tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post116389620450798075..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: The argument from authorityRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1164113082151571402006-11-21T07:44:00.000-05:002006-11-21T07:44:00.000-05:00Anonymous,sniping from behind your anonymity, eh? ...Anonymous,<BR/><BR/>sniping from behind your anonymity, eh? Why don't you tell us your academic qualifications, and identify yourself also? Since you mentioned that evolution is falsifiable, I challenge you to give us some examples of possible scientific evidences that would be able to falsify the theory of evolution. I sincerely doubt you can, though.Daniel Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00678184721218949112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1163942220431816092006-11-19T08:17:00.000-05:002006-11-19T08:17:00.000-05:00Of course evolution theory is falsifiable you cret...Of course evolution theory is falsifiable you cretin. All scientific theories are falsifiable with tangible evidence.<BR/><BR/> Try this..actually read a science book. <BR/><BR/> A real one.<BR/><BR/><BR/>DDD isn't 'divorce from science'. Hell, he hasn't even gotten to first base.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1163929484112841582006-11-19T04:44:00.000-05:002006-11-19T04:44:00.000-05:00lol...since when did evolution become science? Utt...lol...<BR/><BR/>since when did evolution become science? Utter nonsense! Is evolution falsifiable? Evolution is a pseudo-scientific philsophy. Get over it!Daniel Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00678184721218949112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1163925624634334662006-11-19T03:40:00.000-05:002006-11-19T03:40:00.000-05:00I'm thankful that I do not uphold to either a youn...I'm thankful that I do not uphold to either a young Earth or TE. I leave this thread to the atheists loitering in the shadows.kletoishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04937744112201328478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1163917401770760722006-11-19T01:23:00.000-05:002006-11-19T01:23:00.000-05:00Hi Steve,Some commentary in response to your post ...Hi Steve,<BR/><BR/>Some commentary in response to your post here:<BR/><BR/>1. Grammatico-historical exegesis. Steve, it's the "historical" part of grammatico-historical exegesis that wreaks havoc with YEC interpretations. If we look at literary forms and devices, then work in our historical knowledge -- WHOOPS! that's where the YEC train jumps the tracks, as the overwhelming witness of God's creation paints a picture that invalidates a YEC view as sound grammatico-historical exegesis.<BR/><BR/>I endorse a TE interpretation of Genesis precise because it honors scripture in view of the witness of God's creation. The stars out your night time window are sufficient historical testimony to dismiss YEC views in the historical context.<BR/><BR/>2. Indirect realism. Let me guess, this the card you're playing here. That's fine, I'm an indirect realist myself. Everything comes to mind through an interpretive layer. But it's a naive understanding of indirect realism that denies the underlying reality sensed through our interpretive filters. If that's your approach -- and it sounds like you're committed to it here but unwilling to just state it outright -- then you're mistaking indirect realism for *anti-realism*, which is what you are actually pleading for. If that's where you're at -- anti-realism -- well then fire up the sitar and pass the LSD, there's no point in talking this over any further. It's a magic carpet ride, baby!<BR/><BR/>If you're avoid an anti-realist stance, and standing on indirect realism, then it doesn't get you off the hook like you think it does. Saying that the tree out the window doesn't exist because I'm looking at at through a distortive filter -- the glass of the window, oh and the tinted glass of my sunglasses too -- doesn't mess with the existential reality of the tree. It's simply a distortive layer that has to be incorporated into the knowledge base. I can't see the tree on the other side of the solid wall beside me, but this opaque visual filter doesn't make the tree disappear in an existential sense. <BR/><BR/>Saying that all we experience comes by way of sensory input, and is mediated through an interpretive filter changes naught in this discussion. Methodological materialism doesn't make metaphysical assumptions about sensory indirection. If anything, a tour of quantum physics makes a good case that observation *does* reify probabilistic abstract realities -- an observed photon's wave function collapse and it "appears" when the observation demands.