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Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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All knowledge is certain.
That is an extremely arrogant assertion.

The inherent tension in science is that science must limit itself to experience and it must go beyond experience.

You can not say that evolutionary development would be the same universally without having first observed it in process in an entirely different regime. You are going beyond experience when asserting that claim.

By explaining evolution by natural selection, you have not explained the origin of life or explained away a designer.
That is the genetic fallacy the "new atheists" commit each and every time.
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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As Richard Dawkins has said, a prediction he would make about extra terrestrial life is that it would develop in accord with the laws of evolution that we have discovered here on earth.
This is hogwash.

The term "evolution" is not an observable term in an extra terrestrial regime. Dawkin's violates empiricism and steps into the metaphysical realm.
Without having observed evolution in its entirety, we are stuck with defining the word as a "partial term".
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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The material on David Hume does not help you at all. All Hume showed was that without a recognition that there are necessary truths, such as the connection between cause and effect, we are lost in the mire of doubt. We should regard evolution as a necessary truth, as a condition of experience.

Matter and energy endure through time. We know this because it matches completely to all our observation and is a necessary condition for experience. The existence of God, in any meaningful sense, is not a necessary condition for experience in the same way the persistence of matter/energy through time is necessary.

I am not looking for Hume to rescue me. I need not to be rescued here.
Hume makes my point regarding first causation. We have no impression of causation. We are stuck with evolutionary explanations as limited to mechanistic processes and NOT what initiated them "in the beginning."
Our impressions of things are limited in scope. To say there is no god is to play out o the boundaries of science.
An atheist who is well versed in the limits of science and human perception would immediately convert to agnosticism. (pun intended).
Last edited by ant on Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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ant wrote:
All knowledge is certain.
That is an extremely arrogant assertion.
Okay ant, let me get this straight. You are uncertain about things you know? You are not quite sure when you say you know something if it is actually true? Does that mean no one should ever trust your word?

Seriously, knowledge has to be defined as certain. If it is not certain then it is not knowledge. We have abundant certain knowledge about history, science and mathematics. Any statement that has any uncertainty about it does not qualify as knowledge. That is what knowledge is.

You should test your theory of a gap between knowledge and certainty on a judge. "Your honor, when I said I knew he killed him, I did not mean that I was certain about it". Yeah right.

You are probably thinking about situations where people are deluded. If I say I am certain that 2+2=5, that is delusion, not knowledge.
The inherent tension in science is that science must limit itself to experience and it must go beyond experience.
Yes, this is a good point. Science makes predictions about the future, such as that the earth will keep spinning. We have no experience of the future, but we infer from the consistency of all past experience that future experience will continue to be consistent. Science also makes universal claims, such as that the laws of gravity and relativity and motion and evolution that we see operating universally within our experience also operate in the far reaches of time and space outside our experience. That is what it means to assert that reality is consistent with itself. Induction leads to deduction. Perceptions lead to ideas and theories.

The infamous philosopher of science Karl Popper sowed much confusion about this material because of his efforts to separate science from politics. He argued that any claim that we can know the truth is totalitarian, leading inexorably to extremism. To protect against this danger of claiming to know the truth, Popper effectively insisted with Sergeant Schultz, 'I know nahthink'. This is where this baleful idea that we have no real certainty comes from.
You can not say that evolutionary development would be the same universally without having first observed it in process in an entirely different regime. You are going beyond experience when asserting that claim.
If we start from the axiom that the universe is self-consistent, an idea at the basis of logic, then processes on earth such as cumulative adaptation that have an elegant simplicity can readily be inferred to be universal. That is what Dawkins thinks about it anyway, and I agree with him.
By explaining evolution by natural selection, you have not explained the origin of life or explained away a designer.
That is the genetic fallacy the "new atheists" commit each and every time.
Apologies for being so stupid about this genetic fallacy business you keep on asserting without explaining ant. I looked up the term again. The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context. I absolutely do not see the relevance here. You will have to spell it out in more detail if you think it is any sort of an argument in favor of a celestial designer. Otherwise you just look to be using logic as a rhetorical flourish without content.

Scientific evolution actually does explain away a designer. It shows that our current life forms evolved solely by natural processes, and that this is completely plausible, without any need to invoke mysterious supernatural intervening beings. By parsimony, a designer is unnecessary and adds nothing to our understanding and so should be considered an irrelevant hypothesis. Some might say there is a hint of arrogance in the argument that mainstream scientific opinion about evolution is fallacious.
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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DWill wrote:Thanks, Robert. I strongly feel, though, that the waters are muddied through loose use of the word 'evolution.' Darwin didn't discover evolution; he discovered, or co-discovered, natural selection, and that process is specific to sexual reproduction--or at least to organic reproduction. But you believe, as I now recall, that natural selection applies to whatever changes occur in human societies. I think this is totally wrong, but it would explain how you can think that species evolution and social evolution are the same things.
The essential core of natural selection is the idea of cumulative adaptation. This means that things build on precedent. When an improvement comes along, if it proves adaptive it will be adopted and will spread through the gene pool and make the species better fitted to its niche and more able to colonize new niches. Genetically, adoption is governed by whether new genes are stable, fecund and durable. Evolution is not random, but is directed to the goal of effectively filling a niche.

