Is evolution falsifiable? What would falsify evolution?

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Look, I can consider panspermia if there is some form of evidence of a meteor landing with perhaps some form of extremely old life fossil(probably impossible to find at this point) , or an area of the universe that would have been even better suited for the original development of life than the Earth and some reasonable way that this life could have traveled from there to here then perhaps there would be more reason to talk then. Usually though, the idea of panspermia relates to microorganisms, and I am not sure that this solves all of the problem you seek to point to.

The problem with Intelligent Design though is that unless we see evidence of an alien landing or some such, it is an ad-hoc theory. It explains nothing. It just posits a designer.


Honestly, I think that the real matter is that you are talking to layman about a scientific theory. Do we have evidence? We're not experts in that matter. In any case, given that we've all been bombarded with people operating outside of the scientific community who claim "evolution can't do this" despite scientists who say "evolution CAN do this", your claims that "evolution can't do this" are claims that we really cannot evaluate or side with. I mean, I have no way of knowing whether hmos are another false alarm like the bacterium flagella happened to be, and honestly, given that you are making a case for irreducible complexity, I am not sure if you would be as respected on the matter as Michael Behe.


No, Meta, but a layman, who cannot evaluate the evidence sufficiently is epistemically justified to trust the majority of researchers. Are you proposing that instead, Sand just take the advice of any oddball who walks up and says some idea about the origin of life? What then should you say to a child? That children should never ever listen to anything said to their parents? Parents can be wrong too. What about Santa?

If the majority was convinced of ID, then, depending on what they cite as reasons, I might be convinced as well. Why? Well, I am a layman. However, from my perspective, ID suffers because it is hard to consider it a scientific theory at this point. If we found evidence for an alien landing or a very early biogenetics lab, then I might change my mind.

In any case, science is about the scientific process in a community. It isn't about any single scientist's evaluation of evidence. In fact, I am more convinced by a majority of scientists than anything else. Why? Well, it means that a large number of people have analyzed and evaluated a set of ideas that I am not in a great position to critique, and that all of these people are basically arriving at the same conclusions. Is this process somewhat political? Sure. Is this process


Sand is not a scientist. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what he is doing. If you think he should be doing something other than that, I really have to question your judgement, as I would imagine that any person familiar with how science works would probably also then recognize that Sand's position is not irrational for someone lacking the strong familiarity needed to evaluate claims. I mean, if you are actually a researcher in biology, then you would have (at least) 8-9 years of training just to evaluate these kind of claims, along with even more years of research. Are you seriously expecting that a person without these years of training and research to have serious research backing them? That's silly. Are you seriously expecting at the same time, for this person to disregard the people they know who *do* have this training and to reject their conclusions? That's also silly.

I'd say that the scientifically sound way of resolving the issue is with research, but also within the scientific community. Science is not a private affair but a public affair. I'd say that the intellectually valid way to handle things is to defer to experts, even if you are a scientist, so long as these experts have an expertise you don't have.(like they're physicists and you're a biologist)


Outside of the natural order. Frankly, that's a larger philosophical question than is necessary to use the term.


That's just one part of the supernatural. There are other things as well. In any case, the use of the term "supernatural" is good in this instance because certain ideas invoke entities that are traditionally labeled supernatural.


A human invention. Natural processes made it.


Nature is that which belongs to the natural world as opposed to the supernatural. Electricity has always belonged to the natural world.


Artificial is a subset of the natural. I don't know what inverse means. Are dogs the inverse of cats? I wouldn't say so. But no dog is also a cat.

In any case, if you want to play games with the term "natural" and "supernatural". Give me a definition of artificial. Is an ant colony artificial? A termite colony? A sharpened rock? A chimp termite eating tool? Why then a computer? Or a city? It seems to me that if discovery and creation is in the nature of human beings, then things that human beings create should be considered as artificial as ant colonies, which is to say not artificial. Am I being serious when I say that? No. I think that the term "artificial" has uses, and that this is less of a matter of something we can rigorously define, so much as something we just find useful.


