lucaspa

Your original post could have been:

What can you tell me about the feasibility of extraterrestrial life ... Beyond the human empire of Terra Ferma; in the assertion that life of extraterrestrial origin exists, what plausibility lies there?

Hmm. If that is reallly what the OP is about, then I am alone in answering it and providing data!

your use of vocabulary is wrong in any case.

 

For example:

Pluralism is a term used in metaphysics that deals with the notion that multiple realities exist, as opposed to monism (which supposes that only one reality exists).

 

And cosmology of course is the study of the universe itself.

 

If you are going to use big fancy words please use them correctly.

So "cosmological pluralism" would be equivalent to multiple universes? So we would be discussing quantum splitting (which really would be plural realities), bubble universe, or multiple universe.

Whereas developing a determinate non-local causal hypothesis from the quantum findings holds the key to a most remarkable and significal theory of everything that could be called a general theory of natural organisation.

Nowhere on that site or the "paper" is there a single mathematical equation! How can you expect physicists to consider you seriously if you can't demonstrate how the idea will generate the equations we know describe the universe we are in.

When Einstein did Special Relativity, he showed how the equations of Newton were reductions of his equations when the mass and acceleration were low. You haven't even attempted that. Again, go to the OP. If you are going to replace an old theory with a new one, you must show that the new theory is going to account for all the phenomenon of the old. In physics, this means MATH, not just hand-waving and simplified diagrams.

No wonder the paper is on a blog. No committee of a national meeting will touch it because it does not meet the minimal requirements for science in the field.

And, indeed, it was David Bohm who, in 1952, really put the cat among the quantum theorist pigeons by showing that, despite all the Copehagenist arguments by Niels Bohr, Max Born, Wolfgang Pauli. John von Neumann etc, a mathematically systematic, determinate and causal hidden variables interpretation of quantum objects in motion could be given to account for a wide range of experimental results.

 

http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~oldstein/quote.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/

http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~oldstein/papers/bohmech.pdf

I already knew about Bohm and his proposed solution for the weirdness of QM. I'm not going to argue it here because this is the wrong forum. Bohm (and Bell) had their opportunity in front of their peers -- physicists. They were unable to convince that audience -- the people who knew QM the best.

Trying to "evangelize" here is the wrong forum. You need to be presenting at the meetings for physics. They are going to be able to tell you in detail why and how Bohm is not accepted.

And Bohm really should have been able to chase the Copenhagenist (as well as, later on, the many worlds) pigeons away for good but for the facts that:

 

(a) in the 25 years since the birth of Copenhagenism, a generation of physicists had been brought up on the indeterminate interpretation.

 

(b) all the leading Copenhagenists condemned Bohmian mechanics without any reasoned criticism as 'metaphysical', and

 

© Rather than backing his determinate account up with additional scientific arguments, Bohm himself tended to live up to the metaphysical accusation by only introducing quite vague philosophical ideas in his subsequent books relating to his quantum theory.

The first 2 are the well-known "conspiracy" arguments we are used to seeing on the fringe of science. Remember, these physicists were also the same ones that were open-minded enough to discard cause-and-effect when the evidence said to. So you can't have it both ways. You are saying that physicists were not so hard-headed as to discard a well-established belief but are so hard-headed that they won't discard a well-established belief! So (a) doesn't survive testing.

As I have read the history, there was a some hot air and lack of reasoned arguments by SOME physicists. However, others did offer detailed and scientific critiques of Bohm. So (b) doesn't work.

© says that Bohm himself retreated to metaphysics rather than using his mechanism to address data. Is it possible that he did that because he could not address the data?

I say it is just because the determinate interpretation was rejected by the vast majority of physicists that no adequate theory of everything has been developed.

Is that the reason? Again, not from what I have read. The problem is that no one can quantize gravity. Did Bohm? Not by anything I have seen you present!

Whereas developing a determinate non-local causal hypothesis from the quantum findings holds the key to a most remarkable and significal theory of everything that could be called a general theory of natural organisation.

Again, you have the wrong forum. You don't present this in a BLOG! You write it up as an abstract and start submitting it to meetings of physicists and AAAS. Put it to the people who know the subject best, not try to sell it to people without a background in physics. You are doing what you criticize: making metaphysical arguments instead of scientific ones.

Big theoretical approaches like AA (or recapitulation, for that matter) don't get unseated by simple enumeration of contrary evidence. They become untenable theoretically. The current push in human evolutionary thought is for mosaic evolution, different traits evolved at different times for different reasons, and the fossil record supports this. Opposable thumbs are 50 million years old, bipedalism 10 million, big brains maybe 2 million, language maybe a few 100,000.

