From: Walter Hicks (wallyshoes@mindspring.com)
Date: Tue Oct 14 2003 - 08:34:51 EDT
Don Winterstein wrote:
> The fact of evolution is easy to falsify in principle: Just find a bunch of fossils
> grossly out of sequence in undisturbed formations. For example, find homo
> sapiens skeletons in undisturbed Carboniferous limestone. Evolution emphatically
> predicts such things do not exist, so to falsify it, just find them. YECs in fact
> have claimed to have made finds of this sort (e.g., human footprints alongside
> dinosaur tracks), but none have stood up under scrutiny.
>
Actually, the "fact" of evolution was not my
question. That is a lot of the difficulty of
working with evolution. The same term is used for
the theory and fact (or data). But you raise a
good point. The flood catastrophe folks have to go
through a lot of convoluted reasoning to get
around the sequence.
>
> Proposed mechanisms of evolution are a different story. Support for these comes
> from plausibility arguments, and such arguments aren't falsifiable. You either
> believe them or you don't. Nevertheless, they are widely accepted because they
> are the best natural mechanisms we know of.
>
That is the basic issue raised by Johnson ===>
namely, that he doesn't think that "natural
mechanisms" are at work. One does not address his
concerns or arguments by saying that this is "the
best natural mechanisms we know of". It can only
be addressed by making predictions and
demonstrating that they work and that those alone
are sufficient to demonstrate that evolution of
species can happen.
I believe from all of the avoidance I see, that
one cannot do the above and, therefore, there is
no valid theory for the evolution of species. When
(or if) there ever is, people will stop dancing
around the question IMO.
For the record, I happen to lean heavily towards
evolution of man as true. However, that it is an
opinion, and I recognize it as such.
Walt
>
>
> I suppose mechanisms of all historical sciences lean heavily on plausibility
> arguments. However, geology has lots of obvious modern analogs, while those for
> evolution are less obvious.
>
Thanks for your comments, Don.
Walt
===================================
Walt Hicks <wallyshoes@mindspring.com>
In any consistent theory, there must
exist true but not provable statements.
(Godel's Theorem)
You can only find the truth with logic
If you have already found the truth
without it. (G.K. Chesterton)
===================================
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