Help on flaws in "Shattering the Myth of Darwinism"?

[the advocate]

You have 2 different claims here:

1. Getting life from non-life.

2. Getting "something as complex as the cells we have today."

 

Those are 2 VERY different things. "Life" does not need to be like we see it today in order to be "life". The protocells are living by the basic definition of life: metabolism, growth, response to stimuli, reproduction. What protocells lack that modern cells have is directed protein synthesis. However, there are several paths (in small steps) to get from protocells to directed protein synthesis.

 

 

This point comes down to how life is defined. We can choose to progressively dumb down the definition of life until anything can be considered living technically. For example, you could claim a single hydrogen atom was alive if your definition of living matter was anything that moves. It comes down to whether or not people generally accept your definition life and I believe that most scientists would not. Given that this is such a new field, the suggestion seems a premature and a bit overenthusiastic.

 

While I am impressed by the protocells, they are mainly important in that they suggest the possibility that there could be a gradient of alive ish stuff. Now that you have indicated that abiogenesis is not something that Darwinisim applies itself to and not part of evolutionary theory, I would prefer to leave it to the side in order to concentrate on other points.

 

 

You missed my point: theologically god-of-the-gaps is wrong. Having it used by "both sides" doesn't make it correct. So, in trying to make abiogenesis part of evolution, what you were doing was arguing theism vs atheism using god-of-the-gaps. You are still trying to use GOTG by your "gut instinct" that "there is more than chemistry". After all, WHAT is that "more"? I'm betting you are planning to say "God".

 

 

No, that's non my intention here. But I would like to discuss the gaps in science. As I said, scientific discoveries cannot be used to compel anyone to take a position whether theist or atheist although they may well incline individuals one way or another i.e. to faith in God or faith in atheism. Centuries before Einstein showed a connection between space and time, theologians reasoned that the universe was created with time, not in time. This implies that space and time (and everything else) are created and come into existence together (note - it makes no sense to say “at the same time”). As far as I understand, The creator is utterly distinct from he Creation existing out-with the Creation. For this reason, there can be no direct evidence of the Creator within the creation. No talk of absolute proof or disproof.

 

 

To put God into the "gaps" in scientific knowledge has, as its corollary, that God is absent where there is no gap. This theological mistake is what allows Dawkins and other militant atheists to misuse science to say God does not exist. Trying to "prove" the existence of God by the use of "gaps" such as abiogenesis and your "gut instinct" leads you into the position where science would "disprove" God by filling in all the gaps.

 

 

What I was getting at is that certain people in scientific authority as well as religious authority overstep the mark when they try to draw definite conclusions about the existence of God from science. Science, or more generally experience may incline us to believe in God but cannot prove it and vice versa. As I said, there is no compulsion.

 

However, it's worse when scientists try to do this because people are supposed to trust their objectivity and honesty above all else. The general public as well as fellow scientists in other disciplines rely heavily on specialist to interpret the scientific 'scripture' for them without prejudice.

 

For example, when prominent scientists such as Dawkins address groups of school children to preach that certain scientific theories can disprove the existence of God using arguments that are patently unscientific, it undermines public trust in all of science.

 

 

Judeo-Christianity long ago abandoned god-of-the-gaps partly due to the theological problems. The rejected theology has been revived by creationists and IDers. It shows that, as dreadful as creationism and ID is as science, it is even worse as theology. Since you have read Milton: does he ever state or imply that, since Darwinism is wrong, this means that God created?

 

 

No. He explicitly sets out his personal views in the postscript. He claims to be an agnostic. He also also claims to be open minded concerning the possibility of some kind of evolution but believes the case has still to be made. He goes further by claiming that evidence which supports alternative evolutionary mechanisms has been suppressed (can we leave this till later?).

 

 

Darwinism is certainly falisifiable -- or was.

 

 

Are you agreeing with Richard Milton that Darwinism is now considered unfalsifiable?

 

If so, you need to state whether or not you take this to mean that Darwinism has been proven. Remember:

 

The old scientific ideal of epistēmē – of absolute certain, demonstrable knowledge – has proved to be an idol. The demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative for ever. It may indeed be corroborated, but every corroboration is relative to other statements which, again, are tentative. Only in our subjective experiences of conviction, in our subjective faith, can we be “absolutely certain”.

 

This statement is taken from Karl Popper's “The Logic of Scientific Discovery. The emphasis and quotes are Popper's. Today, most scientists would agree with Popper that theories are never really confirmed by experiment, but can at best survive from one test to the next, remaining hostage to possible disproof tomorrow.

 

 

About the only data not looked at that could falsify common ancestry is finding mammalian fossils in pre-Cambrian or Cambrian strata.

 

 

I'm sorry, I know this sound unfair, but this statement alone is enough to ensure that Common ancestry like all other theories remain “tentative for ever”. To even begin verifying this statement, we would have to start by checking all the pre-Cambrian strata. In addition, it is possible to imagine countless other scenarios such as the one you mentioned above which would falsify common ancestry or Darwinism. The fact that you claim that only one is being looked for implies that the attempt is half hearted. A kind of token gesture.

 

 

Remember, Popper never said that a theory had to be ALWAYS falsifiable. Just that, when proposed, there should be data that COULD, if found, show it false. Evolution had that. What Milton fails to see is that that tests were done and evolution was not falsified. Because all those tests were done, basically evolution is now not false and we can't think of any more tests that could possibly falsify it.

 

 

You're right, but he did say that in order to remain scientific, a theory should be falsifiable.

But in any case, what if you could think of some new tests in future? e.g. when new data emerges, when separate fields which are related to Darwinism advance and begin to muscle in on "it's territory".

 

I find it amazing that you are claiming that no one can think of any tests which could possibly falsify Darwinism. For a self confessed Popperian, you seem to be overly protective. Are you saying that at one time in the past, Darwinism was falsifiable but now, having survived a limited number of test, this is no longer the case so we are secure?

 

“Once put forward, none of our none of our “anticipations” are dogmatically upheld. Our method of research is not to defend them in order to prove how right we were. On the contrary, we try to overthrow them. Using all the weapons of our logical, mathematical, and technical armoury, we try to prove that our anticipations were false – in order to put forward, in their stead, new unjustified and unjustifiable anticipations.”

 

Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery

 

 

I find it interesting that Milton is so ignorant of the philosophy of science that he thinks evolution fails 2 different and contradictory views of science. That's right. The Kuhnian version of how science is/should be done can't be reconciled to Popper's version of how science is/should be done. Popper says theories are falsified on the data. Kuhn denies that. If Popper is right, Kuhn is wrong, and vice versa. Yet Milton tries to tell us that evolution "fails" each one?

 

 

I think he's saying that whichever philosophy of science you support, whether Popper or Khun, Darwinism does not stand up well to either.

 

 

Since I am a Popperian, I'll subject Milton's statements to testing to see if they are 1) falsifiable and 2) falsified. By Milton's statement, there should be NO novel or surprising facts found by evolution and that publications involving evolution should be decreasing over time (a declining paradigm):

 

One of the most surprising results in the last decade or so is that natural selection is such a good method of getting design. Natural selection -- in the form of genetic algorithms -- are so good at getting design that people now use them when the design problem is too tough for them. And then they are surprised that they don't know how the design works! A Scientific American article in 2003 discussed how natural selection is being used to get patentable inventions! And, of course, to get a patent the idea must be "novel". Jr Koza, MA Keane, MJ Streeter, Evolving inventions. Scientific American, 52-59, Feb 2003 check out http://www.genetic-programming.com

 

 

Can we also discuss this later. It is an important point which Milton does address?

 

 

Also, if you look at PubMed using the search term "evolution" and then look at the time limits for how far back you search, you will see that the number of articles that involve evolution has been increasing over time. That is, in the last 6 months there are more articles using/describing evolution than in the 6 months before that, and that number is larger than the 6 months before that, etc. A declining "paradigm" doesn't do that.

 

 

It is interesting to note that in 1900, Lord Kelvin famously stated, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity.

 

The decline of a paradigm is not marked necessarily by a decrease in the number of papers published under its umbrella. Even when a paradigm shift occurs, the 'falsified' paradigm can continue to have useful applications. I would not be surprised if more papers are currently published today which rely on Newtonian Mechanics than when it was (with hind sight) seen to be declining towards the end of the 19th century. Newtonian mathematics is much simpler than relativistic counterpart, and subject to a small number of restrictions it is still incredibly accurate. For these reasons and others, it continues to be taught widely in schools and universities. But there are many other obvious reasons which could account for the increase in publications.

 

The world population is growing. The world economy is growing, Education is increasing. Science is now a multi billion dollar business. Consequently, the number of papers in many fields of science have been increasing steadily.

 

No, the number of papers published is not a criterion for judging whether or not a paradigm is in decline. It is the extent to which the scientists increasingly rely on ad hoc hypotheses to explain anomalous data, accumulating as it does during the course of Khuns “normal science” that indicates when a paradigm is in decline. Explanations become increasingly complex and cumbersome and divisions within the closed community begin to show signs of forming. The rules of normal science loosen etc.

 

 

In terms of medicine, evolution by natural selection is providing explanations for old problems that seemed intractable. Two of these are 1) infectious diseases and 2) the failure of cancer therapies.

 

2. RM Nesse and GC Williams, Evolution and the origins of disease. Scientific American 279: 86-93, Nov. 1998. Concepts from evolution help unify the medical sciences.

4. BR Levin, M Lipsitch, S Bonhoeffer, Evolution and disease: population biology, evolution, and infectious disease: convergence and synthesis. Science 283: 806-809, Feb. 5, 1998.

7. KC Nicolaou, CNC Boddy, Behind enemy lines. Scientific American 284: 54-61, May 2001

 

So, by Popperian science, I have falsified Milton's hypotheses by finding data that can't be there if his statements are true.

 

 

Earlier you stated that Milton was "so ignorant of the philosophy of science" but your own "proof " does not seem to show much knowledge of Popper. There are a number of issues here. Richard Milton was asking if Darwins theory predicted any novel and as yet unobserved phenomena which could allow it to be falsified. This is a key test of the value of scientific theory according to Popper. Not how many papers are published. You stated earlier:

 

“Darwinism is certainly falisifiable -- or was.”

 

This implies that as far as Popperians are concerned, Darwinism is a poor theory. If you could elaborate a number of bold predictions not yet tested which were disprovable then it would have been a good theory. Subsequent testing and confirmation would render the theory “better corroborated” but not proven. Remember, any theory can show some evidence of corroboration but no amount of corroborating evidence increases even the probability of a theory being true. The probability is always zero.

 

If you really are a Poperian, then you have not shown much evidence of this so far. I was hoping that you could have brought me up to date with some of the foundational questions of Darwinism. I personally believe that scientists should not be ashamed to wash their dirty linen in public or drag the skeletons from the closet now and again and that it benefits science in the long run.

[DrDNA]

Holy smokes folks!

[Mr Skeptic]

I'm sorry, I was not aware that we had started a competition on who can make the longest post. Isn't there a size limit or something?

 

Remember, any theory can show some evidence of corroboration but no amount of corroborating evidence increases even the probability of a theory being true. The probability is always zero.

 

Uh, no. That would mean that it is impossible to ever state something true about the universe. I think you meant "we can never be 100% certain that any theory, no matter how good, is true"

[the advocate]

Uh, no. That would mean that it is impossible to ever state something true about the universe. I think you meant "we can never be 100% certain that any theory, no matter how good, is true"

 

It depends what you mean by true. If you mean episteme (i.e. absolute certain demonstrable knowledge) then according to Popper the probability of any theory being true is zero. A statement such us "Darwinism is 79% confirmed, say, is totally unsupportable. How can you meaningfully put a figure to any such probability. Even today, many practicing scientists remain unnaware of Poppers conclusion and that it has been generally accepted by philosophers of Science.

 

The example of Newtons Laws of motion cannot be stated enough to demonstrate this point. They form the basis of classical Mechanics. His theory was considered by most scientists to have attained the status of "absolute certain, demonstrable knowledge". Newton had they believed uncovered the key to Gods design of the universe. The question was no longer whether Newtons Theories were episteme but how to prove this once and for all.

 

Bold predictions were made which turned out to be spectacularly confirmed. Even today, subject to a few limited conditions, the accuracyof Newtons Laws of motion is unbelievable inspite of the fact that they are clearly not true in the absolute sense.

 

Newtons Laws made many predictions which were well beyond experimental testing at the time. As experimental methods improved, e.g. the ability to test Newtons laws at higher speeds, his results continued to correspond with experiment for decades, leading people to generalise that they would hold under all conditions and for all time. We know now that Newtons Laws break down at speeds approaching the speed of light. This is a cautionary tale to science which has not quite sunk in to many, especially in the biology establishment.

 

Now back to my original request. In The Facts of Life, Richard Milton claims that the enormous explanatory power of Darwinism (and one of the reasons it is still widely accepted by the public) is due in a large part to whole classes of explanations which while plausible are completely untestable. He refers generally to the “infinite elasticity of Darwinism to speculate endlessly while avoiding contact with the facts”.

 

One such class of 'evidence' is exemplified by the account of “How the Giraffe” got its long neck. The giraffe account is my earliest recollection of Darwinism at school and I remember liking it because I found that I was able to make up convincing stories of my own of how this or that characteristic evolved. I am not referring at the moment to any modern day short-term lab experiments which may appear to support these ideas. I would just like peoples views on whether or not these explanations of historical adaptions purported to have occurred millions of years ago can ever be verified conclusively. Milton does point out that a number such explanations, which were given wide coverage initially, are now considered to be wrong. Can these explanations be backed up using fossil record for example. Should they form part of the body of scientific evidence supporting Darwinism.

[Mr Skeptic]

No, I consider "true" and "demonstrably true" to be very separate things.

 

Also, I believe it is impossible to have a system where any statement has a zero probability of being true. For example, I would expect one of the phrases "things fall down" and "it is not the case that things fall down" to be true, even if it were impossible to prove which one is actually true.

 

I hold that while it is possible to say true things about the universe, it is impossible to prove that they are true beyond any shadow of doubt. So every theory must forever be considered potentially false. I also believe that it is possible to estimate the probability of a theory being true, and its accuracy.

[the advocate]

 

I would expect one of the phrases "things fall down" and "it is not the case that things fall down" to be true, even if it were impossible to prove which one is actually true.

 

 

You would not be appraising these statements, you would be appraising the entire theory which purports to explain the statement we observe. Newtons, Einstein etc

 

I also believe that it is possible to estimate the probability of a theory being true, and its accuracy.

 

 

I agree with Popper that it is an impossible and meaningless task trying to assign "probable truth" to a theory. It may in future be possible to assign some kind of figure to indicate how good a theory is in order to compare it with other theories but it will not be considered a "probability of truth".

 

On a practical level, it wil be an enormous interdisciplinary task and the results may well be bitterly disputed. It will likely be prohibitively expensive and will only provide a snapshot of the theory(s) in question. This type of approach will be most likely be used on a smaller scale to help accountants decide when to close down a research program I think.