 

AA is a big umbrella hypothesis that tries to explain great numbers of traits with a single event. Current thinking (and what the evidence currently suggests) doesn't sync well with that.

CDarwin, you are enumerating contrary evidence! If our traits are supposed to be due to AN episode where hominids were aquatic, then having traits appear at widely separate times in our evolutionary history is evidenece against the theory: there isn't ONE episode of aquatic living.

Now, AAH might be able to weather that by saying that humans lived NEAR water for their entire evolutionary history. But the fossil evidence contradicts that, too.

BTW, recapitutalation was refuted by enumerating contrary evidence: fetus after fetus that did not undergo recapitulation.

The AAH is part of the story. There is ssooo much evidence supporting it, I can't be at all bothered to start listing it here, but the point is, and it has been well made above, is that the AAH does not in any way exclude the other theories (Savannah and Neotenic), and in fact supports them too as it explains the things they don't.

 

I guarantee in 50 years time it will be one of the most accepted theories...

Well, so much for skeptical and critical thinking! All you are doing is cheerleading. How can you "guarantee"? What will you put up as collateral?

From what I see right now, and what we have looked at in this thread, "strong" AAH is impossible. It is refuted by the data. The question is whether "weak" AAH survives and tells us something useful.

First, there isn't that much evidence supporting weak AAH. What AAH gives us is circumstantial evidence, but no direct fossils showing humans making a major living in water. Second, you forget that "evidence for" doesn't count except when it is the result of an honest attempt to falsify the theory. AAH supporters don't try to falsify. They simply take the "supporting" evidence and ignore any data that is contrary.

Look at the idea that adaptation to water accounts for hairlessness in H. sapiens. They look at a few mammalian species -- such as hippos -- as "support", but ignore the talapoin and proboscis monkey.

Third, in order for a theory to be good, it MUST forbid. When you say AAH doesn't forbid anything, you are saying it is a very bad theory. You are basically saying that there is no way to falsify AAH.

Tell me, what evidence would falsify AAH? Can you specify any such evidence?

The proboscis monkey has a flap over the nose to prevent water entering via the nostrils when swimming. It has become a sexy to other proboscis monkeys!

 

Actually the proboscis monkey is heralded by AAH supporters as evidence for the theory.

I know, but is it support? From my previous post:

"Yes, there are adaptations but they are not the same ones we see in humans. Could human hairlessness be an adaptation to partial living in water? Yes. But must it be such an adaptation? No, because proboscis monkeys and talapoins still have their hair."

So, proboscis monkeys have a flap over the nose. Why don't humans? Also, humans are hairless. Proboscis monkeys aren't.

Do you see where I'm going here? Proboscis monkeys spend so much time swimming that they have a special adaptation to keep water out of the nose, but they have hair! If humans are supposed to have adaptations to living in water, why aren't they the same adaptations as talapoins and proboscis monkeys?

Mine for one. I think in about any school in the South, there are going to be enough Creationist kids so that just teaching evolution is going to be impossible without constant objections. My Biology II class glazed over it completely.

I lived in Macon, GA for 10 years and both kids attended school there. My oldest took high schoool biology and there was no "controversy". They simply taught evolution. So I'm hoping your experience is not as widespread as you think. You may have been unfortunate in encountering a teacher with creationist sympathies.

There is, of course, no scientific controversy.

lucaspa, good examples.

 

Here's another variable. Fossil remains are rare.

 

... The fossil record of terrestrial life is like travelling around the world and taking a couple snapshots every few million years.

While we're on a roll, let's remember that we undercount species in the fossil record. In fossils, we have to use the morphological species concept -- differences in appearance, and that is the appearance of the bones. The biological species concept looks at whether the populations interbreed. You can have species with very similar or identical bones but are really different species because of mating songs, courtship habits, etc.

So what we see in the fossil record is mostly genera. Most genera are known only by a single species. Edmontosaurus, for example, is the name of the genus, not the species. There were probably several species in that genera in the general area at the time.

Yes, we get snapshots. Which is also why we usually (but not always) get "intermediate" fossils and not the ancestor-descendent sequence of species to species -- technically "transitional" fossils.

An example I find useful right now is penguins. There are 14 or so species of penguin existing today. They are obviously intermediate between living on land and living totally in water. Say we come back 10 million years from now and find several species of fully aquatic animals that obviously came from birds. Well, ONE of the species alive right now will be their ancestor. But which one? If we were then and looked back at the fossil record corresponding to now, we would find one or two species of penguin probably. But the odds say that was not the direct ancestor species. It was an evolutionary "great uncle", not "great-grandfather".

