tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post7011253191485362273..comments2024-03-27T14:50:47.345-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: Science literacy and "belief" in evolutionLarry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-69967304537762994472014-06-02T15:35:37.500-04:002014-06-02T15:35:37.500-04:00That said, epistemologies are never free from &quo...<i>That said, epistemologies are never free from "metaphysics," the question is whether the ontology is correct or not.</i><br /><br />Ah, but how do you address that question? If you want to have any hope of answering it, you need - an epistemology. Which in turn - according to you - rests on an ontology. This seems like a good opportunity to use the phrase "begs the question" correctly... If there is no ontology-free epistemology, then there is no way of telling which ontology is correct and this then means that no epistemology can be justified. That's the route to epistemic nihilism!<br /><br /><i>I favor a materialist ontology, you do not, there's the end of it.</i><br /><br />It isn't. If you pressed me for my position on ontology, I'd respond with some version of materialism, although it would differ from some classical materialist positions in that it's not deterministic and I wouldn't want to have things like Energy as real objects. But that view is not something I base my philosophy of science on.<br /><br /><i>Otherwise you'd have been a sight more cautious in boasting your agreement with Capital Punishment roger shrubber!</i><br /><br />What agreement?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04521153536420798640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-24170338996651041752014-06-02T14:45:13.923-04:002014-06-02T14:45:13.923-04:00I'm sorry I seemed to give you the impression ...I'm sorry I seemed to give you the impression I thought there wasn't more to paleontology than systematically investigating strata. I've never thought a paleontologist was an amateur naturalists circa 1840. Although I don't think historical sciences like paleontology make predictions, they do make explanations...which is not stamp collecting.<br /><br />That said, epistemologies are never free from "metaphysics," the question is whether the ontology is correct or not. I favor a materialist ontology, you do not, there's the end of it. Science as falsificationism is wrong and the only thing in its favor is its agenda. Science is a collective activity conducted in natural languages as well as mathematics and the notion that its unstated premises are practically avoidable or theoretically replaceable by a minimal set of premises (aka "axiomx") is, as the mean fat man said, not even wrong. <br /><br />Your antirealist, predictivist, falsificationist version of science isn't worth defending in my opinion. I think you are wrong in thinking your "tools" are defending science at all, much less adequately. Worse, your understanding of science comes to a flaming wreck when you go past your arbitrary limits and consider social science. Otherwise you'd have been a sight more cautious in boasting your agreement with Capital Punishment roger shrubber! <br /><br />But I forget myself, you're not really making an argument, you're asserting authority. Content yourself with your victory.S Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11610068751705809284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-22919467740777555242014-06-02T11:35:12.416-04:002014-06-02T11:35:12.416-04:00But looking at this last post, it seems that one o...<i>But looking at this last post, it seems that one of your fundamental concerns is anti-realism...science is about the measurements/observations, not describing reality.</i><br /><br />To some degree, yes. Though I'm in fact agnostic about realism (I do see some issues with naive versions of scientific realism, but I'm sure there are consistent versions of it). But I would like to keep that question out of the foundations of science, yes. I prefer to keep epistemologies clean from metaphysics.<br /><br /><i>I don't see science as essentially falsificationist.</i><br /><br />I think most scientists would disagree with that. I certainly do.<br /><br /><i>I have no problem with deeming the mere discovery of what's in this Oligocene stratum "science."</i><br /><br />And at that point I disagree even more sharply. I am most definitely not a professional stamp collector and that view of paleontology has been antiquated for quite a while.<br /><br /><i>I do not believe that mathematics itself has been successfully axiomatized and frankly was rather under the impression Godel, Church et al. had pretty much proven it isn't going to be.</i><br /><br />What would it mean for "mathematics itself" to be "successfully axiomatized"? What Gödel showed is that in suitably complex axiomatic structures there are statements that can neither be proven not disproven, provided they are consistent. That in turn means that either the statement or its negation can be added as axioms to generate a new consistent system. As a result there is no single set of axioms for all of mathematics, but there are axioms for mathematical theories.<br /><br />In generally mathematicians are looking for interesting structures and try to prove things within these structures. Axiomatization is a lot of work and is usually done after some work has been done that shows that there's something interesting there.