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Dear John...

D

Deleted member 619

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arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
No, I'm not leaving you, I just thought of an approach that might help and, given that some of your recent responses have showed at least some willingness to explore, and given that you post a single comment we should be able to build on, I'm willing to offer the olive branch and explore a bit. I don't promise to be able to do anything, but I want to see if I can find a route from what you've said that opens a door to better understanding.


John Heintz wrote: When I went to college I studied criminology.

How far did you take this? Did you do much study of the scientific method? Anything at all on forensics? Trying to get a grasp on how well you understand how science actually operates on the working side of a laboratory door. Most people have that school mnemonic as their understanding of how science works, but that doesn't bear much resemblance to the real logical process underpinning science.

I think that, operating on your understanding of science, and teasing out the difference between the view that this is "just a story we tell ourselves and are trying to prove" and how we really arrived at the conclusions we tentatively accept as the best models on the currently available data.

It's a really elegant process that, once fully understood, especially in terms of the underlying logic of how we go about finding things out about the world, gives really good confidence in the conclusions of science. I can read a paper in a field I know exactly nothing about but, because I understand the logic of scientific discovery, I can look at the experimental design, calculate the degree of statistical significance of the sample size against the extant phase space of the theory in question, check the math, and see if the paper fails the basics. Anybody can do this, even non-scientists. It's a learned skill. Once that's out of the way, we have methods of assessing the quality and robustness of the paper itself by various means such as the impact factor of the journal in which the paper was published, the number of times it was cited in the research of others.

I think that, given even a tiny bit of study of the scientific aspects of criminology (by which I mean the hard science, not the indirect stuff like psychology), we should be able to firm up your understand of the scientific method enough to give us a better in.

So this is me accepting your invitation to start another thread.

I don't need a lot of detail in what you know about the method, just a quick précis of how you think we go about getting from observation to conclusion would do.
 
arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
No, I'm not leaving you, I just thought of an approach that might help and, given that some of your recent responses have showed at least some willingness to explore, and given that you post a single comment we should be able to build on, I'm willing to offer the olive branch and explore a bit. I don't promise to be able to do anything, but I want to see if I can find a route from what you've said that opens a door to better understanding.




How far did you take this? Did you do much study of the scientific method? Anything at all on forensics? Trying to get a grasp on how well you understand how science actually operates on the working side of a laboratory door. Most people have that school mnemonic as their understanding of how science works, but that doesn't bear much resemblance to the real logical process underpinning science.

I think that, operating on your understanding of science, and teasing out the difference between the view that this is "just a story we tell ourselves and are trying to prove" and how we really arrived at the conclusions we tentatively accept as the best models on the currently available data.

It's a really elegant process that, once fully understood, especially in terms of the underlying logic of how we go about finding things out about the world, gives really good confidence in the conclusions of science. I can read a paper in a field I know exactly nothing about but, because I understand the logic of scientific discovery, I can look at the experimental design, calculate the degree of statistical significance of the sample size against the extant phase space of the theory in question, check the math, and see if the paper fails the basics. Anybody can do this, even non-scientists. It's a learned skill. Once that's out of the way, we have methods of assessing the quality and robustness of the paper itself by various means such as the impact factor of the journal in which the paper was published, the number of times it was cited in the research of others.

I think that, given even a tiny bit of study of the scientific aspects of criminology (by which I mean the hard science, not the indirect stuff like psychology), we should be able to firm up your understand of the scientific method enough to give us a better in.

So this is me accepting your invitation to start another thread.

I don't need a lot of detail in what you know about the method, just a quick précis of how you think we go about getting from observation to conclusion would do.
Ok . Who are you and what have you done with Hackenslash ? Lol
I see you have adopted a different approach. Cool. Olive Branch accepted.
My time at college was over 3 decades ago. I'm sure a lot has changed.
I don't think it's "a story you tell yourselves and are trying to prove it". I see it more like " if it has to be natural. That no higher power/God is allowed. Then this is the best natural explanation that we have.". Doesn't mean that it's a beyond reasonable doubt, hard cold fact.
And again. I COULD BE TOTALLY WRONG.
I don't know that much about it. I am not a scientist. And I'm saying the same about religion. I COULD BE TOTALLY WRONG.
I think it's possible. I am not a theologian.
If you want to try and do what Aron said he could. I am all for it.
 
arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
NOTE to everyone who isn't Hackenslash.