The Ethics of Star Trek (of all books) layed down something I think was interesting. It gave three seperate definitions for 'person'. A. Biological - Any member of the genus Homo; B. Psychological- Anything with the ability to form long term hopes and aspirations and to feel loss at the dashing of these (as in death, for example); and C. Ethical- Whatever combination of the first two that should be considered the beings with the greatest rights as a species and as individuals.

 

That perhaps doesn't answer the fundemental question of 'what is a person', but I think it lays down a good framework for a debate on the matter.

The various Star Trek series did an excellent job, IMO, in exploring the concept of what it is to be a "person". From Spock as an alien member of a human crew to Data to Odo to the Doctor, the show pushed the boundaries and made us think about the subject.

However, I think the book has done a disservice to the complex thought and issues raised by the Star Trek series. The criteria are too simple and vague.

Right now the term "human" is applied by anthropologists to all the past species in the genus "Homo". However, I'm not sure we would consider H. habilis as "persons". Maybe we would. However, we need to consider this since, if present trends continue, there will be more than one species of Homo on the planet at one time -- again.

B is, IMO, trying to look at "sentience". And not doing a very good job of it. It's a nice try, of course, but it omits communication and verbilization. After all, "the ability to form long term hopes and aspirations and to feel loss at the dashing of these" depends on the ability to communicate and verbalize these thoughts, at least to itself. All the "persons" in Star Trek had sentience and the ability to communicate abstract thoughts. So, this begs the question whether a creature can feel loss at impending death without being sentient. Could a rat, say, feel loss at impending death? How would we know? If we can't know, how can we say that the species qualifies as "person".

Also, as individuals, members of a species can lose the ability to form long term hopes and feel loss. Do those members lose their status as persons?

C is just restating the problem. After all, why are we trying to decide what a "person" is? In order to extend "the greatest rights as a species and as individuals"! So C is simply circular reasoning: Persons are those with rights; those beings we consider should (ethically) have rights are persons.

You know, I never quite understood that until now. I guess its because the schools focus a lot more on the controversy of it rather than what it actually is or means

Really? I don't know of any high school that focusses on the "controversy". Most just teach evolution. What schools are you talking about?

One thing I've been wondering was the diversity of dinosaur species that have been found across the planet. It seems to me that they were the same everywhere, no matter what continent you found them on. Did the various types of dinosaurs survive only on the geographical location where they had the best chance of survival? And also, did each individual kind only survive in one kind of environment but not another, much like the way that lions (a mammal) could only survive in the savannas of Africa.

They are very definitely NOT the same species from continent to continent. For instance, geoguy pointed out that triceratops and Edmontosaurus and T. rex are known only from N. America. But the larger Families or Orders that they belonged to were widespread. Thus, you find ceratopseans, hadrosaurs, and tyrannosids in other locations, but they are different genera and species.

Similarly, lions are a specific species of the family Felidae (cats). So, you find lions only in Africa, but you find tigers in Asia, cougars in N. America, panthers in S. America, etc. Different genera and species in different locations.

Remember, "mammal" is Class composed of thousands of species grouped in genera, families, and orders. Dinos are technically an order, but correspond to a Class. There are suborders, families, and genera within dinos.

That was the most intelligent-sounding name I could think of for something that's likely a fairly stupid question.

 

Is skin color selected for all at once all over the body, or is each melanocyte individually subject to selection? I'm essentially just asking how the genes that determine mammalian skin color work. Feel free to patronize.

A bit of both. In development all melanocytes derive from the ectodermal layer, but there can be distinctions between different areas of the skin. For instance, in humans those with darker skin usually have lighter skin on the palms of their hands.

This is going to depend on when and how long certain genes are expressed during development. And this in turn depends on transcription factors, which are products of other genes. So, there can be two forms of a transcription factor. One is active in one area of skin and another active in a second area.

BTW, skin color in humans is a balancing act between competing selection pressures:

1. Dark skin to protect from UV light which destroys folic acid. Too much sun depletes folic acid, which results in neural tube defects during embryogenesis.

2. UV light is needed to make vitamin D. Vitamin D isn't really a vitamin, but is made by the action of UV light on cholesterol in the skin. Too little vitamin D and the result is rickets. So need lighter skin in weak sun to ensure enough vitamin D.

1 G Kirchwager, Black and white: the biology of skin color. Discover 22: 32-33, Feb. 2001.

Baha! I understand that statement now. I'm not sure why I didn't in the first place. In fact, I can provide supporting evidence. The smallest primates are the mouse lemurs who specifically fill the rodent niche on Madagascar.