<br /><br /><i>Or, to put it another way, I thought poor roger shrubber one of those tiresome lunatics who invent this crap to dismiss criticism from science for their pet prejudices.</i><br /><br />If you don't understand what assumptions go into science, you lack the tools to adequately defend (or understand for that matter) science, IMO. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04521153536420798640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-12245876929502708002014-06-02T01:18:33.032-04:002014-06-02T01:18:33.032-04:00Nothing wrong with explanation of how fossils are ...Nothing wrong with explanation of how fossils are studied and the origins of the fossils.<br />Yes mammoths, being so recent, can have their actual biology studied and so also using scientific methodology.<br />YET in no way did you demonstrate that drawing conclusions of evolutionary processes and results can be determined using fossils u8sing biological scientific investigation! Unless i missed it.<br />The only use of a fossil is as a moment in time IF one is saying this evolved from that.<br />YET that inbetween evolving is not fossilized! Therefore all that is done is comparison of fossils and THEN geological deposition conclusions and THEN conclusions that evolution has occurred by the fossil comparison and geology level.<br />So where is the science for this evolution evidence using fossils? Where is the biology? <br />NONE! Its just comparing rocks with pictures/snapshots.<br />Thats not biology or science methodology.<br />Why do you think it is?<br />Robert Byershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05631863870635096770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-60684786927191318082014-06-01T20:57:58.915-04:002014-06-01T20:57:58.915-04:00In the context of this discussion, I think the ove...In the context of this discussion, I think the overlap in the different sets of predictions between a Newtonian mechanics (which literally speaking includes the geometric presentation of the Principia!) and Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods means we can't treat them as the same. But looking at this last post, it seems that one of your fundamental concerns is anti-realism...science is about the measurements/observations, not describing reality. I still think the consistency is derived from nature, but it is true that there is a kind of set of concentric circles of consistent data derived from different "expressions" over time. <br /><br />I don't think falsifying a trivial hypothesis is science, since I don't see science as essentially falsificationist. I think science is about describing reality, so I have no problem with deeming the mere discovery of what's in this Oligocene stratum "science." <br /><br />I do not believe that mathematics itself has been successfully axiomatized and frankly was rather under the impression Godel, Church et al. had pretty much proven it isn't going to be. Further, I don't think that this makes much difference for mathematics, since so far as I can tell, mathematics is not just the working out of the consequences of axioms. Now, if I don't think these things are true even of mathematics, should you be surprised if I put no value on the need to axiomatize science in the most universal way possible. Or, to put it another way, I thought poor roger shrubber one of those tiresome lunatics who invent this crap to dismiss criticism from science for their pet prejudices. Or, see my first post. <br />S Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11610068751705809284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-28087513084219916432014-06-01T19:16:05.756-04:002014-06-01T19:16:05.756-04:00S. Johnson:
I don't believe that Newton's ...S. Johnson:<br /><i>I don't believe that Newton's point masses, Laplace's potentials and the law of least action even generate the same predictions. Aren't the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian are so important to modern mechanics because they are useful in a wider range of applications?</i><br /><br />Well, for a wide range of theories you can write down Lagrangians or Hamiltonians. But if you use it to write down Newtonian mechanics, it is equivalent to writing down Newtonian mechanics in the original way (i.e. using differential equations for each object, rather than for the system as a whole). So, yea, the Lagrangian method can be used to formalize relativistic physics as well (and quantum mechanics and electrodynamics and...), but here the thing of interest is the Lagrangian for classical mechanics.<br /><br /><i>What happens when the predictions are wrong?</i><br /><br />Then I've falsified a hypothesis.<br /><br /><i>But science really is a creative endeavor. I know the prediction machine model denies this. But I also know I am out of any ideas about how to explain why I reject that model.</i><br /><br />It doesn't deny this at all. Theories are still something we come up with and in fact expressions do matter as well.<br /><br />The motivation for this view of theories as sets of predicted observations is the common notion - expressed in this thread by roger shrubber - that science rests on "many unstated premises". If we look for a minimal set of premises, then we end up with something like this:<br />a) There are multiple observers<br />b) These can communicate about observations<br />c) We use a logic in which ((A->B) AND !B)->!A is true<br />With these minimal premises we can do science and theories are sets of observations. We can add further premises to make our theories do more - you can add something to allow you to get explanations from them. But any premise you add makes it less universal.