Darwin's Illusion

[cladking]

Agreed. Science is the proper interpretation of evidence, and evidence is whatever is evident to the senses, whether that be the contents of a flask in a lab or a galaxy. Only one of these two involves experiment, but both require observation, and both are science. It would be nice to see an attempt at rebuttal there, but its absence is just as useful.

Maybe we're all ibn agreement. There are many ways to make true statements about science but as I've said many times every statement can be deconstructed so it is false. The more complex the statement the more likely it is to be parsed incorrectly. False statements became true and good ones false.

I have no quibble with the quoted text.

I wrote, "Ouija boards are not science, and using them IS experimenting. Unfortunately, the experiment confirms the null hypothesis." OK, but the rest of your comment doesn't attempt to refute either clause.

It is not experimenting and has no bearing on any argument whatsoever. You can play with unscientific things and try to gain insights into phenomena that could be the basis of experiment but fiddling with things is not "experimentation". Gathering data is not experimentation. Statistics are not experimentation. Measuring things is not experimentation. Counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin is not experimentation. What experiment, what paradigm suggests such things are experiment.

I might be able to perform an experiment while driving my car but driving a car is never an experiment.

Yes, you've said so before, but the theory is doing fine.

You've said so before but a lot of new science has been cited in this thread that suggests you are wrong.

Nature behaves in predictable ways that can be summarized verbally and often mathematically.

What is the shape of the cloud in Kansas when it gets here to Indiana. What percentage of observers will see Charles Darwin in it.

If you killed every toad in the world that prefers not to hop to get around what would the (new) species look like in a few generations?

I'd love to see you predict anything.

Humans have grown remarkably in just the last four generations but nobody predicted it. The common wisdom after the fact was better diets allowed it With most things science has to wait to see what happens right along with the faithful. And then they never notice they hadn't predicted it and invent facile explanations for why it occurred.

Did you want to address the correctness of the science that accomplished that? Do you think the science used was incorrect?

This is so simple a beaver can understand it. There were no fundamental errors in our understanding that precluded having put a man on the moon. You can not extrapolate this to mean there are no fundamental errors in our sciences or that we understand the nature of gravity. Without understanding of the elemental forces one could even say we don't really comprehend what physically put us on the moon F = M * A.

You are seeing all of what science knows and can not see the vastness of what it does not.

I call belief by faith a problem, and I have concrete examples of where it caused a problem.

I call all belief a problem but the biggest problem is when it's held by the holiest of thou's and based on confused idea like the survival of the fittest. How long until all we scientists, religious, and carbon making proletariat meat eaters are determined to be less fit and wholly expendable? Six million Jews and millions of other "unfit" have been exterminated and it's been going on since Charles Darwin came up with Evolution. Thankfully he was wrong so it will be a little easier to overturn eventually but if he were right we should have just used a little doublethink to bury it.

Australia was founded by British criminals. At one point most of the genes were British criminals. Yet, I am aware of no evidence that Australia has any particular crime problem. Who'd predict that? Doublethink will save gene theory.

The science is settled. Bacteria must be kept out of surgical wounds. How to do that may evolve, but there is no dispute about the principle of antisepsis or the efficacy of proper sterile technique, hence I called it settled science.

So you just choose to ignore the fact that "sterile" might be a problem even in the operating room! You just choose to ignore the implication that you can eliminate most of the individual germs but the number of species surviving will be far less impacted. It takes only one individual germ to make someone sick. They are living things with a desire to thrive. Such is the nature of life and consciousness. You ignored other points as well relevant to your statements.

Agreed. Yes, they do. And you haven't rebutted the claim, just dismissed it and offered some idea about consciousness driving evolution, but haven't defined or supported what you mean.

I think we need the readers to judge this. There are a lot of posters around here that still believe you and Darwin are wrong and put forth solid argument and evidence to show it.

I could put together a comprehensive list of the characteristics of consciousness but I know in advance the very next post will be to deny it even exists; consciousness and the list/ definition. People see their beliefs rather than opposing ideas. Everyone already believes consciousness is what humans do and it is thought; "I think therefore I am".

 

[cladking]

What education and experience in the sciences do have to make these outrageous anti-science claims?

I've never made an anti-science claim. You must be parsing my words wrong.

I am a metaphysician.

 

[cladking]

I've never made an anti-science claim.

Up until 20 years ago I did make anti-religion claims (still do kindda) but live and learn, eh?

 

[cladking]

What is your alternative explanation can you offer based on the known physical evidence? What better paradigm is possible?