There you go! It's all about ecological niches. When the dinos went extinct, there already were species that were rodent sized -- all of them, in fact. Some stayed there because they filled that niche very well. But there were all those other empty ecological niches and ways to earn a living. Therefore you get the radiation of mammals (and birds) into those empty niches. And thus primates are bigger, because there are already rodents earning a living as rodents!

So, in the colonization of Madagascar, somehow rodents didn't make it there. Now you have an empty rodent niche and only primates. So you get a primate to fill that niche -- because there was no rodent competition in Madagascar.

John, it doesn't "fill in gaps" nor shorten the time. The time-line of life on the planet is established independent of evolution. Recent studies have shown that natural selection can act up to 10,000 times faster than seen in the fossil record. So there is not an issue of not having enough time for evolution, but rather the question has become: why was evolution in the fossil record so SLOW?

You need to read this article and the work VERY carefully. The headline hints at a revolution. It's not that. It's a minor adjustment.

"Epigenetics adds a whole new layer to genes beyond the DNA. It proposes a control system of 'switches' that turn genes on or off – and suggests that things people experience, like nutrition and stress, can control these switches and cause heritable effects in humans."

What they mean by "heritable effects" is how the embryo develops. It has long been known that, if you change the chemical environment of the embryo, you can change development. For instance, increase retinoic acid in a chick embryo and you can get duplicate limbs. The timing when the RA is introduced determines where the duplicate limbs start. On day 2 and you get two complete limbs from the hip. Wait until day 5 and the humerus is set, but you get 2 lower limbs and feet/hands. Wait until day 6 and you only get two hands/feet.

So, change the stress and you change the amount of cortisol the mother produces. Cortisol is a steroid, and steroids bind to transcription factors and can turn the expression of genes on or off. If the mother has more cortisol, this could affect the baby. In THAT sense the change is "heritable". BUT in the Darwinian sense it is not -- because the base sequence of the DNA is not changing.

This is a concept I've been having a bit of a hard time with, as it seems there are several examples of traits that should have been selected against a long time ago. There are an abundance of traits that seem to be selectively maladaptive, yet have maintained an existence in species-populations (i.e. microcephaly, achondroplasia, hemophilia, color-blindness would have been devasting in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness in humans, etc.).

I think you will find that many of these are NOT "traits". Instead, they are spontaneous mutations and a few of them pop up every generation. I know that is the case for achondroplasia and cystic fibrosis.

Others are defects in embryological development -- microcephaly -- and don't relate directly to the alleles of the individual.

Others are shielded from the full effects of natural selection because human technology can compensate for them. That is the case for hemophilia. Individuals can be protected from the consequences of poor blood clotting by altering their environment so that injury happens rarely.

However, some diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, should have been immediately selected against; primarily because the majority of individuals with the disease are infertile.

Which means you are dealing with new mutations per generation.

There is also another consideration: most traits are polygenic. What this means is that there are several alleles at each loci (gene) that contribute to the trait. As you noted for bipolar disorders, the ability to provide energy is beneficial. That allele stays. It is only when that allele is present with 2 or more other alleles (maybe not common) do you get bipolar disorder. And, as you noted, the person is likely to produce offspring.

Also, sickle-cell anemia carries who reproduce with a mate with a healthy version of the gene could produce children more resistant to malaria), and thus even though they are viewed through a maladaptive lens in society today, they could have served an adaptive purpose in our past.

Sickle cell is a classic example of the superiority of the heterozygote. In a climate with malaria, both homozygotes are deleterious: homozygote normal gets malaria and dies. Homozygote sickle cell dies from anemia. So 50% of the offspring die. BUT, the 50% that are heterozygote have an advantage in that particular environment. Therefore the sickle cell allele stays embedded in the population because everyone has one such allele.

Considering the vast body of hereditary diseases, and different causal factors expressing these genes, I must ask: do you know of any explicit genetic diseases (or class of genetic diseases) that don't fit well with our modern conception of evolution?

No, for the several reasons I gave above. Mostly, your problem is:

1. Not realizing that the same mutations can occur in each generation. Thus, achondroplasia is not always inherited but can be a spontaneous mutation.

2. You are thinking of very simple Mendelian genetics of 1 gene = 1 trait. That is the very rare exception. Most traits are polygenic and most genes contribute to more than one trait.

Below is a more detailed discussion of sickle cell:

Douglas Futuyma Evolutionary Biology, pages 384-385.

"If the heterozygote has higher fitness than either homzygote, both alleles are necessarily propagated in successive generations, in which, of course, union of gametes yields all three genotypes among the zygotes. Heterozygote advantage is also termed overdominance or heterosis for fitness. If the fitness of AA, AB, and BB are 1-s, 1, and 1-t respectively, selection wil bring the allele frequences from any initial value to the stable equilibrium

p = t/(s+t, q = s/(s+t) where p and q are the equilibrium frequencies of A and B respectively. The equilibrium frequencies of the alleles and genotypes thus depend on the balance of fitness of the two homozygotes."