How does this apply to non-genetic evolution? Technology shows abundant evidence of evolution by cumulative adaptation, the same mechanism that governs natural selection in biology. When technological innovations come along, if they work they spread, and if they don't work they fail, just like genetic mutations. Granted, cultural evolution is more rapid and complex than human genetic evolution, although it is probably slower than some microbial evolution. Also, culture has some hidden constraints, such as market failures in the adoption of innovation.

Overall, culture is not as stable as genes, but nonetheless there is considerable stability. For example once the wheel was invented, it gradually spread through the memepool, as a stable, fecund and durable mutation in human cultural evolution. Market economics is essentially Darwinian, but we have power to limit the rules of the game (akin to the niche) through the power of the state to make laws to regulate free enterprise. We similarly see that law evolves by precedent in the same way as genes, continually adapting to its niche and building incrementally upon what currently exists. The universality of the incremental process of evolution is shown by the difficulty of achieving big change except at moments of systemic crisis.

Friedrich Hayek gives a good explanation of the evolutionary nature of common law and market economics in his book The Constitution of Liberty.

My view is that this evolutionary framework applies equally well to the evolution of myth, showing the gradual change process of cultural values.
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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Some References
http://www.geoffrey-hodgson.info/user/b ... darwin.pdf
Generalizing Darwinism to Social Evolution: Some Early Attempts
Geoffrey M. Hodgson
Richard Dawkins coined the term universal Darwinism (1983). It suggests that the core Darwinian principles of variation, replication, and selection may apply not only to biological phenomena but also to other open and evolving systems, including human cultural or social evolution. Dawkins argued that if life existed elsewhere in the universe, it would follow the Darwinian rules of variation, inheritance, and selection.
Richard Dawkins wrote: http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/dawkins0.htm
Assuming that there is other life in the universe (and I think most people think that there is), then my conjecture is that how ever alien and different it may be in detail (the creatures may be so different from us that we may hardly recognize them as living at all), if they have the property of organized complexity and apparent design -- adaptive complexity -- then I believe that something equivalent to Darwinian natural selection -- gradual evolution by Darwinian natural selection; that is, the non-random survival of randomly varying hereditary elements -- will turn out to be applied. All life in the universe, my guess is, will have evolved by some equivalent to Darwinism.
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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Robert Tulip wrote: Seriously, knowledge has to be defined as certain. If it is not certain then it is not knowledge. We have abundant certain knowledge about history, science and mathematics. Any statement that has any uncertainty about it does not qualify as knowledge. That is what knowledge is.
We can do entirely without this notion of certainty when speaking of what we know--and in the interest of clarity, we should. If we say we're certain about some area of knowledge, what we mean is that we hold it in high repute. Either because we think we've had direct proof, or because we trust the work done by others, we find belief to be reliable and useful. This is the case with evolution by means of natural selection for most educated people; the theory's reputation is high, probably beyond reproach in its essence. For certain other segments, especially of the American public, natural selection is in very low repute and is seen as entirely unreliable because it takes the creator out of the action. The certainty is that the theory is wrong. All we can do, if we care to expend the effort, is to show the many ways the theory has proved its reliability as well as usefulness. We can leave certainty out. Certainty doesn't exist in nature and is a state of the mind similar to 'liking' or 'fearing.' It has undoubted utility in everyday life as a means of spurring us to action, and it has been key in our very survival as a species. But the neural signature of certainty often has nothing to do with whether a claim is correct. We can see that this happened many times in our own lives--our certainty becomes exposed as wrong--and in the many areas of knowledge that were once held to be reliable and now have been proven not to be. Surely it will happen that knowledge that we might be tempted to call certain will be overturned in the future. Science endorses this view.

