Is all TRUTH scientifically knowable?

"Yes, it is quite a bit more than a series of microevolutionary steps."

That may be your opinion but it is not the opinion of biology. You can argue against a strawman version if you wish but it is better if you discuss what the actual theory is.

All change is microevolution. All change comes from speciation events. This was the whole purpose of showing you the reptile to mammal series. I did not expect you to roll over and accept my argument because of such a list.

Now, if you read through this actual transitional series you will see that each step is only a minor change from the previous one. Each step is just a speciation event. Yet this series of speciation events leads to a new biological class.

Again, I do not expect you to accept this series. It is obvious that you have a most interesting view of data and that nothing I present to you from the past will be accepted. However, I do expect you to drop your opposition to macroevolution merely being a series of microevolutionary steps. This is what the theory proposes and if you deny that, then you are arguing against something that no one believes in any case.

This also allows us to return to the question of what prevents there from being a series of such micro steps added together.

"I consider these unobserved progressions to be on the same order as a line of machines going from a toaster to a space shuttle, based on incomplete discoveries of parts, being proof of toaster to shuttle evolution."

It would be a false analogy but you are free to view it as you wish.

"Further, you have not demonstrated that these animals ascended from a common ancestor at all. This list fits into my framework of descent as well. What you have here is several lines of animals descending from common ancestors by inherited genetic attributes. Some of the lines ended in complete extinction."

They do not fit into your framework because of the order in which they were found. For your framework to be true, they would have needed to have been contemporaries of one another. In this case, the order in the ground matches the order of the series. Quite a strange thing if all these creatures are not related as such.

"I demand proof that microevolution ever occurs in nature resulting in the accumulation of genetic complexity and new systems with the ultimate result of a new species. I want proof though- Not a line of fossils sorted according to a preconceived bias."

You continue to demonstrate that you do not understand how science works.

There is no proof of things in science. There are very few things which are considered laws.

Just about everything in science is a theory. The theories are those ideas which explain most of the data about a particular subject. In this case we have a wide variety of data from many different sources. We have fossil records that show certain transisitons and relationships. We have genes that show the same relationships. We havepseudogenes and retroviral inserts and transposons which show the same transistions. We have observations of new genes and new functions coming about through mutations. We have atavisms and vestigal parts strown about. We have vestigal genes. We have parahomology where parts with very different uses can be shown to have come from the same basic structure. We can do genetic parahomology where many genes with widely different functions can be shown to be most likely the result of the repeated duplication and mutation of a single gene. We have the twin nested heirarchy of all life. We have developmental similarities. We have biogeography, both in the past and in the present. We have observed the mechanisms (migration, mutation, genetic drift, recombination, etc.) that allow for evolution and have observed them resulting in speciation events.

The theory that ties all of these observations together is evolution. It is the only one that can explain it all in a parsimonious manner. None other can.

You can construct ad hoc theories when it is broken down into pieces. But that is not how it truely works. You have to consider the whole of the data. And in this case it is ovewhelming. But there will always be some who yet deny even owerwhelming data. I know of a journal devoted solely to printing articles that claim the relativity is wrong. I know of a jury that failed to convict OJ.

There is no requirment for you to accept that the data is real. As long as you do not, then you will not accept the conclusion either. That's fine. You have your right. But denying the data does not make it go away.

 

"Even you could not provide observed examples of new information. You posted what amounted to educated guesses at what might have been the past cause of a genetic quirk."

I think that it amounts to our differences of opinion. I can shown many examples of new information. You will reject most of them because they were not in a controlled lab enviroment. (Of course often when lab situations are presented, some YE reject it because it was part of an experiment. Intelligent design they scream.)

There are ways to tell how the new information arose. For instance, one example I gave was of a retroviral insert that mutated and became useful. Since I cannot point out the individual where the insertion into the germ line took place, you call it speculative. THis dispite the markers that show that it is viral DNA.