"Single locus heterozygote advantage has been documented in a few cases, including WAtt's study of PGI in Colias butterflies. The best known case is is the beta-hemoglobin locus in some African and Mediterranean human populations. One allele at the locus is normal hemoglogine, the other allele is for sickle-cell hemoglobin (S) ... The relative finesses have been estimated as W(aa) = 0.89, W(as) =1, W(ss) =0.2 [where aa is homozygote normal and as is heterozygote, and ss is homozygote sickle

cell]. The heterozygote advantage therefore arises from a balance of opposing selective factors: anemia and malaria. In the absence of malaria, balancing selection yields to directional selection, because then the AA genotype has the highest fitness. In the African-American population, the frequency of S is about 0.05 and is declining due to mortality."

Philosophy and poetry denote science-to object only suggest that your measures(mathematics) is materialistic with out abstract tendencies.

Now, scince all of you are sooooooo-intelligent- tell me what is it that I have said-for an intelligent man can take the complex and make it simple-it is your job not mine.

Sorry, but it is YOUR job to communicate clearly, especially in science. Put together a grant proposal or a manuscript for publication and then try telling the reviewers that it's their job to take the complex and make it simple! Oh, how would I like to be a fly on the wall when that happens!

Cosmological pluralism is the feasibility of extraterrestrial life or more than one life existing in the cosmos i.e universe.

Why didn't you just say "abiogenesis"?

Getting life from non-life is chemistry and the chemical reactions are very simple. Start here and we can talk in greater detail:

http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html

The chemical reactions there happen under a huge variety of conditions -- gravity, atmosphere's, temperature, etc.

(Or at least, better than one that requires that you have to believe in evolution in order to be Christian!)

Where did I state that?

However, Christians realized from the beginning of Christianity that God has two books. Not just one. Follow the logic: God created the universe. Therefore, everything IN the universe was put there directly or indirectly by God. Thus, the physical universe -- Creation -- is just as much (actually more) a book by God than the Bible. So, what does science study? The physical universe, right? Therefore, by the logic of Christianity, science is also studying God. And science, of course, includes evolution.

In the period 1790-1831 science was showing that a literal reading of Genesis 6-8 was wrong, and also that Bishop Ussher's date for the age of the earth was wrong. IOW, Christians faced a condition where the two books of God disagreed. But, did the two books REALLY disagree? Christians realized that they were dealing with an interpretation of the Bible in both a world-wide Flood and Ussher's chronology. So Christianity, by internal logic, concluded:

"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437

So, everything is going along well until about 1890. During the second half of the 19th century Higher Criticism became the norm in Biblical studies. However, a small group considered that Higher Criticism was undermining the "authority" of the Bible. Thus we get Fundamentalism founded between 1900-1910, with its core belief in a literal and inerrant Bible. Like Mormons, Christian Scientists, and JWs, Fundamentalism is a break-away movement from Christianity. Now we get a denial that God has two books. Fundamentalism accepts only one book -- a literal and inerrant Bible -- and denies anything that contradicts that. In essence, Fundamentalism places the interpretation of the Bible above everything else; the interpretation is right and everything else is wrong.

By the internal logic of Christianity, Fundamentalism denies God.

So, rather than saying "you have to believe in evolution in order to be Christian", I am saying that accepting evolution as the method God created is a result of being Christian.

They're not Christians? Certainly THEY would disagree.

Actually, no. Neither views itself as part of the Christian community. In fact, both feel rejected by that community (and they are). They both insist that their beliefs are correct -- particularly JWs.

And believing the Bible satisfies the creeds.

Not entirely. For instance, part of the creeds is Trinity. JWs reject Trinity. Trinity is implied in the NT, but never stated explicitly. Gnosticism does not qualify either. The creeds were constructed so that God the Creator is also God the Forgiver. Gnosticism separated those functions.

Now, if you had read Bruce Vawter's essay closely, you would see that our friends the Fundamentalists -- in defending creationism -- also separate God the Creator from God as Jesus.

Believing a literal and inerrant Bible ends up contradicting the creeds. Remember what I said about a core belief of Fundamentalism, Sysiphus. It's not just "belief in the Bible", but Fundamentalism has the belief that the Bible is both literal and inerrant. See below for 2 more examples where this additional belief comes into conflict with basic creedal beliefs of Christianity.

What beliefs?