There are no tests for 2, and that's why 2 is not considered a valid inference. 3 is only a valid inference if we see evidence of beings that could hypothetically do this and methods that they could have used(not perfectly defined but partially so). This is why most events are pretty much scientifically required to be considered natural.

In that case the term supernatural is humbug.

If there (are | would be) any designers, creators, gods, faries, goblins, etc then they would be at least as natural as us and maybe more natural. This would then reduce the options: Any event E can either be natural or artificial, and nothing else.

Artificial: anything which exists which was intentional created by an intelligence.
Natural: everything which was not intentional created by an intelligence.

Introducing a designer (ID) or cosmic origin (panspermia) would allow one to say that intelligent life (from the context of this universe) always existed, either one would solve the problem I presented.

Regarding Behe, with all due respect, he's at least slightly wrong: If anything a variation-selection process will generate irreducible complexity; the solutions it will generate are never modular in organization.

My apologies to Sand, I might have asked too much of you. I sometimes forget that I do this for already many years and have researched this much more deeply then most people.

Yes, automata theory, languages, AI, evolutionary algorithms, artificial life, etc are my special interest.

Most terms are "humbug" as you say. It isn't as if terms and our uses of them originated with technical definitions. In any case, I am skirting the issue because the term is a dictionary term, it is a term that most of us learn when very young, and because there is a significant philosophical question over the lines that I am unfamiliar with the literature about. I mean, ask different people and you get different lines. Does this mean that a line does not exist? No, it means that there is difficulty saying exactly where it is. How much genetic alteration can be done to a dog chromosome until it should no longer be labeled a dog chromosome? I don't think there is an answer, and certainly the answer isn't "until it can't mate with other dogs" simply because not all dogs today can really mate with each other (chihuahua and saint bernard?) not only that, but dogs and wolves still can mate with each other and produce viable offspring.


Only by your terminology. In any case, even given your terminology, it still does not follow that more terminology isn't helpful. Not only that, but unless you can see a real way to have scientific studies of any of those beings, it is still irrelevant whether we call them natural or supernatural or artificial.


What is an "intelligence"? What is "intentional"? If all things are atoms, then what is the difference between different processes? Where does one say that one process begins and another process ends? I mean, ants have some level of intelligence in that they respond to their environment, particularly as a group, and who is to say that they do not intend to create colonies? It isn't as if some test of intention exists, some people seem to deny that an AI could have intention, but we still say that NIs do despite a lack of clear difference. Frankly, I am not sure that people have as much intention as they claim to, and I consider our mental processes to just be another variant of process, but I am not sure that "intelligence" has many good objective definitions.

Now, being that you are an AI enthusiast, you might once again propose a definition, but given that to some people the notion of AI is impossible, I will have to consider that some intuitions will then essentially say that intelligence is impossible, simply because these intuitions that apply to AI should properly apply to all intelligences. (think about the chinese room and how it argues that mind is incompatible with distributed intelligences, which all known intelligences are)

Note: I am not trying to get too sidetracked on the terms, it is just that I really do hold to the notion that terms are just many times rough sign-posts, and that many of them really are matters for debate or even can break if pushed. If you don't appreciate this, and don't appreciate the fact that at the current moment I recognize a debate over the term "naturalism", then from the start there is going to be an issue. In any case, if I really wanted to define naturalism vs supernaturalism, I might use Richard Carrier's definition http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007 ... tural.html which relies on a reducibility of nature to non-mental phenomena. Now, Carrier does not uphold the notion that supernatural events are hard to test , and partially is acting to rebut that (although many supernatural events that people evoke *are* hard to test), but the issue is that I think you are missing the point when you want analytical definitions of "naturalism" vs "supernaturalism", as that matter is still an ongoing debate as I originally said. Ongoing debate does not mean that a word lacks meaning though, however, I really do think you are playing a game because I know you've been exposed to the word before, and I doubt that the word is intrinsically a troubling one to most people unless they have an agenda.