[Mr Skeptic]

Also, I believe it is impossible to have a system where any statement has a zero probability of being true. For example, I would expect one of the phrases "things fall down" and "it is not the case that things fall down" to be true, even if it were impossible to prove which one is actually true.

 

You would not be appraising these statements, you would be appraising the entire theory which purports to explain the statement we observe. Newtons, Einstein etc

 

No, I'm pretty sure you said any theory:

Remember, any theory can show some evidence of corroboration but no amount of corroborating evidence increases even the probability of a theory being true. The probability is always zero.

 

By assigning limitations on the scope and accuracy of a theory, I believe it is possible to make a useful statement that is absolutely true, even if it is not provable or correct past the stated limitations.

 

Regardless, your claim that the probability of a theory being true is always zero is a contradiction. Take any theory A. Then, according to you, A is false. So you assert ~A is true. So if I say "Einstein's theory of gravity is not true", then your claim becomes "Einstein's theory of gravity is true"

[lucaspa]

This point comes down to how life is defined. We can choose to progressively dumb down the definition of life until anything can be considered living technically.

 

Sorry, but I am NOT moving the goalposts. I'm taking the standard definition for life. From Merriam-Webster: "c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction"

 

The protocells have ALL of those. What has happened is that some scientists -- for personal reasons -- added the requirement of directed protein synthesis. It's obvious that isn't required.

 

But I would like to discuss the gaps in science.

 

You sidestepped my point. You still want to discuss "gaps" in science. Theologically you cannot insert God into those gaps. It is wrong to do so by theological reasoning, not scientific reasoning.

 

As I said, scientific discoveries cannot be used to compel anyone to take a position whether theist or atheist although they may well incline individuals one way or another i.e. to faith in God or faith in atheism.

 

I would add the caveat "right now". I don't want to speak for all time. For instance, if ekpyrotic is true, then it pretty much wipes out theism. That's a very big "if", which is why I bolded it.

 

As far as I understand, The creator is utterly distinct from he Creation existing out-with the Creation. For this reason, there can be no direct evidence of the Creator within the creation. No talk of absolute proof or disproof.

 

That's not the reason. The reason is not due to deity but science. science cannot directly test for deity. The limitation is called Methodological Materialism and derives directly from how we do experiments. We can't "control" for deity or supernatural. Deity gets into science by the backdoor: propose a material mechanism of deity and then test for the mechanism. A great example is Flood Geology: God causes a Flood and the Flood causes all of geology. Scientists didn't test for God; they tested (and refuted) the Flood. Does this mean that God does not cause geology? No. It means God doesn't cause geology THIS way. Creationism has the mechanism of direct manufacture of organisms or parts of them. The data shows that this mechanism is false. (BTW, notice that this is Popperian science: showing a theory -- creationism/ID -- to be false).

 

What I was getting at is that certain people in scientific authority as well as religious authority overstep the mark when they try to draw definite conclusions about the existence of God from science. Science, or more generally experience may incline us to believe in God but cannot prove it and vice versa. As I said, there is no compulsion.

 

I agree that some scientists present their personal beliefs as science. Dawkins, PZ Meyer, and Michael Behe are particularly abusive in this. They get the science wrong. Belief in God or belief that God does not exist comes from outside science.

 

For example, when prominent scientists such as Dawkins address groups of school children to preach that certain scientific theories can disprove the existence of God using arguments that are patently unscientific, it undermines public trust in all of science.

 

1. When has Dawkins addressed groups of school children? When has science been presented as atheistic in public schools?

 

2. The reason it "undermines the public trust in all of science" is that creationists spin it this way for their own reasons. If the public understood science, it would ONLY undermine Dawkins' "objectivity" on this subject.

 

No. He explicitly sets out his personal views in the postscript. He claims to be an agnostic. He also also claims to be open minded concerning the possibility of some kind of evolution but believes the case has still to be made. He goes further by claiming that evidence which supports alternative evolutionary mechanisms has been suppressed (can we leave this till later?).

 

Quite frankly, I think Milton is lying. He is using too many of the already refuted creationist arguments for me to think he is really agnostic and being "open minded". If he were truly open minded, he would have found the refutation for those arguments already. But yes, we can leave it until later.

 

Are you agreeing with Richard Milton that Darwinism is now considered unfalsifiable?

 

No. I'm saying it hasn't been falsified and we are running out of tests that haven't been performed. "Unfalsifiable" is a state whereby no test could possibly falsify it. "Falsifiable" is a state whereby you can specify data that, if found, would falsify it. That doesn't mean you are going to find that data. You may find data that supports the theory, instead. A theory doesn't go from "falsifiable" to "unfalsifiable" because the tests have been done and not falsified it. The theory is still "falsifiable", it's just that we can't find any datat that actually falsifies it.

 

Common ancestry could still be falsified if we were to find mammalian fossils in Cambrian or pre-Cambrian strata.

 

Thank you for the quote from Popper. I have the book and I am a Popperian -- subject to some valid criticism of Popper.

 

Popper does state that theories can get "confirmation":

"2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions.

3. Every 'good' scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.

4. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it.

5. Confirming evidence should not count *except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory:* and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory." [emphasis Popper's] Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963 p 38.

 

So the situation is more complicated than you portray. Yes, our theories remain "tentative" in that we cannot, strictly speaking, "prove" them. However, there comes a point where attempts to falsify the theory repeatedly fail and we provisionally accept the theory as true. Notice that "provisionally". We can always change our minds if new data comes up -- those mammalian fossils in Cambrian strata.

 

But in the meantime we accept the theory as provisionally true. We then use the theory/hypothesis as background for other hypotheses/theories. A classic example is heliocentrism. We provisionally accept that the planets orbit the sun, Kepler's laws of those orbits, and Einstein's (and Newton's) laws of motion. We then use those theories to calculate the paths of spacecraft to other planets. When those spacecraft arrive where and when we calculate them to arrive (accepting the theories as true), then that becomes more supporting data for the theories.

 

Theories are tested in bundles. You have read a little of Popper. Time to read Pierre Duhem. Evolution doesn't stop being tested. But by this time it is perverse not to accept evolution as provisionally true.

 

In addition, it is possible to imagine countless other scenarios such as the one you mentioned above which would falsify common ancestry or Darwinism.

 

Name some that haven't been tested for common ancestry. Equivalent statements, such as finding bird fossils, don't count. If there are "countless" you should have no trouble listing 10 for us.

 

BTW, "common ancestry or Darwinism" are not the same thing. Darwin actually proposed 5 theories that we lump together under "evolution". The latest when common ancestry as a whole was tested was when DNA sequences became easy and cheap to get. Phylogenetic analysis compared base sequences across taxa. IF common ancestry was wrong, those sequences would have been independent. Instead, the sequences showed historical relationships -- what common ancestry predicts. That pretty well covers just about everything else.

 

But in any case, what if you could think of some new tests in future? e.g. when new data emerges, when separate fields which are related to Darwinism advance and begin to muscle in on "it's territory".

 

I noted above when molecular biology was able to make a new test for Darwinism. I also note that when it became possible to do amino acid sequences of proteins, the same thing was done looking at proteins from different taxa to see if they were related. This has been, is being done, all the time. And yes, if there is new data challenging evolution, then we consider this. However, notice that the new claims don't get a free ride. Just because someone says the data refutes Darwinism doesn't automatically mean it does. This claim too is open to testing trying to falsify it.

 

I find it amazing that you are claiming that no one can think of any tests which could possibly falsify Darwinism. For a self confessed Popperian, you seem to be overly protective.

 

Not protective. Just that the tests HAVE BEEN DONE! Pay attention. If you can think of tests, put them out there. But there are a lot of evolutionary biologists who have been working -- by Popperian science -- since 1859 testing evolution. PubMed has over 150,000 articles just since 1965 that involve tests of evolution! We are at the stage of testing evolution the way we test heliocentrism -- by having it as one of the bundle of hypotheses, not the primary one.

 

Are you saying that at one time in the past, Darwinism was falsifiable but now, having survived a limited number of test, this is no longer the case so we are secure?

 

Are we secure with heliocentrism? Cell theory? The helix theory of DNA? This gets to what you quoted from Popper:

 

“Once put forward, none of our none of our “anticipations” are dogmatically upheld. Our method of research is not to defend them in order to prove how right we were. On the contrary, we try to overthrow them. Using all the weapons of our logical, mathematical, and technical armoury, we try to prove that our anticipations were false – in order to put forward, in their stead, new unjustified and unjustifiable anticipations.”

 

Evolution is not "dogmatically" upheld. The parts that can be challenged are. Look at Gould with Punctuated Equilibrium, spandrels, and group selection. ALL of those challenged parts of evolution.

 

Another philosopher of science you need to read is Imre Lakatos. Lakatos talks about "research programmes" where you have core statements (hypotheses) and auxiliary hypotheses. Major theories like evolution have a few core hypotheses and hundreds of auxiliary hypotheses. Look at all the argument over the decades over the auxiliary hypotheses. Attempts to show them wrong.

 

The reason the core statements are still there is that people have tried to show them wrong and repeatedly failed. It's not that we haven't tried to overthrow the core statements, but we can't. You are mistaking "can't" for "don't want to".

 

You're right, but he did say that in order to remain scientific, a theory should be falsifiable.

 

No, Popper did NOT say that. He did not say "remain scientific". He said to be scientific, a theory when proposed had to be falsifiable. And evolution was falsifiable when it was proposed. I posted a criteria Darwin listed that would have falsified natural selection: if that data had been found. It hasn't been. (Note the humans have made navel oranges -- without seeds -- such that the trees produce fruit solely for the benefit of humans. And guess what? Navel orange trees were NOT made by natural selection!)

 

As it turns out, this is the part Popper got wrong. He was proposing a demarcation criteria between science and non-science. He was wrong. Falsification won't work as defining something as "scientific".

 

I think he's saying that whichever philosophy of science you support, whether Popper or Khun, Darwinism does not stand up well to either.

 

1. Milton is wrong about evolution being able to stand up.

2. Milton can't claim that evolution fails to satisfy 2 contradictory views of what science is. Since they contradict, anything that satisfies one is not going to satisfy the other.

 

Can we also discuss this later. It is an important point which Milton does address?

 

No, we can't. Since this is about Milton's book, I have tested Milton's statements and falsified them. You can't pretend it didn't happen and come back later.

 

No, the number of papers published is not a criterion for judging whether or not a paradigm is in decline. It is the extent to which the scientists increasingly rely on ad hoc hypotheses to explain anomalous data, accumulating as it does during the course of Khuns “normal science” that indicates when a paradigm is in decline.

 

Sorry, but you have Kuhn wrong. Kuhn didn't use the term "ad hoc hypotheses". That's Popper. Kuhn stated that anomalous data surfaced and was not handled. However, continuing testing Milton's statements trying to falsify them (BTW, aren't you a bit protective about Milton?), we find that evolution has handled the anomalies very well from within evolution. The most famous example is the relative rarity of transitional sequences between species in the fossil record. As Gould noted, if most speciation is by allopatric speciation (small populations peripherally isolated), then the fossil record is exactly what we would expect to see!

 

BTW, Kuhn emphasizes not a paradigm's decline, but that a paradigm is only replaced by another paradigm. Unlike Popper, who said we should drop a theory when falsified, even without a replacement, Kuhn insisted that theories are only dropped when there is a viable replacement. What does Milton offer as a viable alternative paradigm that we should drop Darwinism?

 

Richard Milton was asking if Darwins theory predicted any novel and as yet unobserved phenomena which could allow it to be falsified. This is a key test of the value of scientific theory according to Popper. Not how many papers are published.

 

You changed goalposts. The number of papers published addresses Milton's claim that evolution is a "declining paradigm". A consequence of that is that fewer and fewer papers are published as people switch to a NEW paradigm. I showed that the consequence was false. I continued to do that above as I showed that evolution has been able -- using evolution without ad hoc hypotheses -- to resolve anomalies.

 

Now, predicting new (novel) as yet unobserved phenomenon is a characteristic of a theory being successful under Popper. I also showed data that evolution was doing this. Again falsifying Milton.

 

You don't seem to be adhering to Popper and admitting falsifying data. Instead, you seem to be positing ad hoc hypotheses to avoid falsification.

 

This implies that as far as Popperians are concerned, Darwinism is a poor theory. If you could elaborate a number of bold predictions not yet tested which were disprovable then it would have been a good theory.

 

Moved the goalposts. You are forgetting history. Darwinism elaborated (past tense) a number of bold predictions not yet tested. But then the tests were done. And the bold predictions born out. It is not required that a "good" theory keep coming up with "bold" predictions. Relativity made the VERY bold prediction that light bent in a strong gravitational field. That prediction was born out. There is no requirement for Relativity to be a "good" theory that it keep coming up with bold predictions. You are making a strawman out of what Popper said.

 

Popper was talking about when a theory was formulated. As it is, evolution continues to be a very successful theory. Very recently, scientists used evolution to "predict" exactly which strata to look in to find transitional species between fish and amphibians.

And lo, they found Tiktaalik roseae.

 

Now, logically if a theory really has it right, it can't be falsified. Because it is correct. If we really could search thru all the possible Cambrian strata and do not find mammalian fossils, it would mean that evolution was "falsifiable" but not "falsified", wouldn't it?

 

Where are we with evolution and Darwinism? The testing of the original, bold predictions have been done. So we now use Darwinism as one of the bundle of (provisionally) true hypotheses as we make up new ones. We still test Darwinism a lot, but as part of the bundle and not as the main hypothesis.

 

Remember, any theory can show some evidence of corroboration but no amount of corroborating evidence increases even the probability of a theory being true. The probability is always zero.

 

This is where Popperianism runs into trouble. Compare that to what you said in a later post:

I would just like peoples views on whether or not these explanations of historical adaptions purported to have occurred millions of years ago can ever be verified conclusively. ... Should they form part of the body of scientific evidence supporting Darwinism.

 

If you adhere to a strict view of Popper, then YES! Even if we tested those historical adaptations and supported them, that doesn't mean they are true. Therefore, untested (not "verified") they are just as much support as they would be if tested!

 

But you don't think so, do you? You think the historical adaptations would offer more support for Darwin if they were tested and "confirmed" in the Popperian sense. So you don't agree with Popper.

 

You also have the problem that, if you think Popper is absolutely right, there is no way to "verify", is there? If the probability of correctness doesn't increase to the point of near certainty, then nothing can be "verified", can it? So, in view of your adherence to Popper, what would you accept as "verification"?

 

Now, Popper wrote that view because he tried to completely reject induction. If you completely reject induction, then you are logically left with this view. Popper painted himself into a corner. Popper realized this was wrong, which is why, in his later books, he allowed "a whiff of inductionism" into his view of science. As a theory continues to avoid falsification, induction is employed to give confidence that it will continue to avoid falsification. That is why we can accept theories as provisionally true.

 

Popper had some very good ideas on how, generally, science is done. But Popper is not the last and only word on how science is done. Popper was mistaken about things.

 

If you really are a Poperian, then you have not shown much evidence of this so far.

 

On the contrary, I have tested Milton's statements by trying -- and succeeding -- in falsifying them.

 

I personally believe that scientists should not be ashamed to wash their dirty linen in public or drag the skeletons from the closet now and again and that it benefits science in the long run.