I've been telling you that. Go up and read the post again. Let me add a new one: Fundamentalists often refer to the Bible as "God's Word". If you look in the Bible, you will see only ONE place where "word" is capitalized like that. That's John 1 where the Word is Jesus. So, by saying the Bible is God's Word, Fundamentalists are denying the basic Christian belief that Jesus is the Word. Christianity is about a man. Fundamentalism is about a book.

Another one. Listen to Fundamentalists carefully and you will hear them say "the only way to know about God is the Bible". This, of course, contradicts the basic Christian belief of a risen Jesus and a relationship with God and Jesus thru the Holy Ghost. So, in this statement Fundamentalists are denying the creedal assertion of the Holy Ghost and the continuing personal relationship with God.

I actually did both. I'm talented like that.

Please expand. Walk us thru the details of how my analysis is wrong.

So far the only talents I've seen you display is for obfuscation and ducking issues.

Accuracy is certainly not the only measure of a successful theory.

You have to define "successful". Accuracy with what we find in the physical universe is the basis for any other criteria. If the hypothesis/theory does not do that, then none of the others matter.

Then in sciences other than physics there are theories that causally explan natural effects but can't be used to accurately predict them in measurable terms. Such are biological evolution, and also plate techtonics in relation to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

AH! Here's the problem. You are using the word "predict" in the lay definition of "telling a future event". That isn't how science uses the word "predict". In science, predict means finding new observations/facts not presently known but that should be there if the theory is true.

For instance, in evolution "scorpionflies (Mecoptera) and true flies (Diptera) have enough similarities that entomologists consider them to be closely related. Scorpionflies have four wings of about the same size, and true flies have a large front pair of wings but the back pair is replaced by small club-shaped structures. If Diptera evolved from Mecoptera, as comparative anatomy suggests, scientists predicted that a fossil fly with four wings might be found—and in 1976 this is exactly what was discovered." Teaching about Evolution and Science, National Academy of Science

Chapter 5 Frequently Asked Questions About Evolution and the Nature of Science

http://books.nap.edu/catalog/5787.html

Do you see Merlin? This is not predicting the future, but predicting facts we should find if the theory is true. So yes, both evolotion and plate tectonics "predict" in the scientific use of the word.

So Kepler's laws could be used to accurately predict the orbital motion of celestial bodies but said nothing about the weight, trajectory and free-fall of obects that are not in orbital motion like Newton's laws.

But Kepler wasn't trying to do that! He was only trying to explain the observations of planets from earth. And his "laws" about planetary orbits did that. Hypotheses/theories have boundaries and no theory explains everything. Even the so-called "Theory of Everything" isn't going to do that. It won't explain evolution, for instance. It will only unite Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. That's a huge goal, but still limited.

Also, by being a theory of natural cause and effect, Newton's account of gravity

What do you mean by "natural" here. You need to be careful. Both Newton and his contemporary Gravesende were very clear about what "natural" meant.

"A Law of Nature then is the rule and Law, according to which God resolved that certain Motions should always, that is, in all Cases be performed. Every Law does immediately depend upon the Will of God." Gravesande, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy, I, 2-3, 1726, quoted in CC Gillespie, Genesis and Geology, 1959.

So perhaps more important than measured accuracy are the range of application and explanatory power of a theory.

Not "more important". After all, if the theory is not accurate, then the range of application and explanatory power don't mean a thing. Flood Geology has a huge range of application and explanatory power. But it isn't accurate. So it's gone.

So one could conclude that QFT is only the small scale equivalent to Kepler's account of the large scale behaviour of objects, and wonder whether the lack of a cause and effect explanation of quantum wave, spin and entanglement behaviour in QFT is the reason why no successful theory has been developed that unifies quantum theory with gravity and the general theory of relativity.

That's not the reason according to everything I have read. Physicists say that the problem is quanticizing gravity. Remember, quanta are discrete entities, but gravity is continuous.

then finding support for this hypothesis from a wide range of larger scale natural evidence of where a distinct cause could be considered to act in addition to the known forces.

That's your problem: finding support. What you want to do is try to show your theory false. The reason is that nearly ANY theory will have evidence in support of it. So, if you look for support ONLY, you will find it. What you need to do is seriously look for evidence against your theory. Evidence counts as "support" if and only if it was obtained by a serious but unsuccessful attempt to show the theory to be wrong.

