Evolutionary Theory predicts almost nothing?

[FarWanderer]

I would not turn to evolutionary theory because it predicts almost nothing.

Rarely have I encountered a statement that strikes me as ridiculous as this. What in biology does evolutionary theory NOT predict?

[Aetixintro]

[Replying to post 107 by Tcg]

I can only say that part of investigation...

What investigation?

You made a claim that some paleontologists have been charged.

According to your claim, charges have already been placed. Please present evidence that your claim is valid.

You don't understand future tense grammar?

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 111 by Aetixintro]

So your rambling is based solely on a phenomena you can't demonstrate, using no evidence and purely "psychological" methods. I'm calling nonsense.

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 107 by Tcg]

I can only say that part of investigation...

What investigation?

You made a claim that some paleontologists have been charged.

According to your claim, charges have already been placed. Please present evidence that your claim is valid.

You don't understand future tense grammar?

I do. But it was not clear that you were using the future tense when you said, "Paleontologists (some of them) are charged with fraudulent behaviour and crimes against humanity for this type of "practice"."

Now that I know this was simply a description of a fantasy, it would be silly of me to expect you to be able to present evidence for your fantasy, or to consider your fantasy as meaningful evidence of anything.

[Tcg]

I see your usergroup Atheist so I acknowledge that "not all you say may speak the truth" (for whatever reasons).

Are you accusing all who belong to the usergroup Atheist of being liars?

If so, what justification can you provide for such an accusation?

[Kapyong]

[Replying to post 92 by Kapyong]

Theories EXPLAIN facts

Yep, and anyone who has bothered to read what I've posted so far would know that is exactly how I use the term.

I did read what you posted.
You are wrong.

According to your argument -

the term 'germ theory' means germs are just speculation.

the term 'electromagnetic theory' means electricity and magnetism is just speculation.

the term 'gravitational theory' means gravity is just speculation.

The evidence is overwhelming -
evolution is an observed a fact of nature,
and there is a theory to explain those observed facts.

Do you realise that now ?


Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday,

My point exactly, If people began to believe in Thoth or Thor I would say the same thing, but as it is the devotees to the TofE are the only ones claiming they have the facts.

Wrong again, you do not appear to have grasped it :

Evolution is an observed fact of nature.
Supported by MILLIONS of pieces of evidence,
contradicted by ZERO pieces of evidence.

Kapyong

[Kapyong]

Gday again,

As do those who worship their TofE myth. They each have their respective presuppositions, and these presuppositions are equally unproven.

Still wrong.
Evolution is an observed fact of nature.
Supported by MILLIONS of pieces of clear evidence.
Contradicted by ZERO pieceds of evidence.
It's quite simple really.


Kapyong

[Bust Nak]

So just becuase diversity reached new heights after moving onto land doesn't negate the fact that they were created while living in a marine environment.

So you are saying "birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky" and "winged bird" was referring to sea creatures living a marine environment.

Consult an experienced biologist as only they are aware of this fact. So you aren't advancing an argument. They will verify that the order is quite accurate.

Which biologist exactly is it who would grant you that birds came before land animals?

I'm not going to bother with your "did so/did not" argument anymore.

e.g.

The order is still wrong.

So says the guy who wants to have the final word with a "did so."

[Don McIntosh]

[Replying to post 93 by Don McIntosh]

Evolution has always fascinated me, despite that I've been a skeptic for many years. So yes, feel free to share your work. I will try to comment on what seems the most challenging or intriguing about it.

I'll start off with two examples from genetics that I believe demonstrates common ancestry ....

Neatras, again there's a lot in your post to address, and I am not nearly as versed in the relevant biology (especially the more recent developments) as you are; I don't recall people talking about human chromosome 2 and ERV's back in the eighties when I studied the arguments. So I’m having to play catch-up here and I have a lot to learn. But some initial thoughts…

Let's suppose for a moment that everything you've told me is correct – that the observable biological facts you state are uncontroversial. In that case you've given me two solid lines of evidence for common ancestry. For me that would make common ancestry more likely to be true than I had reason to think it was before, but still not true. Why the skepticism? I'll try to explain.

Some years ago I was taught that the celebrated phylogenetic twin-nested hierarchy was perfectly nested, and that this was a strong confirmation of evolution/common descent. Now if we think of confirmation in terms of propositional logic it's really not that impressive:

If common descent is true, the phylogenetic hierarchy is perfectly nested.
The phylogenetic hierarchy is perfectly nested.
Common descent is true.

You might recognize this as the fallacy of affirming the consequent. The fact that a phenomenon predicted by a theory is observed doesn't make the theory true, mainly because the phenomenon in question could well be predicted by a rival theory.

