Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Falsification of Evolution



"...Evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water. When challenged by a zealous Popperian to say how evolution could ever be falsified, J.B.S. Haldane famously growled: 'Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.'" -- Richard Dawkins, biologist, 2006

Fossil octopuses in the Cretaceous represent a "single fossil in the wrong geological stratum" therefore as Dawkins correctly claims the theory of evolution is "blown out of the water." And if you don't agree with Dawkins, then you must agree with Popper that, since evolution cannot possibly be falsified, it cannot be considered to be a scientific theory.

18 comments:

Jeffery Keown said...

This isn't a rabbit.

What is your presupposed method/mechanism of speciation and change over time?

OilIsMastery said...

Jeffery,

"This isn't a rabbit."

Are you saying that only rabbits are fossils?

"...Evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water."

"What is your presupposed method/mechanism of speciation and change over time?"

Domestic selection aka intelligent design.

"After the fallen angels went into the daughters of men, the sons of men taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order to provoke the Lord." -- Jasher 4:18

Jeffery Keown said...

This one is easy.

Who designed the designers? There is no scientific evidence of Intelligent Design. YOu are slipping down a slope that leaves you in a pile with Baugh, Comfort, Dembski and Ham.

Besides, we discussed that notion that evolution has a property called Punctuated Equilibrium. If a creature's shape or biochemistry is stable over long stretches, that isn't a problem for evolution. Examples like this octopus suggest that some creatures have held a certain body plan for a very long time.

This does not falsify evolution. Rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian really would. Skeletons hadn't been invented yet.

Nice try, anyway. Got more?

2/10

Jeffery Keown said...

Please note: having eight arms is a very general property of the octopods. You can't just throw away all the evolutionary change that is described because you are so unaware that you see everything with eight arms as being the same creature. There are over 200 species named in the family Octopodidae, with over 100 waiting further description and classification, and no doubt many more awaiting discovery. They are incredibly diverse.

What these blind kooks are doing is the equivalent of pointing out that paleontologists have discovered 365 million year old tetrapods, that all mammals today still have four limbs, and claiming, therefore, that evolution did not occur.

PZ Meyers, Evolutionary Biologist, March 24th, 2009

OilIsMastery said...

Jeffery,

"This one is easy.

Who designed the designers?"

This one is easy. The First Cause.

"There is no scientific evidence of Intelligent Design."

If you don't believe in domestic selection then how can you believe in natural selection?

OilIsMastery said...

Jeffery,

"There is no scientific evidence of Intelligent Design."

Behold! Intelligent design.

Jeffery Keown said...

Genetic Engineering and modification via domestication are both performed by life forms. We can recognize the work done by human beings. I'm talking about speciation over geologic time.

(Interesting to note that the work you cite couldn't be done by those who don't accept evolution, but you peg the irony meter daily, so no biggie.)

I'm asking you what exactly caused all these complex life forms we see around us. Did they spring into existance, fully formed?

As for your First Cause:
The first cause argument (or “cosmological argument”) takes the existence of the universe to entail the existence of a being that created it. It does so based on the fact that the universe had a beginning. There must, the first cause argument says, be something that caused that beginning, a first cause of the universe.

Do I have that right? I quoted the first link google gave me.

So, your scientific method is "God did it?"

OilIsMastery said...

Jeffery,

"Genetic Engineering and modification via domestication are both performed by life forms. We can recognize the work done by human beings."

That contradicts your earlier claim that there is no scientific evidence of intelligent design.

"I'm talking about speciation over geologic time."

So what? Are you saying that intelligent life hasn't been designing over geological time?

"(Interesting to note that the work you cite couldn't be done by those who don't accept evolution, but you peg the irony meter daily, so no biggie.)"

Are you saying there is no such thing as a theist scientist? I think you ought leave your porch or crawl out of your cave and meet the majority of the rest of the world.

"I'm asking you what exactly caused all these complex life forms we see around us. Did they spring into existance, fully formed?"

I don't know. No one does. However, evolution has been falsified by hard data.

"Do I have that right?"

Yes. Possibly a first.