Except the solution is ad hoc. That alone discredits it as a scientific answer, regardless of whether or not it is true. Simply because we could never distinguish such an idea from a natural process. After all, what we say about a natural process is always contingent upon our understanding of a natural process. If we always understand natural processes imperfectly, then it becomes very difficult to absolutely declare what a natural process cannot do, particularly given that sometimes an unforeseen creative leap is necessary to make progress.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 07 Dec 2009, 1:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Not an inconsistency Iam afraid, though you would have to read the whole Bible to get the issue.
To sum it up, the Devil had free will, and just like us, decided to use that free will for selfish purposes, his selfish purpose involved turning man away from God with the promise he could be better off without him, God therefore has let things take its course to see if man was better off under God or Satans dominion.
He has set a time when the Devil will be vanquished and such an allready answered issue will never be permitted again.

All this talk about fossils now being found to prove evolution, can somebody post a link or two showing these please?, I have a book promoting evolution, a few years old now I admit, but without exception, wherever one creature evolves into another it states no fossils found of the inbetween stage.
I was under the impression that it was due to the absence of said intermediate fossils despite modern digging equipment, that had lead scientists down the mutation theory route?

I didn't see that anywhere in my Bible.

That is a distinction made by creationists who want to reconcile their interpretation of the bible with data like observed speciation events. In all my 25 years reading of biology I have never seen it in biological texts, unless they were trying to explain things to creationists. I see no value in the distinction.


The former being the creationists, the latter being biologists without a prior commitment to creationism.

Yet taxonomists use exactly the same methods for constructing phylogenies above the family and genus level as below. If they couldn't, evolution at the level you like to call macro-evolution would have been falsified. This is a test of evolutionary theory, and what you call macro-evolution does pass the test.


Are you saying mutation does not produce variation?


To those who haven't followed the Abiogenesis thread: I have given Meta a list of six papers reporting evolution of modular systems (http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2495174.html&highlight=#2495174), but he rejects this. We haven't yet discussed his reasons. Meta, we can do that here or in the Abiogenesis thread. Up to you.

I say there is evidence for variation and selection producing modular organization. Meta is keen on hierarchical modular organization. I don't know whether it has yet been demonstrated that this can evolve. If not, the most Meta can claim is absence of evidence. If he wants to claim then he has to show that it is impossible for variation and selection to produce the hierarchical modular organization he is after. Proving something impossible is difficult. He could show it is incompatible with something we do know to be possible, but I haven't yet seen him do that.


Good. That is the kind of competence I like to see. Can you use it to demonstrate that evolution of hierarchical modular organization is impossible?

If you just want to say you (and possibly no one else) has yet found a way to demonstrate evolution of hierarchical modular organization, that is a very different thing. In what I have quoted first you are cautious enough to say that, then you make the far stronger claim tat variation and selection can't do what you ask. That is again the difference between absence of evidence and evidence for absence that we have discussed before. There is an enormous difference between the two. Did you neglect that, or do you really want to commit to the stronger claim?


The two are very different. Panspermia does not deny the possibility of spontaneous abiogenesis, it just offers more time and space for it to happen. If ever life is found elsewhere in the solar system, it will also be (partly) testable. ID either says directly or tries to insinuate that intelligence is necessary to design life, and then you immediately get the question where the intelligence comes from. That is a major problem not shared by the hypothesis that microbes might have crossed interplanetary or perhaps even interstellar space in rocks or dust.


If I take that at face value, you should believe that a theory that can be adjusted to be consistent with any evidence is a better theory than one that can only be consistent with a small sub set of all conceivable data. Is that what you believe? That is my most important question to you. All other discussion can wait for your answer.

The Bible.

If the Bible proves evolution wrong, then it seems that the Bible contradicts evolution, correct?

Evolution is a scientific theory. Scientific theories are based upon evidence and reason.

If the Bible contradicts evolution, and evolution is a scientific theory, does this mean that the Bible is contradicted by evidence and reason? If the Bible is contradicted by evidence and reason, then shouldn't it be the other way around, and that evolution proves the Bible wrong? If not, then by what evidence or reason would you argue otherwise?

If a life type were found on this planet that was not based on DNA, that would falsify the Theory of Evolution which assumes were are all descended from one or a very few kinds of life that originated somehow by natural means.

So far every last living creature be it plant, animal or other is a DNA based life form indicating a common origin sometime in the deep past.

