Vatican: Intelligent design is not science

Woah. I like... had this weird dream. You mated with grandma...but... but a different grandma. And all her children were a little more like frogs. Woah. ::hic ribbut:: Must've been too much rootbeer before bed.

Haha... it must suck be stuck down in the muck!

::Hemph mphee, Mph stuph im phe rock.::

"Oh CRAP!"

It is very hard to explain that there is no evidence for macro evolution when there are literal megatons of it. Further, you have ignored every attempt to present such evidence to you. Mostly because you claim it as insufficient, not relevant, or it just doesn't support your arguement. Whatever.

Either way, the burden of proof is no longer on macroevolution. It fully supports what it claims to support. The people who use it to advance science are satisfied with it at this time.

In contrast, ID does not. It claims wildly unproveable and undefined things while mostly inappropriately using negative evidence for other theories as verification. This is the stupid part because the theory will never come into use without positive evidence. So even if you DO prove macro evolution is not a workable theory, it just means you need a new theory because ID would still not be sufficient or have any evidence.

So solve the problems inherent in ID first, then get back to us. Namely, define the designer and how it works to design, so that models can be created to predict where design might appear.

Funny, I always thought argument consisted of a dialog involving two or more people each advancing their own, often opposing views. I'm only seeing one view advanced in this thread.Oh, I see, well, that explains it.Would you like to borrow my copy of Evangelism for Dummies? I think you might have missed Chapter 6 "Convincing the Heathen Despite His Unenlightened Resistance".

I'm not trying to prove ID. I'm suggesting macroevolution is a religious tenant of atheists/humanists. I have shown the "evidence" used to prop up macroevolution is no stronger than the evidence for ID or any other fble/myth. If it makes you feel better believing in it, great. But it's unsupported by the facts found in the fossil record. BTW, ty for staying rational, and not getting personal. It shows you can debate there issues without getting emotional. I look forward to your posts. Later

No you haven't shown anything. Except to yourself, maybe. Congratulations on that accomplishment and recognizing that ID is "fble".

I won't respond to you anymore. Unless I feel like it.

Except that you haven't.

All you've proven is that you don't understand the science behind it. That's not an insult... I don't understand the science behind quantum mechanics, for example.

But those aren't the same things.

Your cited sources do no better. They approach it from the wrong way 'round.

To disprove a theory, you have to start with the assumption the theory is correct, and find ways that it falls apart. If you start with the belief that the theory is wrong, any data you find that doesn't wholy /support/ the theory will be taken as proof that the theory is in error, which may or may not be the case. That's what the source you keep citing is doing.

In short...

Point 1) No data has been found to controdict the theory, whatever you might want to believe. There are no seven legged underwater giraffes, to use an earlier posters illustration.

Point 2) There is data and logic that supports it... As other posters have highlighted time and time again recently.

Point 3) We don't have all the data yet, we may never have all the data if time has erased it.

Point 4) Point 3 does not equate to point 1... Lack of data for a thing is not supporting data for the opposing thing

Point 5) Evolution, be it macro or not, is ultimately testable, one way or another. It can be approached in a scientific manner, with tests and verifiable data and logical deduction and so on. The facts needed to prove or disprove it exist, or have existed in the past. ID is ultimatly untestable... Even if correct, mortal man can never know it, since it relys on forces that are wholy outside of mortal ken.

Point 6) Requiring belief does not equate to religion. I have to believe that the moon is made of rock, not Green Cheese... I can never prove otherwise (Unless NASA gets its act together in the next couple decades...). I have to believe that higher mathmatics works the way people say it does, because I could never understand anything beyond the most basic tennents of calculus. Hell, I have to *believe* I'm what I believe I am, and not a brain in a jar or the dreams of an mad god (Read Descartes, if that doesn't make any sense to you). But that does not make those things a religion. In the case of all but the Evil Genious hypothesis, they are testable... Just not by me. In the case of Descartes, it's a logical deduction - it is more logical to believe I am me, as I percieve, than that my perceptions are the result of a cruel prank by an evil entity.

Point 7) ID, by contrast, requires a leap of faith and taking a path of belief that logic does *not* support. I believe in God, but I would be foolish and wrong to say that my belief in Him makes any sort of /logical/ sense. Logicly, it's more believeable that if we can't percieve or even *con*cieve of a being such as God, He doesn't exist. If God exists, He is wholy outside of mortal understanding. We can only concieve of a flawed version of Him, because we are not omniscient, we cannot truely understand the concepts of an omnipresent, omnipotent being. That defies every law of science we have to day. God is logically flawed, unless you already believe in Him, and accept that He is not in all things bound by the logical laws we already know.

Summing up points 1-7... Evolution is science, the best we have to date, even if imperfect, and is grounded in logical deduction based on facts. ID is no kind of science, and while possibly correct, does not have any basis in logic, nor presents any sort of factual evidence of it's existance - And thus is not science of any sort.

There is nothing new to respond to in the post. No data to dissect. The points are not scientific data at all. It sidetracks the issue.

Others have posted from a website that suggests there is evidence for macroevolution. I posted the repudiation of those "evidences".

You may not agree with the data, but saying the one seeking to falsify a theory must first assume it is correct in order to fairly falsify is wrong. Scientists must assume the theory is false, and try to prove it is false. That is what falsification is. If the scientist assumed it was true the bias would reflect in the result. One can not wrongly falsify due to bias against a theory, it is either falsified or not. But, one can surely overlook falsifying data if one is biased in favor of the theory.

