gap in your understanding of the theory itself. In any population you have genetic mutations build up over time. These mutations are copying errors in the genetic recombination that occurs as a result of sexual reproduction, obviously. Other gene combinations result from mutations that occur as a carryover from the genetic material recombination of the parent genes. It is in sexual reproduction that these gene combinations become realized! Most of them have no phenotypic impact. Some have negative impact. However, this genetic diversity builds up over time resulting in phenotypic diversity (some members of the population are taller, shorter, furrier, larger noses, shorter ears, and so on). When the environment changes, then those members who happen to have certain phenotypes that are better suited to the new environmental factors (and they may be ever slightly so better adapted) will be more likely to pass their genes along to the next generation. These slight changes may have huge impacts. Eventually, these gene combinations moves along changing (usually slightly) the physical make up of future generations over time, obviously. The environment can be the social environment, physical, or anything that alters the behavior and survival tactics of a particular population or populations. The selector is clearly the environment and this was expounded first by Charles Darwin in ‘Origin of Species’ and has been studied thoroughly since. Why you would ask this question a hundred plus years after it had been posited reveals that you may not understand the theory of evolution by natural selection. In fact, this is the only reason for asking the above question. This will become a monotonous discussion if we must first teach the basic elements of the theory under consideration.
Thanks for the discussion,
Eric D.
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- By Bethel Saint Bright
- By Sy Borg