Humans and cabbages are cousins.

ruveyn

Heres a bit from Ezekiel, you can find more in Genesis, and Revelation, and in the message of the Bible as a complete message.

28:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 28:2 “Son of man, say to the prince 1 of Tyre, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Your heart is proud 2 and you said, “I am a god; 3

I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” –

yet you are a man and not a god,

though you think you are godlike. 4

28:3 Look, you are wiser than Daniel; 5

no secret is hidden from you. 6

28:4 By your wisdom and understanding you have gained wealth for yourself;

you have amassed gold and silver in your treasuries.

28:5 By your great skill 7 in trade you have increased your wealth,

and your heart is proud because of your wealth.

28:6 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says:

Because you think you are godlike, 8

28:7 I am about to bring foreigners 9 against you, the most terrifying of nations.

They will draw their swords against the grandeur made by your wisdom, 10

and they will defile your splendor.

28:8 They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die violently 11 in the heart of the seas.

28:9 Will you still say, “I am a god,” before the one who kills you –

though you are a man and not a god –

when you are in the power of those who wound you?

28:10 You will die the death of the uncircumcised 12 by the hand of foreigners;

for I have spoken, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

28:11 The word of the Lord came to me: 28:12 “Son of man, sing 13 a lament for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘You were the sealer 14 of perfection,

full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

28:13 You were in Eden, the garden of God. 15

Every precious stone was your covering,

the ruby, topaz, and emerald,

the chrysolite, onyx, and jasper,

the sapphire, turquoise, and beryl; 16

your settings and mounts were made of gold.

On the day you were created they were prepared.

28:14 I placed you there with an anointed 17 guardian 18 cherub; 19

you were on the holy mountain of God;

you walked about amidst fiery stones.

28:15 You were blameless in your behavior 20 from the day you were created,

until sin was discovered in you.

28:16 In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence, 21 and you sinned;

so I defiled you and banished you 22 from the mountain of God –

the guardian cherub expelled you 23 from the midst of the stones of fire.

28:17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty;

you corrupted your wisdom on account of your splendor.

I threw you down to the ground;

I placed you before kings, that they might see you.

28:18 By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade,

you desecrated your sanctuaries.

So I drew fire out from within you;

it consumed you,

and I turned you to ashes on the earth

before the eyes of all who saw you.

28:19 All who know you among the peoples are shocked at you;

you have become terrified and will be no more.’”

^ its ok, just take a seat and the doctor will be along shortly

Setting aside that not all things are atoms The difference is huge. This goes back to Anderson's More is different. A composite of parts is more then just any sum of the physical properties of the parts. The way the composite is constructed is of fundamental importance. Life is consistent with physics, but it can't be derived from physics. The specific organization gives in a sense it own laws and regularities which just don't follow from the physical properties of the parts. Only when combined these features emerge; or not. And which features? It depends on the specific way in which it was combined.
I do one better: All life is intelligent? In the sense that it's an intelligent system.
Have you ever seen an NI? Can you prove that you are a NI and not an AI?

Btw. The courts make judgment call on intent every day. The lack of a proper test does not seem to stop anyone.

Indeed. It's either both or none at all. Notice that if ID is true, we are in fact AIs, not NIs.

Not if properly argued from observable facts. It can be an inevitable conclusion rather then or instead of a convenient starting point.

I don't think so. If it is indeed the case (which I doubt) it just means that science need to grow and extend.

True. However, normally one needs to prove that a process is capable?

Asking to prove something is impossible is not very scientific. If I claim there are unicorns I would need to provide the evidence for their existence. To ask "prove that unicorns can't exist?" is not really a scientific question at all. It's the defense of dogma, not science.

To claims that a process of variation-selection can cause hmo requires proper evidence. One can't just assume this to be true unless someone proves it wrong. Again, it is the defense of dogma, not science.

In general: Don't confuse the map with reality? If reality does not fit any science. then it's science which needs to change. This is the way it has always been. Science has never been a fixed, unchanging process. No. It has always been dynamic and active, adapting to new information and insights.