I've been going at this since about page one. Have you read the thread.

 

[wellwisher]

The above is false:

Why does gravity pull us down and not up?

Gravity is something every person on Earth intuitively understands: It is what keeps you on the ground. But how come gravity pulls down, rather than pushes up? Einstein came up with the answer.

theconversation.com

In 1915, Albert Einstein figured out the answer when he published his theory of general relativity. The reason gravity pulls you toward the ground is that all objects with mass, like our Earth, actually bend and curve the fabric of the universe, called spacetime. That curvature is what you feel as gravity.

What is spacetime?​

Before getting into the complicated world of gravity, you need to understand spacetime.

Spacetime is exactly what it sounds like: the three dimensions of space – length, width and height – combined with the fourth dimension – time. Using some very brilliant math, Einstein was the first person to realize that the laws of physics work in a universe where space and time are merged together.

What this means is that space and time are connected – if you move really fast through space, time slows down for you compared to someone who is moving slowly. This is why astronauts – who are moving very fast in space – age a tiny bit more slowly than people on Earth.



Earth curves spacetime so that you fall toward Earth instead of away from it. Tokamak/WikimediaCommons, CC BY-SA

Matter makes gravity wells, not gravity hills​

Remember, gravity is the idea that objects in the universe are attracted to each other because spacetime is bent and curved. When Einstein came up with general relativity, he showed that all stuff in the universe can curve spacetime – in physics terms that stuff is mass and energy.

works similarly to how objects will roll toward your feet if you stand on a trampoline. MoMo Productions/Stone via Getty Images

Since your brain usually thinks about the world in three dimensions, it is really hard to think about the four dimensions of spacetime as a single idea. So to make it easier to visualize, imagine the surface of a trampoline. If there is nothing on it, it is flat. But if you stand on the trampoline, it stretches around your feet and creates a valley with you at the center. If there is a ball on the trampoline, it would roll toward your feet.

This is a two-dimensional example of how spacetime works. Your mass stretched the trampoline, creating what is called a gravity well that the ball rolls into. This is very similar to how the gravity of a heavy object – like the Earth – pulls things like you and me toward it.

To make things even weirder, since space and time are connected, time is also stretched by heavy objects!

My model for the basis for gravity was built on Einstein's concepts of space-time and relativity. He is credited for space-time, I postulated that space and time can also both act as independent variables, apart from space-time.

Nobody may have noticed, but this was demonstrated by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. We can know position and momentum of particles like electrons but not both at the same time. This shows the motion of the electron displays both time and space attributes; momentum and position, but time and space are not exactly acting connected as expected of space-time, but rather are acting partially separated at the quantum level.

If one could move in space, independent of time, one would become omnipresent, which is a classic attribute of God. In terms of being omnipresent, this could be understood by looking at Relativity. If we could go on a rocket and reach the speed of light, the universe would appear to contact to a point-instant. The universe does not change, however, we will see it appear as a point-instant from our speed of light reference. Conceptually, this point view of the universe allows us to be omnipresent, since everywhere is just a point in our reference.

If you look at gravity, it bends and contracts space-time, with increasing mass density contracting toward the omni-present point. This tells me gravity is due to the affect of separated space on mass, since it is always moving mass in the direction of and toward the omnipresent place of the relativistic point.

 

[cladking]

Maybe we're all ibn agreement. There are many ways to make true statements about science but as I've said many times every statement can be deconstructed so it is false. The more complex the statement the more likely it is to be parsed incorrectly. False statements became true and good ones false.

I've said many times that everyone makes sense in terms of his premises.

Your premises are generally pretty sound but this doesn't apply to everyone. Words often suggest unsound premises supporting erroneously beliefs. No matter how sound your premises, models, and thinking we can still be wrong about anything at all. This is Darwin: He was wrong.

The arguments against Darwin in this thread are surprisingly sound and often do not involve any faith at all. Just because someone who has faith presents an argument it does magically become poor. Not even Congress is always wrong even if they have virtually achieved it.

 

[chris baron]

the idea that life started for no reason at random, has its origins merely in the interaction of different states of matter, and that it has no purpose is a ridiculous assertion but is what people want others to believe in this world. so much for the world ...

 

[Subduction Zone]

the idea that life started for no reason at random, has its origins merely in the interaction of different states of matter, and that it has no purpose is a ridiculous assertion but is what people want others to believe in this world. so much for the world ...

Natural does not mean random. A rock does not randomly fall up a hill. In the same sense chemical reactions are not random. To the ignorant they may appear to be that way, but that is clearly not the case if one studies them.

