Valentine Pontifex

This is mostly for UNWORTHYONE...

One you will be sure to note is that one cannot simply read a few page to learn a subject. One will simply at the very minimum will have to read books and articles by practicing scientists. One thing that is very noticable is that most creationists online have not bothered to do so and yet think they know enough to debate evolution. Why is it that most of them don't do the same for quantum mechanics? To understand quantum mechanics one must educate oneself one a great deal of material. The same is true for evolution.

When you try to poke holes in evolution, one must not fail what I will call the quantum mechanics test. Basically, if I switch the basic argument you are making to quantum mechanics, which is an extremely sucessful theory of physics and chemistry, and it would result in you rejecting quantum mechanics; then I am justified in saying that you attempt of poking a hole in evolution is a fallacy.

You argue that because we don't understand how the lepidoptera lifecycle of egg to catepillar to pupa to adult evolved that it must mean that we must reject evolution or at least give it the same status as creationism. There is not adequate quantum explanation of gravity. If quantum theory is true there must be one. And yet we don't have one. So by the same reasoning you applied to to butterflies, I must conclude that it wrong to state quantum mechanics as factual and I should give it equal status as any "alternatives." This is nonsense. Just because we don't understand all things about quantum mechanics does not change the enormous amount of evidence in favor of it or change the fact that nothing in chemistry makes sense except in the light of it. Since your reasoning is not valid for quantum theory, why whould I think for one moment it is valid for evolutionary theory???????????????????????????????????????

All theories in science have enormous areas which are not understood. To argue from ignorance, what Richard Dawkins calls "the God of the gaps" is a fallacy. It is not a reasonable request to demand that all things be explained before a theory be accepted.

I will write more later. I have stayed up way too long on this.

unworthyone

Awesome that makes two posts for me.
My objective is to debate evolution not quantum mechanics. This is what your invitee asked me to do.
Gravity is observed. So the evidence is proof and we need not discuss it. I know it works.
God of gaps is a fallacy in what way? Because you can't disprove it?
Love of a woman must be a fallacy too.

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: unworthyone ]</p>

lpetrich

Unworthyone, that's an ANALOGY. Unworthyone, if you refuse to take others' analogies seriously, others may decide not to take your analogies seriously.

That's beside the point. The point is that it is very difficult to construct a quantum-mechanical theory of gravity that is both mathematically reasonable and physically reasonable.

Because it's unfalsifiable. It's like saying that there is a little green man following you who turns invisible when you turn around to look.

Not at all, because there is the sort of evidence for such love as there is for gravity.

Someone once stumped Carl Sagan with this sort of question, and he need not have been stumped by it.

unworthyone

And what evidence is there for love?

RufusAtticus

<a href="http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Rom/Rom_F/Rom_F.html" target="_blank">http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/DraftTxt/Rom/Rom_F/Rom_F.html</a>

unworthyone

Thats awesome. At least I know somebody has a sense of humor.

hezekiah jones

That's news to me. Where do I go to look at it?

Not exactly a fallacy in the accepted sense. However it's a pointless and uninformative proposition. If everything we don't know is automatically "god" then atheists are strong believers in "god" too.

Newton himself proposed a "god of the gaps" explanation for the irregularities in Uranus' orbit. Then Neptune was discovered, having previously been suggested by what at the time was also considered an ad hoc hypothesis. So "god" is no longer affecting Uranus' orbit, as Newton proposed.

This is probably the real reason that Michael Behe actually compares himself to Newton in Darwin's Black Box.

Free Thinkr

Also notable: Even if the creationists succeeded in debunking evolution (believe me, none of them have come within a light year of this), that still wouldn't validate creationism. I'm getting sick and tired of hearing negative arguements from creationists. Where is your proof of creationism? More specifically, where is your proof of creationism as it relates to the bible? The only reason you always see negative arguments is that creationists have no positive proof of creationism -they hope that if they could disprove evolution they'd win by default!

hezekiah jones

"Intelligent design theorists" use exactly the same tactic:

<a href="http://arn.org/docs2/news/kennedyexpertonscience032102.htm" target="_blank">Edward Kennedy -- Expert on Science?</a>

unworthyone

I definately agree with that.