Comment

Video: Jive Dinosaur Turkeys

621
Salamantis2/09/2009 12:31:03 pm PST

re: #619 Cato

re: #608 Charles

re: #617 Jimmah

Sharmuta, if I knew anything about Italian Wall Lizards, I could answer that, although Charles might object as I will later point out. Do I have any objection to them evolving? No. Let me be as clear as possible on this — I believe man evolved from some ape-like creature. The DNA evidence is beyond dispute. I do not believe G-d or anybody else made immutable species. In fact, I don’t even know if there is a G-d, but if there is one the one thing I know for sure is that he probably thinks most of what is said about him in organized religion is foolish.

Having said that, I am shocked and dismayed that there isn’t more critical analysis of the theory of evolution from actual scientists rather than religionists. A great scientist, when he comes up with an idea,
often hopes he is wrong because he will then be able to be certain about something. Confirmation of a theory is all well and good, but as I said before, confirmation is a weak argument. The proposition “All swans are white” was confirmed throughout Europe innumerable times for centuries until, low and behold, black swans were discovered.

For 150 years, empirical scientists have researched and experimented and investigated every evolutionary theory of which they could conceive. And although there has been much refinement and augmentation and elaboration of evolutionary theory, its basic tenets - random genetic evolution and nonrandom environmental selection - have remained contradicted by none of the empirical evidence produced and supported by all of it. This, even though for a scientist to empirically falsify either of these core component mechanisms would mean a Nobel Prize, a tenured position at an Ivy League university, fat research grants in perpetuity, and a prominent mention in the annals of the history of bioscience. But that brass ring remains ungrasped, and not from lack of trying.

The repeated confirmation over millions of experimental trials is actually statistically very strong. Black swans are what they are precisely because they are statistically extremely unlikely, which is why they are so unpredictable. Plus, if the statement had said that there were no such thing as black swans indigenous to Europe, the statement would have remained true, as they were discovered in Australia. One should be careful about rhetorically exceeding empirically verified parameters.

to be continued…