This is going to be between him , I think you're a him, and I. I will not be responding to anyone else. Not because I'm an evasive Creationist. Because , it's will just be easier to focus on one person.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Don't bother Hack - this guy's a mendacious little troll who's only here to fuck with people. No point in extending good faith discussion to someone incapable of responding in kind.
 
arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
Inappropriate Behavior
Don't bother Hack - this guy's a mendacious little troll who's only here to fuck with people. No point in extending good faith discussion to someone incapable of responding in kind.
I can respond in kind. "Hey Sparhoc, go fuck yourself". See , I did it.
Oh, wait , I wasn't going to respond to anyone else. Please disregard the above.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
My time at college was over 3 decades ago. I'm sure a lot has changed.
Actually, I've just seen your behaviour in the other thread. I withdraw my offer. It was predicated on a pattern of better behaviour that I now see was anomalous.
 
arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
Actually, I've just seen your behaviour in the other thread. I withdraw my offer. It was predicated on a pattern of better behaviour that I now see was anomalous.
Ummmm. I've seen your behaviour in the other thread. And it was all directed at me. Lol.
But , whatever you choose.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
What I will do is to provide the correct answers to the questions I'd have asked you, so that you can see what the real process looks like.

This is how logic really works on the working side of a laboratory door:

Deduction, Induction, Abduction and Fallacy is actually a general introduction to logic; a kind of taster, but it uses the framework of scientific reasoning as a basis for how different types of reasoning work.

If you get to the end f that and feel like you want to look at how evolution really works, as opposed to the caricature you get from people like Hovind, the following is, I think, the most concise but complete explanation of the whole shebang. If it doesn't appear in this post, it isn't a postulate of evolutionary theory. In it, I explain what evolution is, the basic mechanisms of population resampling - selection, drift, fixation, extinction etc. - how terms like 'random' and 'stochastic' really apply,

Has Evolution Been Proven?

If you show a willingness to engage with the material, I'll happily reextend.
 
arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
What I will do is to provide the correct answers to the questions I'd have asked you, so that you can see what the real process looks like.

This is how logic really works on the working side of a laboratory door:

Deduction, Induction, Abduction and Fallacy is actually a general introduction to logic; a kind of taster, but it uses the framework of scientific reasoning as a basis for how different types of reasoning work.

If you get to the end f that and feel like you want to look at how evolution really works, as opposed to the caricature you get from people like Hovind, the following is, I think, the most concise but complete explanation of the whole shebang. If it doesn't appear in this post, it isn't a postulate of evolutionary theory. In it, I explain what evolution is, the basic mechanisms of population resampling - selection, drift, fixation, extinction etc. - how terms like 'random' and 'stochastic' really apply,

Has Evolution Been Proven?

If you show a willingness to engage with the material, I'll happily reextend.
I read the both. The logic and reasoning one was good. I was familiar with everything you wrote, even the fallacies.
The evolution one was ok. I'll respond to this one with a few things I think you missed the mark on
KINDS. The Bible , as I understand it, wasn't meant to be an animal classification manual. The word kind in there I would think meant type or sort. Like "if mommy animal and daddy animal have a baby it will be the same kind as they are".
Creationists do NOT think a fish is going to give birth to a vole, turtle or monkey. They don't think it happened in one or even a few generations. They know it's in small increments over vast amounts of time. What they are saying is "a fish like ancestor becoming a mammal like ancestor has never been observed" and it hasn't.
Ring species. So what? No offence. But they are still salamanders. It's a small differentiation to the X or Y chromosome. That's it. And it doesn't always happen. Look at humans. We can live on different continents for centuries ......and we can all still interbreed.
So , in my opinion, ring species is an "interesting phenomenon" but it doesn't support universal common ancestry.
The butterfly scenario? They found that by breeding different ones they could achieve different wing patterns. That's what I'm getting from that. Am I missing something?
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
The evolution one was ok. I'll respond to this one with a few things I think you missed the mark on
KINDS. The Bible , as I understand it, wasn't meant to be an animal classification manual. The word kind in there I would think meant type or sort. Like "if mommy animal and daddy animal have a baby it will be the same kind as they are".
Which is exactly what evolutionary theory predicts. You seem to have missed the point of the entire section on that term, despite it being stated explicitly. It's useless. Nobody can define it by comparison to a clear and obvious taxonomic hierarchy that we know applies to the biosphere. The term is entirely meaningless in classification terms. I order to make it meaningful, place it on the diagram provided.
Creationists do NOT think a fish is going to give birth to a vole, turtle or monkey. They don't think it happened in one or even a few generations. They know it's in small increments over vast amounts of time. What they are saying is "a fish like ancestor becoming a mammal like ancestor has never been observed" and it hasn't.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are very many creationists who genuinely believe that evolutionary theory predicts a fish giving birth to a vole, or some other such asininity, despite the fact that this would falsify evolutionary theory stone dead at a stroke.

