Evolution: Not a Fact, a Changing Theory.

[Old Things]

Please watch the whole thing before commenting.


I will try to summarize...

The video first talks about how you have competing theories on the manifestation of life we see on Earth. One view is that we all descended from a single cell (tree of life). The other is that there have always been differences between life that cannot be reduced to a single-celled origin (forest of life).

Secondly, he talks about the criteria for high-confidence evidence. These criteria are:
1) Repeatable
2) Directly Measurable
3) Prospective Study
4) Avoid Bias
5) Avoid Assumptions
6) Make Reasonable Claims

He also says that confidence in a scientific finding is a sliding scale, and different scientific experiments will have more or less confidence based on those six criteria.

In support of the Tree of Life model, we have this evidence:
1) Fossile Records
2) Geographic Distribution
3) Vestigial Organs
4) Comparison of Life Forms

Richard Dawkins thinks the comparison of life forms is the best evidence we have. Unfortunately, comparison of life forms does not meet any of the criteria for a strong standard of evidence.

Then he goes on to talk about high-confidence evidence for evolution. He mentions a study done that caused E. Coli to eat citrate. However, this did not actually add any information to the E. coli. Rather, all it did was copy and paste a gene and get rid of another one. Then, another study was conducted with E. coli again, and this time, the hypothesis was, "If genes that produce this enzyme are damaged, can evolution repair them to produce tryptophan again?" In the experiment, they changed a letter of the DNA code, and the enzyme functioned poorly. After 100 million e. coli growth, the mutation was repaired. Then they changed another gene, and this caused the e. coli to not produce any tryptophan, but the result was the same after about 100 million e. coli growths the gene repaired. Thirdly, they damaged both genes, and the E. coli never was able to make tryptophan again. Conclusion: evolution is very limited in what it can do and how it can change genes. The enzyme was 99.9% complete, but it could not repair itself. The E. coli could not evolve to produce its own tryptophan.

Then he talks about how humans have been experimenting with rats for 95 years, and we know enough that you either have a rat or you have something dead. He also mentions a 10-year study done on Daphnia pulex, and the result was natural selection had an average effect of of about zero.

Then, he talks about humans and chimps having a common ancestor. The evidence shows through DNA that when people used to say that humans and chimps are 98% the same, this only took into account our genes and not all our DNA. The evidence shows that humans have over 6% of all genes that don't have orthologs in the chimp genome. And they further argue that there are more orphan genes than there are shared genes. It used to be thought that there was a ton of junk DNA, but now scientists know that junk DNA is actually a regulatory function that directs what will be turned on and off in the genome.

That should be fine for an overview.

 

[Hadoblado]

Bro it's 80 minutes long and you haven't commented.

This is part of what I mean when I say this place has devolved to propaganda. You share content without comment, criticism, how it affected you... anything. You're just regurgitating media that affirms your view from your feed onto ours. "Regurgitation" is actually too charitable, because that at least implies that you in some way processed it.

 

[Old Things]

You're just regurgitating media that affirms your view from your feed onto ours.

It's a discussion between two very established scientists (a person who has many medical patents and one who has a triple Ph. D in chemistry), but go off, king. I'll put a summary in the OP.

 

[Hadoblado]

What do you think about it? Who do you think was right? Why? I'm not here to listen to your playlist I'm here to talk to you!

 

[Old Things]

What do you think about it? Who do you think was right? Why? I'm not here to listen to your playlist I'm here to talk to you!

I think if you can get behind the biologist's idea of what is considered high-confidence evidence, it shows that evolution, as it is taught in textbooks, is not really scientific at all.

 

[Cognisant]

I see no conflict between evolution and creation, if God knows everything and is all powerful than God created humanity when he created the universe, even if it took a while for things to play out prior to our arrival.

So we have a shared ancestory with Chimps, so what? If anything that proves there's something fundamentally different about us, that we're not just animals, because no other animal has even come close to what we have achieved.

Old Things I find your faith lacking if it is troubled by such a trifling matter of whether or not you might be a monkey's great great great great (etc) uncle.

