Is evolution falsifiable? What would falsify evolution?

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Name me a single area of science that is reliant on an implicitly or explicitly posited deity/god/allah/whatever in order to maintain it's internal coherence.
If it is true that some men turned to science because of their religiosity and ended up prdoucing the very thing which destroyed the concept of god then it is a happy accident of history.
I'm under the distinct impression that Einstein remarked of Quantum Mechanics, the field of inquiry his own research helped give birth to, that "God does not play with dice" - and yet we have the Large Hadron Collider, the CERN fusion reactor, Ion drives, weaponised lasers and so on and so on.

I ask again, what does creationism ultimately teach us that is useful other than to go to church and pay your tithes to charlatans?

Are you trying to argue that anything without pragmatic value is false; only what is useful is true?

Anyhow, whether you wish to be a dork and claim that "science has PWNed religion", you should be intelligent enough to see that even if this were axiomatically assumed that, that the rise of the scientific era, starting in the 1500's with Bacon, was due to the belief in God as creator and that He bestowed order upon His creation, such laws that govern how this universe operates. Even if you think that they shot themselves down changing alchemy into chemistry, refuting the notion of the natural state of matter to be motionless with the notion of momentum, and all the rest prior to the rise of the paradigm of Lyell's uniformitarianism or Darwin's descent with modification, it still would not change the pragmatic utility to science that has occurred historically.

That's the point I was making with the smilies.

I've done the Creationism vs. Evolution debate until I'm blue in the face too many times. I used to believe evolution, I now think it is heavily flawed and I've found sources I trust that can document amply that there are things that really fly in the face of evolution's claims. Whenever I try to have a "debate" with an evolutionist, they denigrate my sources as unreliable; which is a logic fallacy. You attack the evidence, not the source. X is false because ____ is not a credible source, and I define what is a credible source is not a valid basis for logical reasoning...it allows the opponent to dictate the outcome by setting parameters that favor a pre-determined outcome.

For any effective debate to happen, the first rule is that both sides must be willing to admit that they MIGHT be wrong about their own positions. To debate absent that is a waste of effort.

The documentation is out there. Look at the sources, weigh the evidence for what it is, not who posts it. You'll find conspiracy evidence on conspiracy websites not because it isn't credible evidence but because the conspiracy theorist is probably the ONLY type of person interested in spending the time to hunt down the evidence, compile it, and display it in an easy to locate website. Most things going on in the world aren't done in secret, but rather hidden in a flood of data that the average person does not have the time, resources or attention span to sift through.

Hence, if you want to learn about evidence supporting Creationist theories, go to a Creationist website like Answers in Genesis and review their data for the value the data offers within itself.

Today's philosophy for debate has dissolved into "attack the messenger, not the message."

No, we are trying to state that creationism is a non-answer. Being a non-answer, it is completely useless to explain anything. "I can't explain how this happened hence a god did it" maybe it is true, but since it is useless as an explanation it is not science. It does not even count as a 'false' theory...


You know how the creationism argument has turned into "argument from BS"? I'll explain:
1. Spread BS claiming it is true.
2. Face the strong opposition from anyone rational (as what you said is BS)
3. ????
4. Claim that just because your argument was so strongly opposed it must be true.
5. Profit.

It is no coincidence anti-vax people work in the same way. it is very effective on average Joes. Not only does it allow you to give validity to the most ridiculous claims. It also makes you sound heroic in the process...

http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/

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The problem is that with some of creationists' "sources" it is all too easy to just attack the messenger, and it is very hard to even discuss their "data". Whoever buys data from a site like answersingenesis which is actually from YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISTS is unlikely to be ever approachable in an actual data-based discussion. Of course , if you are interested in fighting with data against us , link to some of this data and we'll do our best to fight the data and not the source (it might get very hard to though)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answers_in_Genesis

Random AiG quote:


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Been reading answersingenesis and well... a lot of it seems to be based on the idea that mutations always lead to loss of information, however there is never a link to a source that actually proves that claim. It is basically non-sense anyway. If all humans were -as answersingenesis claims - descendents of the 8 people in the ark, then where did all the information of all our races came from? It is also rather unlikely to have 2 of all millions of species in a boat, no matter how large the boat is. So to accept the 'theory' in answesingenesis, we would have to admit that mutations adding information and creating new species HAVE TO HAPPEN or else we would have to say that God had to "create" species and people all over again after the ark incident - this contradicts the bible, and makes God look like a showman, making all that ark spectacle for no reason since he could have just recreated everything -

So, I'd say AiG cannot explain the advent of new species formed in those 4000 years after the ark incident... We would need a new theory to make it fit, unfortunately that theory would be : evolution ... except it would have to be a much faster evolution, since it needs a lot of species to come in less than 4000 years... Or else we would need a god that keeps inventing species every once in a while which contradicts the bible... That gives me an idea, let's pray to god to create a new species in a laboratory, that would certainly prove creation once and for all...

