Finding Truth questions about evolution (split from the "God and freedom" thread)

[Kharakov]

So does the term strive work better than all others that have been tried?

 

[Malintent]

I think it is fair to say this is a matter of trust.
Do you trust the people that follow the scientific method of gaining knowledge in such a way that ANYONE can reporduce their findings if they were so inclined to do so, or do you trust the people that simply "say so" with no means to backup their assertions with anything you can use to confirm their assertions?

I, for one (of billions), do trust those with a history of integrity that "show their work". I do not trust those that have an obvious (or not even that obvious) political agenda and are incapable (or unwilling) to "show their work".

 

[Malintent]

So does the term strive work better than all others that have been tried?

No. Language is a product of the human mind. It is imperfect and biased towards the ay we think. It is perfectly natural to think in terms of "intelligent Agency" (that is, that there is another mind at work behind everything we see).... Things "want" to do "things". It is mostly wrong, but was very usefull in our evolution when it was important to check for preditors that might eat us at every turn. As a result, most languages lack appropriate (or at least "brief") terms or expressions for "non-agency happenings". Heck, there currently exists a language that lacks a word for a number greater than 5. They have one, two, three, four, five, and 'many'. Why? The small tribe of people that use this language had no need for more than 5 of anything.

 

[skepticalbip]

Could someone enlighten me of the basic understanding evolutionary concepts, maybe you could do it on my blog "The chicken or the egg which came first "

I would appreciate it very much, That is why I came to Free Thinking to get it from the horses mouth so to speak.

I dunno. The blog is unwieldy for a conversation.
And your basic understanding is way, way off. There's a lot to cover.

But for example, cocks and hens do not evolve as individuals. Gene pools evolve. Strains of a species go through changes together. Your question about how the chicken evolves and how the cockerel evolves at the same time is just so ill-wrought it's not even wrong.

"Strains of a species go through changes together"
That is not evidence, those are only words.

Yes, they are words describing an observable reality. What did you expect on a discussion board other than words?

I ask you is this, did you you accepted information with evidence or because an authority on the subject said so, without really scrutinising the autorites evidence, if this is so, do not let authority dictate their terms, stay a free thinker, and do not accept it until you have sufficient evidence to be completely convinced, and then always leave the subject open for future greater understanding.

In science there should never be closure because of the complexity in our visible existence is so great there's always something new to put into the equation.

Yes, that is the way science works. In science, claims by any "authority" are scrutinized, criticized, and tested before being conditionally accepted. Even Einstein's relativity is still being tested. Creationism has been scrutinized and critized and has been found lacking so hasn't been even conditionally accepted except by those who think it is a sin to scrutinize and critisize the proclamations of some arbitrary authority.

I thought when I came to this site that I would be speaking to people who believed in evolution.

Then you came to the wrong site. Those who believe in anything are a poor source of knowledge. Those who understand are a better source.

Who will have investigated to see if it is true, and have the evidence that convinced them of that and have the evidence at hand. If not I can wait for the evidence to be presented at a future date.

"TRUE" isn't something that science does. Science seeks understanding and offers models that explain observations. To reach an understanding, we test various models that are offered to explain observations, rejecting those which fail to adequately explain and refining those which seem to work. Creationism is a model doesn't explain observations so has been tossed in the trash bin. Evolution seems to work so far and has undergone many refinements since first offered by Darwin.

The mindset of creationists remind me of a quote by Mark Twain, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

ETA;
Personally, I prefer Last Thursdayism over conventional creationism. It is a much more thought out and consistent belief system. It at least explains all the evidence that points to evolution - a devious or playful god that created all that evidence in the fossil record just to fuck with our heads.

 

[Kharakov]

I think it is fair to say this is a matter of trust.
Do you trust the people that follow the scientific method of gaining knowledge in such a way that ANYONE can reporduce their findings if they were so inclined to do so, or do you trust the people that simply "say so" with no means to backup their assertions with anything you can use to confirm their assertions?

I don't trust people who claim to arrive at their conclusions through the scientific method yet don't engage in follow through. In other words, they arrive at a few conclusions based on the method, but don't follow the method to the common source, instead stopping FAR short of the truth about what the scientific method points towards (one being creating all).

Mass/energy equivalence isn't the end point of the search... consciousness/energy equivalence doesn't quite reach it either.

 

[Underseer]

I think it is fair to say this is a matter of trust.
Do you trust the people that follow the scientific method of gaining knowledge in such a way that ANYONE can reporduce their findings if they were so inclined to do so, or do you trust the people that simply "say so" with no means to backup their assertions with anything you can use to confirm their assertions?

I, for one (of billions), do trust those with a history of integrity that "show their work". I do not trust those that have an obvious (or not even that obvious) political agenda and are incapable (or unwilling) to "show their work".

Are you one of those infidels who claims that my mechanical pencil did not create all truth in the universe? If so, how do you explain the existence of truth? You can't, can you? My mechanical pencil is the only possible explanation for the existence of truth, therefore it is proven that my mechanical pencil is the source of all truth in the universe. You're just making up all these fancy arguments because you don't want to admit that.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I don't trust people who claim to arrive at their conclusions through the scientific method yet don't engage in follow through.