 

LOL! Weren't you paying attention during the controversy of Punctuated Equilibrium? Haven't you been paying attention about the evo-devo debate? Haven't you been paying attention to the Feduccia-Ostrom arguments over the ancestry of birds or the recent Nature paper where Leakey challenges that habilis is the ancestor of erectus? Good grief, the controversies within evolution are all around you!

 

The problem is that the core statements of Darwinism haven't been overthrown because we can't. Scientists have tried. They tried with phylogenetic analysis. They tried before that with amino acid sequences. They tried before that with morphology.

 

When you look at molecular biology, do you see anyone challenging the foundational statement that DNA is a helix? Does that bother you? Do you think there is any data out there that would falsify that theory? Does that mean the theory wasn't falsifiable? Does that bother you? Do you see anyone challenging the foundational statements of heliocentrism? What evidence or tests can you propose that would falsify it? Haven't all the basic tests been done? What "bold new predictions" does heliocentrism make? Does that failure mean it isn't a "good theory"?

 

IOW, the Advocate, why are you applying standards to evolution that you don't apply to other theories? Your whole post is Special Pleading.

 

In The Facts of Life, Richard Milton claims that the enormous explanatory power of Darwinism (and one of the reasons it is still widely accepted by the public) is due in a large part to whole classes of explanations which while plausible are completely untestable. He refers generally to the “infinite elasticity of Darwinism to speculate endlessly while avoiding contact with the facts”.

 

One such class of 'evidence' is exemplified by the account of “How the Giraffe” got its long neck.

 

Milton, and you, have made a strawman. The giraffe neck is used to illustrate the difference between 2 theories: natural selection and Lamarckism. It compares those 2 theories on how they would explain the giraffe got the long neck. The claim was NEVER made that either explanation had been tested in that instance.

 

Do you want the specific examples that Milton used or do you want data on whether the general idea of natural selection providing adaptations? In terms of general data, there are examples both in living species (having intermediates) and in the fossil record.

 

For instance, in terms of complex organs, a recent study looked the evolution of placenta. They did this in a fish genus where the living species display intermediate stages of evolution of the placenta:

1. David N. Reznick, Mariana Mateos, and Mark S. Springer Independent Origins and Rapid Evolution of the Placenta in the Fish Genus Poeciliopsis Science 298: 1018-1020, Nov. 1, 2002. Intermediate steps in same genus. http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mmateos/reznicketal.pdf News article at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/298/5595/945a

 

In a real-time experiment where the particular environment was known, the adaptation that natural selection should produce was predicted and then supported by the experiment:

2. Reznick, DN, Shaw, FH, Rodd, FH, and Shaw, RG. Evaluationof the rate of evolution in natural populations of guppies (Poeciliareticulata). Science 275:1934-1937, 1997. The lay article isPredatory-free guppies take an evolutionary leap forward, pg 1880.

 

Other real-time experiments have looked at evolution of E.coli, tracking mutations and the adaptive advantage they cause:

2. Evolution in E. coli: http://myxo.css.msu.edu/lenski/pdf/2003,%20JME,%20Lenski%20et%20al.pdf

Lenski RE, Mongold JA (2000) Cell size, shape, and fitness in evolving

populations of bacteria. In: Brown JH, West GB (eds) Scaling in biology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 221–235

Lenski RE, Travisano M (1994) Dynamics of adaptation and diversification: 10,000-generation experiment with bacterial populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 91:6808–6814

http://myxo.css.msu.edu/lenski/pdf/1994,%20PNAS,%20Lenski%20&%20Travisano.pdf

 

People studying protein evolution can track the adaptive results of natural selection in terms of function of the proteins:

1. E Wilson-Miles and DR Davies, On the ancestry of barrels. Science 289: 1490. Sept. 1, 2000.

2. M Buck and MK Rosen, Flipping a switch. Science 291: 2329-2330, March 23, 2001. Describes studies on the motion of proteins that are signalling molecules, including mutations that give activity in the absence of phosphorylation.

8. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/312/5770/97 JT. Bridgham, SM Carroll, J W Thornton Evolution of Hormone-Receptor Complexity by Molecular Exploitation Science 7 April 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5770, pp. 97 - 101

 

Milton does point out that a number such explanations, which were given wide coverage initially, are now considered to be wrong.

 

Does Milton tell you why they are considered to be wrong? It would seem that Milton is showing that the auxiliary hypotheses of evolution are not only falsifiable, but that some of them have actually been falsified! So much for saying that evolution isn't falsifiable.

 

Does he tell you what hypotheses/explanations replaced the originals and how those were tested? Or does he leave you in ignorance with the idea that there is no possible explanation?

 

Should they form part of the body of scientific evidence supporting Darwinism.

 

Mostly what they do is form part of the body of scientific evidence refuting ID/creationism. Remember, ID/creationism says that there is no POSSIBLE way for natural selection to make the structure. If there is a possible way, then that refutes ID/creationism. Altho the way is often documented -- such as the mammalian ear.

http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dave/JTB.html

 

Remember that you also have to apply Popper to ID/creationism. When you do that, they are not only falsifiable but falsified. That is the difference between evolution and ID/creationism in terms of Popperian philosophy of science:

 

1. Evolution is falsifiable BUT not falsified.

2. ID/creationism is falsifiable AND falsified.

 

Why do you guys have such a hard time believing that creationism can be as wrong as 2+2=5?

 

Lockheed, try to listen carefully here: it's not about creationism being wrong. We agree that creationism is a refuted scientific theory. It's about the arguments used to show creationism to be wrong. Invalid arguments are invalid whether you use them for a position you agree with or you use them for a position you disagree with. The video does not have valid arguments to show creationism to be wrong. Nor are the arguments based in science! The video you posted has no science in it! It is assertion and argument from analogy. Invalid arguments.

[the advocate]

Sorry, but I am NOT moving the goalposts. I'm taking the standard definition for life. From Merriam-Webster: "c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction"

 

 

I did not intend to accuse you of moving the goal posts. I was just trying to say that they are very wide and conveniently happened to be in the right place. The characteristics of protocells fortunately fell within the scope of a very limited definition of life on a free on-line dictionary. I'm sure the definition was never intended to be used in this way. It was intended for people who knew what real life is. This would be consistent with Milton's claim that Darwinist will accept any and all evidence provided it lends support to their theory of mutation and natural selection.

 

 

 

You sidestepped my point. You still want to discuss "gaps" in science. Theologically you cannot insert God into those gaps. It is wrong to do so by theological reasoning, not scientific reasoning.

 

 

I agree with you about the God of gaps and have already stated this. I don't want to fill the “gaps” with God. I would like to present the case made by Richard Milton that while there is persuasive circumstantial evidence for evolution, the case has still has to be made and that there is no evidence for Darwinism. In doing so, I intend to put his case in order to see if his thesis stands up. As Milton puts it.

 

“ I intend taking the theory out of the glass cabinet in which it is so reverently kept and looking at it a little less reverently and a little more closely.”

 

He means the victorian glass cabinet in the British Museum of Natural History.

 

 

I would add the caveat "right now". I don't want to speak for all time. For instance, if ekpyrotic is true, then it pretty much wipes out theism. That's a very big "if", which is why I bolded it.

 

 

If you intend to comment on theological issues you need to start with the right concept of God and the Creation. If the entirely speculative and completely unverifiable Ekpyrotic Model ever got of the ground, it would have no bearing whatsoever on this question. We talk of models nowadays, not truths. An Eternal and Absolute Creator is utterly separate from the universe. None of our speculations theories have any bearing whatsoever on His existence.

 

You have allowed theism back into the argument by the back door. What if the Ekpyrotic Model is false? Does the opposite apply? Is the case for theism made? Could another theory potentially wipe out aetheism or bring theism to the whole of humanity?

 

 

No. It means God doesn't cause geology THIS way. Creationism has the mechanism of direct manufacture of organisms or parts of them. The data shows that this mechanism is false.

 

 

Einstein tried to speak for God. The “problem of induction” means that we have no way of knowing for sure whether laws which hold at present have always held and will always hold. The scientific method is based on inductive logic. While it is perfectly possible to argue consistently that God alters the Creation when we are 'not looking' in unusual ways, this view is entirely unnecessary, unverifiable, and often used as a fall back position. I agree with you entirely we need to trust our intellect and senses as far as possible while realising our limitations. I believe we should go wherever the evidence takes us while recognising that the rug can be pulled from under our feet at any time.

 

But this problem has to be taken seriously by science. In the early stages of the universe, at extremes well beyond observation, laws may well have been very different from how they are today. Remember also that science can only seek to explain phenomena which are fairly regular. If extraordinary 'one off's' occur and I am not suggesting that they do, then they would be outside the scope of science. But there is no way we can prove them or rule them out scientifically since we cannot observe them.

 

It also has to be taken very seriously by Darwinists when making pronouncements with apparent confidence about things which supposedly happened billions of years ago.

 

 

When has Dawkins addressed groups of school children? When has science been presented as atheistic in public schools?

 

 

I didn't say at Public Schools. Its much worse than that. I was meaning the 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures to the whole of the UK. These lectures are aimed predominately at school children and are broadcast to the UK on prime time BBC television around teatime. The are a Christmas institution.

 

I had a vague recollection of Dawkins behaviour during the Christmas Lectures because it was quite notorious at the time. If Richard Dawkins is willing to use this prestigious honour as a vehicle to spread his Atheist views in the name of science to a young impressionable audience then anything goes. Anyway, you can find tons of examples of his rants on the web.

 

 

The reason it "undermines the public trust in all of science" is that creationists spin it this way for their own reasons. If the public understood science, it would ONLY undermine Dawkins' "objectivity" on this subject.

 

 

Is is your way of saying it's not our problem. Richard Dawkins has been the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford since 1995. Can you see the irony in this. Please don't tell me that its fair to expect the general public to be uninfluenced by claims made by someone in his prestigious position. Besides, Dawkins must personally think that he can influence people to believe him; that science proves atheism; due to his “scientific arguments” or why else would he bother. He knows he is abusing his position. But from now on I would prefer to avoid a discussion on Dawkins personal views and personality. I'm only interested in his science. Milton, while highly critical of Dawkins science, rests none of his case on ad-hominem arguments and claims to personally detest them.

 

 

Quite frankly, I think Milton is lying. He is using too many of the already refuted creationist arguments for me to think he is really agnostic and being "open minded". If he were truly open minded, he would have found the refutation for those arguments already. But yes, we can leave it until later.

 

 

Milton claims to have been accused of many things by Darwinists and to have had many beliefs ascribed to him which he does not share. He often complains of this 'tactic' being used against him in order to avoid discussing his scientific arguments.

 

 

The theory is still "falsifiable", it's just that we can't find any data that actually falsifies it.

 

 

Could part of the reason for this be that the core principle of natural selection cannot be studied in any experimental way. Milton claims that the celebrated principle of natural selection, formerly known as survival of the fittest, is in fact a tautology i.e. a statement of an inevitable (although previously unrecognised) relation.

 

It turns out that Darwinists are unable to specify any characteristic which would render an animal 'fit' or 'fittest' in advance. The old ideas of the fastest, strongest, most cunning, sexiest etc do not in any way predict the survival of an individual in a given experiment. It turn out that there is no accepted definition of 'fit' or 'fittest' other than the capacity of an organism to survive. Milton quotes George Simpson:

 

“To a geneticist, fitness has nothing to do with health, strength, good looks or anything but effectiveness in breeding.”

 

so the fittest are now defined as those who survive

 

and survival of the fittest = survival of ( those who survive )

 

As Milton puts it:

 

“How do we measure the fitness of an animal? By its capacity to survive, say Darwinists. So the fit survive and those who survive are the fittest. Put this way, does natural selection mean anything at all?”

 

He claims that :

 

“Darwinists are now reluctant to try and explain any particular characteristic as being responsible for the giraffes evolution – even regarding its long neck – because they would have to show how and why that characteristic has favoured the Giraffe over other animals, some of which are extinct. All that they dare say with impunity is that the Giraffe has survived because it has adapted to its environment – the modern way of expressing the old tautology.”

 

 

The situation is more complicated than you portray. Yes, our theories remain "tentative" in that we cannot, strictly speaking, "prove" them. However, there comes a point where attempts to falsify the theory repeatedly fail and we provisionally accept the theory as true. Notice that "provisionally". We can always change our minds if new data comes up -- those mammalian fossils in Cambrian strata.

 

 

Is provisionally true a more upbeat way of saying unfalsified?

 

 

 

 

But by this time it is perverse not to accept evolution as provisionally true.

 

 

That's what I would have thought, until I read “The Facts of Life”and that's why I'm here, to see if I should accept the theory as “provisionally true” . What do you mean 'by this time'? I have yet to cover the majority of serious criticisms made by Milton against Darwinism. You seem to be saying look its obvious to me, just take my word for it.

 

Well I,m sorry but for a physicist approaching the Darwinian paradigm from the outside as it were, the only thing that's obvious is that you are asking me to accept a vast body of information uncritically and un challenged. This is particularly hard when Milton is claiming that nearly all the evidence which originally Gave support to Darwinism has been dropped by supporters of the theory itself.

 

Don't get me wrong, if you were paying me to work in a biology lab to study evolution, I could “provisionally” accept Darwinism in order to practice science within the community. You can't afford to reinvent the wheel from scratch so you take on board a vast body of existing research and build on it, wrong or wrong. If you question the foundations all the time, you would never move forward.

 

In addition, failure to ascribe to the Darwinian model of evolution would likely exclude me from any notable position in evolutionary research, whatever my talent; in much the same way that failure to believe in God would exclude me from an important religious position, say.

 

 

Not protective. Just that the tests HAVE BEEN DONE! Pay attention. If you can think of tests, put them out there. But there are a lot of evolutionary biologists who have been working -- by Popperian science -- since 1859 testing evolution. PubMed has over 150,000 articles just since 1965 that involve tests of evolution! We are at the stage of testing evolution the way we test heliocentrism -- by having it as one of the bundle of hypotheses, not the primary one.

 

 

What about Darwins original prediction of the eventual recovery of many examples of gradual evolution in the fossil record. Either it is you who is not paying attention or you are unable to 'see' problems which appear very serious to an outsider due to your commitment to the 'paradigm' or 'research program' or for other reasons.

 

Now you pay attention:

 

“for one thing, Darwin mused, paleontology in his day was still in its infancy. Surely he wrote, paleontology would eventually provide full corroboration of his theory. “Darwin actually believed that his entire theory of “transmutation” (or descent with modification -he never called it “evolution” in the Origin) would stand or fall on the eventual recovery of many examples of gradual evolution in the fossil record.” - Niles Eldredge (emphasis mine)

 

Einsteins theory as an example of a theory in physics just doesn't have the infinite flexibility that Darwinism seems to have built in. Can you tell me any of Einstein's original predictions which have turned out to be completely wrong (or even slightly wrong). If any had been found, people would be looking for another theory right away. But wait a minute, they already are because Relativity is inconsistent with QM. QM and relativity challenge each other which is good for science. There is no such counterweight in biology. Instead, the monopoly that Darwinisms current has over the question of our origins is defended vigorously from within. The majority of the biological establishment insist on propagating the idea of Darwinian evolution as the truth and the only possible explanation because it is the only reasonable explanation they can come up with and perhaps other motives. Milton states:

 

“Most scientists and teachers in the Earth sciences and life sciences still feel that some form of Darwinian evolution is the only reasonable hypothesis. And they hold this perfectly natural and understandable belief not because of the evidence but in spite of the evidence.” (P. 203)

 

 

Evolution is not "dogmatically" upheld. The parts that can be challenged are. Look at Gould with Punctuated Equilibrium, spandrels, and group selection. ALL of those challenged parts of evolution.