Regarding the claim that evolutionists always shoot the messenger instead of the message, It was not hard for me to find pages directly attacking the arguments made in AiG, like these ones:
http://www.proof-of-evolution.com/evolu ... hales.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

If a rabbit fossil were discovered in a preCambrian layer with no explanation of how it got there, then ToE would be pretty well shot up.

ruveyn

I think it's more of a mix though. Sometimes it's using the genetic fallacy to claim that an argument from a source they disapprove of is unsound. Sometimes it's just plain not bothering to read for comprehension. Sometimes it's just plain old vitriolic coprologies just because they have access to the internet.

At the risk of repeating Vexcalbiur - Creationism tells us absolutely nothing about the world (it does not advance human understanding) in a way that Evolution/Natural Selection does not do far better, it hinges upon an acceptance, without any evidential basis, of a supernatural being as the driving force of all life. Evolution is better because it doesn't require an omnipotent entity to be correct/true/accurate - and it is a far more useful tool for understanding and explaining the world (if it is replaced by a better idea so be it, so long as it does not rely on the anti-rational supposition of a deity).

I don't have to argue that something without pragmatic value is false to deny creationsim - you can't give me evidence of the existence of god, this being the crucial point on which creationism hinges i can safely reject it as false.



can you be a little more clear here? there's one or two fragments of sentences/clauses in there that are disrupting what you seem to be trying to say.

science and reason have 'PWNed' religion, as you put it, there's nothing to claim. how many jets does god make fly? how many jets fly because of our understanding of aerodynamics, physics, jet propulsion etc? how many nuclear reactors does god make work? how many nuclear reactors work because of humankind's scientific, evidence based approach utilising quantum mechanics etc etc? I could go on.

Science = very useful to all
Organised religion = useful to a small cabal of priests/imams etc etc
keep religion, as Malcolm X said 'at home, in the closet' in your personal private life - no problems. Leave public life to science and reason and we'll all get along fine.

questions of True and False are decided on an ideological and, concurrently, a philosophical basis, that science (as CS Lewis claims) no longer makes claim to Truth with a capital T is immaterial to the future pursuit of science and reason. It is universally true (small t) that by making air travel quickly below a wing and slowly above it we can make a plane fly, irrespective of whether it is piloted by a muslim, sikh or christian it flies all the same. It is True for a Christian that there is a god whose son died for our sins. The difference must be noted.
After this it remains, for myself anyway, to follow Feyrebrands criteria in science of what is useful and what advances humanity. religion does not.

If you could establish an upper bound on the rate of mutation, and show that species could not have differentiated themselves sufficiently in the time of their existence, then evolution would be disproven. So if somehow new evidence arose that the earth was actually only several thousand years old, then evolution would of course be impossible. But there are (literally) mountains of evidence that the earth is billions of years old (and yes, that was a geological pun). Given what we've observed in terms of the rate of genetic mutations, the mathematics of Gaussian probabilities, the obviousness that he who survives and mates passes on his genes more than he who does not, the fact that populations sometimes become separated, and the time spans involved, deviation of species to the point of separation isn't just a possibility, it's a mathematical certainty.

Not really a logic fallacy. Unless they are an absolute expert on the matter who can cite biology research papers off the top of their head, it is perfectly legitimate not to trust a source. Not only that, but frankly, most logic fallacies disappear once you recognize that many arguments are inductive, not deductive. If this is a deductive argument, then ad hominems are irrelevant. If this is inductive, then the characteristics of any source used are relevant in evaluating sources.


The source is part of the evidence in certain cases. Authority does actually make certain claims more valid. And as much reasoning as you can put into the theory that the FBI is hunting you down, I still have a lot of reasons why I should reject that.