 

[Old Things]

Old Things I find your faith lacking if it is troubled by such a trifling matter of whether or not you might be a monkey's great great great great (etc) uncle.

My faith is not threatened by evolution. There are many good Christian people who believe in it. Evolution is not a salvific issue, so that is not the reason I have this contention. I have this contention because I don't believe we all originated from a lightning strike in a pond somewhere, and the first cell was made because of it, which is absurd, and no one should take that kind of idea seriously. Further, watch the video, and you will understand why I think evolution is not scientifically viable.

 

[Cognisant]

Why? Ok so God sculpted man out of clay and gave him life and in that moment his body of clay turned into flesh and blood, meaning the molecules, atoms, protons and neutrons spontaneously rearranged and transmuted themselves by God's will.

You believe that, but a lightning strike is too... what? Too pagan?

Moreover Adam and Eve weren't the first humans, when they were cast out of the garden of Eden they had only sons, so who did their sons have children with?
Think really hard about it.

It's implied that Adam and Eve entered a world that already contained humans or at least something close enough to breed with, their descendants interacted with human civilizations and they were clearly different to normal people.

If everyone is a descendant of Adam and Eve why trace the lineage of a few individuals? Because they, and only they, were the descendants of Adam and Eve, everyone else was just a regular human with no divine lineage.

This is the conceit of Judaism, that you are either one of God's people or you're not, that you're either a descendant of Adam and Eve or you're not, it's only after the sacrifice of Jesus that anyone can become one of God's people through baptism.

 

[Old Things]

I am not even talking about religion here. But if YOU want to bring religion into it, that's fine...

IRT life on earth before humans is something that has been hotly debated in Christian circles lately (primarily by Young Earth Creationists, who everyone else thinks are crazy). But I believe that animal death and other humans existed before Adan and Eve existed. This is attested to prominent Christian thinkers centuries before science was even a thing by the minds of Augustine of Hippo, etc. However, I believe that Adam and Eve are the parents of all humans on earth. There's nothing contradictory about that. It's completely scientifically viable to believe this (see "The Genealogical Adam and Eve" by Dr. Josh Swamidas for more). Even Theistic Evolutionists who are Christians but believe in evolution can still say there very much existed an Adam and Eve from whence all other humans come (see "In Quest of the Historical Adam" by Dr. William Lane Craig).

However, the matter of contention for the tree of life model--the theory that all life evolved from a single-celled life form billions of years ago, I contend, is not a scientific theory. It's something Darwin came up with in order to bury the idea of God, much like Marx came up with his theory to bury God and Freud came up with his idea to bury God. However, the problem is that none of these ideas actually work in reality. They are nice to think about how we don't need a creator telling us we owe Him our lives, but beyond that, these men's theories don't provide a whole lot of concrete data to uphold their ideas.

So, at root, I contend that Christianity makes much more sense based on the evidence we do have rather than what the Bible calls "vain philosophies," which are simply navel-gazing as collective humanity by throwing whatever we can at the wall to see what sticks trying to show we have no need for a creator.

 

[Cognisant]

However, the matter of contention for the tree of life model--the theory that all life evolved from a single-celled life form billions of years ago, I contend, is not a scientific theory. It's something Darwin came up with in order to bury the idea of God, much like Marx came up with his theory to bury God and Freud came up with his idea to bury God.

Well it doesn't, God isn't credited with creating life, God created the universe so even if life is an emergent property of the universe that doesn't mean God didn't create it.

That's like saying someone didn't bake a cake, they merely mixed the ingredients in the right ratios and heated them for the right amount of time and in those circumstances the cake created itself.

Like, yeah, sure, if you want to be a pedantic ass about it I didn't literally assemble the protein and sugar based crumb structure by manually moving molecules around, but I still baked the fucking cake ya dickhead.

 

[Old Things]

However, the matter of contention for the tree of life model--the theory that all life evolved from a single-celled life form billions of years ago, I contend, is not a scientific theory. It's something Darwin came up with in order to bury the idea of God, much like Marx came up with his theory to bury God and Freud came up with his idea to bury God.

Well it doesn't, God isn't credited with creating life, God created the universe so even if life is an emergent property of the universe that doesn't mean God didn't create it.