All that said, your post does remind me of the writings of Phillip Kitcher. He was trying to find a criteria to tell science from pseudoscience. Kitcher assumed accuracy. Ad hoc hypotheses come in when the theory is NOT accurate (such as Newton when it came to the orbit of Uranus). So Kitcher had 3 characteristics of "successful" science or scientific theories:

1. Independent testability.

2. Unification

3. Fecundity

"I have highlighted three characteristics of successful science. Independent testability is achieved when it is possible to test auxiliary hypotheses independently of the particular cases for which they are introduced. Unification is the result of applying a small family of problem-solving strategies to a broad class of cases. Fecundity grows out of incompleteness when a theory opens up new and profitable lines of investigation." Phillip Kitcher Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism

"'Human' to the discontinuous mind, is an absolute concept. There can be no half measures. And from this flows much evil."-Richard Dawkins

In the future, yourdad, you need to provide the full citation. Where did Dawkins write this? Are you taking it out of context?

I did find a case where Dawkins discusses this: http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Dawkins/Work/Articles/1993gaps_in_the_mind.shtml

The problem is that Dawkins tries to make apples into oranges. Yes, Dawkins is correct that in the transformation of one species to another, there is no discontinuity where you can say "at this generation, you have a new species". The process is so gradual and continuous that this is not possible.

But that is evolution. Dawkins tries to export that to legal/ethical issues. The lawyer and anti-abortion groups have a point: in terms of laws and ethics, there must come a point where all the laws we apply to humans come into force, but they don't apply before that point. Laws and ethics do work on discontinuities.

We see this in our laws applying to teenagers. Yes, growing from child to functioning adult is a continuous process, but at some point we make a discontinuity because we must. We decide whether the individual should be tried as a child or adult. We decide when the individual can drive a car or legally drink or vote. It's a discontinuity. Turn 16 and boom! you can get your driver's license! Turn 21 and you can legally drink alcohol. There is no slow, continuous change here. It's all or nothing. When I was growing up, the legal drinking age was 18. My generation demonstrated that we were not mature enough -- as a group -- to handle that.

Driving speed of a car is continuous. You can drive any speed between 0 and 120 mph. BUT, in all conditions we have a discontinuity on what constitutes a legal speed and an illegal one. In a school zone 20.0000 mph is legal, but > 20.0000 is illegal.

The problem is not having a continuous or discontinuous mind, but trying to impose continuity on a discontinuous situation or trying to impose discontinuity on a continuous system. Dawkins cannot impose continuity on the law or ethics anymore than the lawyer can impose discontinuity on evolution.

Even Dawkins can't avoid discontinuities. At the end of the article, we see this: "Nevertheless, it must be conceded that this book's proposal to admit great apes to the charmed circle of human privilege stands square in the discontinuous tradition. "

lucaspa, why does it have to be all or nothing? ... "'Human' to the discontinuous mind, is an absolute concept. There can be no half measures. And from this flows much evil."-Richard Dawkins

From an ethical and legal standpoint, it does have to be all or nothing. Dawkins in this case (as in many others) is in error. Look at 2 examples: slaveryand race relations in America and Hitler's attitude toward the "subraces".

In the Constitution, blacks are deemed to count as part human in determining the number of people in a state to determine the number of representatives. In the end, slaves were three-fifths a person. Under that non-discontinuous system, much evil was done.

Move forward to the 20th century and segregation. Blacks were no longer slaves but were not considered full people, either, were they? They had inferior schools, separate drinking fountains, etc. All this was based on the idea that they were not "full" people equal to whites. Even evolution was co-opted for this. The idea was that whites were more "fully evolved" than blacks or mongoloids (Asians). So here there is a continuous system -- evolution -- but much evil done.

Hitler used both a discontinuous system -- special creation -- and a continuous system -- evolution -- to justify his idea that some groups of people were not full people. Aryans, of course, were at the top. But then there is a gradation of "personhood" to the Latins, Slavs, blacks, and Jews. And a difference in treatment. Slavs are just dispossesed from their land in the Ukraine while Jews are to be exteriminated. So you have your "continuous" system, and great evil is done under it.

Now, the choice is not personhood or a "rock". I think you can apply a universal standard: no unnecessary or gratuitous pain and suffering. Yes, you can raise animals for food, but killing them should be as painless as possible and you don't slaughter without using all you can of the animal. Thus, under this system, the slaughter of buffalo by white hunters for their hides and tongues only would be unethical. Torture of pets would be unethical. Medical research where analgesics could be given but are not is unethical. All because there is unnecessary or gratuitous pain and suffering.

Wow, you completely ignored the point of every post I made.

Yourdad, the rest of your post indicates that I did not ignore the points of the post.

What this did was show an example of faulty premise on Singer's part. He got "persona" wrong -- and attributed the origin to the Romans instead of the Greeks to boot!

Now,I know that not every post you have made is about Singer, animal rights, or even Trinity. So your comment is patently false.

But using one rock to make another one sharper doesn't count?