 

 

The problem of the failure to find transitional forms has bedevilled Darwinism since it was first proposed and until recently was all but swept under the carpet. For over 100 years, the question of the complete absence of transitional species was justified on the basis that the probability of an intact fossil surviving must be vanishingly small. Milton claims that this is despite hundreds of well funded archaeological expeditions.

 

Milton states that :

 

“Steven J Gould and Niles Eldrige of Harvard have proposed a theory of 'punctuated equilibrium', in order to account for the lack of fossil remains of transitional species. They have suggested that evolution is not a constantly occurring phenomenon; that species may have remained stable for long periods of geological history leaving many fossil remains, and that the periods of evolutionary change, when they came, did not last very long. This would account for the lack of transitional fossils.” (emphasis mine)

 

While acknowledging the HEROIC efforts of Gould and Eldridge to at least address this problem in the face of vitriolic attacks he notes:

 

“The difficulty with punctuated equilibria is that it is wholly speculative and has been introduced simply to account for the lack of fossils that ought to exist in the neo-Darwinist theory.”

Look at it from an outsiders perspective. The principle of natural selection is hauled into service to account for two diametrically opposed interpretations of the fossil record. This would appear to be another of Miltons examples of the infinite elasticity of Darwinism to account for any and all findings while avoiding contacts with the facts.

It seems that you could call Darwinism a good theory in by the way it sidesteps falsifying incidences.

 

 

Another philosopher of science you need to read is Imre Lakatos. Lakatos talks about "research programmes" where you have core statements (hypotheses) and auxiliary hypotheses. Major theories like evolution have a few core hypotheses and hundreds of auxiliary hypotheses. Look at all the argument over the decades over the auxiliary hypotheses. Attempts to show them wrong.

 

 

What I am very interested in is to see these core statements and auxiliary hypotheses made explicit. If I am to sign up to something, I want to know what it is. I am asking you to help me with this. It is very clear to myself as an outsider that accepting Darwinism is no longer about accepting an elegant and simple theory backed up conclusively by evidence. Instead I am being asked to accept core hypotheses which cannot be proven along with hundreds of auxiliary hypotheses.

 

 

You are mistaking "can't" for "don't want to".

 

 

No, I'm saying it's sometimes more difficult for an insider to appraise a research programme which they are committed to. Research programme deliberately direct inquiry to the positive heuristic and away from the negative heuristic. As Darwinism did successfully for oven a century with the missing transitional forms. In the same way it is difficult for you to look out, it is difficult for me to look in with the same conviction. Milton would probably certainly agree that the methodology of Lakatos is the one which has consciously been accepted by Darwinism:

 

“It is very difficult to decide, especially if one does not demand progress at each single step, when a research programme has degenerated hopelessly; or when one of two rival programs has achieved a decisive advantage over the other. There can be no 'instant rationality'. Neither the logicians proof of inconsistency nor the experimental scientist's verdict of anomaly can defeat a research programme at one blow. One can be wise only after the event. Nature may shout NO, but human ingenuity – contrary to weyl and Popper – may always be able to shout louder. With sufficient brilliance and some luck, any theory, even if it is false, can be defended 'progressively' for a long time. But when should a particular theory , or a whole research programme, be rejected? I claim, only if there is a better one to replace it.” (P 150 – The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes

 

Is it any wonder that Darwinists have taken Lakatos to their bosom. There is hardly a hairs breath between this view and Miltons. When Darwinism is falsified is now a matter of the collective opinion of practicing evolutionists community and reqires an alternative to be put in place first.

 

 

No, Popper did NOT say that. He did not say "remain scientific". He said to be scientific, a theory when proposed had to be falsifiable. As it turns out, this is the part Popper got wrong. He was proposing a demarcation criteria between science and non-science. He was wrong.

 

 

In this context, “remain” and “be” mean the same thing. You are splitting hairs.

 

 

Can we also discuss this later. It is an important point which Milton does address?

 

No, we can't. Since this is about Milton's book, I have tested Milton's statements and falsified them. You can't pretend it didn't happen and come back later.

 

 

If I wanted to avoid controversy, I wouldn't be on this forum.

 

 

However, I strongly suggest you abandon this reliance on Kuhn. Even Kuhn rejected his own ideas later in life. Science simply does not work the way Kuhn stated.

 

 

Your attempt to misrepresent Khuns position and to write of his achievements, suggests that you are uneasy with the implications of his thesis. What evidence do you have to say that Khun rejected his own ideas. Can you give me a reference from The Structure? Please don't say you only meant someof his ideas.

 

 

according to you, Milton made two things of evolution:

 

It was a "declining paradigm". A consequence of that is that fewer and fewer papers are published as people switch to a NEW paradigm.

 

 

This is a Misrepresentation of my position. Milton did claim that Darwinism was a declining paradigm. You implied that if this were so, fewer and fewer papers would be published as people switch to a NEW paradigm. You then tried to use “Popperian logic” to “falsify” Miltons claim, by stating that as more papers have been published on Darwinian evolution recently, the Darwinian paradigm is not declining. I exposed some patently obvious fallacies in this argument, i.e. by showing that

 

1.There are many other reasons or variables which could account for the same observation, such as the rapid increase in money being poured into the biological sciences.

2.The same increase in published papers could even be seen in a paradigm which was superceded nearly a century ago, let alone in decline which is all that Milton was claiming.

 

This argument that an increase in published papers necessarily implies a successful paradigm (or a progressive research program) is patently fallacious and I am surprised that you are continuing with it.

 

 

Darwinism was not associated with anything novel. I falsified that, too.

 

Since I am a Popperian, I'll subject Milton's statements to testing to see if they are 1) falsifiable and 2) falsified. By Milton's statement, there should be NO novel or surprising facts found by evolution and that publications involving evolution should be decreasing over time (a declining paradigm):

 

One of the most surprising results in the last decade or so is that natural selection is such a good method of getting design. Natural selection -- in the form of genetic algorithms -- are so good at getting design that people now use them when the design problem is too tough for them. And then they are surprised that they don't know how the design works!

 

 

This entire class of arguments involving computer simulations apparently demonstrating natural selection is discussed in some detail by Milton. (P. 209). He takes the example of wing design at Boeing from Andrew Scott's vital principles under the heading 'The Creativity of Evolution' and the process itself is called 'computer generated evolution' as though it were analogous to mutation and natural selection.

 

First the engineers created a wing design that they were able to randomly mutate. Then they fed in the rules to allow the computer to simulate testing in a wind tunnel. In this way the engineers managed to achieve wing designs exhibiting maximum thrust and minimum drag and turbulence. On the face of it, the system would appear to be working in a Darwinian manner.

 

Milton states:

 

The fallacies on which this case is constructed are not very profound but they do need to be nailed down. The most important fallacy in this argument is the idea that somehow a result has occurred which is independent of, or in some way beyond the engineers, who merely set the machine going by pressing a button. Of course, the fact is that a human agency has designed and built the computer and programmed it to perform the task in question. This begs the only important question in evolution theory: could complex structures have arisen spontaneously by random natural processes without any precursor? Like all other computer simulation experiments, this one actually makes a case for special creation because it specifically requires a Creator to build the computer and think up and implement the programme in the first place. Etc.

 

And no. Milton is being ironic, he's not arguing Creationism vs Darwinism.

 

Moved the goalposts. You are forgetting history. Darwinism elaborated (past tense) a number of bold predictions not yet tested. But then the tests were done. And the bold predictions born out. It is not required that a "good" theory keep coming up with "bold" predictions. Relativity made the VERY bold prediction that light bent in a strong gravitational field. That prediction was born out. There is no requirement for Relativity to be a "good" theory that it keep coming up with bold predictions. You are making a strawman out of what Popper said.

 

 

I have already discussed one of these VERY bold predictions i.e. The predicted discovery of many transitional forms in the fossil record. Can you elaborate on some of Darwins other predictions which were more successful.

 

 

Popper was talking about when a theory was formulated. Logically, at some point all possible tests are going to have been run and, if the theory is right, it will have passed all the tests. Is the theory now "falsifiable"? No, because all tests have been done.

 

 

For future clarity, I would be grateful if you could make your position on Darwinism as a Popperian explicit as I would like to move the discussion forward. Do you believe that Darwinism is:

 

1 Falsified

2 Falsifiable

3 Currently Unfalsifiable

4 Permanently Unfalsifiable

5 Other

 

Consequently, do you believe that in future Darwinism will:

 

1 eventually be falsified and replaced by a better theory.

2 never be falsified

3 Other

 

 

Popper had some very good ideas on how, generally, science is done. But Popper is not the last and only word on how science is done. Popper was mistaken about things.

 

 

I agree that Popper has not had the last word on how science is done. But while Popper established the idea of the tentative nature of theories, his ideas on how science is usually done were wide of the mark. Lakatos clearly sided with Khun in this respect.

 

 

LOL! Weren't you paying attention during the controversy of Punctuated Equilibrium? Haven't you been paying attention about the evo-devo debate? Haven't you been paying attention to the Feduccia-Ostrom arguments over the ancestry of birds or the recent Nature paper where Leakey challenges that habilis is the ancestor of erectus? Good grief, the controversies within evolution are all around you!

 

 

No, I only read the book recently. Before that all I knew about evolution was gathered from school biology.

 

 

Does that bother you? Do you see anyone challenging the foundational statements of heliocentrism? What evidence or tests can you propose that would falsify it? Haven't all the basic tests been done? What "bold new predictions" does heliocentrism make? Does that failure mean it isn't a "good theory"?

 

 

Thanks to powerful telescopes, satellites, spacecraft etc, Heliocentricity is something which can be convincingly demonstrated to any thinking member of the public. Now you are using a straw man of my argument. The fact that the sun is at the centre of our solar system is no longer a theory at all but requires explanation in the context of a wider theory. If the 'fact' of evolution can be Demonstrated convincingly in the way that heliocentricity can, then I don't have a problem with that. I do however have a big problem making evolution synonymous with Darwinian evolution. Demonstrating the 'fact' of evolution in no way proves the validity of the Darwinian theory of evolution any more than Demonstrating the fact of heliocentricity proves Newtons theory of Gravitation. Milton complains that:

 

“Wherever there is any evidence relating to evolution as a principle, Darwinists claim that evidence for their theory of mutation and natural selection.”

 

 

IOW, the Advocate, why are you applying standards to evolution that you don't apply to other theories? Your whole post is Special Pleading for the sole reason you don't like evolution.

 

 

I don't believe that theories in physics are truths. I prefer the term models. Even if a TOE is found, uniting QM and relativity etc., there is no way of knowing if it is the correct model, given our minute experience of the universe in space and time. Indeed, there is no way of knowing that it is the only model.

 

Currently, no one in physics has a monopoly and consequently none is trying to portray physics theories as truths. Monopolies lead to arrogance and complacency and to sloppy arguments which go unchallenged. No one is trying to pressurise schools to teach quantum mechanics or relativity as a fact rather than a theory. Like Milton, I personally have no objections religious or otherwise, to some kind of evolution taking place, but I intend to see the evidence myself before forming any opinion. In my experience, the vast majority of people are happy to follow the crowd, but prefer to remain open minded.

 

 

Milton, and you, have made a strawman. The giraffe neck is used to compare 2 theories: natural selection and Lamarckism. It compares those 2 theories on how they would explain the giraffe got the long neck. The claim was NEVER made that either explanation had been tested in that instance. It is an illustration of the difference between Lamarck's "use and disuse" and natural selection.

 

 

I chose the example of the Giraffe simply because it is the best known of a number of examples that Milton gave. Every one knows the Darwinian account of how the Giraffe got its long neck. Milton is not choosing an easy target as you imply. He is directing his criticism at the entire class of arguments. Arguments which profess to explain using the principle of natural selection; how and why a particular adaption came about.

 

He claims that none of them can be verified and that they should not form part of the body of evidence that supports Darwinism. He claims that this is not just his position but the position taken by the Majority of Darwinists nowadays, yet they continue to be taught in schools as facts supporting Darwinism. Do you agree with Milton, that these arguments are discredited and should no longer be used in support of Darwinism.

 

This as an attempt to clear away dead wood. If I have been taught Darwinism at school using discredited arguments, I want to know about it.

 

 

Do you want the specific examples or do you want data on whether the general idea of natural selection providing adaptations? In terms of general, there are examples both in living species (having intermediates) and in the fossil record.

 

In a real-time experiment where the particular environment was known, the adaptation that natural selection should produce was predicted and then supported by the experiment:

 

Other real-time experiments have looked at evolution of E.coli, tracking mutations and the adaptive advantage they cause:

 

People studying protein evolution can track the adaptive results of natural selection in terms of function of the proteins:

 

 

NO. Just now I want to see if clear cut evidence can be produced which conclusively supports some historical adaption, any adaption; such as the Giraffes neck, the fiddler crabs big claw, etc. I want to know whether or not you consider these stories scientific and verifiable or not. I dont want speculation. Are they currently part of the Darwinian explanatory repertoire or have they been dropped as Milton claims?

 

 

 

Should they form part of the body of scientific evidence supporting Darwinism? (from previous post)

 

Mostly what they do is form part of the body of scientific evidence refuting ID/creationism. Remember, ID/creationism says that there is no POSSIBLE way for natural selection to make the structure. If there is a possible way, then that refutes ID/creationism. Although the way is often documented -- such as the mammalian ear.

http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/dave/JTB.html

 

So, the adaption stories are more useful at refuting ID/creationism than for Darwinism. Can I take it from that that they are unscientific. Why are you Bringing creationism into the discussion? Milton does not speak on behalf of ID/Creationism but intends to confront Darwinism with criticism from within the scientific community. It is inevitable that some of these arguments will be similar to ID/creationists arguments. Milton is not trying to get Darwinists to convert to ID/creationism but to take a step back and consider alternative scientific approaches.

[foodchain]

No, I consider "true" and "demonstrably true" to be very separate things.

 

Also, I believe it is impossible to have a system where any statement has a zero probability of being true. For example, I would expect one of the phrases "things fall down" and "it is not the case that things fall down" to be true, even if it were impossible to prove which one is actually true.

 

I hold that while it is possible to say true things about the universe, it is impossible to prove that they are true beyond any shadow of doubt. So every theory must forever be considered potentially false. I also believe that it is possible to estimate the probability of a theory being true, and its accuracy.

 

Yes but that whole statement is vastly complex and open to error in interpretation. As nature stands now for that to be true at some point on the earth someone throwing an object up into the air should have that object go against the laws of physics, such as escape the earths gravity for instance. I don’t know of anything like that to be honest and I think such an example speaks clearly on the issue.

