swansont

Saying there is no sense of direction in evolution is merely repeating the question, not explaining what you mean. But, as you say later, there is no end goal in mind; evolution does not anticipate needing features. The feedback of selection depends only on the current environment. i.e. you do not evolve a feature now because it will be useful some number of generations down the line And what that means is that the changes from evolution depend on the current environment. Selection is for a trait that's useful right now. But that selection is not random - more individuals survive if they have that trait. I have no idea what that's supposed to mean. Do we no longer have descent with modification? Because that's the main idea of Darwin. Your description is like seeing a tree in the winter and then in the summer, and saying it's not a tree because now it has leaves on it, and the branches are longer. Most of us recognize the tree. You don't but that sounds like a "you" problem.

You were asked to explain what you mean by no direction in evolution and how it applies here. You did not do so. I’d also ask for you to tell us why you think “evolution” (as in evolution has no direction) and “gene evolution” refer to the same thing. “This runs counter to the dictum that evolutionary events are random.” This is not true. The dictum is that mutations are random. Selection is not. Thus, there is no dictum that evolutionary events are random.

Last time this came up it was because the pulse width of the light was ignored. I notice that the article I read said that “there appears” to be a negative time, not there actually is.

! Moderator Note I think this is fine, just make sure the shipping details are exchanged via PM rather than posted (probably unnecessary to tell you, but protocol requires a notice)

Which definition of faith are you using? trust/confidence in something 1. despite there being no evidence, or 2. because there is lots of evidence?

You were making assertions of opinion. Ignorance is a deficit of knowledge. You can’t be less knowledgeable and also not ignorant to some extent. The goid news is that ignorance can be fixed. You might review what I said. I said you were parroting creationist talking points, not that you are a creationist. But creationism is incorrect, and the objections raised by creationists are flawed; they are either incorrect about details of evolution, or about the process that we call science. You say you aren’t a creationist but you haven’t shown this by taking the steps of understanding evolution and science. You use the tactic of argument-by-quote; which underscores that you lack understanding. The underlying issue is how you can lack knowledge and yet be utterly convinced that you’re correct.

How about being less offensive with your ignorance-based accusations? Evidence is to the contrary. Then stop parroting creationist talking points This would seem to be more indicative of your lack of understanding than issues with the theory.

I don’t see this as opposite. There has been a shift in how science perceives evolution. I object to your tone that suggests this is somehow a weakness or flaw (“Your house is a mess!”) or that anyone promised that theories would never be refined. You give the impression that you expect science to cater to your whims.

Given that they made the comment, I’d say the answer is “no”

Your question was “Can these statements be demonstrated incorrect?” and the answer to that is “yes” which I posted in the first response. I see you have other questions, but you hadn’t asked them yet A wall-o-text list of questions isn’t the right way to do this, if you have a sincere desire to learn. But if it’s a bad faith effort inspired by Gish-galloping, it’s right on the money. “far away” is debatable but otherwise pretty much, yes. New things were discovered and the theory was expanded and fleshed out. It’s this way in all of science. It’s not static. Science isn’t a person and can’t “state” anything. As above. All science is provisional; it gets updated and refined, if necessary, as new evidence comes to light. It represents the best understanding at the time. Nobody who understands the process would make the claims as you’ve presented them. Your implied expectations are unreasonable and present a strong odor of bad faith

Also: federal tax on gas was 4 cents a gallon in the 70s. It’s 18.4 cents today. Lots of states have raised their taxes, too.

What is CMG? Did you mean CGM?

Right. Mendel discovered simple results of genetics but had no details of the mechanism, so the idea was incomplete. Gaps were filled in. A fairly commonplace occurrence in science. Darwin had descent with modification. Mendel showed traits can be “stored” and various combinations manifest themselves differently. There’s no conflict between the two. Different pieces of a larger puzzle. It’s evidence of bad faith to pretend that either bit was a fully fleshed-out theory. Darwin acknowledged that there were things yet to be discovered. (IIRC the problem of “blending” was one thing). Creationists often present the argument framed as if Darwinism is the whole theory of evolution. They also present gradualism as if it means the rate of change is perfectly constant, while Darwin was differentiating his idea from saltation.