What you are missing here is that we needn't actually observe this occurring in real time to know it happens. We HAVE observed speciation (and other macroevolutionary processes), and it proceeds exactly as predicted by the theory. THAT is macroevolution. Any variation in allele frequencies at or above species level is, by definition, macroevolution. That's what the word means.
Ring species. So what? No offence. But they are still salamanders. It's a small differentiation to the X or Y chromosome. That's it. And it doesn't always happen. Look at humans. We can live on different continents for centuries ......and we can all still interbreed.
You have some serious conceptual issues there. For a start, time is a bit of a red herring. Time is a factor, but only because of generational turnaround. What matters is numbers of generations. For humans, the turnaround time for generations is approximately 25 years, give or take. That means that, for every 1,000 years, there are forty generations. Rate of evolution is also correlated with genome size. That's why viruses and bacteria with shorter genomes evolve faster; it isn't only about the scale of the organism. For an organism with a genome the size of ours, a decent estimate for well-defined morphological change would be on the order of about 30,000 generations or so, which is about 600,000 years. Of course, you wouldn't see that happening, you'd have to compare the generations side by side.

The ensatinas are different. They can't interbreed after the extinction event, thus they've speciated, which is a macroevolutionary event.

All covered in the post.
So , in my opinion, ring species is an "interesting phenomenon" but it doesn't support universal common ancestry.
This is elbow joint of the lesser-spotted weasel-frog writ large. Universal common descent is an inductive conclusion based on convergence of lines of evidence showing convergence of form as we track species back through time, from enormous diversity now (no thanks to us) to less and less diversity with a clear gradation of traits and features tracking exactly the same path backward in time, with every line of evidence, fossil, molecular, etc., all showing exactly the same processes we see in the biosphere today, and all exquisitely predicted by evolutionary theory. UCD is also trivial to falsify. JBS Haldane's challenge is still open to anybody who wants to try it.
The butterfly scenario? They found that by breeding different ones they could achieve different wing patterns. That's what I'm getting from that. Am I missing something?
Yes, you're missing that it's a crystal clear speciation event in the wild and replicated by hybridisation in the lab. It's macroevolution.

The things you're 'getting' tell me you're not engaging with it entirely honestly.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
Thank you, brother.
 
arg-fallbackName="JohnHeintz"/>
Are we ready to continue?
Which is exactly what evolutionary theory predicts. You seem to have missed the point of the entire section on that term, despite it being stated explicitly. It's useless. Nobody can define it by comparison to a clear and obvious taxonomic hierarchy that we know applies to the biosphere. The term is entirely meaningless in classification terms. I order to make it meaningful, place it on the diagram provided.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are very many creationists who genuinely believe that evolutionary theory predicts a fish giving birth to a vole, or some other such asininity, despite the fact that this would falsify evolutionary theory stone dead at a stroke.

What you are missing here is that we needn't actually observe this occurring in real time to know it happens. We HAVE observed speciation (and other macroevolutionary processes), and it proceeds exactly as predicted by the theory. THAT is macroevolution. Any variation in allele frequencies at or above species level is, by definition, macroevolution. That's what the word means.

You have some serious conceptual issues there. For a start, time is a bit of a red herring. Time is a factor, but only because of generational turnaround. What matters is numbers of generations. For humans, the turnaround time for generations is approximately 25 years, give or take. That means that, for every 1,000 years, there are forty generations. Rate of evolution is also correlated with genome size. That's why viruses and bacteria with shorter genomes evolve faster; it isn't only about the scale of the organism. For an organism with a genome the size of ours, a decent estimate for well-defined morphological change would be on the order of about 30,000 generations or so, which is about 600,000 years. Of course, you wouldn't see that happening, you'd have to compare the generations side by side.

The ensatinas are different. They can't interbreed after the extinction event, thus they've speciated, which is a macroevolutionary event.

All covered in the post.

This is elbow joint of the lesser-spotted weasel-frog writ large. Universal common descent is an inductive conclusion based on convergence of lines of evidence showing convergence of form as we track species back through time, from enormous diversity now (no thanks to us) to less and less diversity with a clear gradation of traits and features tracking exactly the same path backward in time, with every line of evidence, fossil, molecular, etc., all showing exactly the same processes we see in the biosphere today, and all exquisitely predicted by evolutionary theory. UCD is also trivial to falsify. JBS Haldane's challenge is still open to anybody who wants to try it.

Yes, you're missing that it's a crystal clear speciation event in the wild and replicated by hybridisation in the lab. It's macroevolution.

The things you're 'getting' tell me you're not engaging with it entirely honestly.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Are we ready to continue?

Why do you think anyone would want to continue a discussion with someone who's shown themselves to be a vicious troll? And that trolling AFTER having performed an extended series of gymnastics to evade substantively addressing the posts others people wrote to answer your questions.

What exactly is in it for others? We're not legs to dry-hump.
 
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
John is now permanently banned as per the reported posts which were assigned to me to deal with.
 
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