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04521153536420798640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-92148160503146565592014-06-01T10:20:09.321-04:002014-06-01T10:20:09.321-04:00S. Johnson: You are laboring under a severe misapp...S. Johnson: You are laboring under a severe misapprehension, and I see that I have been too. You have been arguing all along against my claim that common descent is not a fact. But I made no such claim. Common descent is a fact (meaning a claim for which the evidence is so strong that it would be perverse to deny it). But it's a theory too. Facts and theories are not mutually exclusive categories, as you seem to think.<br /><br />"Similarity due to common descent" is the standard definition of "homology", so it's unclear to me why you argue against that. Reptilian jaw bones are similar to mammalian ear bones; otherwise we wouldn't recognize the homology. Why, you yourself say that in your scenario. As for the rest of it, you are merely saying that natural selection explains the conservation of homologies, which is not the same as explaining the homologies. As I have said at least twice now.<br />John Harshmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705501480675917237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-68567257647118558492014-06-01T09:21:27.349-04:002014-06-01T09:21:27.349-04:00Similarities are favored by natural selection beca...Similarities are favored by natural selection because they are not too wildly divergent for the offspring to reproduce. I didn't realize that you didn't know what homologies are, so I was inadvertently cryptic. Homologies are not similarities in themselves. Reptilian jawbones are homologous to ear bones in mammals, after all. Common descent certainly explains how the reptilian and mammal jaw bones or ear bones that are similar. But natural selection explains why the ontogeny or embryonic development of mammal ear bones is homologous. Any radical changes that would have destroyed the homology were too extreme to permit the survival of such offspring. <br /><br />But it is true that I don't know where this is spelled out in the scientific literature. I think it's more or less implicit in some old Stephen Jay Gould essays, but those are popularizations. I must concede to your old question then, that I don't have a citation for you.<br /><br />And it is doubly true that I can't explain my terrible grammatical mistakes using "therefore." Plainly, I am doubly, nay, triply confounded! You have obviously established irrefutably that common descent is not a fact. Like the Romans sacking Carthage, the only work left to you is salting my (rhetorical) grave lest flowers grow to mourn my passing. I give you the tribute your erudition and wisdom deserve: You win.S Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11610068751705809284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-68913545169115852282014-05-31T19:48:10.851-04:002014-05-31T19:48:10.851-04:00S Johnson: I'm afraid you are confused. Natura...S Johnson: I'm afraid you are confused. Natural selection may explain the conservation of homologies, but it doesn't explain the homologies themselves. Mutation may explain the origins of characters, but it doesn't explain homologies, which are defined specifically as similarities due to common descent. And there really is nothing wrong with the question.<br /><br />In your second to las paragraph, you use the word "therefore" in a novel meaning; it is generally used to join two ideas, the first of which requires the second to be true. Why should not being the default make common descent not a theory? Do theories have to be the default, whatever you mean by that? I agree that it isn't the 19th Century any more, but I fail to see that as an argument. Nor do I see why molecular and cellular levels make any difference, or in fact why it should be difficult to speak of descent for unicellular life. Perhaps in the latter case you refer to horizontal transfer; but horizontal transfer is in fact a form of descent.<br /><br />Of course plenty of people speak of common descent. Why would you imagine otherwise? But I certainly agree with your last statement, though with nothing else in your post.<br /><br />John Harshmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705501480675917237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-68951468683046676852014-05-31T16:26:33.132-04:002014-05-31T16:26:33.132-04:00"If common descent isn't a theory that ex..."If common descent isn't a theory that explains homology, what theory do you think does explain homology?" All flesh is grass. Mutation and genetic drift and extinction assure us of that. Cells cannot reproduce without change. However, wild variations will tend to produce organisms that cannot reproduce, or maybe even survive to birth or maturity. Natural selection will conserve features that permit differential reproduction. Those conserved features in many respects are the homologies. <br /><br />So, basically, natural selection produces homologies. It is true that under certain conditions