In another the new gene resulted from the fusion of two genes that had been duplicated. Never mind the genetic markers in there that allow us to know how it happened, since I cannot point out the individual it happened in and a full genetic sequence before and after, you dismiss it as mere speculation.

I gave an example of fruit flys in a lab. I can't remember why you objected to that since it was observed.

There are a large number of examples where a gene is duplicated and the duplicate mutates into a new function. Again, you reject these out of hand for varous reasons.

I have given examples where trnasposons have been copied around resulting in new genes. These too get rejected.

I have plenty of examples of new information. YOu have plenty of ways to rationalize it away.

But here is the point. Just like with the mammal line showing that theory actuall proposed that macroevolution is just a series of microevolution steps, the data for new information is there. You reject it for various reasons, but the sequences and the comparisons are there. How it happens is not unknown. The mechanism are observed. Some directly and some are implied by the data. But they do exist.

"Unless these fossils were found in the same location one on top of the other in the precise order required... you have once again introduced an assumption as a proof. You assume that the geologic dating methods are true... but even if they were there are frequent "anomalies" where fossils are found where they shouldn't be."

But if the dating works, then your chief objection gets thrown out the door. If they lived one after the other then they almost have to be a series.

So you attack dating. No real reason to do so. You may make some claim about not being able to absolutely know something about the past. The decay rates perhaps.

No mechanism to change the decay rates will be presented. I'll even drag out the fact that you can look at far away processes and see that decay rates were the same in the past.

So you will attack that. Again no evidence or mechanism. Just doubt.

So we go from doubting paleontology which requires doubt of geology which requires doubt of physics which requires doubt of astronomy. No logical reasons for the doubt. No evidence to support that the doubts are well founded. Just unsubstantiated speculation.

"Then why do you demand hard proof from me? All I have done is propose an alternative framework for looking at the evidence. If the facts don't fit exactly then I, like evolution's proponents, will modify the theory."

I am not demanding proof. Just some sort of support. I have even speculated for you what that support should look like.

At this point you do not even have theory. Just ad hoc explanations. Some of the things do not even rise to the level of speculation.

If you want to claim a theory, then present one. Present a theory which explains parahomology and the twin nested heirarchy and the agreement of all the different ways to do phylogenies and atavisms and genetic vestiges and anatomic vestiges and the observed transistional series and the pseudogenes and the retroviral inserts and the chronology of the ancestors and biogeography (past and present) and ontogeny and so on. Explain each of these and more. Predict what else should be found. Show why your theory is a better explanation than what we have. Tell us what we could find that would falsify your theory. Tell us what unique evidence supports your theory.

You really cannot do any of this. There is no coherent theory of how things got to be the way they are.

 

Follow up question.

Does something have to be true to be scientific?

If to the surprise of many find out that OEC/young biological creationism was the way it actually occurred, will that mean that "science" was not "science" after all? </font>[/QUOTE]Well, lets think about the now obsolete idea of phlosgen. Before the role of oxygen in combustion was pinned down, things were supposed to have phlosgen in them that was released when they burned. Kind of a "reverse oxygen" substance.

It is a real part of the history of science, known to have been at one time a scientific theory, but known now to be false. You could say of someone today who claims the phlosgen is real they are not being scientific, and at the same time say phlosgen has its place in the history of science.

The practice of science is by men who are moved by the same laws of psychology as the rest of us. This means that a theory is talked about and considered as viable until, and only until, it is replaced with a better theory, no matter how many problems there are with the theory. In the case of Phlosgen, there were documented problems with it. It was known to have these problems and yet - next week - somebody would talk about phlosgen again! Only after the knowledge of Oxygen came along did Phlosgen discussions die.

So to kill evolution, it won't do to find a single problem with it. Propose a different, viable scientific theory. Religious theories are not allowed in science, remember.

 

So let me get this straight, I am assuming you believe that GOD created the heaven and earth per Genesis 1, BUT science tries to prove how, without including God, b/c it’s not scientific.