That's like saying someone didn't bake a cake, they merely mixed the ingredients in the right ratios and heated them for the right amount of time and in those circumstances the cake created itself.

Like, yeah, sure, if you want to be a pedantic ass about it I didn't literally assemble the protein and sugar based crumb structure by manually moving molecules around, but I still baked the fucking cake ya dickhead.

Do tell how life came to be on this planet...

The prevailing theory in textbooks today is something stranger than fiction, with zero evidence for it whatsoever.

So, please, tell me the evidence you have for that first life form coming into being... Maybe it was deep within the ocean, or maybe it was a lightning strike in a pond, or maybe it fell from an asteroid in the sky. Tell me, how did life begin on this planet? Surely you know...

Sorry, I'm being facetious.

I do believe that God created all life on this planet, and each produce after its own kind. That's what the Bible says, and that is what the evidence shows. There is no "origin of species." It's a myth. It's a cleverly devised plot to get us to think the universe runs completely deterministically. Except the universe is far from being deterministic. Science helps us understand what is repeatable, observable, and predictable, but most of reality doesn't fit into those categories. So, something else must be going on besides materialistic determinism.

 

[Cognisant]

Tell me, how did life begin on this planet? Surely you know...

Don't know, don't care, doesn't matter.

We know that life did begin somewhere, somehow, but until somebody invents a time machine and goes back to check, it's impossible to know.

 

[Old Things]

We know that life did begin somewhere, somehow, but until somebody invents a time machine and goes back to check, it's impossible to know.

Information requires a mind to create it. This is pretty standard.

If I go outside and I see cigarette butts arrayed out to spell "I refuse to throw these out," I assume there is a mind behind it. I assume it happened because someone with a mind arranged the butts to spell that out. That's about as simple and complex as it needs to be irt the origin of life.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Aliens, Pleadians, asteroids, stardust, life from other planets that seeded here. Clay, minerals, air, sunlight, temperature and water have a role in it. Personally, I think to have all those elements in one place, is a combination of both science AND wonderment and miracles. What if its all of the above?

 

[Old Things]

What if its all of the above?

We have no evidence for half of those, and the other half cannot produce life independently.

 

[birdsnestfern]

They found life on other planets. Life could have been seeded from another planet.

 

[Old Things]

They found life on other planets. Life could have been seeded from another planet.

No, they have not found life on other planets.

 

[birdsnestfern]

I saw this, its life supporting elements. I don't think its so far fetched to think minerals, elements being spread around all help to create the ideal mix for life to start. BUT, I also don't think its materials only, ie, I think you have to have everything just right. I do not know, we just have to guess here. https://www.nasa.gov/universe/exopl...hane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18-b/

 

[Old Things]

I saw this, its life supporting elements. I don't think its so far fetched to think minerals, elements being spread around all help to create the ideal mix for life to start. BUT, I also don't think its materials only, ie, I think you have to have everything just right. I do not know, we just have to guess here. https://www.nasa.gov/universe/exopl...hane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18-b/

That doesn't in any way say we found life on another planet... It's guessing.

 

[Puffy]

I don’t think theology and science are necessarily at odds really, they’re studies of different questions. Broadly theology tries to answer why questions (“why are we here”) and science tries to answer how questions. Evolution is currently the best explanation of how things have come to be but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. It also doesn’t exclude the possibility that there was an original cause in a deity of some kind and that evolution describes how things developed from there.

 

[Old Things]

Evolution is currently the best explanation of how things have come to be but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

It's not, though.

It also doesn’t exclude the possibility that there was an original cause in a deity of some kind and that evolution describes how things developed from there.

It does if you listen to the people who are in the Origin of Life research.

 

[Puffy]

Evolution is currently the best explanation of how things have come to be but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

It's not, though.

It also doesn’t exclude the possibility that there was an original cause in a deity of some kind and that evolution describes how things developed from there.

It does if you listen to the people who are in the Origin of Life research.

Sorry to elaborate evolution explains how life developed once it was created/came to be. I don’t think there is a demonstratable hypothesis of the origin of life in modern science as I understand it.