natural selection will drive the evolution of new adaptations, as well as playing a role along with mutation, drift, extinction, sexual selection and maybe other minor factors will produce new species. But natural selection for traits will ensure that homologies will be found between related species or vice versa. <br /><br />I know that doesn't literally answer the question, but the proper answer to the question would be something like "I stopped beating my wife the same day you did." <br /><br />You correctly state that common descent as a theory is a theory of non-change. Non-change is not the default, therefore inflating common descent into a "ttheory" is terribly misleading. Back in the nineteenth century common descent might have been a good theory to explain homologies. But this isn't the nineteenth century any more. We know that life on a molecular and cellular is remarkably of a piece, although it is more difficult to speak of descent for unicellular life. Isn't that still the most common type?<br /><br />Also, no one really speaks of common descent, but of descent with modification (a synonym for evolution.) The real question is what useful purpose could possibly be served by arbitrarily limiting "fact" to measurements and laboratory observations? S Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11610068751705809284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-26454865511960529782014-05-31T06:50:14.843-04:002014-05-31T06:50:14.843-04:00Part two.
In many cases the only parts of organis...Part two.<br /><br />In many cases the only parts of organisms that fossilize are the hard(er) parts, such as shells, teeth, and bones. There are various processes by which those parts can be fossilized. Permineralization, authigenic mineralization, petrification, replacement, and recrystalization are some of those processes. I'll lump those all together and call them mineralization. Mineralization can and often does retain intricate internal and/or external details of shells, bones, teeth, wood, etc., and biologists/paleontologists are able to determine many things from those fossils. <br /><br />For example, a dinosaur bone is found that has been permineralized, and/or replaced by minerals that were not in the original bone. If the fossil dinosaur bone retains its original shape, size, and details, or even if it only partly does, much can be learned by studying it biologically. Muscle attachments, pore structure, position in the dinosaur's body, overall size of the dinosaur, function of the bone, injuries or disease (or lack thereof), age when it died, genus/species, and other factors can be studied (biologically) and compared to other fossil bones and to the bones of extant animals, even when no original material is retained in the dinosaur bone, and a lot of biological information can be determined from such studies and comparisons. And when multiple bones (and teeth, if the animal originally had teeth) or mostly complete skeletons are found even more can be studied (biologically) and figured out. Oh, and in many cases there are other biological things in the same sediments that fossil bones/teeth are found in, such as fossil pollen, other plant parts, micro-organisms, other animal fossils, etc., that help to figure out the environment in which the animal lived and its relationships/interactions with its environment and other animals at that time.<br /> <br />You must think that paleontologists never study biology and don't know anything about it but that's just plain wrong. In fact, many or most paleontologists don't have a degree in 'paleontology'. They usually have educations in some type of biology along with geology and other subjects. Paleontologists also work with and collaborate with other scientists who are broadly educated in multiple fields or who specialize in particular areas of biology, chemistry, radiology, pathology, botany, bio-stratigraphy, radiometric dating, geology, physics, and various other specialties. It takes a 'village' to study and figure out fossils, and biology/biologists are a major part of that 'village' whether you accept that or not. <br /><br />Throw away your book of religious fairy tales and learn something about fossils and biology/paleontology. <br />The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-3560524563356025512014-05-31T06:43:49.558-04:002014-05-31T06:43:49.558-04:00Robert, I know that you're a lost cause but ma...Robert, I know that you're a lost cause but maybe some lurkers may benefit from this:<br /><br />Here are the things that acartia brought up:<br /><br />"Fossil record, comparative anatomy, DNA comparisons, animal husbandry, molecular biology, antibiotic resistance, the flu virus...."