So what you are really doing is picking and choosing what to believe that best fits the worldview that’s popular at the moment.

So, how do you believe the heavens and earth were created PAUL? Remember, it’s not SCIENTIFIC to say God dunit.

 

Paul of Eugene said
__________________________________________________
Religious theories are not allowed in science, remember.
__________________________________________________
Jim says;
Oh, but they ARE allowed. They are just not called such.
"Believed to have been..." Is a mantra I don't know how many times I have heard coming from the mouths and pens of evolutionists.
Evolution is a religious alternative to Creation. Plain and simple. And until so called Theistic Evolutionists admit that, the controversy will continue.

In HIS service;
Jim

 

Paul, you, as a scientist have only two choices then:

A) Either you KNOW God is real and you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and include the room for God's supernatural ability in the science you observe

OR:

B) You do not know for sure God is real and you follow science without the allowance for supernatural power of God.

You only have two choices.

My point IS, if you KNOW God is real and can do miracles, and you do not leave room for that in science, then your science is faulty.

If you do not know this as a fact, then you need to reexamine your own faith; but if you do know it as a fact, then why bother with a science that does not accept God and religion if you believe in it?

 

Amen! Genesis 1:26 states And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… Us and our is plural and show the existence of the Trinity. Jesus Christ was fellowshipping with His Father in the beginning and was an eyewitness to His Father creation.

Then we have Matt. 19:4 were Jesus Christ who was with His Father in the beginning shatters the myth of evolution. And these Christians want to deny the very word of God and believe some theory.

The next thing we'll start hearing is how the Virgin birth is an allegory.

 

This is the logical fallacy of equivocation.

You are equating two different meanings of the word in an attempt to make a point. "Believe" can mean "to have a firm religious faith" but it can also mean "to hold an opinion" and "to accept the word or evidence of" among other definitions. [Merriam Webster]

You are quite aware that when some says that they "believe" something to be true in the sense you are talking about that they are not implying a religious faith but are instead invoking one of the other meanings of the word.

Hebrews tells us that "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This automatically puts the science you are trying to discredit into another category because it is based on observations and facts. You can disagree with the interpretation of those facts, but they do exist.

Logical fallacies can sound very convincing. Convincing enough that you are probably repeating something you have heard elsewhere because it sounded good to you. But there is a logical fault here that invalidates your point. Namely that you must confuse different meanings of the word in order to make the dots connect.

 

"Nor were they actually observed in nature. That's the rub. No one knows what caused those effects. Within the paradigm of evolution, the explanations you could post undoubtedly would be the most reasonable available."

and

"And rightly so. Especially when many (perhaps most or all) of these experiments use environments that do not occur in nature."

That is a mighty convenient dodge you have provided for yourself. When I give you examples that are from nature, you toss them because they were not observed under controlled conditions. This ignored the fact that we can use various markers in the DNA to trace what has happened to a very high degree of confidence.

Yet if we observe the change in a lab you will not accept it because it did not happen under natural circumstances.

So, no matter how many exampes you are provided with that show new information, and no matter what the circumstances of the observations, you have set up the perfect little system where you can deny them all. Not make them go away, mind you. But at least give yourself an out that you think sounds good.

"These statements are contradictory UT. If how it happens is unknown then you cannot turn around say this is how it happens."

Read it again. I said the mechanisms are NOT unknown. We know many of the mechanisms for evolution. Mutation. Genetic drift. Stasis. Gene flow. Recombination. Migration. And so on.

"That is the sum total of the proof for macroevolution."

First, evolution is the explanation for the data. You do not prove things in science. Math sometimes, but not science.

Second the evidence takes many forms. Some are the twin nested heirarchy. Genetic vestiges. Developmental. Pseudogenes. Morphological vestiges. The unity of phylogenies from different sources. The known transistional series. The correct chronology of these series. Ontogeny. Biogeography. Molecular parahomology. Anatomical parahomology. Suboptimal function. Transposons. Retroviral inserts.