Years later I learned that the nested hierarchy was actually less than perfect in a few places, particularly near the "trunk" of the phylogenetic tree, owing to lateral gene transfer. So we should revise the second premise accordingly:

If common descent is true, the phylogenetic hierarchy is perfectly nested.
The phylogenetic hierarchy is not perfectly nested.
Common descent is not true.

This argument is actually valid, an instance of modus tollens. If common descent entails a perfectly nested phylogenetic hierarchy and the phylogenetic hierarchy is not perfectly nested, it follows that common descent is false. Of course, the theory can still be salvaged by modifying the first premise to say that the phylogenetic hierarchy is very strongly nested, or almost perfectly nested, etc.

All this should help explain, or at least remind us, why even a repeatedly confirmed scientific theory has no truth function, and why scientists and philosophers agree that even a successful scientific theory always remains falsifiable in principle.

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 119 by Don McIntosh]

This really just seems like a long-winded attempt to say, "Well if a scientific theory can change, then how are we supposed to trust it?" I hear this so often on this site that I can kinda tell what hallmark signs there are.

There are plenty of ways this argument can develop. For example: "Religion's truth never changes, why would I trust man's truth that changes all the time?" Or "Science will just completely change their theories in 100 years, so everything they claim now is probably false or partially false."

What you are arguing hasn't yet led to this, nor do you necessarily have to lead here, but the same logical underpinnings are present.

It's time we address something very important: Error margins.

When a scientific theory very closely models what we observe in reality, scientists will offer up a range of expected values for different variables. For example, when the big bang theory was proposed, there was a range of values that attempted to explain the age of the universe, but it was a wide range. It wasn't nearly as precise as it was today. So what happened? Did the theory "change" or did they "modify" the theory heavily? No. What happened was as their data collection methods became more refined, they were able to narrow the range of values for the age of the universe to more closely match what the evidence shows. Now, the age range for the universe is within a 1% margin of error; this has been so firmly set that it would take an explosive development to shake what's been learned, because prior to the scientific method's existence, not a single development has turned up any knowledge about the age of the universe except a series of religious myths dotting the globe.

Similarly, the theory of evolution also utilizes the data (all of the data, not part, not a little bit, all; that's why religious creation myths are so inadequate, they have to discard or ignore at least some or most of the data) to create a range of expected values. It proposes a margin of error for the times when certain organisms lived, it even states that common ancestry between fossils is not an exact science: Is a fossil we found a literal ancestor that gave birth to the descendants that led to an extant species? Or just a relative, or even a branch off a main fossil lineage that has no relation to any life at the moment? These are already addressed, they are data points that help us narrow the range of all expected values more and more.

By now, the theory of evolution has closed its margins of error to such a minute range that it has become the single most useful explanation for all biodiversity on earth. And the more time passes, the better it gets. What you didn't like about it was that it wasn't precise enough, but no scientific theory is perfectly precise. But you should not ignore how a scientific theory becomes precise and therefore the single best explanation for a natural process. To do so would expose a bias in favor of mysticism, where religious claims (which are never verified) are automatically correct just because they made a claim once and never revised their claims despite the emergence of new, often contradictory, evidence.

The theory has become good enough it lets us predict fossils in the ground, which is far more impressive than predicting the age of the universe. ERVs has nearly completed the nested hierarchy of development. We are developing new genetic techniques that allow us to triangulate the age of common ancestors, including a method for comparing the mitochondrial DNA of an entire population to find out their most recent universal common ancestor (which has led us to understand genetic bottlenecks in humans).

You dislike how the analogy was changed. How the discovery of a natural process led to an alteration of the theory's claims. But regardless of your misgivings about the theory of evolution, about natural sciences in general, all the discovery of lateral gene transfer did was inform us that something entirely natural happened in addition to all of the other details we learned. You skipped right to "therefore common descent is not true," but have you actually considered that nothing about lateral gene transfer, or horizontal gene transfer for that matter, conflicts with common descent? I'm still waiting for creationists to explain that one. Common descent doesn't "require" horizontal gene transfer or lateral gene transfer to not exist. To do so would be like saying two sculptures cannot exist if I take a chunk of each and use it to complete the other. Therefore they cannot be natural?

Perhaps it's time I asked: How many predictions of evolutionary theory, how many pieces of evidence would it take to convince you? Based on how you sidestepped every last one of the pieces of evidence I provided, I'm concerned the answer is that you cannot be convinced. Your skepticism is, therefore, more of a wall against new information, and cannot be called skepticism properly. It would seem more like you only let in information that matches your preexisting biases, a kind of confirmation bias.