 

[shunyadragon]

I've never made an anti-science claim. You must be parsing my words wrong.

I am a metaphysician.

Your opposition to evolution is decidedly anti-science.

You propose a non-reductionist alternative and failed to explain how it can confirm theories and hypotheses. I have read the thread from the beginning.

Unanswered questions remain . . .

What education and experience in the sciences do have to make these outrageous anti-science claims?

What is your alternative explanation can you offer based on the known physical evidence? What better paradigm is possible?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have no quibble with the quoted text.

Great. I wrote, "Science is the proper interpretation of evidence, and evidence is whatever is evident to the senses, whether that be the contents of a flask in a lab or a galaxy. Only one of these two involves experiment, but both require observation, and both are science." Does that mean you no longer believe that experiment is essential to call an activity science?

It is not experimenting and has no bearing on any argument whatsoever.

Using a Ouija board isn't an experiment? Sure it is. It's a test of the process' ability to give good and accurate advice, just like horoscopes and fortune cookies. And since none can predict the future or do anything more than entertain, those experiments confirm the null hypothesis - they have no predictive power relative to guessing.

driving a car is never an experiment.

Disagree again. It's a test of the car. Did it start? If so, it passed that test.

I'd love to see you predict anything.

OK. It'll get dark tonight.

There were no fundamental errors in our understanding that precluded having put a man on the moon. You can not extrapolate this to mean there are no fundamental errors in our sciences

No, I can't. Nor did I try. My claim was that the success of those missions confirms that the science underlying their planning was correct. Did you want to deal with that at some point? Do you think otherwise? Do you think their understanding of propulsion, navigation, communications, etc. was incorrect?

You are seeing all of what science knows and can not see the vastness of what it does not.

OK.

I call all belief a problem

I find it essential for survival.

Australia was founded by British criminals. At one point most of the genes were British criminals. Yet, I am aware of no evidence that Australia has any particular crime problem. Who'd predict that?

Anybody who thought that criminality wasn't genetically programmed. How about those Americans, though? The original settlers were religious zealots (Puritans) and the country is more religious than any other Western social democracy. Maybe that's genetic.

So you just choose to ignore the fact that "sterile" might be a problem even in the operating room!

Sterile is not a problem in the OR. Contamination is.

You just choose to ignore the implication that you can eliminate most of the individual germs but the number of species surviving will be far less impacted. It takes only one individual germ to make someone sick. They are living things with a desire to thrive. Such is the nature of life and consciousness.

Irrelevant to the claim that the need for antisepsis in surgery is settled science.

There are a lot of posters around here that still believe you and Darwin are wrong and put forth solid argument and evidence to show it.

All I've seen from them is specious creationist apologetics.

I could put together a comprehensive list of the characteristics of consciousness but I know in advance the very next post will be to deny it even exists;

OK, but it would help understand what YOU mean by the word. Isn't that reason enough?

Allow me: Consciousness is known immediately and directly, but only by one observer, so it is private. It fluctuates, as when we sleep. The experience of the self is that of unchanging identity - it's always me. It models experience as a subject apprehending an evolving panorama of phenomena. Now you know what *I* mean when I use the word.

 

[cladking]

Does that mean you no longer believe that experiment is essential to call an activity science?

No. It means there are many ways to parse every sentence. When you use a term like "experiment" or "evidence" you use them in ways that can usually be parsed as being correct. Just as all of my models have flaws it is quite apparent that some of yours do as well and it is these perceived flaws I try to point out. But you can't parse a sentence like "evidence" guides science or "evidence" is the basis of science in such a way that it is correct or not highly misleading.

Obviously gathering and interpreting evidence is very much science but in its purest form science is only metaphysics and metaphysics is nothing but the axioms, definitions, and experiment that compose science. Science is theory and no theory is composed of any "evidence" whatsoever. Certainly many scientists have a bad model of science and many of its experiments but more relevantly they don't know how consciousness impacts metaphysics and observation. We are still stuck with the ridiculous 17th century notion that 'I think therefore I am". Not to mention the more ridiculous notion that one can reason out theory by drawing pictures of finches.

 

[cladking]

Certainly many scientists have a bad model of science and many of its experiments but more relevantly they don't know how consciousness impacts metaphysics and observation.

Of course all scientists are specialist and there is not a lot of cross training. This naturally leads people to see only the reduction made by science rather than the entire picture. Then meteorologists using computer modeling to drive our economy into the ground. We have despots murdering tens of millions to purify the species. We have leaders who believe there are too many people and fly over country and its people are in the way of progress and easy travel between the coasts.