 

[scorpiomover]

I will try to summarize...

That should be fine for an overview.

1) This is just about different theories about who were our grandparents. It's no different to scientists arguing about different theories of the origin of the universe. There are FIVE theories about the origin of the universe. Most scientists happen to follow one of them. But it's not like the other theories have all been definitely proved wrong. According to science, science changes with new evidence. So we have an 80% chance of following the wrong scientific theory anyway.

As far as most non-religious people are concerned, it's nothing more than semantics.

2) If any of us found out that our parents were adopted, would it change anything about ourselves? We'd still be bound by the same laws. The logic we apply to believe in morals and choices would still be just as valid. So such discoveries don't make a difference.

So whether humans are created directly by G-d or via evolution, should not make any difference. We're still the same people we always were.

 

[scorpiomover]

I see no conflict between evolution and creation, if God knows everything and is all powerful than God created humanity when he created the universe, even if it took a while for things to play out prior to our arrival.

So we have a shared ancestory with Chimps, so what? If anything that proves there's something fundamentally different about us, that we're not just animals, because no other animal has even come close to what we have achieved.

Good points.

 

[scorpiomover]

Why? Ok so God sculpted man out of clay and gave him life and in that moment his body of clay turned into flesh and blood, meaning the molecules, atoms, protons and neutrons spontaneously rearranged and transmuted themselves by God's will.

If we are looking at things that way, then even according to the theory of evolution, the molecules, atoms, protons and neutrons that make up humans, also spontaneously rearranged and transmuted themselves by evolution.

So they're both examples of spontaneous creation.

Equally well, even if we look at them in terms of deliberate intent, then even according to the theory of evolution, the molecules, atoms, protons and neutrons that make up humans, also were deliberately rearranged and transmuted via evolution choosing the animals that were better at natural selection and sexual selection.

So they're both examples of deliberate creation.

Moreover Adam and Eve weren't the first humans, when they were cast out of the garden of Eden they had only sons, so who did their sons have children with?
Think really hard about it.

Answer 1:

Genesis Chapter 5 Verse 4: "And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years, and he begat sons and daughters".

Adam had children for 800 years! To prevent inbreeding, only 500 children are needed. So Adam had plenty of time to have lots of kids.

Answer 2:

You gave the answer yourself, in 2 separate posts:

It's implied that Adam and Eve entered a world that already contained humans or at least something close enough to breed with,

Well it doesn't, God isn't credited with creating life, God created the universe so even if life is an emergent property of the universe that doesn't mean God didn't create it.

That's like saying someone didn't bake a cake, they merely mixed the ingredients in the right ratios and heated them for the right amount of time and in those circumstances the cake created itself.

Like, yeah, sure, if you want to be a pedantic ass about it I didn't literally assemble the protein and sugar based crumb structure by manually moving molecules around, but I still baked the fucking cake ya dickhead.

You make a compelling argument that even if there were other humans around, they would be considered to be creations of G-d, just as much as Adam and Eve.

Answer 3:
Many religious scholars maintain that Kayin and Hevel (Cain and Abel) were each born as twins with twin girls, who they married.

Those scholars also ask, how could Kayin and Hevel marry their sisters? Isn't it forbidden in the OT? They also point out that Yaakov (Jacob) also married 2 sisters, and yet G-d doesn't complain about that. Their answer is that before G-d gave orders not to do something, they didn't have to do it. If G-d ordered it later, it was still probably a good idea. But before it was an order, you could break it if you wanted.

Think of it like the current rule that affected this site for 2 months, that all servers have to be HTTPS servers and HTTP servers aren't alllowed anymore. Before that rule was set down, it was still probably better to have a HTTPS server anyway, as HTTPS is a lot more secure than HTTP. But it wasn't mandatory at the time, and so it was OK to sometimes set up a HTTP server, such as if you weren't dealing with matters of national security, and just chatting about topics like we do here.

But now that such a rule was set in place, you can't have a HTTP server anymore.