You didn't use the word in this post, Robert, but I wanted to comment on the word 'mechanistic' regarding natural selection. We can do without that word as well, IMO. Just what does it mean, anyway? If we believe that NS happens without the direction of a designer, there still exists many more possible descriptions than 'mechanistic," and in fact though I don't believe in a designer, the word seems off to me. Further, it isn't the business of science to come up with such loaded terms to apply to a field of study, and I don't believe a responsible scientist, speaking as a scientist, would do that. That activity has more in common with theology than it does with science.
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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Seriously, knowledge has to be defined as certain.
Certainty isn't a requirement for knowledge.
ant wrote:Hume makes my point regarding first causation. We have no impression of causation. We are stuck with evolutionary explanations as limited to mechanistic processes and NOT what initiated them "in the beginning."
What's so big about abiogenesis? Let's say god created the first organism. The transition from that first single celled organism to homo sapiens is a much grander feat. Let's say this god made the first organisms with the intent of humans evolving; where the genius is in how the physics of the universe took that seed and transformed it over time into a human. If the evolution from single-celled organisms to human was left to the laws of physics, what makes you think god would be needed to create the first organism? Why not have the laws of physics do it all? Aren't the laws of physics his creations also? Just by creating the universe, he allowed for the potential for life to spontaneously generate, then evolve into sentience. Such a god is far more powerful than one to has to fuss over the details within his universe just to have what he wants.

Not to say I believe in such a being, but if I did, I wouldn't champion abiogenesis as his hiding spot. It's a silly proposition, even for a believer.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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DWill wrote:with evolution by means of natural selection for most educated people; the theory's reputation is high, probably beyond reproach in its essence. For certain other segments, especially of the American public, natural selection is in very low repute and is seen as entirely unreliable because it takes the creator out of the action. The certainty is that the theory is wrong.
DWill, you are saying here that we should extend intellectual respect to creationists. I find that a very disturbing suggestion. Creationism is an obsolete framework, which is only sustained by its valuable social function as a basis of community ritual. Opinions that conflict with scientific evidence do not deserve respect.
All we can do, if we care to expend the effort, is to show the many ways the theory has proved its reliability as well as usefulness. We can leave certainty out.
Once again, if you are not sure about evolution, how can you be sure of anything? Is evolution less certain than simple equations like 2+2=4? Where do you draw the line? Saying you are not sure if evolution is true or not leaves the political field wide open to the wacko creationists with their false convictions and desire to deceive the gullible public by saying 'look, the scientists are not even sure of their own views, why should anyone else believe them?'.

There is a moral responsibility here, to support truth and oppose falsehood. If you are not sure if evolution is true then you are unfamiliar with the massive weight of scientific evidence that leaves no room for any conflicting story.
Certainty doesn't exist in nature and is a state of the mind similar to 'liking' or 'fearing.'
No, there is a difference between reason and emotion. Certainty, when correct, is an intellectual product of reason. Fearing is a product of emotion. Correct certainty is different from instinctive emotional responses because it relies on scientific methods for corroboration. There are standards which determine if claims to certainty are accurate. They do not include religious fanaticism, emotional commitment or baseless prejudice. We are certain about the structure of the solar system because of corroborated scientific evidence. We are not certain that things we like are better than things we don't like because this is a subjective matter of sentiment. There is a categorical distinction between statements of sentiment and statements of reason and evidence.
It has undoubted utility in everyday life as a means of spurring us to action, and it has been key in our very survival as a species. But the neural signature of certainty often has nothing to do with whether a claim is correct. We can see that this happened many times in our own lives--our certainty becomes exposed as wrong--and in the many areas of knowledge that were once held to be reliable and now have been proven not to be. Surely it will happen that knowledge that we might be tempted to call certain will be overturned in the future. Science endorses this view.
There is a popular strand in the philosophy of science that endorses this nihilistic claim that we can know nothing with certainty. That does not mean this error is endorsed by "science". In fact, if you ask most scientists if they are certain of basic facts, they will say yes. It is only people who have been addled by bad philosophy who reject all certainty.

There is a difference between the popular sentiment of certainty and scientific knowledge. The emotional certainty that some people may feel that Whitney Houston was the best singer ever is completely irrelevant to whether we can be scientifically certain about basic facts in evolution. It is disrespectful to the amazing achievements of scientific knowledge to assert that core corroborated knowledge may be untrue when the probability of it being untrue is infinitesimal. In calculus, the inverse of infinity is zero.

One of the background issues here is climate change. It is one thing to be certain that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but another thing entirely to say that carbon taxes are a sufficient measure to prevent global warming. People have a responsibility to exercise intelligent judgment about what is certain and what is not. It is fallacious to say that because people have wrongly claimed to be certain that therefore all certainty is impossible.
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Re: Is evolutionary chance impossible?