Nope. That's making a tool. Now, if you used the sharp rock to cut a strip of skin from an animal to attach the sharp rock to the end of stick to make a spear, then you would be making a tool to make a tool. Humans do that. As far as I know, no other known species does.

You would see that he does, but not in the same amount as they don't feel pain the same way we do. Again, your discontinuous mind fails you. It isn't all or nothing.

Are you saying that Singer advocates some exploitation of some animals, based on a sliding scale on whether they feel pain like we do? (How does he know they do or not?) If so, can you please find the quote where he says that? Because, so far, all you've quoted is an absolute, not a sliding scale.

Even in a sliding scale, Singer must say "we can do X to species A, but not to species B: So even here we have a discontinuity. Yourdad, this whole thread is about being discontinuous! It's about saying "this species is a person with all the rights/obligations of humans but this species is not." Or saying, "this individual is a person but this individual is not." You did that when you said "not all humans are people". That is discontinuous! It's an either/or choice with no middle ground.

Now, what does any of this have to do with personhood?

This is a way you argue, isn't it yourdad? When you can't answer the arugment, you play stupid and pretent you don't understand how the argument applies. I explained the chain of reasoning. I'll do it again. Please pay attention; there will be a test.

Singer's extension of "personhood" to other animal species and the fact that his criteria become meaningless because even Singer can't and doesn't meet them. Singer hasn't thought it thru as to the ethical and contradictory consequences of his attempt to define "person" and his statement "our concern for their suffering should not depend on how rational and self-aware they might be." If we take that to its logical conclusion, our "concern" forces us to starve to death, because our life must come at the expense of suffering of other animal species!

Mice and voles are not as "rational and self-aware" as chimps. BUT, according to Singer we must have the same concern for their suffering as we would have for chimps and humans.

So ... it's almost time for spring plowing, isn't it? In the time since harvest, mice and voles have moved into fields, mated, and had litters. Now the plow moves thru the field and the nests of the mice and voles, either killing them and their kids outright, or burying the kids to suffocate to death!

Try to follow Singer's logic here: we are concerned for such suffering in humans and would not allow such suffering. Presumably Singer would not allow us to go smother a chimp baby, either. Well then, if "our concern" is not limited by the self-awareness of the species, then think about it. Shouldn't we be so concerned about killing mouse babies that we do not plow the field? Then how do we grow enough crops to feed everyone?

You see the absurdity if we follow Singer's line of reasoning to its logical conclusion? Singer doesn't accept these conclusions.

If you are going to argue for animal rights, you have to use a different argument from Singer's.

Despite how poetic it sounds, not all humans are equal.

I didn't say they were "equal", just that members of H. sapiens are all people with the rights/obligations attached to that.

Not all humans are people

Which ones are not and how do you decide? Think carefully. Remember, it was thinking that blacks were not people that led to racism. Look at the list I provided of individuals that would be excluded by Locke.

and not all people are humans.

That's what we are trying to decide. Therefore you can't state it like you did -- as "fact".

Where do we cut off our species? Again, you are thinking discontinuously. Consider the following quote from Dawkins.

The Dawkins quote does not apply. What Dawkins is doing is getting to the common ancestor, not to the species Pan troglodytes. The biological species concept applies: a species is a population that freely interbreeds to produce fertile offspring. Chimps and humans do not interbreed; we are separate species.

And yes, there are discontinuities in nature. Darwin talked about them. They arise because the intervening species from the common ancestor to us and from the common ancestor to chimps have all gone extinct.

Thus we should not take the organs from a breathing Anencephalic baby to give to one who would actually stand a chance at surviving had they had an implant.

Why not? By Locke's definition, the anencephalic baby is not human! The baby is human only because she/he belongs to the group!

People are individuals, not groups. Why define them by groups?

See above. Not all members of the group meet Locke's definition of "person" as an individual. But as you stated, the ancephalic baby is still considered a person. For that matter, YOU are still considered a person if you go into a coma, yet you wouldn't meet Locke's criteria.

This is not limiting the definition of "person", yourdad, but expanding it and making sure it covers everyone who we agree should be covered.

As I said, AI is going to present a problem. Notice that Singer is trying to get a group -- chimps -- accepted as people, not trying to get a single chimp accepted as one. And, in fact, if there were only one chimp in the Arnhem Zoo, most of the behavior Singer points to in order to argue for "personhood" would not be observable, would it?

So, when we have a single computer that passes a Turing test, would we consider that one computer as a "person", or would we wait until there were hundreds or thousands of such computers?

Let me ask you this: did the 14th Amendment apply to just individuals or a group? In order for equal rights to apply, do we have to test every individual to see if they fit Locke's definition of "person", or did we extend rights to all blacks at the same time?