Same thing in the case of Adam's sons. At that time, G-d hadn't said that they couldn't ever have sex with their sister. Probably not recommended in most cases. But since it was for the purpose of procreating the world with children, and that WAS a commandment given to Adam and his progeny, and since that was the only way it could happen before Shet (Seth) was born, then it was OK at the time.

their descendants interacted with human civilizations and they were clearly different to normal people.

If everyone is a descendant of Adam and Eve why trace the lineage of a few individuals?

Your family lineage matters.

Imagine if everyone was raised together with no knowledge of who their parents and grandparents were. A lot of them would end up marrying their sister and getting their sister pregnant without realising. Then you'd have a population with a high level of birth defects.

Because they, and only they, were the descendants of Adam and Eve, everyone else was just a regular human with no divine lineage.

This is the conceit of Judaism, that you are either one of God's people or you're not, that you're either a descendant of Adam and Eve or you're not, it's only after the sacrifice of Jesus that anyone can become one of God's people through baptism.

1) According to all sects of Judaism, anyone can become one of G-d's people through conversion to Judaism. The process requires acceptance of the laws of Judaism, and bathing in a ritual bath (Mikveh), which includes any cave that is fed by natural water sources, including lakes and even the ocean.

2) Several of Judaism's most esteemed and respected Rabbis, and whose rulings are considered law, even in the present day, include Shemayah, Avtalyon and Rabbi Akiva, who were all the descendants of converts. So the Rabbinic literature and stories back this up.

2) The Children of Israel that were present at Mount Sinai, are counted as converts. In Exodus 12:38, the OT also says that "And also a mixed multitude went up with them", as well as the Children of Israel mentioned in the preceding verse (Exodus 12:37).

They were NOT descendants of Israel (Jakob), but came with, and who also converted at Mount Sinai. Today, we don't really know who is descended from the Children of Israel, and who is from the mixed multitude, and yet their descendants are also considered Jews. So even the OT backs this up.

So it's extremely clear that converts are accepted in Judaism.

 

[Old Things]

So whether humans are created directly by G-d or via evolution, should not make any difference. We're still the same people we always were.

I think you kinda skipped a step here. How do you get from our parents being adopted (in evolution) to God creating beings made in the image of God (creatures producing after their own kind) being the same thing?

 

[fluffy]

@scorpiomover

Evolution could have created some of the humans but not all of them which were created by God?

 

[dr froyd]

science is not about finding theories with "strong evidence". That is confusing statistical studies - induction - with the deductive process of actual science - i.e. falsifiable theories. I think this guy is poorly read on epistemology.

one can try to poke holes in our understanding of evolution in specific areas, but the general principle is very simple and explains practically everything we see: if you subject organisms to selection pressures, they will evolve. You can even test it at home, with plants or whatever. That is the reason it's a strong theory, not that we dug up some fossils or measured what % of our DNA is shared with monkeys. Those are just fun facts that are consistent with the theory

 

[Old Things]

I think this guy is poorly read on epistemology.

He's a scientist, not a philosopher.

 

[Hadoblado]

Please watch the whole thing before commenting.


I will try to summarize...

The video first talks about how you have competing theories on the manifestation of life we see on Earth. One view is that we all descended from a single cell (tree of life). The other is that there have always been differences between life that cannot be reduced to a single-celled origin (forest of life).

Secondly, he talks about the criteria for high-confidence evidence. These criteria are:
1) Repeatable
2) Directly Measurable
3) Prospective Study
4) Avoid Bias
5) Avoid Assumptions
6) Make Reasonable Claims

He also says that confidence in a scientific finding is a sliding scale, and different scientific experiments will have more or less confidence based on those six criteria.

In support of the Tree of Life model, we have this evidence:
1) Fossile Records
2) Geographic Distribution
3) Vestigial Organs
4) Comparison of Life Forms

Richard Dawkins thinks the comparison of life forms is the best evidence we have. Unfortunately, comparison of life forms does not meet any of the criteria for a strong standard of evidence.