You tell us! You’re the one violating the invariance. So we need a new transform to account for this. What is it? But you said this has nothing to do with relativity, and yet you acknowledge that you’re tossing it aside. From your posts, it’s not clear you understand causality Events differing does not appear to be a causality issue

“And I explain how it is deduced from this that from the observer's point of view, events in different IFRs are the same.” (emphasis added) I can’t reconcile how they can be different events and also the same.

You didn’t claim this. You said an event in frame 1 will be different than an event in frame 2. You still haven’t explained what the role of causality is; you agreed that it requires two different events

Yes. They are criticisms of a caricature of the theory rather than the theory itself I assume this refers to “survival of the fittest” which is a glib description of Darwinism, rather than the actual idea. One must also recognize that evolution encompasses more than Darwin’s ideas. He e.g. didn’t know details of genetics Mendel was able to make peas change by cross-breeding strains, so I’m at a loss to understand the criticism. I suspect it’s a commentary on Mendel’s ignorance of the existence of mutation. Quotes without context is a poor way to make a scientific argument.

There is no causality, and because of this causality doesn’t exist. What you’re missing is evidence. i.e. the science part of all of this. What you have so far is science fiction, of the sort often proposed while in a chemically-altered state. “Dude, what if movement affected memory and changed things you wrote down?” ”Whoah!”

Probably because your example is atrocious Causal relations refer to two events What prevents them from sending this signal? What causes this “distortion”? How are charge and rest mass no longer invariant quantities? What is the transform that governs this? What other aspects of relativity are you trashing? Ah, circular logic. The foundation of great science.

Your previous objection, as I read it, was that it was how the combination was connected - “and” vs “or” - and that’s not the issue. It’s the dubious veracity of a premise, like in the example “all toasters are made of gold” * More than one premise could be false, but that’s irrelevant. You can’t assert the conclusion is true until the dubious premise is confirmed. The link calls the toasters example a a valid argument but not a sound argument. My wording was that the conclusion was invalid, i.e. the truth value is still in question. *all toasters contain 6 oz of gold 6 oz of gold is worth at least $10,000 Therefore, all toasters are worth at least $10,000 One premise is of dubious veracity. There is no connection confusion. The conclusion can’t be offered as being true.

What’s the problem with using that terminology? Most language is nonscientific, especially outside of journal articles. Who is using the language? Your thread is about atheists, not scientists. Is it a reasonable expectation for non-scientists to use science jargon?

The problem with passing the buck like this is that you didn’t give any citations for where the material came from. I’m not willing to take your word that you are merely repeating others’ misunderstanding. You haven’t earned the benefit of doubt. Chaos theory is a relatively recent development, and appropriated the chaos name from the existing lexicon. So “chaotic” in lay use can’t really have anything to do with chais theory, since the word came about before the scientific principle existed. It’s hard to tell if this is trolling, since I can’t tell if the obtuseness is deliberate or not.

That’s another invariance issue; in mainstream physics particles do not change charge just because there is relative motion. Neither does rest mass.

You don’t need to move to another frame; you can have a second observer. So: A observes one event and then accelerates into another frame and now observes a different event instead, what does observer B see, who has been in that second frame all along, and never changes frames? Causality still holds for B, since they don’t switch frames. And time still runs forward. There’s no way to have an event repeat itself. You require time travel, in addition to particle identity being frame-dependent Why? You said they observe photons. It’s a principle in relativity that an event occurs in all frames; the laws of physics are the same. The order of events can be different. Not the event itself. I’m saying that yes, it is, if you wish to discuss this here. It’s a requirement of the speculations section. You are not limiting yourself to one frame in your description, so I’m not sure why you would think this is sufficient. As above, the laws if physics don’t change from one frame to another, per relativity.

In the 70s it was the big oil folks; as you point out, retail margins are small. And actual competition exists in most places. But when OPEC drove up prices, US oil produces had huge margins, which is why there was a windfall profits tax. A US oil producer had no incentive to sell below the worldwide market price, so if oil was at $30 bbl, but your cost were at $10 bbl, you’d still sell at $30. (The tax just incentivized domestic cutbacks in production, though) Or (and I think this happens today) you export at the higher price and create a supply constriction in the US to drive up the domestic price.