 

I guess it comes down to when someone can say about something that 100% empirical understanding has been reached. Personally I don’t think humanity is in any position to claim when this will be but I do think it exists again going from reality. A simple example is the evolution of germs in human thought. Germs in western culture existed but of course not in thought at one point, countering such ignorance with the concept of germs was actually a hard battle to win which could be viewed as both good or bad I guess or neutral depending on the observer. The reality as it stands now though is we do know about germs. This empirical proves we can learn and understand the physical world around us. Unless you are saying information is infinite not in form but sheer volume to be learned then I think its possible to know everything. What I mean is of course is the universe is not frozen or static, giving the reality of string theory, QM, and of course evolution who knows what forms or possible realities nature can have, but its still just nature at work, which unless again is infinite outside of form alone, I think it could be understood to 100% type levels.

 

I think that’s also a bit of a math like argument as to why infinity is a hard concept.

[lucaspa]

I'm going to split my reply into three parts: philosophy of science, discussion of the science (evolution and abiogenesis), and discussion of theology.

 

This will be the philosophy of science part:

We talk of models nowadays, not truths.

 

Not really. There are two general ways of looking at theories: as sets of statements and as "models". BOTH aim at discovering "truth" = accurate description of the physical universe.

 

The “problem of induction” means that we have no way of knowing for sure whether laws which hold at present have always held and will always hold. The scientific method is based on inductive logic.

 

That's not the problem of induction. You have presented "unity". Inductive arguments follow the form:

a1 has property p

a2 has property p

...

a(n) has proptery p

therefore, all a's have property p.

 

Observation of white swans leading to the statement "all swans are white" is an inductive argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_reasoning (I don't like using Wiki as a source, but this time I know from other printed sources that it is fairly accurate. It will serve as an introduction to you and correct your misunderstanding of induction.)

 

The most common statement of the "scientific method" -- the hypothetico-deductive method -- is not inductive, it's deductive. It's based on deductive logic.

 

That does not mean that science does not use inductive logic occasionally. Every time we draw a line thru a set of points we are using inductive logic.

 

The problem of induction is that you can't prove anything with it. Inductive arguments are of the form: the future will resemble the past. The problem is circularity. In order to say induction proves anything, you have to presume the very thing -- the future resembles the past -- that you are seeking to prove! Bertrand Russell had a very good illustration of the limits of induction: a chicken observes every day that the farmer comes out with feed. Farmer-chicken feed. Day after day. So the chicken concludes that the farmer will always bring feed. But one day the farmer brings an axe and the chicken learns that his induction was wrong.

 

However, there is something "right" about induction in that it works a lot of the time. It works enough that you mistakenly think it is the basis of the scientific method and we keep drawing those lines thru a limited set of points. But, strictly speaking, you can't "prove" be either induction or deduction. You can, however, absolutely DISprove using deduction.

 

Is provisionally true a more upbeat way of saying unfalsified?

 

Not exactly. In order to be provisionally true, a hypothesis must, of course, be unfalsified. But an untested hypothesis is also unfalsified. Also, a theory can survive one or two tests, be unfalsified, yet still not accepted as provisionally true, i.e Big Bang before discovery of the CMBR. In order to get to be accepted as provisionally true a hypothesis must survive 1) a large number of tests or 2) several tests including a test which no other known hypothesis could pass. You can see at this point induction comes back in. We think that, since a hypothesis has not been falsified a number of times, it will always not be falsified. Of course, because of the problem of induction, we can't be sure of that.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, if you were paying me to work in a biology lab to study evolution, I could “provisionally” accept Darwinism in order to practice science within the community. You can't afford to reinvent the wheel from scratch so you take on board a vast body of existing research and build on it, wrong or wrong. If you question the foundations all the time, you would never move forward.

 

But that was exactly what you were advocating! So you do think accepting a theory as provisonally true is more than "it is unfalsified". As a physicist, do you constantly question Special Relativity or the orbital model of electrons?

 

Your attempt to misrepresent Khuns position and to write of his achievements, suggests that you are uneasy with the implications of his thesis. What evidence do you have to say that Khun rejected his own ideas. Can you give me a reference from The Structure? Please don't say you only meant someof his ideas.

 

Not from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions but from Kuhn's later book Postscript and his later essay "Ojectivity, Value Judgement, and Theory Choice". You have uncritically accepted Kuhn's thesis. Just as you have uncritically accepted Milton without reading a textbook on evolutionary biology. Kuhn made some statements I think are just wrong. For instance, in Structure Kuhn claims that not only the paradigm changes in a paradigm shift, but reality changes as well. Thus, before Levoisier and Priestly, combustion really did occur by phlogiston; since then it occurs using oxygen. I don't know of any physicist that says reality itself changes when we switch from one paradigm to another. Do you ascribe to this? There are many, many more valid criticisms of Kuhn. I suggest you read Philosophy of Science: the Central Issues edited by Curd and Cover. It has the essential essays -- by the original philosophers -- and then critiques of those positions. They have a detailed critique of Kuhn.

 

One of the ironies here is that a paradigm shift away from creationism to Darwinism occurred in the period 1850-1870. In Kuhnian terms, creationism was the paradigm and was "normal" science. People kept finding anomalies. Then we have the revolution and switch to Darwinism. Now, as far as Kuhn was concerned, science never goes back to the old paradigm. Even when there were anomalies in Uranus' and Mercury's orbits, no one suggested going back to a Ptolomaic solar system. So, if Milton is serious about science following Kuhn, he can't think that rejection of Darwinism is going to go back to any form of creationism.

 

Milton did claim that Darwinism was a declining paradigm. You implied that if this were so, fewer and fewer papers would be published as people switch to a NEW paradigm. You then tried to use “Popperian logic” to “falsify” Miltons claim, by stating that as more papers have been published on Darwinian evolution recently, the Darwinian paradigm is not declining.

 

That isn't exactly what happened. We take Milton's claim as a hypothesis. From that we use the hypothetico-deductive method to make deductions about consequences to that hypothesis if it is true. One of the deductions is that fewer papers will be published using Darwinism because fewer and fewer people find it useful in doing "normal" science and are switching to a new paradigm. Another deduction is that more and more papers are going to be about anomalies that evolution can't explain. Using deductive logic (not "Popperian" logic), we look to see if the consequences are true.

 

What you are trying to do is show alternative or ad hoc hypotheses that prevent the consequences from falsifying Milton's statement:

 

1.There are many other reasons or variables which could account for the same observation, such as the rapid increase in money being poured into the biological sciences.

2.The same increase in published papers could even be seen in a paradigm which was superceded nearly a century ago, let alone in decline which is all that Milton was claiming.

 

Do these ad hoc hypotheses work? We can test them independently. Pouring $$ isn't going to make the anomalies disappear. In fact, more $$ means more scientists working in the area to find anomalies. That isn't happening. Also, Kuhn says $$ has nothing to do with declining paradigms. They decline due to 1) the presence of anomalies and 2) people switching to an alternative paradigm. If we go back to the period 1830-1859, we do see an increase in papers describing anomalies of creationism. Blythe's work comes to mind, as does Hooker's and Asa Gray's. Now, does Milton say there is an alternative paradigm? If so, then a deduction would be that we would see an increase in publications involving this paradigm.

 

The second objection is just silly. By Kuhn, you would not see ANY papers in a paradigm that was replaced a century ago. Paradigm replacement is complete: the old paradigm is no longer used at all. So this objection is simply a non-starter. It's a strawman.

 

For future clarity, I would be grateful if you could make your position on Darwinism as a Popperian explicit as I would like to move the discussion forward. Do you believe that Darwinism is:

 

1 Falsified

2 Falsifiable

3 Currently Unfalsifiable

4 Permanently Unfalsifiable

5 Other

 

Darwinism is 2. It is currently unfalsified. I stand by my claim that we are running out of tests to falsify Darwinism. Darwinism has passed every test we have thrown at it and there simply aren't more tests to pass.

 

Consequently, do you believe that in future Darwinism will:

 

1 eventually be falsified and replaced by a better theory.

2 never be falsified

3 Other

 

I agree that Popper has not had the last word on how science is done. But while Popper established the idea of the tentative nature of theories, his ideas on how science is usually done were wide of the mark. Lakatos clearly sided with Khun in this respect.

 

Lakatos disagreed with Kuhn. He sided with Popper on how theories are evaluated: tested in an attempt to show them false. In terms of how we do things in the lab, Popper is pretty much correct. What you think of as the "scientific method" is Popper's hypothetico-deductive method. What Lakatos rejected was Popper's "naive" falsificationism. Popper went too far in tentativeness and thought that ANY and EVERY false result should automatically result in rejecting a theory. Popper eventually acknowledged the role of ad hoc hypotheses, but he never did acknowledge holism. Both of these can be gotten around, but together they mean that major theories are not rejected on the basis of one falsification -- as Popper proposed. Lakatos rejected Kuhn's assertion of paradigms and the unrationality of paradigm replacement and "scientific revolutions".

 

No, I only read the book recently. Before that all I knew about evolution was gathered from school biology.

 

So, you accept Milton but won't read a textbook on evolutionary biology. I suggest Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology.

 

Thanks to powerful telescopes, satellites, spacecraft etc, Heliocentricity is something which can be convincingly demonstrated to any thinking member of the public. .. The fact that the sun is at the centre of our solar system is no longer a theory at all but requires explanation in the context of a wider theory.

 

Sorry, heliocentricity is still a theory. We accept it as provisionally true. We accept it so strongly that you think it is "fact". IOW, it has failed falsification so many times that we can't think of any other test to falsify it, can we? Can you think of a test to falsify heliocentricity? Please go to your questions above and give me your position on heliocentricity, on your scale.

 

Now, are you taking a Popperian view of heliocentricity? If not, then you agree that a strict Popperian view is not applied to all theories. We are down to discussing how confirmed Darwinian evolution is.

 

If the 'fact' of evolution can be Demonstrated convincingly in the way that heliocentricity can, then I don't have a problem with that. I do however have a big problem making evolution synonymous with Darwinian evolution. Demonstrating the 'fact' of evolution in no way proves the validity of the Darwinian theory of evolution any more than Demonstrating the fact of heliocentricity proves Newtons theory of Gravitation. Milton complains that:

 

“Wherever there is any evidence relating to evolution as a principle, Darwinists claim that evidence for their theory of mutation and natural selection.”

 

Milton's complaint is without merit. It has long been realized by evolutionary biologists that Darwin made 5 theories:

"1. The nonconstancy of species (the basic theory of evolution)

2. The descent of all organisms from common ancestors (branching evolution).

3. The gradualness of evolution (no saltations, no discontinuities)

4. The multiplication of species (the origin of diversity)

5. Natural selection." Ernst Mayr, What Evolution IS. pg 86

 

(BTW, Mayr's book is another you need to read.) Now, the Grant study on Darwin's finches or the peppered moth example only applies to #5. Phylogenetic analysis tested #1 and #2 but didn't touch the rest.

 

I don't believe that theories in physics are truths. I prefer the term models. Even if a TOE is found, uniting QM and relativity etc., there is no way of knowing if it is the correct model, given our minute experience of the universe in space and time. Indeed, there is no way of knowing that it is the only model.

 

Currently, no one in physics has a monopoly and consequently none is trying to portray physics theories as truths. Monopolies lead to arrogance and complacency and to sloppy arguments which go unchallenged. No one is trying to pressurise schools to teach quantum mechanics or relativity as a fact rather than a theory.

 

1. No one has to pressure schools to teach relativity or QM as fact. They do so anyway. No one is complaining about it, either.

2. You looked ONLY at recent theories. How about atomic theory? That is taught as fact. How about Bohr's model of the atom? Anyone questioning that model?

 

I chose the example of the Giraffe simply because it is the best known of a number of examples that Milton gave. Every one knows the Darwinian account of how the Giraffe got its long neck. Milton is not choosing an easy target as you imply.He is directing his criticism at the entire class of arguments.

 

Oh, no, he is choosing an easy target. A target that he knows does not have much fossil or other evidence behind it. He is ignoring the hard targets -- such as the mammalian middle ear or the wings of birds and insects -- that have much more evidence. So what he is doing is "synedoche" -- picking out a particular unrepresentative example and then trying to make it "general". It is induction and very bad induction.

 

So, the adaption stories are more useful at refuting ID/creationism than for Darwinism. Can I take it from that that they are unscientific.

 

No. ID/creationism is a scientific theory. One that is already falsified. However, remember the giraffe example is used as a way of explaining the difference between Darwinism and Lamarckism.

 

Why are you Bringing creationism into the discussion? Milton does not speak on behalf of ID/Creationism but intends to confront Darwinism with criticism from within the scientific community. It is inevitable that some of these arguments will be similar to ID/creationists arguments.

 

The problem is that ALL of his arguments are ID/creationist arguments. And ones that have been refuted before. I'll get to that in my next post. So the question arises: why is Milton using arguments that have already been refuted and presenting them as valid? That is what creationists do. So, using the commutative principle from mathematics: creationists = using invalid arguments as tho they are valid = Milton, it is reasonable to infer that Milton is actually a creationist and is hiding that position.

 

That you behave as a standard creationist -- believe Milton's arguments uncritically, claim scientific expertise you apparently do not have, have not and will not read books on evolutionary biology, are a theist, etc, -- lends support to the hypothesis that Milton wrote a creationist book for creationists. Also note that Milton did not publish or even submit his critique to a scientific journal such as the Journal of Theoretical Biology but marketed it to the lay public, and the hypothesis that Milton is advocating creationism/ID gets more support.

 

Milton is not trying to get Darwinists to convert to ID/creationism but to take a step back and consider alternative scientific approaches.

 

Milton is not talking to scientists at all. If that were the case, we would deduce that Milton would have read the literature better and be more familiar with the data against his positions (next post) and try to publish in a more scientific forum than a book geared to an audience without biological training.

[Mr Skeptic]

"truth" = accurate description of the physical universe.

 

I don't think that is a proper definition of truth. Philosophers and mathematicians have a much stricter definition of truth. I prefer to say that science is about "observable truth" -- if we can see an effect on the universe, it is part of science, but if we can see no effect on the universe it is not part of science. Given Occam's Razor, the definition of "truth" used by science would be restricted further to "the simplest observable truth".

 

The most common statement of the "scientific method" -- the hypothetico-deductive method -- is not inductive, it's deductive. It's based on deductive logic.

[...]

But, strictly speaking, you can't "prove" be either induction or deduction. You can, however, absolutely DISprove using deduction.

 

That's not true. All new hypothesis are based on inductive logic (or are random, or are based on other theories). Proving by using deductive logic requires you to have axioms you know are true, but you cannot get these from science. Even in falsifying a theory is not certain because it requires you to assume that you correctly observed the results and that you are not actually observing something wrong with a different theory.