Then he goes on to talk about high-confidence evidence for evolution. He mentions a study done that caused E. Coli to eat citrate. However, this did not actually add any information to the E. coli. Rather, all it did was copy and paste a gene and get rid of another one. Then, another study was conducted with E. coli again, and this time, the hypothesis was, "If genes that produce this enzyme are damaged, can evolution repair them to produce tryptophan again?" In the experiment, they changed a letter of the DNA code, and the enzyme functioned poorly. After 100 million e. coli growth, the mutation was repaired. Then they changed another gene, and this caused the e. coli to not produce any tryptophan, but the result was the same after about 100 million e. coli growths the gene repaired. Thirdly, they damaged both genes, and the E. coli never was able to make tryptophan again. Conclusion: evolution is very limited in what it can do and how it can change genes. The enzyme was 99.9% complete, but it could not repair itself. The E. coli could not evolve to produce its own tryptophan.

Then he talks about how humans have been experimenting with rats for 95 years, and we know enough that you either have a rat or you have something dead. He also mentions a 10-year study done on Daphnia pulex, and the result was natural selection had an average effect of of about zero.

Then, he talks about humans and chimps having a common ancestor. The evidence shows through DNA that when people used to say that humans and chimps are 98% the same, this only took into account our genes and not all our DNA. The evidence shows that humans have over 6% of all genes that don't have orthologs in the chimp genome. And they further argue that there are more orphan genes than there are shared genes. It used to be thought that there was a ton of junk DNA, but now scientists know that junk DNA is actually a regulatory function that directs what will be turned on and off in the genome.

That should be fine for an overview.

Great.

To be honest some of this is pretty good. Possibly the most convincing arguments I've read for the position.

I liked the visualisation on the whiteboard capturing the difference between the two claims.

I think the argument from criteria of science is strong. I don't read any of these and think "this guy is misrepresenting science". My response is that he's overgeneralising but makes a valid point especially given the smarmy condescension of people like Dawkins. Different fields of study have different methods and access to different standards of evidence. I'm not an expert on these fields, but I would hazard an informed guess that the weakness of evolutionary biology is the difficulty of producing experimental evidence (and therefore it lacks repeatability). It's strength is that there is an enormous wealth of evidence sitting there waiting to be dug up, and what we have dug up converges on particular conclusions. There is still an abundance of data, and the principles of big data apply. So I contend that strong evidence exists even if it doesn't fit within this specific criteria, but I agree 100% that this is a legitimate criticism especially against Dawkins and others I would consider to fall more into the scientism side of things. It's more complicated than they pretend, they shouldn't act like people are stupid for not agreeing.

I also like that he accurately represents various opposing positions. I think he probably does a disservice in reducing it down to four arguments (e.g. I'd like to see him explain ring species), but understand he can't exhaustively address everything.

When it comes to him covering the experimental evidence that evolutionary biologists do have, I think he did a fairly good job but his criticisms didn't land for me - maybe I just don't know as much as he does but I felt he didn't make his point to people how don't already agree with him. For instance, he speaks of the experiment producing the mutation within 100,000,000 trials (specimens). This is good evidence. He then says it was reproduced with a different mutation within a similar number of trials. Given this information, from what I understand, we should expect to produce the reparation mutation for both mutations simultaneously within 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 trials, but he takes it as evidence this doesn't work given 1,000,000,000,000 trials. That's a lot of zeroes, but basically, it seems like the power of the third study was one millionth what it should be given the results from first two experiments. Unless there's something else at work or I'm being real dumb, probably dictates there was a snowball's chance in hell of the third experiment working from what he's said here. This whole area feels like he's relying on people's lack of knowledge, I wouldn't take it at face value without knowing the response by evolutionary biologists.

This all said, I think he sets out to beat up on Richard Dawkins and IMO he succeeds in that based upon the criteria for the value of scientific evidence.

 

[nobody]

It's very much a "fact", but so is an opinion a fact, if it's stated or presented as an opinion. And it's very much real, as far as there being direct evidence.

This happens at a much faster rate than human or animal reproduction and it's very apparent that it occurs.

 

[nobody]

I want to post a link, but if I mention Y O U T U B E, it says I'm spamming...