"follow through?" So, science can't be 'good as far as it goes,' unless and until they come to your approved conclusions?
What would the point of that stance even be?
You can't find fault with the methodology that gets to a conclusion, but you won't 'trust' the conclusion because the research stops before it travels out of the whole purview of the research?

In other words, they arrive at a few conclusions based on the method, but don't follow the method to the common source, instead stopping FAR short of the truth about what the scientific method points towards (one being creating all).

So, the 'few conclusions' that include nuclear power, cancer treatments, space flight, computers, electron microscopes, brain surgery, global telecommunications, frikken' lasers, man, 19-digit prime number cryptography and geostationary satellites, those are, what, parlor tricks until someone looks at them and declares 'Cause GOD!'

I'd have to say that's a silly way to approach science.

Electricity isn't an 'end point' of science, but it's perfectly valid science to power computers, even if we don't know for sure where electrons come from in the deep dark beginnings of the universe.

 

[Mageth]

I don't trust people who claim to arrive at their conclusions through the scientific method yet don't engage in follow through. In other words, they arrive at a few conclusions based on the method, but don't follow the method to the common source, instead stopping FAR short of the truth about what the scientific method points towards (one being creating all).

Mass/energy equivalence isn't the end point of the search... consciousness/energy equivalence doesn't quite reach it either.

WOO is the term you are looking for.

 

[Kharakov]

So does the term strive work better than all others that have been tried?

No.

It was a joke. What is it with people taking my jokes seriously? It's like they'd fly over the head of Dennis Miller while he chatted with Peanut.

Language is a product of the human mind. It is imperfect and biased towards the ay we think. It is perfectly natural to think in terms of "intelligent Agency" (that is, that there is another mind at work behind everything we see)....

No it isn't. The first mind that gazed into the primordial chaos of all possibility didn't think "that's the product of intelligence"- it recognized that it could select from all possibility and draw life and beings from the chaos by selectively pulling forth beings, energy, and form from the Kaos. This selective picking of forms resulted in  CP violation, first observed in  Kaons.

Heck, there currently exists a language that lacks a word for a number greater than 5. They have one, two, three, four, five, and 'many'. Why? The small tribe of people that use this language had no need for more than 5 of anything.

Yeah. There is a small tribe of people whose scientific pursuit stops short of uniting the concepts of science into a cohesive whole, by which they might observe the characteristics of a creative intelligence.

 

[Keith&Co.]

What is it with people taking my jokes seriously?

The first mind that gazed into the primordial chaos of all possibility didn't think "that's the product of intelligence"- it recognized that it could select from all possibility and draw life and beings from the chaos by selectively pulling forth beings, energy, and form from the Kaos.

Okay, now THAT's a joke!

 

[Kharakov]

"follow through?" <snip>

Did you purposely not follow through with reading the rest of the statement? Exactly the type of behavior I'm talking about.

In other words, they arrive at a few conclusions based on the method, but don't follow the method to the common source, instead stopping FAR short of the truth about what the scientific method points towards (one being creating all).

So, the 'few conclusions' that include nuclear power, cancer treatments, space flight, computers, electron microscopes, brain surgery, global telecommunications, frikken' lasers, man, 19-digit prime number cryptography and geostationary satellites, those are, what, parlor tricks until someone looks at them and declares 'Cause GOD!'

Nope. And you seriously don't believe that's the position I'm speaking of. I'm saying "cause energy".

Physics points to some very basic things about reality- such as mass energy equivalence, that all matter and energy are composed of the same thing, except in different forms, that interconnected fields produced by energy and its forms produce all of the things (including us) everywhere.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Nope. And you seriously don't believe that's the position I'm speaking of. I'm saying "cause energy".

No, i seriously did interpret your post that way.
Your mind-reading skills are right up there with your sense of humor.

Physics points to some very basic things about reality- such as mass energy equivalence, that all matter and energy are composed of the same thing, except in different forms, that interconnected fields produced by energy and its forms produce all of the things (including us) everywhere.

Yes.
Why that leads to an intelligence behind it is the 'woo' you appear to be espousing.

 

[Kharakov]

No, i seriously did interpret your post that way.

So you purposefully misinterpreted my post to mean what you wanted it to mean, or you missed the point entirely.

Physics points to some very basic things about reality- such as mass energy equivalence, that all matter and energy are composed of the same thing, except in different forms, that interconnected fields produced by energy and its forms produce all of the things (including us) everywhere.

Yes.
Why that leads to an intelligence behind it is the 'woo' you appear to be espousing.

Yeah. The energy that has formed our intelligence has no intelligence. It hasn't learned to store information. It hasn't learned to replicate its acts. It hasn't learned anything in all of eternity, but we magically have, because we magically have traits that energy does not, even though we are comprised of it.

It didn't have to evolve from different possible forms into what it is today, it didn't have to learn to control itself, it didn't have to work at all. Energy and natural law just emerged into the universe ex nihilo and generated the variety of forms that it has created without having to think or work at all.

That is some woo ass atheist shit for you. But ultimately, atheism is complete woo, masquerading as non-woo, and anyone with half a mind knows it.

Show

pun intended... in a corpus callosum way