<br /><br />So, none of those things have anything to do with biology? I have never heard of anyone using "pickaxes and dynamite" to do/study/investigate comparative anatomy, DNA comparisons, animal husbandry, molecular biology, antibiotic resistance, or the flu virus, and many fossils are found and collected without the use of "pickaxes and dynamite". Besides, it doesn't matter how they're found and collected. What matters is what can be learned from them. <br /><br />It's obvious that your biggest complaint is with fossils, so let's take a look at the study of fossils. In regard to your complaints, fossils are the remains or traces of prehistoric organisms (the word 'fossil' is sometimes used in other contexts). Fossil remains and/or traces often retain the original shape, size, and intricate details of prehistoric organisms, their burrows, foot prints, etc., and some fossils retain the "gooy" stuff. You obviously think that all fossils are just rocks that superficially resemble bones, teeth, feathers, scales, skin, leaves, internal organs, etc., and that studying 'rocks' has nothing to do with biology. Well, they are not just rocks, many aren't mineralized at all or are only partially so, and some are pretty much as fresh as a steak that you just took out of your freezer. <br /><br />It should be obvious, even to you, that a frozen mammoth retains "gooy" stuff and that studying the remains of such a mammoth pertains to biology. It should also be obvious, even to you, that when fossil organisms are found in amber, biological science certainly pertains to figuring things out about those organisms and how/when they became trapped in plant resin. There are lots of details I could go into about those types of fossils but I'll delve into the fossils that really bug you; the ones that you only see as 'rocks'. I'll try to keep it very simple and very general. <br /><br /><br />I had to split this so see part two.<br /><br />The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-55240018805808279222014-05-31T00:33:30.690-04:002014-05-31T00:33:30.690-04:00To understand biology or its origins demands inves...To understand biology or its origins demands investigation must be made obn actual biological life including biological processes.<br />You have got to get your fingers sticky. Tools must deal with actual gooy biology. Not pickaxes and dynamite!<br />Evolutionism does not deal with biology, in major or near major ways, but instead deals with processes and results that are not touchable.<br />This is a first flaw of why evolution conclusions are not biological ones based on biology.<br />The seconf flaw is scientific methodology. IF NO biology is being done then ALL THE MORE is conclusions not the result of the HIGHER standard of investigation called science.<br />Science, as a method, is meant to weed out poor investigation and reasonings behind it. <br />Therefore the biological investigation into biology origins must be very well done.<br />How can this be when NO biology is being dealt with in the first plave?<br />therefore its up to evolutionists to prove they are doing biological scientific investigation behind their conclusions.<br />Robert Byershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05631863870635096770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-46028350472120868992014-05-30T07:41:44.582-04:002014-05-30T07:41:44.582-04:00Some questions come to mind:
What does a newborn...Some questions come to mind: <br /><br />What does a newborn baby know?<br /><br />Can a baby know things without learning about them? <br /><br />Can an adult know things without learning about them? <br /><br />Are imagined things known things? The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-31722225387447918772014-05-30T07:29:25.553-04:002014-05-30T07:29:25.553-04:00Speaking of UFOs and aliens, About 20 years ago I ...Speaking of UFOs and aliens, About 20 years ago I lived next door to a young woman (23 yo) who was very good looking, single, well groomed, spoke well, employed at a pet store, and was bisexual. None of that is unusual, but there's something else. She totally believed that she had been abducted by aliens and that they had experimented on her. She also believed that they planted a chip in her so that they could easily locate her. One day she called me on the phone and very excitedly asked me if I had hear "that noise" last night. I asked "What noise"?" She said "That loud humming noise!" I said "No, I didn't hear anything." She said "You must have heard it! It was loud. Are you sure you didn't hear it?" "No, I didn't hear it." <br /><br />She was obviously frustrated and just couldn't believe that I hadn't heard the loud humming sound. I asked her what she thought it was and she said it was her "friends" checking up on her. By "friends" she meant her friends in a space craft from another planet. She said that they hovered over our homes during the previous night. I'll add here that there were lots of other people living very close to the young woman and me and none of them reported any loud humming noise or any UFOs. <br /><br />On another day I was talking with the young woman and I said some things that showed that I didn't believe her about aliens, UFOs, implanted chips, etc., and she got PISSED. One of the things she said was "Look at my arms, look at the "scoop marks"! Scoop marks are the alleged scars left by aliens who take scoops of skin with a tool of some sort for the purpose of laboratory examination/tests. She held out her arms for me to look at, which was unnecessary since I had already seen them many times and I had even seen her completely naked and she not only had no "scoop marks" but she was pretty much flawless from top to bottom, except for a couple of tattoos. I assure you that I looked very closely. :)<br /><br />After that day she didn't speak to me anymore. She was mad because I had challenged her belief in her alien friends and being abducted and experimented on. She had a slightly older sister who did not share her alien/UFO beliefs. Sometimes I wonder how the young woman is doing and