No. The claim should never be "X is false" it should be "X is likely to be false". Scientific theories don't work with certainty, and are themselves inductive, so they cannot absolutely prove anything. Additionally, induction also does not lend itself to absolute certainty. In any case, logical reasoning can occur without a deductive framework, the use of probability is an example of this.


In this case, most of your debates are going to be wastes of effort. You are using questionable sources on individuals who lack the ability to evaluate your claims scientifically, individuals who cannot cite research papers off of the top of their heads. In order to have a debate with people who know the evidence enough to meaningfully criticize it, you basically have to debate biologists.

Really though, I consider arguing against creationism on the grounds that it demands a conspiracy to itself be perfectly legitimate. If 99+% of the relevant community to evaluate a claim regards it as false, and perhaps obviously false, then your own arguments have the same legitimacy as any conspiracy theorist's argument, and frankly, a conspiracy theorist of any sort requires the undervaluing of so many of our sources of knowledge, that their case rarely can ever be justified by ordinary evidences, and frankly, one can tell a conspiracy theorist this problem without actually being willing to change their mind.


And I consider most conspiracy theories a waste of time. I dismiss them because they require too much I already believe to be wrong and too many basic sources that I trust in evaluating claims currently to be wrong, for me to be persuaded. In any case, I think you have sympathy towards conspiracy theorists because in some sense, you are a conspiracy theorist. This is not the only conspiracy you promote, as I already know that you consider the income tax to not be a law. Do I think that this makes you a "brave free-thinker"? No, rather, I tend to just regard a large collection of conspiracy theories as the sign of a tin-hatter, not brilliance. There is a certain point where claims have to be outright dismissed, otherwise too much energy is wasted trying to research them, and conspiracy theories, if there is a group, must fit into that group.

As Dent once stated, even mainstream Christian groups stand away from or even attack the ideas of creationist groups. So, even the sources that should be most sympathetic reject the idea. I don't see why little ol' me should have to waste my time as you cite sources that I am relatively certain that neither of us have the research background to fully evaluate.


I'll attack both, thank you very much.

Not quite, whilst I think the existence of a creator is highly improbable I cannot disprove the theory of god, so a possibility of its existence however unlikely remains a possibility. To tackle this from the perspective of there is no god therefore creationism is crap would be to make the same mistake that many creationists make ie god exists, the bible is true, therefore evolution is crap. It is true to say that I have not researched and studied the creationist line, why would I, it has been done for me by others who have a far better understanding on the subject. I have listened to, watched and read enough of the debate to come to the conclusion that 'creationist science' has been discredited. I have read time and again examples of creationists manipulating others work to fit their own designs not least of which is the continued attempt to discredit the theory of evolution by manipulating the work of Karl Popper, which this particular thread seems to get is origins

I have NO doubt that any claim any of you creationists make on this forum that purports to disprove evolution will have a scientific rebuttal that either shows that the claim is highly improbable at best or most likely plainly wrong

I think NO ONE has any doubt concerning your predisposition.

Well, the issue is that the creationist side has not only been rejected, but not all of the members are honest. I mean, there might be some sharp guys, but there are a lot of Ken Hams, Kent Hovinds, Duane Gishes, Ray Comforts and so on that are regarded and rejected as seeming dishonest and as not having a solid research background. I mean, I once met a pastor in training who basically upheld that the earth only has apparent age. What could you say about beliefs like that? I mean, maybe there are a group of honest scholars, but honestly, a lot of evidence suggests that creationists come in two flavors: wrong, intellectually dishonest, and intelligent, or wrong, intellectually dishonest and unintelligent. And the problem is that evolution does not have any academic debate against it, only popular debate. So, at this point, most people are ready to say "Evolution has won. It is the dominant theory by far in academic biology. It has withstood over 100 years of criticism. There is no question about it."

I mean, by this point, it just seems that creationists are similar to geocentrists.

Now, you might regard this as dishonest to be so dismissive, but unless you are a geocentrist, you are likely to dismiss geocentrism with even less knowledge of it than you even have of evolution.

ultimately though evolution does not require a deity and is therefore a simpler and more elegant concept.