 

To put it another way: if you could disprove the statement A, that would be the same as proving the statement not A. It is not possible to absolutely prove anything in science to be true or false. At best you could absolutely prove a statement of the sort "if these assumptions are true, than this is true" (which is equivalent to saying "if this is not true, than these assumptions are not true" -- meaning that unless you want to discard a bunch of assumptions, then you need to accept that something as true. "Assumptions" in this case could be very high profile, like Maxwell's equations or relativity)

----

All that being why science uses a more restricted definition of "true" than philosophers -- because they want to get something done. In fact, it may even be possible to absolutely prove that some statements form "the simplest observable truth" with respect to everything which has so far been observed.

[lucaspa]

Also, I believe it is impossible to have a system where any statement has a zero probability of being true. For example, I would expect one of the phrases "things fall down" and "it is not the case that things fall down" to be true, even if it were impossible to prove which one is actually true.

 

Let's take the statement: "the earth is flat". What is the probability of that being true? Zero, right? In a later post to me you said that heliocentrism was "demonstrably true". Therefore the statement "the earth is the center of the solar system" must have a zero probability of being true.

 

I hold that while it is possible to say true things about the universe, it is impossible to prove that they are true beyond any shadow of doubt. So every theory must forever be considered potentially false. I also believe that it is possible to estimate the probability of a theory being true, and its accuracy.

 

I'll go along with the first sentence, altho you apparently don't. After all, you basically said heliocentrism was true beyond any shadow of doubt.

 

As to estimating the probability of a theory being true, Bayesian analysis tries to do just that. Have you run a Bayesian analysis of Darwin's 5 theories? What answer did you get?

 

You might be interested to know that Bayesian analysis is done for phylogenies based on DNA sequences: http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/larget/bambe.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5550/2310

 

Here is an entire book on Bayesian analysis and molecular evolution: http://www.springerlink.com/content/q775x38p61075111/

 

For articles in just PNAS concerning Bayesian analysis as applied to various hypotheses within evolution: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/search?session_query_ref=rbs.queryref_1195323797961&COLLECTIONS=hw1&JC=pnas&FULLTEXT=%28Bayesian+AND+analysis+AND+evolution%29&FULLTEXTFIELD=lemcontent&RESOURCETYPE=HWCIT&ABSTRACTFIELD=lemhwcompabstract&TITLEFIELD=lemhwcomptitle

 

I don't think that is a proper definition of truth. Philosophers and mathematicians have a much stricter definition of truth.

What is it?

 

I prefer to say that science is about "observable truth" -- if we can see an effect on the universe, it is part of science, but if we can see no effect on the universe it is not part of science. Given Occam's Razor, the definition of "truth" used by science would be restricted further to "the simplest observable truth".

 

1. Instead of "I prefer to say ..." how about quoting what some scientists have said about truth?

2. Science also deals with unobservables. After all, no one has directly observed an electron.

3. Sometimes not seeing an effect is just as good. After all, Einstein's General Relativity says that light should be bent in a gravitational field. If we had NOT seen the effect, it still would have been part of science.

4. What do you mean by "Occam's Razor"? And why should it be a "given"? And no, the Razor is NOT "the simplest explanation is correct". Originally, the Razor was used to eliminate hypotheses as part of description of phenomenon.

 

All new hypothesis are based on inductive logic (or are random, or are based on other theories).

 

When you think of hypotheses, there are 2 components:

1. Discovery.

2. Justification.

 

The old view of science -- Newton, Mills, Descarte -- was that hypotheses are the digests of observations. That was shown to be wrong by first the Positivists, then by Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, etc. Yes, all 4 of those, altho they disagree on everything else, do agree on this. As an example of hypotheses not being based on inductive logic:

Volume 13, #22 The Scientist November 8, 1999

http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/nov/halim1_p1_991108.html

 

Nobel Laureate Ready To Head Back to Lab

Author: Nadia S. Halim

Date: November 8, 1999

Courtesy of Rockefeller University

 

Nobel laureate Günter Blobel

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

When Günter Blobel and David Sabatini first proposed the signal hypothesis in 1971, the whole thing was simply ignored. There was not a shred of evidence to support it.

 

If there is no evidence, you can't be using inductive logic. Popper said:

"I thought that scientific theories were not the digest of observations, but that they were inventions -- conjectures boldly put forward for trial, to be eliminated if they clashed with observations, with observations which were rarely accidental but as a rule undertaken with the definite intention of testing a theory by obtaining, if possible, a decisive refutation." Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963 p 38.

 

Proving by using deductive logic requires you to have axioms you know are true, but you cannot get these from science.

 

Deductive logic is such that, if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. The classic example is:

Premise #1: All men are mortal.

Premise #2: Socrates is a man.

Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

 

The conclusion CANNOT be false if the premises are true. Therefore true statements cannot have false consequences.

 

Now, I never said you could "prove" by deductive logic. I specifically said you can DISprove by deductive logic.

 

What you are now doing is trying to deny falsification. I find this ironic since you started out saying that science works by Popper. Now you are saying that Popper's vision of science doesn't work!

 

Even in falsifying a theory is not certain because it requires you to assume that you correctly observed the results and that you are not actually observing something wrong with a different theory.

 

Now you are starting to put things together. This is holism. It goes back to Pierre Duhem's observation that hypotheses are tested in huge bundles. Therefore you are not logically required to discard the favored theory; you can discard one of the bundle instead (what you call "a different theory"). However, you can get around this difficulty by testing hypotheses in different bundles. That is the purpose of "controls" in experiments. You test the entire bundle except for the favored hypothesis. If the controls work, then you can't rationally say "something wrong with a different theory".

 

To put it another way: if you could disprove the statement A, that would be the same as proving the statement not A.

 

Actually, you are. Remember, true statements cannot have false consequences. So, since there are false consequences to the statements "the earth is flat" or "the earth is the center of the solar system", we know those statements are not true. Which means, of course, the statements "the earth is not flat" and "the earth is not the center of the solar system". Going back to your discussion of heliocentrism, you said:

 

Thanks to powerful telescopes, satellites, spacecraft etc, Heliocentricity is something which can be convincingly demonstrated to any thinking member of the public. ... The fact that the sun is at the centre of our solar system is no longer a theory at all but requires explanation in the context of a wider theory."

 

What you are doing is semantic games. Heliocentrism is a theory. You say it is so "convincingly demonstrated" that it is not a theory anymore, but a "fact". What is the difference in asserting that and "proving". Obviously you think theories can be "proved" to such an extent that they are "fact". So where is the tentativeness in you about heliocentrism? How could heliocentrism be falsified? According to you, it can't. So, you start out by urging me to accept Popper and think that evolution must always be able to be falsified, but then hold up heliocentrism as a theory that can't be falsified! Double standard, anyone?

 

You also said:

But wait a minute, they already are because Relativity is inconsistent with QM. QM and relativity challenge each other which is good for science. There is no such counterweight in biology. Instead, the monopoly that Darwinisms current has over the question of our origins is defended vigorously from within.

 

Where is the counterweight in physics to heliocentrism? Where is the counterweight to QM? Relativity isn't. Relativity doesn't address the behavior of atoms. You demand from biology a counterweight that you don't demand in physics. You are quite willing to accept heliocentrism as "fact" but won't accept evolution. So, we are not arguing about whether theories can be so well supported that we accept them as provisionally true (what you call "fact"), but whether evolution has reached that point. What's more, we are discussing whether you think it has reached that point. And here we run into another inconsistency in your argument:

 

Well I,m sorry but for a physicist approaching the Darwinian paradigm from the outside as it were, the only thing that's obvious is that you are asking me to accept a vast body of information uncritically and un challenged. This is particularly hard when Milton is claiming that nearly all the evidence which originally Gave support to Darwinism has been dropped by supporters of the theory itself.

 

So, you won't trust me about that vast body of information and accept it "uncritically". But you will accept Milton's criticisms uncritically. Why does Milton get a free ride from criticism? Why do you trust his claim that "nearly all the evidence which originally gave support to Darwinism has been dropped"?

 

Again, a double standard. Now again I have to go and I don't want my long science post merged with this one -- which will happen automatically if I answer now. WAIT! I will start a new thread "Milton's science" where I can discuss Milton's scientific claims. And yes, there are refutations to his comments about natural selection. Look for that thread.

 

 

 

It is not possible to absolutely prove anything in science to be true or false. At best you could absolutely prove a statement of the sort "if these assumptions are true, than this is true" (which is equivalent to saying "if this is not true, than these assumptions are not true" -- meaning that unless you want to discard a bunch of assumptions, then you need to accept that something as true. "Assumptions" in this case could be very high profile, like Maxwell's equations or relativity)

----

All that being why science uses a more restricted definition of "true" than philosophers -- because they want to get something done. In fact, it may even be possible to absolutely prove that some statements form "the simplest observable truth" with respect to everything which has so far been observed.

[Mr Skeptic]

Let's take the statement: "the earth is flat". What is the probability of that being true? Zero, right? In a later post to me you said that heliocentrism was "demonstrably true". Therefore the statement "the earth is the center of the solar system" must have a zero probability of being true.

 

I don't believe I said that, not in this thread anyhow. Care to show where you got that?

 

1. Instead of "I prefer to say ..." how about quoting what some scientists have said about truth?

 

Cause I'm lazy, and I thought I was obviously right. You care to quote any scientists who have said that science is not about "observable truth"?

 

2. Science also deals with unobservables. After all, no one has directly observed an electron.

3. Sometimes not seeing an effect is just as good. After all, Einstein's General Relativity says that light should be bent in a gravitational field. If we had NOT seen the effect, it still would have been part of science.

 

I think you are confused about observations. Electromagnetic radiation of wavelength between 380 nm and 780 nm is not the only way to conduct observations. Also observing not A is just as much an observation as observing A, and is different from not observing A.

 

4. What do you mean by "Occam's Razor"? And why should it be a "given"? And no, the Razor is NOT "the simplest explanation is correct". Originally, the Razor was used to eliminate hypotheses as part of description of phenomenon.

 

Occam's Razor is an axiom of science used to choose between two theories of equal predictive capability. Since science is only concerned with results, any part of a theory that is not necessary for predicting results is unnecessary and can be eliminated. Note, however, that the answer to the question of "why" something happens will usually also have some additional predictive value.

 

To use a variant of your example:

"The planets move around the sun in ellipses because there is a force [math]F = \frac{GM_1M_2}{r^2}[/math]"

"The planets move around the sun in ellipses because there is a force [math]F = \frac{GM_1M_2}{r^2}[/math]. This force is generated by the will of some powerful aliens."

"The planets move around the sun in ellipses because there is a force [math]F = \frac{GM_1M_2}{r^2}[/math]. This force is generated by the will of some powerful aliens who always maintain this same force and we cannot affect, observe, or be otherwise affected by them."

 

The first one is approximately what we believe (actually a slightly different equation and a cause descried by an expanding universe). The second one looks like fodder for Occam's Razor, and indeed is because we have no evidence of gravity aliens. The last one is invariably fodder for Occam's Razor.

 

 

When you think of hypotheses, there are 2 components:

1. Discovery.

2. Justification.

 

The old view of science -- Newton, Mills, Descarte -- was that hypotheses are the digests of observations. That was shown to be wrong by first the Positivists, then by Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, etc. Yes, all 4 of those, altho they disagree on everything else, do agree on this. As an example of hypotheses not being based on inductive logic:

Volume 13, #22 The Scientist November 8, 1999

http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/nov/halim1_p1_991108.html

 

Sorry, dead link. How do you intend to get a hypothesis that is neither ransom, based on induction, or based on deduction starting from hypothesis that were random or based on induction?

 

The conclusion CANNOT be false if the premises are true. Therefore true statements cannot have false consequences.

 

Technically, the proper statement is "the conclusion cannot be false if the premises are true and the logic sound"

 

Now, I never said you could "prove" by deductive logic. I specifically said you can DISprove by deductive logic.

 

Again you are confusing what prove and disprove mean. Given any statement A, if you disprove A, you prove NOT A. Disprove means prove the negation of.

 

What you are now doing is trying to deny falsification. I find this ironic since you started out saying that science works by Popper. Now you are saying that Popper's vision of science doesn't work!

 

I find it ironic that you write a big long thing directed at me, disagreeing with someone else. Please stop confusing me with the advocate. I too disagree with much of what he said.

 

So, since there are false consequences to the statements "the earth is flat" or "the earth is the center of the solar system", we know those statements are not true.

 

Really? What false consequences? Care to prove that all that evidence is not just an illusion? Once again, this is why science cannot deal with absolute truth and must instead rely on observable truth.

 

Going back to your discussion of heliocentrism, you said:

 

Not me.

 

-----

 

Re what philosophers and mathematicians think of truth: They will take some axioms and say, if these axioms are true, than these conclusions are true. The statements they thus make are absolutely true, and if you accept their axioms you must accept their conclusions or show that they did not use sound logic. If they use the standard axioms they might not explicitly state them.

 

Science, on the other hand, is searching for the axioms themselves.

[foodchain]

yes but using occams razor to realize that invisible gravity aliens are not what causes gravity really does not say that much. In reality though if they did it just right we would not know they are there but such is currently not testable in any way I know so its a rather moot point.

 

Natural selection itself has evolved since Darwin first pointed it out. The same with evolution via such a mechanism. The same can be said of science in general. This I would describe as a "natural" process.

 

Math has already shown itself something to be something that cannot replace the empirical method. Contrary it seems the two work in tandem quite well and I don’t know why this would be destroyed, not that you are attacking it.

 

Second the scope of support factually in terms of empirical for evolution is something in which the oxide layer is barely scratched in such debates. I mean looking at the family Cactaceae for support along of natural selection alone yields large amounts of information. I also do not understand how one can view trophic systems and not see evolution and natural selection at work from related field studies and scientific endeavors pertaining to such. Physics as applied to living systems has no conflictions as understanding currently stands, nor does chemistry. Noting in the natural sciences conflicts with evolution, or organic evolution if you want.

 

Evolution also is key in understanding human consciousness and culture, along with history. It allows for further understanding to be obtained.

 

*I would have used quotes but its so nested my current lazy mood really did not feel like contending with such.

[the advocate]

 

Not really. There are two general ways of looking at theories: as sets of statements and as "models". BOTH aim at discovering "truth" = accurate description of the physical universe.

 

 

Finding an accurate description of the universe is everyone's goal. The main point is that the “truths” of science in general should come with the inverted comma's firmly attached and in cases where scientific claims are upheld dogmatically, with a public health warning.

 

Milton claims that Darwinists are trying to have Darwinism portrayed as a FACT in schools and the theory of evolution as a FACT while denying the opportunity of others to present the theories apparent shortcomings. Do you believe that this is an acceptable behaviour? Don't you think we should come clean and be honest with the present gaps in our knowledge?

 

 

(I don't like using Wiki as a source, but this time I know from other printed sources that it is fairly accurate. It will serve as an introduction to you and correct your misunderstanding of induction.)

 

 

Using Wiki is nothing to be ashamed of. Whether you are taking knowledge from Wiki or “other printed sources, it is still considered knowledge derived by authority. Any way, it would have been more appropriate if you had referred me to the specific link on the “problem of induction” rather than one on induction generally. Note statement 2 of the problem of induction:

 

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

 

The laws of physics as they appear today are subject to this problem. In addition, Darwinism, like theories about the origin of the universe have an historical element. Darwinism is a theory about how things have happened in the past.