The point is rhetorical, as I accept the existence of forces and of energy, but the issue is of special properties.


Life also is just a term for certain patterns. The fact that something is alive does not distinguish it on any ontological level from something that isn't alive, at least not looking at life from a scientific perspective.

The problem is that terms like "intelligence" and "intention" are more ontologically oriented, as they emerge from our anthropomorphic self-regard, but aren't properly reductionist scientific descriptions of reality.

Now, does this mean that separating certain studies doesn't make sense? No, it does make sense simply to see the effects of things as we observe them currently together. But utility for science doesn't justify a description's foundations any more than saying "naturalism is that which is not supernatural, such as gremlins and gods", as both descriptors are quite pragmatically useful.


So, you just mean that something is intelligently designed if a biological process goes into making it?? And thus all things altered by life are artificial? Does this then mean that we have an artificial atmosphere? How about artificial food sources? It seems that all of them are artificial because many of them are simply tricks by plants to spread their seed.


I never said I have seen an NI, but most people assume they *are* NIs, so that is relevant.

Most people make judgment calls on what is supernatural, if they didn't then you wouldn't expect the term to pop up so much. The lack of a proper test does not seem to stop anyone. So, if you are going back to a pragmatic rule, then your dismissal of the term supernatural also doesn't hold very well.

The fact of the matter is that the court system is an ad hoc system of past philosophical premises and past cultural developments. It does not presume that intentions exist. In fact, a major US judge, Richard Posner once wrote that the entire concept of a mind is problematic given how little the consciousness(which is typically considered philosophically necessary for intent) is irrelevant for human actions.


Depends on what is intelligently designed.


Well, ok, but "it solves X problem" isn't a proper argument, and few proper arguments are possible. One has to either point to evidence of an intelligent designer's lab, or some evidence favoring the likelihood of an off-world landing of outside material. In any case, I develop this in the overall paragraph.


Science being limited does not mean that science needs to grow. Limits can and do serve a purpose.


Well, one has to have an alternative theory, however, one has to recognize that certain possibilities are so open that they create too many ad hoc hypotheses in order to accept them.


The accepted framework of the scientific process has to be shown as incapable in order for these questions to be asked within a scientific model. This requires essentially showing the impossibility of all more reasonable candidates. For example if there are hoof-prints then I must first prove that they weren't from a horse, a donkey, and a mule, before I move to the fanciful idea of a unicorn.

In any case, scientific questions are the questions asked by scientists in their efforts to create descriptive theories. And the fact of the matter is that science needs frameworks that tell it what questions are the right questions and which ones are the wrong questions. So far, the basic framework of a focus on natural processes has been one of the major reasons for scientific success, so overthrowing this paradigm shouldn't happen overnight but rather in response to a problem that seems insoluble without changing perspective, and where a different perspective seems intellectually fruitful. You want a paradigm shift, but I don't think it is yet warranted.


One can assume this to be the case if our best theory/paradigm suggests that it is the case at the present moment. This does not mean that that this is necessarily the case, this does not mean that we have already found a lot of evidence for this matter, this merely means that we are going to start off biased towards the answer that we've already accepted in other places, and the answer that we've found very fruitful. If another answer that is testable and that provides ample explanation for why it happens ends up emerging, and shows good signs of offering valid answers, then people might change opinion.

However, science works within the framework of paradigm. Scientists themselves are somewhat dogmatic and the field can be slow to change to address new theories. This isn't even necessarily evil, it is just how things work. I mean, for every theory of relativity, there are probably a dozen crackpot ideas where people want to change the prevailing ideas.

If I then may add a conclusion: For alternative theories like ID to be considered one first need to change the paradigm.

Note however then when one presents evidence in this direction one is often label as only presenting negative evidence not positive evidence. Any positive evidence can't be presented because it does not fit within established paradigm. This might be the main reason why progress sometimes requires generations: The old paradigm needs to literally die out for their to be any progress.

I find only one point of disagreement with your (very well written) post:

One does not have to present an (better) alternative if one points out the defects of any theory. To quote Leslie Orgel:

Missing any positive evidence is a bad thing, regardless if there are or aren't better alternative theories.