"So, your scientific method is 'God did it?'"

You must be confusing me with Isaac Newton but I don't believe in the creationist hypothesis of gravitation.

"...lest the systems of the fixed stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other, he [God] hath placed those systems at immense distances from one another." -- Isaac Newton, mathematician, 1687

Jeffery Keown said...

...evolution has been falsified by hard data.

Better tell that to all the geneticists, oncologists, biologists, paleontologists and geologists that have been proving it daily for 150 years. They will be most shocked by your revelation.

Also, tell that to the folks who predicted Chromosonal Fusion, the guy who watched e. coli evolve in his lab, the folks who used plate tectonics and paleontology to predict where to find Tiktalik and anyone who uses animal-tested products of any kind.

Your prejudiced attitude toward evolution is absurd. You are in denial, and you won't admit it. Somehow, we are expected to believe that all the thousands of species on this world are the result of Domestic Selection.

OilIsMastery said...

Jeffery,

"Better tell that to all the geneticists, oncologists, biologists, paleontologists and geologists that have been proving it daily for 150 years. They will be most shocked by your revelation."

They are fundamentalists. Nothing I know of can shock them out of their mental coma.

"Also, tell that to the folks who predicted Chromosonal Fusion, the guy who watched e. coli evolve in his lab..."

E. coli didn't evolve in any lab because that would be called intelligent design.

"the folks who used plate tectonics and paleontology to predict where to find Tiktalik"

Plate tectonics is a myth. It was no more used to discover Tiktaalik then the Holy Bible and creationism were used to discover outer space and the moon.

"Your prejudiced attitude toward evolution is absurd."

Your misuse of the word prejudiced is absurd. My judgment is a conclusion based upon evidence and there not prejudicial.

"Somehow, we are expected to believe that all the thousands of species on this world are the result of Domestic Selection."

If you don't believe in domestic selection, how can you believe in natural selection and evolution?

Jeffery Keown said...

E. coli didn't evolve in any lab because that would be called intelligent design.

No. You would call it that and you'd be wrong, but then you think Venus is a comet, so anything is possible.

Do you want a citation? I'll try to find one for you. However, I've a new DnD game starting Saturday, (though, technically, it's Pathfinder so sorta like an evolved DnD, really) and I'm really behind on reading the adventure material, so I'm not sure I can devote time to educating you.

Perhaps you could look it up yourself. https://myxo.css.msu.edu/ecoli/

Jeffery Keown said...

Plate tectonics is a myth. It was no more used to discover Tiktaalik then the Holy Bible and creationism were used to discover outer space and the moon.

Again, No. The researchers knew what rocks to look for Tiktalik in, identified by age and their position on the globe via PT. They went there and ka-blam! (well...not really, 5 years of digging) Fossils of the earliest land-dwelling/sea-going transitional critter just as predicted by evolution and geology.

http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/

OilIsMastery said...

It is impossible to identify anything based upon plate tectonics. You claiming that anything has been discovered based upon plate tectonics is equivalent to a creationist saying the Moon was discovered because the astronauts prayed to God and read from the Holy Bible.

Jeffery Keown said...

How to say this?

Wrong: amiss, askew, astray, at fault, awry, bad, counterfactual, defective, erratic, erring, erroneous, fallacious, false, faulty, fluffed, goofed, in error, inaccurate, inexact, miscalculated, misconstrued, misfigured, misguided, mishandled, mistaken, not precise, not right, not working, off-target, on the wrong track, out, out of commission, out of line, out of order, sophistical, specious, spurious, ungrounded, unsatisfactory, unsound, unsubstantial, untrue, wide of the mark.

Jeffery Keown said...

At some point, I'll give a more detailed description of the Tiktalik find that you can ignore.

Jeffery Keown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeffery Keown said...

Uh-oh. This is something I've long trusted in. Could the impact theory of North American biological diversity be at risk?

Lake Sediments Cast More Doubt That a Comet Caused Ice Age Extinctions

Quantum_Flux said...

So what Oils? Mammals have been around since the Jurassic, what are Mammals evolving into?