As concerning the particular list of creationists that present the appearance of being dishonest, I would say that only Ken Ham is. Not for what he teaches in regard to the origins debate, but for his stunt back in 2006 involving what he did to the former Answers in Genesis branch in Australia. Kent Hovind, I don't think he views himself as being dishonest, but many of his arguments back in 2002 were out of date or even the quality of email forwards. See, http://creation.com/maintaining-creatio ... ent-hovind if you wish to read about the disagreement of that time between AiG and Hovind. Duane Gish, I think he still works for ICR, his PhD is in biochemistry. Back in the 80's, I think or perhaps the 70's, Gould accused him of "quote-mining", however, I think the accusation is false, but even if not there is more to this than just the folly of one proponent. As for Ray Comfort, I don't think he has even had a science based education but he is just a popularizer, or attempting to be so. The qualifications of Ken Ham and Kent Hovind aren't much better though, just PhDs in science education. Ray Comfort is probably more annoying for the "Way Of The Master" so called method of cornering "evangelism" whereby you ask leading questions, and that dose of reprehensibility adds distaste to anything he says regarding anything, including the topic of origins. However, even if all these people not only presented the appearance of dishonesty, but were actually dishonest, it would be the fallacy of composition to infer that because a given subset is dishonest that all are also.

Apparent age is basically calling God a liar, as is often the argument which is used against it. Really though, some pastors use faulty arguments as a hand-waving device. They don't know how to address the question, and usually these are the pastors who posit that "head-knowledge" is practically evil while "heart-trust" and emotionalism are paramount. However, they just are bad examples that lead some people to practically reject everything else they say because they teach crap mixed in with the rest of their teachings. It is sort of like parents who lead their children to believe in Santa Claus because it is "fun", but later in life they find that they have been lied to, and such "fibbing" and "white lies" has a potential to place suspicion and mistrust on every other thing that they have been taught. But, not everything that they have been taught is false, though with one example of dishonesty the rest are put into question.

As per honest scholars, I view Dr Jonathan Sarfati as such. A few others also, but I can honestly say that he is respectable.

Actually, the Ptolemaic model of geocentrism was accepted in academic circles for about 1,500 years before the heliocentric model was accepted. The heliocentric model had been in existence since the time of Aristarchus in 300 BC, but it was never as popular because geocentrism seemed more intuitive. The reference frame that we view space from on the Earth gives a faulty appearance of being such. It is easier for the mind to think in terms of items moving around us rather than do the additional mathematics including our motion, and such ease of "understanding" and simplicity promote it. By the time of Brahe, Copernicus, Kepler, et al, geocentrism had been embedded in the academic world as a fact. Questioning it was tantamount to questioning the four elements model of alchemy or the four humors model of medicine, at that time. These were things which were developed by those wise and respectable Greek philosophers, whose authority was difficult to question. Awesomelyglorious, I know you probably mean that young earth creationists have the semblance of being as incorrect as the proponents of geocentrism as we look back on them today in the light of current knowledge. However, during the heyday of geocentrism when it was the mainstream paradigm of cosmology, I think that young earth creationists today would not be properly analogous to geocentrists.

No, I didn't think you were being dismissive, I think you were explaining why most people generally are dismissive.

It's hard to cite Sarfarti as a valid authority here because he has no training in biology and has published no research in it. He's a physical chemist- sure, he's a scientist, but in an unrelated field.

This illustrates an important concept for ALL SIDES in any debate. We basically do not do our own research. Frankly, I doubt many could. Too much data. Too little time. We trust sources we feel have earned our trust so that we put great weight in their conclusions.

To that end:

What happens if your trusted source has a bias but keeps it hidden well?

What happens if your trusted source simply makes an error?

What happens if your trusted source WAS credible but becomes biased over time but your trust in its credibility colors you to believe all that comes down after it starts imposing its biases? (for the sake of debate, keep in mind many people aren't super logical about everything they consider)

If you can control the flow of information, if you can color people's perception of sources and issues, you can shape the outcome no matter what the evidence really says.

I have a friend who went to seminary. He believes things that really skirt the edge of what the Bible teaches, and that's because he respects his "godly professors" who based their teachings on what they were taught, which was taught by their professors...and so on. Never the realization that SOMEONE may have been wrong. Nobody in the chain of teaching might have had a bias to distort the information, but simply be wrong and since everything was done by men of good reputation, we infer infallibility in the teaching based on the character of the teacher and not the testability of the material.