We live in a mad world and Darwin is a leading cause. We live in a world where the very basis of humanity is not studied scientifically by archaeologists charged with studying it and nobody has a problem with it. It's a world where fundamental beliefs that underlie the very definitions and axioms of science are never questioned or studied and many practitioners don't even understand the concept of "paradigms". The search engines get much worse with every new incarnation with AI now a total disaster and it doesn't even seem to be noticed. The economy and commonweal spin out of control with vast waste and ever new laws and regulations to make it even worse. Corruption runs far more rampant than senility in Washington. The wealthy own science that produces the results that continue to be used as justification to damage the little guy and empower the powerful. On and on it goes.

 

[shunyadragon]

I think we need the readers to judge this. There are a lot of posters around here that still believe you and Darwin are wrong and put forth solid argument and evidence to show it.

There are no solid arguments against the sciences of evolution. Please refer to contemporary science. Darwin presented a sound proposal for falsifying evolution, but current science is what we need to talk about. You have presented nothing in terms of evidence or an alternative to evolution.

Please put forward one solid argument based on the evidence..

Still waiting . . .

I could put together a comprehensive list of the characteristics of consciousness but I know in advance the very next post will be to deny it even exists; consciousness and the list/ definition. People see their beliefs rather than opposing ideas. Everyone already believes consciousness is what humans do and it is thought; "I think therefore I am".

You have presented nothing coherent so far. Why should I expect anything now?

 

[cladking]

You have presented nothing coherent so far. Why should I expect anything now?

And this is exactly the problem. Instead of addressing the paradigm or any of its points and supporting evidence it will be handwaved as nonsense. I'll be told I'm wrong and again told Darwin was right because we can land a man on the moon.

 

[cladking]

Using a Ouija board isn't an experiment? Sure it is. It's a test of the process' ability to give good and accurate advice, just like horoscopes and fortune cookies. And since none can predict the future or do anything more than entertain, those experiments confirm the null hypothesis - they have no predictive power relative to guessing.

How do you know you are using it any better than a monkey with a tricorder? How do you extrapolate from the results that science is right about everything, there is no God, and experiment is not the basis of real science.

Do you think their understanding of propulsion, navigation, communications, etc. was incorrect?

It was and is incomplete.

I find it essential for survival.

Homo omnisciencis is belief which is how we acquired our name.

If we recognized this simple fact maybe we could at least stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

All I've seen from them is specious creationist apologetics.

No. You are assuming that any argument made by a creationist is illogical even if it is irrelevant to the argument. Most of the people here still think I'm a creationist though I've repeatedly said I am not, don't believe in God or Science or any of its Peers. I've specifically stated I am not an atheist and the term "agnostic" is inapplicable. As a metaphysician I strive to have no beliefs except my axiomatic beliefs I've listed too many times.

OK, but it would help understand what YOU mean by the word. Isn't that reason enough?

OK. For you I'll try to do it. But lack time now.

Allow me: Consciousness is known immediately and directly, but only by one observer, so it is private. It fluctuates, as when we sleep. The experience of the self is that of unchanging identity - it's always me. It models experience as a subject apprehending an evolving panorama of phenomena. Now you know what *I* mean when I use the word.

This is pretty much the common educated definition. However it could not be more wrong. It does apply in a left handed sort of way to the way most homo omnisciencis experience consciousness but our experience in unique on this planet. It is simply wrong for every other species.

I'm not going to go into too much detail in the definition because I still expect most of it to be dismissed out of hand. If I do go into extensive detail I'll start a new thread and link it here.

 

[cladking]

Please put forward one solid argument based on the evidence..

Agriculture!

 

[shunyadragon]

Agriculture!

Nothing to do with the subject.

Please put forward one solid argument based on the evidence..

 

[shunyadragon]

And this is exactly the problem. Instead of addressing the paradigm or any of its points and supporting evidence it will be handwaved as nonsense. I'll be told I'm wrong and again told Darwin was right because we can land a man on the moon.

Yes, your one-word response is nonsense. How does agriculture refute evolution?

You have not presented anything to support your argument.

 

[cladking]

Wow!!!

Agriculture is less than 10,000 years old but not one farm animal or a single crop evolved over millions of years by survival of the fittest. Each arose suddenly in artificial bottlenecks just like in real life. Just like dogs and cats and every observed change in all species and in the fossil record.

 

[cladking]

And best of all most farm animals and crops were invented using ancient science.

Stories of would be farmers trying to grow deer are hilarious if you have a sense of humor but I don't.