From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sat Nov 13 2004 - 01:28:01 GMT
Mark,
> scott:
> Evolution by chance and natural selection is a hypothesis on how this
> evolution comes about. ID is a different hypothesis. Neither can
> claim scientific conclusiveness. Both are assumed based on
> philosophical predispositions.
>
> msh says:
> Scientific conclusiveness? Of course not. There's nothing
> conclusive about the existence of quarks. Does this mean quantum
> mechanics shouldn't be taught in a physics class?
[Scott:] Bad choice of word on my part, perhaps, but I don't know a better
one offhand. No, nothing is conclusive, but some things are more evident
than others. In quantum mechanics, anyone with the money can do the
requisite experiments and get the same results. That's not true with the
theory that chance and natural selection are sufficient to show how lizards
turned into birds, etc.
>
> The question is, which of the two hypotheses is scientifically
> viable? We see scientific evidence of the workings of chance
> mutations and natural selection every day.
[Scott:] We have never seen them create new species.
Just visit any neo-natal
> ward at any hospital. In any species, any time a male defeats a
> weaker male (perhaps one with genetically inferior vision) for the
> right to procreate, you're seeing evidence of natural selection.
[Scott:] Sure. I don't deny natural selection. I merely have no evidence
that if the only thing it selects on is random genetic mutation that life
could have developed the way it has.
> There is so MUCH evidence for chance and natural selection as the
> mechanism of evolution that it is difficult to understand why anyone
> would deny it. But maybe that's where one's "philosophical [or
> religious] disposition" comes in.
[Scott:] Where is it? What laboratory recorded the development of a new
species whose mechanisms were solely chance and natural selection? How
could one even tell that only chance is involved?
> msh says:
> Well, maybe. But his most devastating argument remains in tact,
> regardless. Setting aside the fact that our observations of the
> evolution of life reveals a messy process that is not all that
> orderly, is what we humans "perceive" to be order in the universe
> sufficient to prove the existence of a universal designer? When
> someone rolls five dice and they come up sixes, is this evidence that
> the dice are loaded?
[Scott:] If it happens a million times in a row, yes.
>
> As for the so-called probability calculations upon which ID hangs its
> hat, they seem to me to ignore important scientific background
> information, resulting in much lower probability estimates than are
> fairly warranted. But I'll go into this more in a later post, where
> I'll take a look at one of these probability filters.
[Scott:] That won't make any difference in my argument. Unless you know
what the probabilities are, then you can't claim that evolution through
chance and natural selection is a viable scientific theory. Showing that
the ID probabilities are not based on anything testable only shows that ID
is not a scientific theory. To show that neo-Darwinism is scientific, you
have to know what the probabilities are, and that they are plausible.
- Scott
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