if she still has those beliefs. The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-60337132223638697202014-05-30T06:41:23.542-04:002014-05-30T06:41:23.542-04:00Robert, you've made comments and I've aske...Robert, you've made comments and I've asked you questions that pertain to those comments. Saying that it's not your forum is a cop-out. Saying that you don't know any questions doesn't even make sense. I'm not asking you to ask questions, I'm asking you to answer questions. <br /><br />Your claim that those things do not pertain to biological science is a profound demonstration of your brain-deadening religious programming. <br /><br />What, exactly, does pertain to biological scientific investigation? Describe some things that do pertain to biological scientific investigation. <br /><br />You say that evolution is not true. Describe your biological scientific studies, in detail, and present your biological scientific evidence that shows evolution to not be true. <br /><br />You say that there couldn't possibly be any biological scientific evidence for evolution. Describe your biological scientific studies, in detail, and present your biological scientific evidence that shows that there couldn't possibly be any biological scientific evidence for evolution. <br /><br />Define "evolution". <br />The whole truthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07219999357041824471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-24119716205009791712014-05-30T06:38:04.745-04:002014-05-30T06:38:04.745-04:00So reading science books at the library is a "...So reading science books at the library is a "library way of knowing" or a "book way of knowing" rather than a "scientific way of knowing"? Hard for me to understand how the ultimate source of the knowledge or "knowing" doesn't matter.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-74472140110209579082014-05-30T01:15:15.442-04:002014-05-30T01:15:15.442-04:00Not my forum. I don't know any questions. Yes ...Not my forum. I don't know any questions. Yes I'm claiming and confident those things to do not pertain to biological science. they are something else but not that.<br />As I said I've never seen bio sci evidence for evolution anywhere on its major points.<br />Thats because its not true and there couldn't possibly be any.<br />Robert Byershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05631863870635096770noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-55090697743489011012014-05-29T22:33:30.290-04:002014-05-29T22:33:30.290-04:00Indeed, and have you noticed that feeding the mult...<i>Indeed, and have you noticed that feeding the multitudes with a few loaves and fish, virgin births, and resurrections seem to be on a downward trend also? :)</i><br /><br />I imagine that virgin pregnancies still get claimed with some frequency, however.SRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299706694667706149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-67758022650504650882014-05-29T20:03:59.755-04:002014-05-29T20:03:59.755-04:00I don't believe I spoke to learning but to kno...I don't believe I spoke to learning but to knowing and knowledge even if there may be some usual or even necessary relationships to learning. Regards learning from others, the recursive question goes to validation which is a separate issue even if some methods of knowing pursue validation. Even so, one needs to distinguish between specific validation of a result and general validation of a method.<br />Now as to the reliability of intuition, you might reread and notice I did not make general claims about reliability of one method over another so anecdotes about poor intuition do not speak to potential instances where intuition works better than other methods available to an individual. The question was 'ways of knowing" and did not specify anything like 'generally better' or 'less susceptible to catastrophic error'. <br />To your last claim it's merely pugilistic. Even your anecdote of unreliable intuition remains a way of knowing though you'll have to recognize that highly reliable, mostly reliable, and unreliable ways of knowing are still ways of knowing that are merely separated by reliability. As far as I'm aware, we lack a perfectly reliable means of knowing. Please alert me if I've missed something.<br />I do not challenge the general preeminence of the "scientific" way of knowing, or its cousin objective verification/validation (different things). But I do object to an apparent transition to some metaphysical exclusivity to the expanded definition of a scientific way of knowing to be the only way of knowing, and to the allied 'logic' of claiming that any belief that does not rely on this 'scientific way of knowing' is not merely unsubstantiated in an objective sense but necessarily "false" or irrational.roger shrubberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06920052094289132399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-36086597669936310552014-05-29T19:31:24.258-04:002014-05-29T19:31:24.258-04:00I think to be a good theory, common descent should...<i>I think to be a good theory, common descent should explain how much similarity there is between all us commonly descended organisms (some of whom are more similar than others.) So, no, I disagree that common descent does well as an explanation even of what it's intended to explain. That's exactly why I think it's a fact to be explained.