The problem with macroevolution is it can't be falsified. How does one falsify a belief? It's like trying to prove there is no God. Proving a negative isn't possible.

If there is data that hasn't been refuted already, I'll happily read it. But please, if debate is the point, can we avoid personal comments like this "All you've proven is that you don't understand the science behind it. That's not an insult... I don't understand the science behind quantum mechanics, for example."

Are you telling me you are an expert in evolutionism? What are the credentials that set you as an authority on the subject? Please don't assume to know more about a subject than anyone else, when in fact, you are most likely misled with the rest of the students who read outdated, proven to be false, data from textbooks written by people who "BELIEVE" in macroevolution. The texts are seldomly written by people who actually do experiments. They are meant to indoctrinate young people. Your arguments actually follow the standard line I hear from young people who have been well indoctrinated.

The main thing to remember, if you are supporting macroevolution emotionally, it has become a tenant of faith for you too. Try to look at the data objectively, and actually assume macroevolution is false when trying to falsify it.

No, it doesn't. You just dont' want to address it. Just say so. But it does NOT sidetrack the issue... Its at the very /heart/ of the issue.

Wow, these arguments are getting weaker and weaker.

Science operates roughly like so (and I'm oversimplfying for your benefit): someone generates a guess about how something works often informed by casual observation, for if you've seen absolutely nothing about a subject, it is hard to make a guess about it. That guess is turned into testable predictions about what one would expect if the guess were true. The scientist then goes and seeks all evidence that bear upon those predictions and either a) rejects the guess or b) fails to reject the guess. Then the scientist writes up the history of the subject under study, the guess, the expectations formed from the guess, the data that they have gathered relevant to the expectations, whether the data reject the guess or fail to, possible confounding elements to the experiment and a discussion of the possible implications of the results.

No practicing scientist ever assumes that something is true and then looks for evidence to support it; you've gotten it exactly backwards. The "null hypothesis" (that is, that the guess is incorrect) is assumed to be true unless the evidence cannot support it.

And since you've dragged credentials in, I am a published researcher in the field whose work has not only been peer reviewed and published in professional journals and cited broadly by other researchers in the field, but I have also been a reviewer for such journals and have edited textbooks on the subject. I have also done my best to "indoctrinate" university students on the general theories of the field and find that a great many find it psychologically untennable as it conflicts with what they already feel they "know" about the subject.

Science endeavors to be as dispassionate about its actions as humans can be. I have had students publish - much to their personal consternation - the results of experiments that have rejected their guesses about the how things work, because it aids the advancement of science to publish its "failures" as much as it does its "successes".

I'll finish with an example of the process. Based on my casual observations I guess that Mr. Kline will engage in rhetorical handwaving in reponse to this post. The predictions generated by my guess are that Mr. Kline will either a) disregard this post entirely, b) say that I am mistaken without advancing a reason why c) generate an ad hominem attack or d) declare my credentials invalid unless I provide privacy comprimising citation. The null hypothesis is that all of these predictions are false. The data that I will bring to bear on the question will be the content of Mr. Kline's response or lack thereof. As we are working in words, the testing to see if the data reject the null hypothesis will be largely qualitative (unfortunately). If they fail to reject the null hypothesis, then my theory of Mr. Kline's rhetorical approach is invalid and I would be obliged to report that.

It's me again! Click mah tummy.

Ooh, I never fondled a mudskipper before. That was fun!

Interestingly, I'm taking a senior seminar on "literary darwinism" this semester. It's rather fascinating.

What is the heart of the issue?

Is inteligent design a science, is evolution a science, how valid are each from a factual, logical perspective, and how do the two issues compare and contrast. That's the heart of the debate involved in getting it into, or keeping it out of, classrooms.

You have been shown possible falsifications of macroevolution before (in links). One such might be winged horse or other such six limbed mammal.

You seem to get a lot of ad hominim attacks directed at you because you don't seem to understand the fundamental concepts. Micro evolution over time IS macro evolution. It's how you get a sea going whale from what was originally a land based wolf-like creature.

I've also seen you display around 4 or so misconceptions as displayed here: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/index.shtml

Also, just what part of macro evolution did you think your link disproved? Selection (Artifical, Natural, Sexual, Fitness)? Mutation(rate, type, sources)? The tree of life(Clades, families, species, etc.)? Or was it just disputing the verifyable existance of dateable fossils found in strata (which is just silly)?

I'll accept that. We have shown with this website... http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_ac_01.asp that the website you are claiming makes your point that macroevolution is testable and therefor falsifiable is wrong. Every evidence he proposes supports the theory can equally be supported should the evidence be different. I would restate his very eloquent words, but I believe he says it much better that I. I could cut and paste it, because I know you won't read it from the link, but that might be flooding, and I wouldn't want to upset anyone.

If you do read the data, and find it unreasonable, feel free to either ignore it, or (if you think others might believe it) answer it to show his logical mistakes.

I am fine with keeping faith based teachings from the classroom, but it must be fair. How is it faith that humanism gets to indoctrinate children into their religion in the classroom with untested, non-falsifiable theories, meant to suggest there is no God?

Show the tests that can be done to falsify macroevolution, or admit it's a fable to fill gaps the same way ID fills gaps.