 

[nobody]

Veritasium
The Longest-Running Evolution Experiment

 

[nobody]

Anton Petrov
Are We Actually Controlled by Mitochondria? Mindblowing New Discoveries

It's even hypothesized that Mitochondria might have originally been bacteria that became symbiotically attached to our cells. Mitochondria hugely resemble bacteria and have their own DNA separate from the DNA of our cells, while also being the major source for our cellular energy production (or ATP). In "fact", in reproduction the mitochondrial DNA of the mother is used over the mitochondrial DNA of the father's sperm because it burns so much energy to get to the egg that it destroys itself or becomes unhealthy. It's speculated that this disparity evolved because it led to healthier and more resilient offspring.

If this thread is seemingly really about the war between science and religion on the origins and meaning of life, mainly as it pertains to creationism: I'd recommend not mixing science with religion and vice versa. Science is aimed at discovering trends and evolution is a trend that does occur in nature. Religion (I'm being generous and refer here to it more in its benign form of 'spirituality') looks to figuring out human problems and solving them.

Both should focus on what they are good at and not try to overstep on the other, in my opinion.

 

[Old Things]

Given this information, from what I understand, we should expect to produce the reparation mutation for both mutations simultaneously within 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 trials, but he takes it as evidence this doesn't work given 1,000,000,000,000 trials.

What is this based on?

How come you didn't mention anything about mice or Daphnia pulex or chimps?

 

[Old Things]

Also, @Hadoblado

This 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 number is kinda stupifying. Why? Because there is no way that the ancestors of chimps and us have had that many generations. Not even close. Not in the ballpark. If we consider a generation of about 20 years for a human, then there have only been about 100 generations since Christ. Numbers like this are not feasible when talking about evolution and the amount of "change" we see in the time we have seen.

 

[dr froyd]

I think this guy is poorly read on epistemology.

He's a scientist, not a philosopher.

he's not a scientist, he's a medical-equipment engineer

 

[Old Things]

I think this guy is poorly read on epistemology.

He's a scientist, not a philosopher.

he's not a scientist, he's a medical-equipment engineer

Maybe you should ask him about his credentials. I'm sure you are far more qualified to make assessments of this nature, though...

 

[fluffy]

Bacteria are kind of small.

Changes in them would not mean much.

Chimps and human tho not the same do share many features that could be explained by genes regulation that just requires regulation to change somewhat.

I mean why is a chimp and a human not like breding dogs but over a million years instead of 200 years? Gene regulation made tigers and lions different but they can still breed (I know the liger cannot breed but it still shows tigers and lions have some kind of gene regulation divergence from a common ancestry)

 

[Old Things]

medical-equipment engineer

This is correct except for the "bio" part of his credentials. The bio part of his credentials makes him 10X more qualified than you are.

 

[dr froyd]

medical-equipment engineer

This is correct except for the "bio" part of his credentials. The bio part of his credentials makes him 10X more qualified than you are.

look at his publications - it's literally all about pacemakers and stuff

but notice i didn't bring up his credentials until you did. For me it doesn't matter - except when people try to argue from authority based on credentials

 

[fluffy]

@dr froyd

I kinda understand what you said about him confusing induction with deductions. But not how this relates to the scientific method.

Deductions can be wrong and inductions. So how is epistemology involved?

 

[Old Things]

medical-equipment engineer

This is correct except for the "bio" part of his credentials. The bio part of his credentials makes him 10X more qualified than you are.

look at his publications - it's literally all about pacemakers and stuff

but notice i didn't bring up his credentials until you did. For me it doesn't matter - except when people try to argue from authority based on credentials

You said he should have some proficiency as a scientist to know epistemology. I think you are the one making the error here, not him.

 

[nobody]

Is Dr. Froyd always this rude when he argues? Or does he just think arguing is about incorrectly assesing what other people say, with a little added condescension sprinkled in?

 

[fluffy]

Is Dr. Froyd always this rude when he argues? Or does he just think arguing is about incorrectly assesing what other people say, with a little added condescension sprinkled in?

If his assessment of the video is wrong.

It should be easy to explain why?