</i><br /><br />So you're saying that common descent is at once a bad theory and a fact, and it's a fact *because* it's a bad theory. Fascinating. Why does common descent have to explain everything in order to be a good theory? Do you make these demands of other theories? Common descent explains exactly what it's intended to explain, i.e. those things that follow as consequences of common descent. The degree of similarity (or, rather, difference) requires other auxiliary theories to explain, such as a molecular clock or some other theory of the causes of change. Common descent is of course not a theory of change but of non-change. It explains homology, in other words.<br /><br />If common descent isn't a theory that explains homology, what theory do you think does explain homology?John Harshmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06705501480675917237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-11841429859922451312014-05-29T19:04:53.667-04:002014-05-29T19:04:53.667-04:00In all these respects you seem to have conflated h...In all these respects you seem to have conflated how an individual seeks to learn with the enterprise of learning. Learning from an authority is successful insofar as the authority is knowledgeable, so then you've simply moved the inquiry from yourself to the authority. How did the authority come by the knowledge? From a holy book? Or by study, experimentation, observation, etc?<br /><br />"Intuition," which I'll take as being synonymous with "gut feeling," similarly depends on the quality of the knowledge informing it. If you don't know what a rifle is, your intuitive feeling that anyone standing 100 feet away holding what appears to be a stick cannot hurt you may not be a terribly good guide.<br /><br />In each of these cases you have not defined a separate way of knowing, you have merely rhetorically put the source of knowledge at one remove.judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-6832841434571068432014-05-29T18:56:00.199-04:002014-05-29T18:56:00.199-04:00Since you mentioned them, I should also point out ...<i>Since you mentioned them, I should also point out that alien abductions and UFO sightings in general are a very interesting case -- the frequency of reports have gone down dramatically ever since everyone started carrying cell phones with cameras with them. That is a most peculiar trend - you would think that such a technological development would result in hundreds of high quality photos of UFOs, but exactly the opposite has happened in practice</i><br /><br />Indeed, and have you noticed that feeding the multitudes with a few loaves and fish, virgin births, and resurrections seem to be on a downward trend also? :)judmarchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03111006189037693272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-55730165055669603292014-05-29T14:04:48.036-04:002014-05-29T14:04:48.036-04:00...I should also point out that alien abductions a...<i>...I should also point out that alien abductions and UFO sightings in general are a very interesting case -- the frequency of reports have gone down dramatically ever since everyone started carrying cell phones with cameras with them.</i><br /><br />The electromagnetic radiation emitted by those devices scare away alien spacecraft...same goes for saskquatch and the the Loch Ness monster.SRMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07299706694667706149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-54907483795182423502014-05-29T13:25:40.108-04:002014-05-29T13:25:40.108-04:00Yes, I think it can be reasonable to believe that ...Yes, I think it can be reasonable to believe that capital punishment deters crime. If an individual personally thinks that they might be inclined to commit a particular crime except they fear being caught and executed, that individual has a solid reason to believe that capital punishment deters crime. From a study of winning strategies in The Prisoner's Dilemma and allied game theory studies, it has been documented that in the absence of what people consider just punishment for _bad_ behavior, their willingness to avoid bad behavior decreases. So for people who view capital punishment as proper punishment, the lack of it can be expected to decrease their motivation to behave according to the rules. If this actually manifests and to what degree remains an unknown that I don't believe could be effectively measured by statistical studies of crime in regions with and without capital punishment. I also think that believing it does not have an effect is a reasonable belief. Reasonable people can differ given competing yet inconclusive arguments. <br /><br />Trust in authorities who have earned your trust is another way of knowing. It may in many respects be an inferior way, but can be superior in other pragmatic aspects. Similarly, trust in ones own intuitions can in many circumstances be a pragmatically superior way of knowing, for those with intuition that has proven reliable. <br /><br />Unless one redefines knowledge/knowing in a special pleading manner, the question is of relative accuracy of different ways of knowing. My observations are that this varies between individuals, as does individuals ability to apply "scientific" ways of knowing.roger shrubberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06920052094289132399noreply@blogger.com