<BR/><BR/>All of which to say, firing of flares of "indirect realism" or anti-realism (!) or some such doesn't change the process for inquiry via methodological materialism. Mechanisms exhibit symmetry and orderliness (per God's design!) in such a way that observations and predictions can be made, measured and assessed, in spite of (or because of) any interpretive layers that separate the mind from the mass. <BR/><BR/>As for Hawking, I strongly suspect you don't know much about Hawking, or you'd realize the bassackwards nature of invoking Hawking as you have here. You've performed a classic "quote-mine" on Hawking here.<BR/><BR/>Here's the context for the whole quote. It's from a debate between Hawking and Roger Penrose:<BR/><BR/><I>These lectures have shown very clearly the difference between Roger and me. He’s a Platonist and I’m a positivist. He’s worried that Schrodinger’s cat is in a quantum state, that is half alive and half dead. He feels that can’t correspond to reality. But that doesn’t bother me. I don’t demand that a theory correspond to reality because I don’t know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I’m concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements. Quantum theory does this very successfully. It predicts that the result of observation is either that the cat is alive or dead. It is like you can’t be slightly pregnant: you either are or you aren’t.</I><BR/><BR/>Hawking is making a positivist statement here -- he explicit declares it when you grab the whole paragraph, not just the single line. Worries and apprehensions about indirection and interpretive filters don't matter to Hawking here -- what matters is empirical performance. He specifically points at the realist/anti-realist conundrums posed by quantum theory as being irrelevant -- all that counts is predictive performance.<BR/><BR/>This officially brings us *way* off the beaten path we started talking about -- your assertion that early man was incapable of surviving to the modern day. My reduction of the high level conversation is:<BR/><BR/>SH: man could not have survived until the present day, constituted as he is.<BR/><BR/>TS: That's quite at odds with mainstream science. SH is 'divorced from science'. <BR/><BR/>SH: Prove it.<BR/><BR/>TS: Well, what about these 400,000 year old spears?<BR/><BR/>SH: What version of ice core dating was used on that?<BR/><BR/>TS: ??? Dunno. Who cares? Who'd those spears belong to? <BR/><BR/>SH: Cavemen, but you know that reality is not available to direct inspection, don't you?<BR/><BR/>TS: ??? <BR/><BR/>Somewhere along the way we got waylaid from looking at the facts related to the original idea: early man's survival skills. I remind you that the top-level I assessment I offered was that you rejected the mainstream scientific understandings in making your assertion. <BR/><BR/>In response, you persist in throwing out all manner of arguements for why we shouldn't trust mainstream science, what "famous" names stand as dissidents, how we really can't experience reality directly, etc. <BR/><BR/>I suggest to you and anyone reading that your travels down that path make my point much more powerfully than I could myself; you've in this post clearly demonstrated your hostility and separation from mainstream science, at least on this issue. If not, then what can I make of the links and "dissenters" you are offering here?<BR/><BR/>As I said before, that doesn't make you wrong. You may be right. It just means you are standing there going on about the illusory nature of reality from *outside* the walls of the scientific encampment. My argument to begin with was *not* that you were ultimately wrong. Or right. Instead, I was simply pointing to the separating distance between you and the scientific mainstream. <BR/><BR/>Readers who are sympathetic with your hostility toward science will nod and see the wisdom and truth of your position. Those who don't share that hostility probably won't. But my assertions don't settle the question of who stands in the right here, but just that you are standing quite a ways from the experts in the relevant scientific fields (anthropology, geology, physics, paleontology, etc.).<BR/><BR/>3. Authority. From the title of your post I gather you are concerned about what you see as an appeal to authority on my part. And it's true; in general, I do defer to the experts when considering questions of anthropology. I'm not a PhD in the field, and am happy to rely on those who are in areas that I can't decide for myself (which is a lot!).<BR/><BR/>When one objects in high school Logic class to "Fallacy of appeal to authority, your honor!" the fallacy applies if, and only if, it can be shown that the authority I'm appealing to is not a legitimate authority, or is otherwise unqualified to speak on a given subject. If that's your objection than that leaves you with a dilemma:<BR/><BR/>1. Declare mainstream science "illegitimate" and unfit to make pronouncements on age of fossils, lineage of hominds, etc.