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Robert Tulip wrote:
DWill wrote:with evolution by means of natural selection for most educated people; the theory's reputation is high, probably beyond reproach in its essence. For certain other segments, especially of the American public, natural selection is in very low repute and is seen as entirely unreliable because it takes the creator out of the action. The certainty is that the theory is wrong.
DWill, you are saying here that we should extend intellectual respect to creationists. I find that a very disturbing suggestion. Creationism is an obsolete framework, which is only sustained by its valuable social function as a basis of community ritual. Opinions that conflict with scientific evidence do not deserve respect.
I can't imagine where you get that idea. You're mistaking my analysis for advocacy.
Robert Tulip wrote:
DWill wrote:all we can do, if we care to expend the effort, is to show the many ways the theory has proved its reliability as well as usefulness. We can leave certainty out.
Once again, if you are not sure about evolution, how can you be sure of anything? Is evolution less certain than simple equations like 2+2=4? Where do you draw the line? Saying you are not sure if evolution is true or not leaves the political field wide open to the wacko creationists with their false convictions and desire to deceive the gullible public by saying 'look, the scientists are not even sure of their own views, why should anyone else believe them?'.
Look, the field is wide open to the wacko creationists. It's a free country, as they say, and what good have statements about certainty from the other side ever done? Saying natural selection is right because it's certain is circular reasoning. The proposition stands or falls on its scientific merits, which are enormous. This knowledge provides all the impetus needed to stop creationists from imposing their agenda.
Robert Tulip wrote:
Dwill wrote: Certainty doesn't exist in nature and is a state of the mind similar to 'liking' or 'fearing.'
No, there is a difference between reason and emotion. Certainty, when correct, is an intellectual product of reason. Fearing is a product of emotion. Correct certainty is different from instinctive emotional responses because it relies on scientific methods for corroboration. There are standards which determine if claims to certainty are accurate. They do not include religious fanaticism, emotional commitment or baseless prejudice. We are certain about the structure of the solar system because of corroborated scientific evidence. We are not certain that things we like are better than things we don't like because this is a subjective matter of sentiment. There is a categorical distinction between statements of sentiment and statements of reason and evidence.
Saying that your certainty was correct only gives you personal credit for something you have no influence over, whether an idea is true or not. Yes, if the evidence is strong, you have every reason to to assert that with the emotional force that constitutes expression of certainty. But that emotion is not the indicator of truth, and you can be wrong when you express it, as, to me, creationists are obviously wrong in their certainty that nat. selection is false. The facts are all we have to go on.
Robert Tulip wrote:
DWill wrote:It has undoubted utility in everyday life as a means of spurring us to action, and it has been key in our very survival as a species. But the neural signature of certainty often has nothing to do with whether a claim is correct. We can see that this happened many times in our own lives--our certainty becomes exposed as wrong--and in the many areas of knowledge that were once held to be reliable and now have been proven not to be. Surely it will happen that knowledge that we might be tempted to call certain will be overturned in the future. Science endorses this view.
There is a popular strand in the philosophy of science that endorses this nihilistic claim that we can know nothing with certainty. That does not mean this error is endorsed by "science". In fact, if you ask most scientists if they are certain of basic facts, they will say yes. It is only people who have been addled by bad philosophy who reject all certainty.
I think you'd find, on the contrary, that scientists would say the way must remain open to revision of what we know. Certainty, which in terms of science would be defined as, "these things are true, in just the way we now describe them, forevermore," acts as a roadblock to this openness. And we're not talking here about philosophical parlor games such as how I know I exist or am sitting in this chair. There is no nihilism anywhere in sight.
Robert Tulip wrote:There is a difference between the popular sentiment of certainty and scientific knowledge. The emotional certainty that some people may feel that Whitney Houston was the best singer ever is completely irrelevant to whether we can be scientifically certain about basic facts in evolution. It is disrespectful to the amazing achievements of scientific knowledge to assert that core corroborated knowledge may be untrue when the probability of it being untrue is infinitesimal. In calculus, the inverse of infinity is zero.
You are afraid that unless we claim the absoluteness of certainty, we'll have no conviction. Well, there is a dilemma here that I won't deny. You know the lines from Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity." Yeats gives neither side his endorsement, clearly. To fight, putting oneself in physical or psychological danger, does require passion, I have no doubt of that. Is that passion only available if we don the mantle of certainty? But is that passion of certainty at the same time destructive of reasoned action, as Yeats believed?
Robert Tulip wrote:One of the background issues here is climate change. It is one thing to be certain that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but another thing entirely to say that carbon taxes are a sufficient measure to prevent global warming. People have a responsibility to exercise intelligent judgment about what is certain and what is not. It is fallacious to say that because people have wrongly claimed to be certain that therefore all certainty is impossible.
That C02 is a greenhouse gas has that high reliability that makes it seem a certainty, and there may be no harm at all in your looking at it that way. But certainty is not required for action, and it will a very good thing if that is true for global warming, because we need for people to agree to changes in lifestyle even absent a feeling of certainty about the issue. We can act out of prudence rather than certainty, and we often do. The lesson behind the fact that we as individuals, and as societies, have often been wrong in our certainties is only that we need to look past the walls of certitude to see the facts as they might really be. This is the more rational approach. In a pinch, if you tell me you are absolutely certain that we need to do X right away, I might figure my best chance is to take your certitude as backing up the facts at hand. If given some more time, though, I'd want to carefully look into things before following you.
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