 

Unless we invent time travel we can never truly observe the “progress of evolution” over billions of years, or for that matter the lack of it. All we can do is infer that evolution occurred by looking at the fossil record. This is one reason why Darwinism should not be compared to any theories which attempt to explain the universe as it is today.

 

For example, it is doubtful that any impartial palaeontologist would infer the gradual change of species over time from their observations unless they were already fully convinced of this belief through their considerable pre-training. I say this having no particular gripe against some form of evolution taking place. We had to get here somehow. However, based on the evidence I have seen so far, I am far from satisfied by the Darwinian account.

 

But imagine that it was possible to travel back to the past and return with actual observations. Assuming the invention convenient and safe time travel we can proceed to investigate thoroughly what really happened and then propose a most convincing theory to account for our actual observations. Even with time travel, obtaining and interpreting these observations would still be an unimaginable task. Ignoring pre-biotic evolution for the present, we would have to find the first living cell(s) and follow the progress of the descendants over billions of years.

 

But lets assume that eventually we achieve this in a way that can be convincingly demonstrated to a thinking member of the public, say, by taking him on a time travelling holiday. We take him back to a consecutive series of moments in time showing the emergence of two distinct species from a common ancestor. And imagine that the idea of gradual evolution as the norm is fully vindicated and that the fossil record was misleading us after all on this point.

 

Now we are getting closer to raising Darwinism to a level where we are "sure" of the facts as we are "sure" of the "fact" of heliocentricity. But with all of that, I still think that a more convincing case could be put for heliocentricity than for Darwinism. In addition, all we would have so far is a set of observations which still require interpretation and explanation, in the same way that heliocentricity requires explanation in terms of a wider theory. We still can't know for sure that Darwinism is the correct or even the only mechanism driving these changes. It may turn out in the light of this knowledge that proposing such a mechanism is seen to be meaningless. Maybe its just the wrong approach to the question.

 

Short term lab experiments showing minor mutations are in no way adequate to generalise that the diversity of life we see today can be accounted for by Darwin's theory. This appears to be no more than a speculative hypothesis based of what Darwinists already believe to be true.

 

 

But, strictly speaking, you can't "prove" be either induction or deduction. You can, however, absolutely DISprove using deduction.

 

 

Can you give an example of absolutely disproving something by deduction in the context of science.

 

 

But that was exactly what you were advocating! So you do think accepting a theory as provisonally true is more than "it is unfalsified". As a physicist, do you constantly question of electrons?

 

 

I would take the foundations of these theories on trust (provisionally true) assuming that after some preliminary investigation I found them suitably convincing, while remembering from the lessons of history that they will ultimately be subject to radical revision so as to make them unrecognisable. This is the spirit of falsificationism. Assuming they suitably impressed me with their array of problems and solutions I would be happy to use them in the practice of 'normal science' at the moment. I would be inclined to “buy into these paradigms” subject to some initial consideration.

 

I'm not so sure about Darwinism, however. I have already spent a number of weeks looking into Darwinism and am not impressed by the vague and unsatisfactory nature of its explanations and the length of time that some of its major anomalies have gone unresolved. I believe that there are indications that Darwinism has hit a brick wall in some areas and is unlikely to shed any more light on them. While the question of when a research programme has degenerated hopelessly appears to be subjective, I would probably be jumping ship at this stage if there was an alternative. Failing that, I would probably prefer to research into the anomalies in order to encourage the emergence of a new “paradigm” or “research programme” which indicates the potential to deal with these anomalies more effectively.

 

But can you appreciate the difference between these theories (special Relativity or the orbital model) and one which points people to the metaphysical conclusion that pre-biotic evolution can certainly be accounted for by chemistry and statistics and that the reason for the current diversity of life is due to natural selection working on purely random mutations. Can you see why such a claim deserves a little more scrutiny than heliocentricity say. Milton believes that if science is to propose something equivalent to a religious creation story, then it should fully expect and indeed welcome the utmost scrutiny from people within science and from taxpayers who fund much of this research.

 

 

You have uncritically accepted Kuhn's thesis. Just as you have uncritically accepted Milton without reading a textbook on evolutionary biology.

 

 

I realise now that I have accepted Darwinism uncritically. Looking back I can see some of the reasons why this occurred. One of these is the misleading presentation of Darwinism in text books. It is common to see Darwinism presented in basic texts as an uncontroversial theory with only a few details to sort out.

 

Kuhn states that:

 

“Given the slightest reasons for doing so, the man who reads a science text can easily take the application to be the evidence for the theory, the reason why it aught to be believed. But science students accept theories on the authority of teacher and text, not because of the evidence. What alternatives have they or what competence? The applications given in texts are not there as evidence but because learning them is part of learning the paradigm at the base of current practice. (p. 80)” (emphasis mine)

 

By the time I new enough to question Darwinism, I had already accepted much of its ruling paradigm. Another reason for my ignorance of the present state of Darwinism was simply my interest in other areas of science. I assumed that Evolutionary theorists had at least the major elements of Darwinism well sorted. No one has time to question every detail of a theory which is outside their chosen discipline.

 

But more recently I have come to believe that this has been due to the way that Darwinists have tended to deliberately paper over the cracks in order to avoid exposing problems to the public at large. This is facilitated by the peer review system. My personal suspicions are being aroused by the evasive lines of arguments used when I ask the more pertinent questions. This attitude appears to be propagated from the top down. Rather than confess ignorance, the tendency is to become defensive and accuse me of having alternative motives, exactly as Milton predicted. Lakatos would never have sanctioned the stifling of debate in this way. In his words:

 

“One may rationally stick to a degenerating programme until it is overtaken by a rival and even after. What one may not do is deny its poor public record..... It is perfectly rational to play a risky game: what is irrational is to deceive oneself about the risk.” (p. 117)

 

When I first read Milton's book I was inclined to assume that it may contain much faulty science and I still have a lot to check. Recently however I read “reinventing Darwin” by Niles Eldredge himself a committed Darwinist. The things he was saying about the palaeontological evidence for Darwinism were even more damming than Milton! Although being on the side of Darwinism as it were, he just couldn't 'see' how damaging palaeontologies trade secret would be to the credibility of the Darwinian programme. Thanks to Gould and Eldredge, the next generation of palaeontologists are likely to enter the field with an more open mind and a mystery to solve. Gould and Eldredge were treated like apostates for their beliefs.

 

 

Kuhn made some statements I think are just wrong. Philosophy of Science: the Central Issues edited by Curd and Cover. It has the essential essays -- by the original philosophers -- and then critiques of those positions. They have a detailed critique of Kuhn.

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try to find this text.

 

 

One of the ironies here is that a paradigm shift away from creationism to Darwinism occurred in the period 1850-1870..... So, if Milton is serious about science following Kuhn, he can't think that rejection of Darwinism is going to go back to any form of creationism.

 

 

Milton claims that Darwinism will need to come up with answers soon or become a candidate for paradigm shift itself. He does not propose a specific replacement claiming that it is unreasonable to expect this of him. But while scientists may be bound to cling to the remnants of a paradigm in crisis (or a degenerating research program) until a rival appears, as Milton points out, the general public are not. Milton states that:

 

“I think those who believe in a creator, and those who believe in Darwinism, do so as an act of faith or belief, because they find it intellectually or emotionally repugnant to acknowledge and live with such open minded ignorance.” (p. 295)

 

Milton claims that he is personally agnostic and that he can live with this, but that many Darwinists take the theory as a substitute to traditional religion in spite of the evidence. He believes that this is explained by a psychological trait identified by Leon Festinger known as “cognitive dissonance”. From Wikipedia:

 

“In popular usage, it can be associated with the tendency for people to resist information that they don't want to think about, because if they did it would create cognitive dissonance, and perhaps require them to act in ways that depart from their comfortable habits. They usually have at least partial awareness of the information, without having moved to full acceptance of it, and are thus in a state of denial about it.”

 

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

 

You seem to be unable to discuss Milton's view without implying that he is a closet creationist. If I ask for your for this, please avoid answering with a circular argument such as: Milton necessarily has to be a creationist because he points out scientific problems with the Darwinism! If you have serious evidence then please state it.

 

More seriously, his personal agenda is irrelevant to the question at hand. All that matters is whether or not the criticisms he makes are valid. Maybe he does have a real big axe to grind with Darwin's theory for one reason or another. But this is all entirely irrelevant to criticisms of a scientific nature. Falsificationism is silent on the personal agenda of the critic. All that matters is the scientific content of the criticism and whether or not the theory stands up to it. In the same way, a theory may be inspired in a scientist after years of experimental toil or guessed by a genius with the aid of some unorthodox metaphysical commitments or even luck. Is it scientific to reject a promising hypothesis purely on the basis of the persons metaphysical beliefs? Surely not. All that matters is whether or not the theory stands up to scrutiny.

 

Does this mean conversely that we should assume that all Darwinists are atheists. Since Darwinism is “provisionally true” does this lend support to atheism? Or should we take atheism to be a refuted theory and ignore the views of Darwinists who profess atheism. Should we accuse theistic Darwinists of being closet atheists? Where do you stop when you start along this downward slope.

You are falling into his Milton's predicted pattern by attacking the person rather than concentrating on the science at hand. Such strategies may buy time but will never make a genuine problem go away.

 

 

That isn't exactly what happened. We take Milton's claim as a hypothesis. From that we use the hypothetico-deductive method to make deductions about consequences to that hypothesis if it is true. One of the deductions is that fewer papers will be published using Darwinism because fewer and fewer people find it useful in doing "normal" science and are switching to a new paradigm. Another deduction is that more and more papers are going to be about anomalies that evolution can't explain. Using deductive logic (not "Popperian" logic), we look to see if the consequences are true.

 

 

Newtonian physics is as useful as it ever was several decades after its replacement as paradigm. This is because in most investigations, the accuracy provided by Newton's physics is still more than adequate and the mathematics is much easier. It's really that simple. At the same time, you seem assured that Darwinism has explained (or at least explained away) most of its anomalies, but that is exactly what I am here to question. You assume the fact under debate in order to win your argument!

 

You made a bold claim that an increasing rate of production of papers on evolution implies that Darwinism is not a paradigm in decline. You use a strange “Popperian logic” to prove this. I recast your argument in terms of simpler deductive logic to expose it as fallacious. You cannot say that an increase in the number of published papers (over time) concerning evolution necessarily proves that Darwinism is not a declining paradigm. There are clearly several other variables which would have to be isolated in order to justify this claim. I refer you to my earlier posts on this. You also said:

 

 

Also, if you look at PubMed using the search term "evolution" and then look at the time limits for how far back you search, you will see that the number of articles that involve evolution has been increasing over time. That is, in the last 6 months there are more articles using/describing evolution than in the 6 months before that, and that number is larger than the 6 months before that, etc. A declining "paradigm" doesn't do that.

 

 

It appears that you have found the precise indicator of when the strength of a paradigm or research programme peaks and begins to decline that Popper, Khun and Lakatos searched for in vain! Popper said crucial experiments. Khun and Lakatos were not exactly sure how to pinpoint when a paradigm began to decline. You say, a zero rate of change of published papers with evolution in the title. Does this mean that you will be willing to give up Darwinism when the search for the term evolution begins to show fewer results?

 

You have uncritically accepted the presence of “any and all” articles under the vague heading of evolution to 'prove' that Darwinism is not a declining paradigm. Have you really read and scrutinized all (or indeed any) of those articles personally. This is a blatant attempt to argue from authority. While scrutinizing these papers you should have taken the time to distinguish between genuine tests of Darwinism as opposed to mere repetitions of the same test.

 

How do you even know that some or indeed any of those articles have not contradicted Darwinism. You also assume that just because the article has “evolution” in the title that it is evidence of a supportive or confirming article. Do you simply trust that the peer review system would automatically filter out any “rogue evidence”?

 

You also stated that:

 

“PubMed has over 150,000 articles just since 1965 that involve tests of evolution! We are at the stage of testing evolution the way we test heliocentrism”

and

 

“Not protective. Just that the tests HAVE BEEN DONE! Pay attention. If you can think of tests, put them out there. But there are a lot of evolutionary biologists who have been working -- by Popperian science -- since 1859 testing evolution. PubMed has over 150,000 articles just since 1965 that involve tests of evolution!”

 

Genuine tests involve exposing the theory to some risk. If I am to assume that Darwinism is running out of tests to falsify it as you claim then you would expect only a tiny amount of genuine corroborating instances to appear in articles. In this case, the paradigm has reached its useful limit. The research programme has become “tired” and it is time to turn to the negative heuristic.

 

Popper states that:

 

“Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her. And we must hazard them to win our prize.”

 

Are you really a Popperian?

 

Do these ad hoc hypotheses work? We can test them independently. Pouring $$ isn't going to make the anomalies disappear.

 

Lakatos states that:

 

“It is very difficult to decide, especially if one does not demand progress at each single step, when a research programme has degenerated hopelessly........With sufficient brilliance and some luck, any theory, even if it is false, can be defended 'progressively' for a long time. But when should a particular theory , or a whole research programme, be rejected? I claim, only if there is a better one to replace it.” (P 149,150 – The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (emphasis mine)

 

You are right, but it could allow anomalies to be managed ad concealed using for a “long time”. In addition to brilliance and luck, I would add $$.

 

 

The second objection is just silly. By Kuhn, you would not see ANY papers in a paradigm that was replaced a century ago. Paradigm replacement is complete: the old paradigm is no longer used at all. So this objection is simply a non-starter. It's a strawman.

 

 

If you knew anything about the way physics works first hand, you would know that that Newtonian physics (and classical paradigm in general) is as useful today as it ever was. I personally used purely classical techniques in order to investigate the chaotic nature of non-linear coupling of high powered laser beams in an optical fibre for my final year thesis. The mathematics used while beautiful was truly ancient and very much part of the “rejected” Newtonian paradigm. Relativity or QM were quite irrelevant to this investigation although the chaotic coupling phenomena itself was very new. You should be more cautious when you make sweeping generalisations about someone else's speciality. Does it not make you wonder how much you really know about the security of other branches of science outside your own speciality which purport to corroborate Darwinism. Like palaeontology.

 

 

Darwinism is 2. It is currently unfalsified. I stand by my claim that we are running out of tests to falsify Darwinism. Darwinism has passed every test we have thrown at it and there simply aren't more tests to pass.

 

 

What claim do you stand by? “That we are running out of tests” or that “there simply aren't more tests to pass.” You seem to be trying to say that Darwinism is unfalsifyable without saying that is unfalsifyable! You are in danger of loosing sight of Poppers view entirely. As Popper states:

 

“the wrong view of science betrays itself in the craving to be right; for it is not his possession of knowledge, of irrefutable truth, that makes the man of science, but his persistent and reckless critical quest for the truth.”

 

You have yet to quote any serious potential falsifying instances, not because problems do not exist, but because you appear to belong to a paradigm that seeks to deny the possibility of a falsifying instance in the manner of pseudo-sciences. In doing so, you appear to have crossed Poppers demarcation line from science to pseudo-science.

 

 

Lakatos disagreed with Kuhn.