"However, I have given you support for it. In many cases I have used your own support and simply drawn different conclusions because of where I believe things started."

I disagree. In my opinion you have given what would be ad hoc alternate explanations. None have been backed with evidence that shows how you ideas would better explain the evidence. None have given unique data that can only be explained by your ideas. And none have raised actual problems with the current theories other than unsubstantiated doubt.

"The earth will continue to decline. Animals will continue to go extinct, with or without man and will not be replaced by newly evolved species.

Man will continue to grow weaker on the whole as his genome decays- more disease, more detrimental mutations. They will be somewhat but not completely offset by man's increase in medical/biological knowledge. This will continue until the end of the age. "

How to answer this?

Do you think that this will happen at fast enough rates for us to observe or will it take long periods of time? If it takes time, should we not reject it for the same reasons that you reject the data presented to you?

or...

What if evidence shows man becoming better adapted? How about this recent article on how high altitude human populations around the world are adapting to the low oxygen partial pressures in different ways? This shows not deterioration, but improvement.

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/152702901750265341;jsessionid=jcDKgs9d9iG7?cookieSet=1

"You first. Tell me how naturalism as a premise could be falsified to your satisfaction. "

If is not necessary to falsify all of naturalism. Not do I think you want to do so. I don't think you really feel the need to invoke supernatural influence for every chemical reaction a freshman lab student performs.

Evolution is a falsifible science. Otherwise it would not be science. I have given you examples in the past. For instance, in the case of atavisms, it would falsify the current theory if you were to find an atavistic nipple on a bird or an atavistic tail fluke on a camel. (I throw that second one in because such a find would support your rich genome theory that allows the various whale traits to derive from an actual ancestor on land but still fall under created kinds.) Take vestiges. It would falsify the current theory if you found something like a mammal with feathers or a tetrapod with chloroplasts. For retroviral inserts, it would falsify the current theory if you found animals with the same inserts in the same locations but that were not nested as you see with other forms of evidence.

Much of the power of evolution comes from its ability to offer an explanation that fits the tight constraints imposed once you consider the breadth of the data.

"There is significant evidence in the natural order for design. You should really pick up Stroebel's book. The scientists he interviewed give numerous examples of precise settings in physics, cosmology, and biology that simply do not make sense as individual much less cummulative accidents. Once you acknowledge a Designer/Creator, the remaining questions include how big, smart, and powerful is He... Has He revealed Himself?... If so, what did He say about the origin of the universe?"

Where do you get off thinking that I do not allow God any place in His creation? If these things really must be so finely tuned, then we have reason to know how it got tuned that way.

(Even for those with a purely natural slant, this still is not really a problem since theory supposes that there are likely many different universes with varying physical rules. Ours happenes to be one that has conditions favorable to life.)

"Yes. There is. The eyewitness gave us a sufficient framework. Anything that fits into that framework, I am inclined to give more merit to than things that the framework must be bent around. "

Good to know since your framework seeks to explain many aspects of creation with arbitrary answers.

"UT, can you answer this question? "

I answered the original question back on the first page of the thread. I do not understand the second question.

 

I will repeat my question for evolutionists posting here who claim to be Christian and since this is a Baptist Only Debate, this should include all of you:

A) Either you KNOW God is real and you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and include the room for God's supernatural ability in the science you observe

OR:

B) You do not know for sure God is real and you follow science without the allowance for supernatural power of God.

You only have two choices.

My point IS, if you KNOW God is real and can do miracles, and you do not leave room for that in science, then your science is faulty.

If you do not know this as a fact, then you need to reexamine your own faith; but if you do know it as a fact, then why bother with a science that does not accept God and religion if you believe in it?

 

"A) Either you KNOW God is real and you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and include the room for God's supernatural ability in the science you observe"

I think I have been clear. I go for A but I refuse to go for it in arbitrary ways. You can simply say it is all supernatural but that means a lot of what we see was done for very arbitrary means. I, personally, don't accept that.