 

[dr froyd]

You said he should have some proficiency as a scientist to know epistemology. I think you are the one making the error here, not him.

you seem to read "bio" in some fancy title and assume that means scientist in evolutionary biology. The guy is an expert in pacemakers, not much more. That need not have any bearing on his thesis though, which is why - once again - i didn't bring up his credentials until you started calling him a scientist, presumably to ascribe some authority to him (which he doesn't have)

 

[dr froyd]

let me put it more concretely (if anything to increase my politeness)

in the history of epistemology - i.e. the topic of what constitutes real scientific inquiry - the problem of induction is a very old one. People figured out quickly that induction, and basing one's knowledge of reality of confirmatory evidence is not how you do science.

so the fact that this guy falls straight into the trap of using strong confirmatory evidence as a criterion for good scientific theories shows that he has never even flipped through an epistemology-101 book. Which is not good, considering his entire case is based on epistemological arguments

i recommend the book "conjectures and refutations" by karl popper for anyone interested in the topic

 

[Old Things]

let me put it more concretely (if anything to increase my politeness)

in the history of epistemology - i.e. the topic of what constitutes real scientific inquiry - the problem of induction is a very old one. People figured out quickly that induction, and basing one's knowledge of reality of confirmatory evidence is not how you do science.

so the fact that this guy falls straight into the trap of using strong confirmatory evidence as a criterion for good scientific theories shows that he has never even flipped through an epistemology-101 book. Which is not good, considering his entire case is based on epistemological arguments

i recommend the book "conjectures and refutations" by karl popper for anyone interested in the topic

The whole theory of evolution is based on induction, not hard data.

 

[Hadoblado]

Given this information, from what I understand, we should expect to produce the reparation mutation for both mutations simultaneously within 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 trials, but he takes it as evidence this doesn't work given 1,000,000,000,000 trials.

What is this based on?

How come you didn't mention anything about mice or Daphnia pulex or chimps?

Oh I think I messed my math :/ It's still big though. I'm not big mathly so grain of salt this.

Assuming both mutations are independent then:

We assume the probability of mutation A is 1/100,000,000 based on experiment A
P(A)=1/100,000,000=10^-8
We assume the probability of mutation B is 1/100,000,000 based on experiment B
P(B)=1/100,000,000=10^-8

The probability of both independent mutations occurring simultaneously in one speciment is therefore:
P(A and B)=P(A)*P(B)=10^-8*10^-8=10^-16 = 1/10,000,000,000,000,000

We should therefore expect it to take approx. 10,000,000,000,000,000 trials, which is one thousand times (not one million like I said earlier) what he considered enough to expect the result.

I didn't respond to Daphnia pulex or chimps because I only watched the segments that corresponded to what I took interest in in your post. It's 80 minutes long I'm not watching the whole thing!

Also, @Hadoblado

This 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 number is kinda stupifying. Why? Because there is no way that the ancestors of chimps and us have had that many generations. Not even close. Not in the ballpark. If we consider a generation of about 20 years for a human, then there have only been about 100 generations since Christ. Numbers like this are not feasible when talking about evolution and the amount of "change" we see in the time we have seen.

Christ was a blink ago in the eye of evolution.
Christ = 2000 years ago
Origin of life = 3,800,000,000 years ago

What's more, the reproductive rate isn't constant. So at some point our predecessors were bacteria going through many generations a day. Human reproduction is particularly slow but modern humans have only existed for approx. 300,000 years. Again, not very long at all. The expected amount of change in this time is... not very much at all, especially given our control over our environment (selective pressure).

 

[Hadoblado]

Is Dr. Froyd always this rude when he argues? Or does he just think arguing is about incorrectly assesing what other people say, with a little added condescension sprinkled in?

Not always but this isn't uncharacteristic. Long time users are quite familiar with each other and this can result in impatience for one another's patterns. Old Things tends to care a lot about bolstering the credentials of anyone he sees as useful in his ongoing apologetics for his faith. You don't yet see the history and repetition of these conversations.

I consider the epistemics fine because they're addressing real positions held by real public figures with real credentials and IMO they're doing it quite well. He does leverage his credentials in one field into a related field (and I think froyd is correct in identifying that his expert field does not give him the epistemic background for the one he's writing a book on), but I just don't think it matters given the scope of the positions he's responding to.