 

 

While it is generally accepted that Lakatos sided with Popper against Kuhn in claiming that there were rational rules for scientific progress, you will know that there are a number of instances where Lakatos does side with Khun over Popper if you have read the Methodology of scientific research programs. This is what I claimed. Indeed, Lakatos fails to demonstrate the very point he set out to prove; that scientists are behaving rationally at the time when they switch research programmes. It is only with hindsight that he claims a rational pattern can be discerned. But while Lakatos and Khun need to be used with caution, they do however provide interesting insights into the methodologies scientists use to deal with anomalies.

 

 

So, you accept Milton but won't read a textbook on evolutionary biology. I suggest Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology.

 

 

I didn't say that I won't read a text book on evolutionary biology. You said that. Please show me where I did if you are truthful. I am currently reading “Reinventing Darwin” by Niles Eldredge. Furthermore, have you read any literature which is critical of Darwinism from cover to cover or do you write them off after the first few pages as creationist literature? The irony of all this is that it is you who refuses to read Miltons book, a book critical of Darwinism. You openly admitted this.

 

I have recently become aware of an increasing number of books by scientists who are very critical of Darwinism. I intend to read both sides and will bear in mind your suggestion. Please avoid making such false claims about me in future as correcting them wastes time. At the same time, I would be grateful if you could tell me any of the books you have read which are critical of Darwinism.

 

 

Sorry, heliocentricity is still a theory. We accept it as provisionally true. We accept it so strongly that you think it is "fact". IOW, it has failed falsification so many times that we can't think of any other test to falsify it, can we? Can you think of a test to falsify heliocentricity? Please go to your questions above and give me your position on heliocentricity, on your scale.

 

 

Thank you for pointing out my lapse and reminding me of the fact that even today something as apparently obvious as heliocentricity is still extremely hard to demonstrate convincingly. Where does that leave Darwinism. I clarify my original position; that heliocentricity is a theory that I would currently be prepared to accept as provisionally true. Darwinism is however not presently one that I would be prepared to accept as provisionally true. Efforts to provide demonstrable proof of Darwinian evolution are currently light years behind those which purport to provide demonstrable proof of heliocentricity.

 

A very good reason to accept heliocentricity as provisionally true is that nowadays, technology has advanced so far that it is possible to give convincing demonstrations of heliocentricity, to a thinking member of the public. In addition, the information we have gathered since the theory was first postulated has lead to increasingly spectacular corroborations. While it is possible by rearranging our theory to put the earth back at the centre of the universe, I don't think the idea will catch on given our present state of knowledge. It is also worth noting, that no one questions or writes books questioning heliocentricity any more, as far as I know. On my scale, I would give heliocentricity a 1 (accepted as provisionally true). For now. Darwinism would get a 0 (not accepted as provisionally true)

 

The only justification for accepting the Darwinian paradigm as provisionally true at present is in order to explore the major anomalies which should be public knowledge. I could not accept it as true uncritically true as you appear to have done. Going by the answers I have had so far, I predict a growing number of scientists who investigate Darwinism will focus on the anomalies. I also predict a growth in the number of rival candidates and the reappearance of some of the earlier vanquished rivals. Some of the anomalies are not minor or peripheral as is often claimed but affect the heart and sole of Darwinism.

 

If, for example, countless examples of gradual evolution had been uncovered from the fossil record, many of Darwin's critics would have been silenced by now and museums would be bursting with the evidence of gradual evolutionary change – not “stasis”. People would infer that the suggested Darwinian mechanism was indeed a plausible candidate to explain the emergence of complex life forms in the sense that it is supported by evidence. But things didn't turn out the way that Darwin anticipated. Instead we see new species appearing abruptly and remaining stable for millions of years with only minor variations – the exact opposite.

 

This being the case, it may still be possible to get around the failure of palaeontologists to find the fossil pattern predicted by Darwin by adjusting the theory to fit in with what is actually found as was the case with punctuated equilibria. I am however inclined to believe that Darwin's instinct was right in the respect that his theory will fall on account of this failure. At the moment, you have to take a leap of faith in the face of the evidence before you can accept the gradual Darwinian mechanism. If the pattern he had predicted had been found convincingly, then the debate would have moved on from here.

 

 

Now, are you taking a Popperian view of heliocentricity? If not, then you agree that a strict Popperian view is not applied to all theories. We are down to discussing how confirmed Darwinian evolution is.

 

 

I think I know what you are getting at. I believe that the present defence of Darwinism is not based on Popper at all. But instead is based on stretching the Lakatosian idea of Popper2 to the limit while ignoring his cautions. Darwinism is no longer a fledgling theory that needs to be sheltered from anomalies but the kind of theory which deserves and should indeed welcome serious scrutiny. It is sad, if what you say is true, that creationist seem to be the ones most interested in furthering science by pointing out anomalies while Darwinists seem intent on defending the theory at great cost to the ideal of scientific objectivity. Surely this is one of the dangers of relying to heavily on the Lakatosian methodology.

 

 

Milton's complaint is without merit. It has long been realized by evolutionary biologists that Darwin made 5 theories:

"1. The nonconstancy of species (the basic theory of evolution)

2. The descent of all organisms from common ancestors (branching evolution).

3. The gradualness of evolution (no saltations, no discontinuities)

4. The multiplication of species (the origin of diversity)

5. Natural selection." Ernst Mayr, What Evolution IS. pg 86

 

(BTW, Mayr's book is another you need to read.) Now, the Grant study on Darwin's finches or the peppered moth example only applies to #5. Phylogenetic analysis tested #1 and #2 but didn't touch the rest.

 

 

1 is uncontroversial according to Milton if you mean by this “sub specific variation”.

2 while at the moment this does appear to be possible and widely accepted, the jury is still out according to Milton.

3 this is highly controversial.

4 how does 2 differ from 4?

5 evolution as a consequence of natural selection acting on random mutations is rejected by Milton along with Darwins theory of sexual selection.

 

What about the hundreds of auxiliary hypotheses? I would like help in identifying the positive and negative heuristic and some of the auxiliary hypotheses of Darwinism. You are silent on this important issue.

 

I stated in an earlier post that:

 

“If the 'fact' of evolution can be Demonstrated convincingly in the way that heliocentricity can, then I don't have a problem with that. I do however have a big problem making evolution synonymous with Darwinian evolution. Demonstrating the 'fact' of evolution in no way proves the validity of the Darwinian theory of evolution any more than Demonstrating the fact of heliocentricity proves Newtons theory of Gravitation. Milton complains that:

 

“Wherever there is any evidence relating to evolution as a principle, Darwinists claim that evidence for their theory of mutation and natural selection.””

 

Making evolution and Darwinism synonymous is a methodological decision, not a self evident fact. If Darwinian evolution is the only conceivable means of evolution, and the Darwinian mechanism is later shown to be untenable for one reason or another, then you are forced to concede that evolution didn't happen at all! We just appeared, by magic. If, however, you separate evolution the 'fact' from the Darwinian mechanism, then the idea of evolution of some sort may survive, albeit perhaps without a mechanism. The actual historical pattern of this evolution would need to be determined primarily from the fossil record. I think you are trying to say, if evolution has such a thing as a mechanism, then Darwinism is the only conceivable candidate. To reject the Darwinian mechanism is to reject the belief that evolution can submit to a scientific explanation.

 

 

1. No one has to pressure schools to teach relativity or QM as fact. They do so anyway. No one is complaining about it, either.

 

 

I agree entirely. Relativity and QM should be and are taught as a theories. To my knowledge, no one is pressurising schools to teach them as facts. My physics teacher was open about the conflict between relativity and QM. I left secondary school with the notion that Einstein never fully accepted the idea that nature at the quantum level is inherently probabilistic. I later found out that the two theories are based on entirely different and irreconcilable mathematical frameworks.

 

 

2. You looked ONLY at recent theories. How about atomic theory? That is taught as fact. How about Bohr's model of the atom? Anyone questioning that model?

 

 

My chemistry teacher would often speak of how we teach chemistry by a process of decreasing deception. He made no bones about the limitations of the Bohr model and discussed the problems often. This was not the case in biology with evolution. No dispute was mentioned although things may have improved since then. The point is, why should we not be open and honest about the theories limitations. Will it not encourage children to be more open minded and interested in science. Why should children wish to follow a career in the study of a “closed question” with all but the finer details to iron out.

 

 

Oh, no, he is choosing an easy target. A target that he knows does not have much fossil or other evidence behind it. He is ignoring the hard targets -- such as the mammalian middle ear or the wings of birds and insects -- that have much more evidence. So what he is doing is "synedoche" -- picking out a particular unrepresentative example and then trying to make it "general". It is induction and very bad induction.

 

 

Niles Eldredge states that:

 

“The “Just So Story” evolved as a statement of principle - of rote application of the black box of natural selection in order to explain the origin of a particular function, structure, or item of behaviour. The stories were probably on the money more often than not. But there is no way of knowing for sure, and the entire exercise of adaptive story telling began to strike many evolutionary biologists as inherently dissatisfying.” (P 41. Reinventing Darwin) – emphasis mine

 

I think that Niles Eldredege makes the point better than Milton. These proofs are all works of imagination which for years have been peddled as science. Are these hard targets the best on offer after the collection of hundreds of thousands of fossil remains over 150 years. I intend to investigate this claim.

 

Does Darwin's theory of sexual selection have any similar hard targets. The peacocks tail for example. How hard is that? Until fairly recently, this type of explanation was considered scientific!

 

 

The problem is that ALL of his arguments are ID/creationist arguments. And ones that have been refuted before. I'll get to that in my next post. So the question arises: why is Milton using arguments that have already been refuted and presenting them as valid? That is what creationists do. So, using the commutative principle from mathematics: creationists = using invalid arguments as tho they are valid = Milton, it is reasonable to infer that Milton is actually a creationist and is hiding that position.

 

That you behave as a standard creationist -- believe Milton's arguments uncritically, claim scientific expertise you apparently do not have, have not and will not read books on evolutionary biology, are a theist, etc, -- lends support to the hypothesis that Milton wrote a creationist book for creationists. Also note that Milton did not publish or even submit his critique to a scientific journal such as the Journal of Theoretical Biology but marketed it to the lay public, and the hypothesis that Milton is advocating creationism/ID gets more support.

 

 

To list your arguments

 

All arguments advanced by Milton are by definition (refuted) ID/creationist arguments although you don't know what they are yet because you refuse to read his book.

 

Someone who questions any part of the Darwinist doctrine is by definition a creationist and hence excluded from forwarding any scientific criticism. You have immunised Darwinism from any criticism while claiming to be a Popperian.

 

Someone who criticises Darwin on scientific grounds is defined as a closet creationist. Therefore, all critics of Darwinism are either open ID/creationists or closet ID/creationists. (I wonder if an open atheist who criticises Darwinism be considered a closet creationist by this “logic”? That's a tough one.)

 

Any scientist who considers counter evidence to Darwinism is defined as uncritical and merely claiming scientific expertise. That would have to include a growing number of prominent scientists nowadays, according to Milton.

 

Any argument advanced by creationists irrespective of the scientific content and merit is pre-judged as falsified.

 

This method of argumentation is in sharp contrast to the image you like to present a Popperian and a scientist. You need to remain consistent. Either you are a Popperian or a “scientific fundamentalist”

Any non scientists and indeed many scientists will be appalled by these patronising assumptions. You use these ad hominem arguments after preaching to poor Lockheed in the forum of how bad this is. You have accused me personally of refusing to read Darwinist literature and being a creationist, without justification. You speak and act as if you have personally understood, verified and ticked off every piece of evidence advanced in support of Darwinism. This is intellectual arrogance. In doing so you behave in exactly the way Milton predicted.

 

Do you realise that you are talking to any member of the public with legitimate concerns about Darwinism - possibly even the ones who pay your wages. You advance these are arguments ad nauseam in the hope that they will fool gullible people and in order to distract attention from the problems with Darwinism which I am trying to discuss and iron out. I am trying to further this discussion on scientific and logical grounds but you are making things extremely difficult. By falling into a pattern of behaviour predicted by Milton, you corroborate part of his thesis!

 

 

Milton is not talking to scientists at all. If that were the case, we would deduce that Milton would have read the literature better and be more familiar with the data against his positions (next post) and try to publish in a more scientific forum than a book geared to an audience without biological training.

 

 

You are right. Milton's book is aimed at a thinking member of the public. He presents himself as a thinking member of the public in search of answers. The point is, the questions he pose come from within the scientific community itself. This situation has arose because the ruling paradigm as sustained in part by the peer review system is failing to acknowledge problems. I'm not talking about minor details but problems so obvious that anyone can spot them. But the Darwinist establishment is refusing to allow the kind of truly open debate that could lead to a rival programme emerging swiftly.

 

There may well be other better or more scientific material addressing the same issues. I intend to look into this while acquainting myself with the present schools of Darwinian thought.

 

 

 

So, you won't trust me about that vast body of information and accept it "uncritically". But you will accept Milton's criticisms uncritically. Why does Milton get a free ride from criticism? Why do you trust his claim that "nearly all the evidence which originally gave support to Darwinism has been dropped"?

 

 

Where did I say that I have accepted Milton's thesis at all, never mind uncritically. I said I was arguing his thesisMilton does not try to pretend that the scientific criticism he advances are uncontroversial and some may be out of date. If however even a portion of them were true, the effects could be far reaching to say the least. If I had accepted Miltons thesis uncritically, I wouldn't be on this thread looking to see possible counter arguments. What will be achieved by criticising a straw man of Milton's argument other than everyone going home feeling better?

 

Don't take this personally but no – I won't accept your word for it although I am happy to consider your arguments before making up my mind. This was precisely what was happening when I joined the thread. Not a single person had read Milton's book yet they felt sufficiently well informed to make all sorts of assumptions about it and about Milton's beliefs and character. That was precisely my earlier point. Refuting a straw man does not refute anything and the arguments do not go away but instead gain currency.

 

 

I don't want my long science post merged with this one -- which will happen automatically if I answer now. WAIT! I will start a new thread "Milton's science" where I can discuss Milton's scientific claims. And yes, there are refutations to his comments about natural selection. Look for that thread.

 

 

This very thread is called:

 

Help on flaws in "Shattering the Myth of Darwinism"?

 

Now you want to start a new one to discuss the same subject! What is the point of that? Would it not make more sense to start a thread on "the concept of truth in science", say.

 

 

All that said, why science uses a more restricted definition of "true" than philosophers -- because they want to get something done. In fact, it may even be possible to absolutely prove that some statements form "the simplest observable truth" with respect to everything which has so far been observed.

 

 

I agree entirely that scientists need to accept many assumptions in order to get things done.

Truth as used in philosophy and “truth” as used in physics are entirely different concepts. One is a unreachable, the other purely pragmatic. When you say “absolutely”, do you mean the philosophers absolutely or a less rigorous physicists absolutely. Can you expand this idea. How would you define “the simplest observable truth” in a way that is universally acceptable. This would be a minimum criteria if you mean “absolute proof” even in the scientists sense.

 

The problem here is that the most well developed theories in physics (for example) are mathematical. There are currently not one but instead a number of foundational schools of mathematics. Which is correct if any?