<BR/><BR/>2. Acknowledge the legitimacy of mainstream science as qualified experts on the subject, and address their findings accordingly.<BR/><BR/>If you choose 1), then I'd say that's your prerogative, but this represents a capitulation to my assertion that you are "divorced from science". You are hereby rejecting mainstream science as expert on the questions before us.<BR/><BR/>If you choose 2), then I'd ask why you've wasted so much time focusing on James Barr, Dembski, William Lane Craig, and all their attendant complaints about science's "metaphysical assumptions"? There's no need to bother with any of this if you opt for path 2), and we can proceed on the merits of the argument.<BR/><BR/>4. The merits of the argument. Hopefully, the dilemma above will get us out of the existential rut we've gotten into up to here. I'd like now to return to the original question.<BR/><BR/>I offered another reference in my previous post concerning skulls, axes and cleavers found in Ethiopia dated to be 1M years old. Let me ask you to address that, as that pushes back the "tool-equipped" factor far beyond the 400,000 year mark previously suggested by the German spears. What are the implications of axes and spears for man in terms of hunting prowess and self-defense?<BR/><BR/>Or let me ask a much better question, one that gets right to essence of our disagreement (at least about early man's survival capabilities -- the meta-philosophical stuff I see as a definite area of disagreement, but diversionary to the original argument):<BR/><BR/>What kind of skills/technology/organization would have to be present for you to say your hypothesis has been falsified? <BR/><BR/>This is a crucial positive statement you can make: <I>here's the minimum early man would have needed to make it, and here's how I came up with the criteria....</I> Without that, then I would have to wonder how you went about deciding that early man was insufficiently resourced in the first place. <BR/><BR/>A positive answer to that question would DEFINITELY be a big step toward reaching a productive conclusion to our discussion. I hope you'll consider providing one.<BR/><BR/>5. Dating, creation ex nihilo, and the "intrinsic metric" of time. Ugh. The last part of your post is worth saving as a classic example of the mumbo jumbo that gets put up as a smokescreen by anti-scientists. A veritable "Monster's Ball" of exotic challenges to scientific epistemology. <BR/><BR/>As I said above, your protestations about "metrical conventional[ism]" just emphasize the distance separating you from the main body of scientific knowledge and inquiry. You're donning a Rasputin's robe, and suggesting we *really* ought to be asking "what is time?", and what the meaning if "is" is. <BR/><BR/>I need only point to your robe and refer you to my initial claim: you're divorced from science.<BR/><BR/>-TouchstoneAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1163907186849846212006-11-18T22:33:00.000-05:002006-11-18T22:33:00.000-05:00:::YAWN!!!:::However...one redeeming quality of re...:::YAWN!!!:::<BR/><BR/>However...one redeeming quality of reading Steve's "science" posts...<BR/><BR/>YEC's are a hoot!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1163898475789703612006-11-18T20:07:00.000-05:002006-11-18T20:07:00.000-05:00Anonymous said:Steve, your entire thesis is idioti...Anonymous said:<BR/>Steve, your entire thesis is idiotic, especially you calling criticism of this silly idea that humans couldn't possibly survive in a 'evolutionary world' an atheological position.<BR/><BR/>*********<BR/><BR/>I assume that your supporting argument was lost in transmission.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps you'd like to repost your comment with the missing argument.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1163897984379210612006-11-18T19:59:00.000-05:002006-11-18T19:59:00.000-05:00Steve, your entire thesis is idiotic, especially y...Steve, your entire thesis is idiotic, especially you calling criticism of this silly idea that humans couldn't possibly survive in a 'evolutionary world' an atheological position. Funny how a fellow christian has mounted a damning attack on your conjecture and nonsense.<BR/><BR/><BR/>I think the atheists that come here to observe know better than to waste their time. We know how committed you are to throwing stones at others while dismissing the science behind evolution theory because it doesn't fit in with your theology. Perhaps this nice gentlemen christian that is new here hasn't been around long enough to learn the methods of you and your fellow calvanists.<BR/><BR/>No matter, You skirt has slipped and we can all see your dogma. It taint as pretty as you think it is.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com