guyver2199

i acknowledged that i havent the time or desire to hunt down the statistics which are not readily available, however i will not allow that you to use that concession to say that they don't exist. If you wish to state such prove it. Don't say " well you haven't proven me wrong" because chances are the point has been dealt with otherwise the theory would not be so prevalent. i concede that i havent the willt to hunt them down, you concede the same, let it go, or find them.

Radorth

Really? So the process is gradual then, with subtle changes. Hmmm, I thought punctuated equilibrium was invented to explain the profound lack of intermediates Darwin said we would find. And how come species die out, even shrink in size and strength for a long time? Oh I know. "Nobody said there weren't some kinks to work out."

Moreover with all those Christians around handing out food to weak and needy humans, I won't expect to see any evidence of evolution for some time to come. They are totally screwing up the laws of nature, and don't even know it.

Rad

Stephen T-B

Difficult area you’re getting into here, Radorth viz welfare systems protecting inadequate human beings from natural interventions which would otherwise inhibit their breeding. The discredited Eugenics movement believed that their unimpaired ability to breed, and their tendency to breed faster than better specimens, would in the end produce a degenerate species.

I know you weren’t making that point, but it is implicated in your comment about “all those Christians handing out food to weak and needy humans.”
“Christians and others,” you should have said, or did you not think of the Islamic injunction which requires Muslims to be charitable? Do you think Hindus don’t support weak and needy human beings? Do you think atheists don’t. My daughter and son-in-law, both atheists, gave up well-paid jobs in the UK to give their services in Zambia so as to help the weak and needy humans there have a better life.
Your partial view is an insult to them and the very many non-Christians - including me, I may say - who feel an obligation to help the weak and needy. What I do, and what they do, is motivated by our sense of common humanity.
I wonder if you know what that means?

Starboy

guyver2199, you are a hoot! There is no way I have enough time to show that such information doesn't exist. As you might know, it is difficult if not possible to prove a negative. Besides it is up to those that insist that it is useful or valid to substantiate their claims. My suspicions are that few, including you, have ever questioned it. Just a simple examination of the concept shows that it is extremely limited, not well substantiated and contradicts historical experience.

Starboy

Starboy

guyver2199, here is an interesting link pointing out that Ockham's razor is nothing more than circular reasoning....

Ockham's razor == circular reasoning

Starboy

guyver2199

if you have two theories which both explain the observed facts then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along. See W.M. Thorburn, "The Myth of Occam's Razor," Mind 27:345-353 (1918) for a detailed study of what Ockham actually wrote and what others wrote after him.

The reason behind the razor is that for any given set of facts there are an infinite number of theories that could explain them. For instance, if you have a graph with four points in a line then the simplest theory that explains them is a linear relationship, but you can draw an infinite number of different curves that all pass through the four points. There is no evidence that the straight line is the right one, but it is the simplest possible solution. So you might as well use it until someone comes along with a point off the straight line.

Also, if you have a few thousand points on the line and someone suggests that there is a point that is off the line, it's a pretty fair bet that they are wrong.
_ quote from same source as before... did you look at the source?


also, the stats are out there it is just a matter of finding them. you dont have to diprove it, just show that where someone has looked and found the "dots that are off the line"

guyver2199

actually they sort of are, have you never heard it said that humans are trying to remove themselves from nature, as to populations shrinking, with less of a needed resource availabe or some new form of competition, the weakest of the species die off, some of the better ones may die as well as result of chance but they are definitely favored. punctated equilimbium is much less sound than evolution, but yes it is a favored theory. it more or less says that occasionally circumstances force a much faster perion of evolution. if for some reason we started killing the tenth of the population with the worst eyesight, two things would in theory happen, we would breed more in response to the increase in resources, and the genetic composition for bad eyesight would gradually be lost as those for good eyesight became more common. eventually we would have a population of 20 10 or better, because the favoring of that gene was so strong. keep this up for a long enough time and we may begin improving our eyes on a more anatomical way(changing of design. keep in mind. a few million years is the blink of an eye when speaking of evolution.

Starboy

guyver2199, we are just rehashing old ground. You got any new data to support your claim? What would be very helpful is a well accepted definition and method of application. Not some quotes from the website of a chemical engineer.

Starboy

Scrambles

I thought Occam's Razor was about choosing the theory with the least amount of unproven assumptions (that explains the data adequately) as the best explanation, yes?

If this is agreed upon, then this,
and this,

(emphasis mine)

have to be two of the most stupid posts I've ever seen. Cutting away unproven assumptions/assertions are what skeptics do. Occam's Razor, therefore is the tool that skeptics use to evaluate theories. e.g. Has this assertion been proven? Has this conclusion been adequately justified etc.

The second post in particular really sets off my irony detector. The poster starts off talking about applying skeptical thinking to Occam's Razor...the tool of the skeptic, then proceeds to USE Occam's Razor on his misunderstanding (strawman) of Occam's Razor by identifying an unproven assumption. In this case going further and showing that the assumption is contradicted by observation. The implied conclusion therefore is that his opposing method, evaluating everything on evidence alone, is better than the strawman Occam's Razor.


Scrambles

Starboy

Scambles, you have hit upon the best reason to discard the concept. No one can agree on what it is and how to apply it. So how could it ever be taken seriously? It is the tool of the misinformed and wanna be skeptic.

Starboy