Why is ID not a scientific hypothesis?

[Царь Славян]

Reading back, I think you got let off the hook lightly here.

I don't understand why you think this makes the entire ID hypothesis falsifiable.

The falsifiability criteria applies to the hypothesis/theory as a whole not the simple case of a specific instance.

Depends on what you are testing. If you are testing a chance hypothesis, meaning if you are testng if a certain object came about by chance, then yeah, it's only for that specific case.

It seems to me that you believe your snowflake example shows that ID is falsifiable - it does not - because you will then use ID to examine other objects of unknown providence and put them through your explanatory filter to see whether design applies or not. (I wont start - yet - on the intellectual paucity of the explanatory filter) i.e. you are still using the hypothesis despite having, apparently, falsified it!

For that specific object. Imagine if we tried to test if certain object came about by chance, and we decided that it did not. Would we then say that we can NEVER use chance as an explanation EVER!? How illogcal is that?

So do tell what event/observation, for you, would drive a coach and horses through ID as a whole causing the hypothesis to be amended or abandoned?

When chance and natural laws stop being considered explanations.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Evolution as you think of it means much more. Its about the idea that species that were never known to be able to reproduce, could reproduce. Which means they would not change on the level that would range from a single celled organism to a dinosaur. What you just predicted is simply based on genetics that accounts only form simple variations.

:shock: :lol: :facepalm:

And farther down the rabbit hole of ignorance we go.

 

[lrkun]

Reading back, I think you got let off the hook lightly here.

I don't understand why you think this makes the entire ID hypothesis falsifiable.

The falsifiability criteria applies to the hypothesis/theory as a whole not the simple case of a specific instance.

Depends on what you are testing. If you are testing a chance hypothesis, meaning if you are testng if a certain object came about by chance, then yeah, it's only for that specific case.

It seems to me that you believe your snowflake example shows that ID is falsifiable - it does not - because you will then use ID to examine other objects of unknown providence and put them through your explanatory filter to see whether design applies or not. (I wont start - yet - on the intellectual paucity of the explanatory filter) i.e. you are still using the hypothesis despite having, apparently, falsified it!

For that specific object. Imagine if we tried to test if certain object came about by chance, and we decided that it did not. Would we then say that we can NEVER use chance as an explanation EVER!? How illogcal is that?

So do tell what event/observation, for you, would drive a coach and horses through ID as a whole causing the hypothesis to be amended or abandoned?

When chance and natural laws stop being considered explanations.

A very nice video.

If you are a true student of science, you will watch this video.

 

[Царь Славян]

:shock: :lol: :facepalm:

And farther down the rabbit hole of ignorance we go.

You just got a one way ticket to my ignore list for that. I hope you enjoy the stay.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

:shock: :lol: :facepalm:

And farther down the rabbit hole of ignorance we go.

You just got a one way ticket to my ignore list for that. I hope you enjoy the stay.

No rebuttal to my last message, according to Ethernet law, I won!

Someone that is not ignored (not sure how many of those are left) could you please quote that to Царь Славян. Thanks.

EDIT: never mind I saw that he did respond. My mistake.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Well now you specified teh probabilistic resources, so now I can answer. You said 10 throws. I can calculate that.
Probabilistic resources, 10
Target, 10 heads in a row
Target complexity, 2 (Only 10 heads in a row, and 10 tails in a row have this complexity)
Probability of any event, 1/2^10

The equation is: ProbRes * TargComp * ProbAnyE < 1/2

10 * 2 * 1/2^10 = 0.0195313 < 1/2

The probability is less than half, so it is improbable.

That was not even my question. And the probability is actually 0.0009765625 not 0.0195313 (and now you can't claim you made an honest mistake).
I am not even going to waste my time adressing the rest, since you didn't do it either.

 

[Царь Славян]

That was not even my question.

Yes it was. You asked me is 10 heads in a row with 10 throws probable or not. I answered that.

And the probability is actually 0.0009765625 not 0.0195313 (and now you can't claim you made an honest mistake).

Depends on how you calculated the odds. I gave you my equation, how did you do it? I assume you simply multiplied 1 * 1/2^10. Which is not as good as estimate as mine is. But then you would get 0.000976563, not 0.0009765625. So tell me, how did you get that number?

I am not even going to waste my time adressing the rest, since you didn't do it either.

Yeah, an invisible pink unicorn did it.

 

[lrkun]

That was not even my question.

Yes it was. You asked me is 10 heads in a row with 10 throws probable or not. I answered that.

And the probability is actually 0.0009765625 not 0.0195313 (and now you can't claim you made an honest mistake).

Depends on how you calculated the odds. I gave you my equation, how did you do it? I assume you simply multiplied 1 * 1/2^10. Which is not as good as estimate as mine is. But then you would get 0.000976563, not 0.0009765625. So tell me, how did you get that number?

I am not even going to waste my time adressing the rest, since you didn't do it either.

Yeah, an invisible pink unicorn did it.

A very nice video.

If you are a true student of science, you will watch this video. ^-^ watch it so you can get rid of that notion that ID is valid.

 

[Pulsar]

A few predictions made from the Theory of Evolution (source: http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/evo_science.html)

• Darwin predicted that precursors to the trilobite would be found in pre-Silurian rocks. He was correct: they were subsequently found.
  
  
• Similarly, Darwin predicted that Precambrian fossils would be found. He wrote in 1859 that the total absence of fossils in Precambrian rock was "inexplicable" and that the lack might "be truly urged as a valid argument" against his theory. When such fossils were found, starting in 1953, it turned out that they had been abundant all along. They were just so small that it took a microscope to see them.
  
  
• There are two kinds of whales: those with teeth, and those that strain microscopic food out of seawater with baleen. It was predicted that a transitional whale must have once existed, which had both teeth and baleen. Such a fossil has since been found.
  
  
• Evolution predicts that we will find fossil series.
  
  
• Evolution predicts that the fossil record will show different populations of creatures at different times. For example, it predicts we will never find fossils of trilobites with fossils of dinosaurs, since their geological time-lines don't overlap. The "Cretaceous seaway" deposits in Colorado and Wyoming contain almost 90 different kinds of ammonites, but no one has ever found two different kinds of ammonite together in the same rockbed.
  
  
• Evolution predicts that animals on distant islands will appear closely related to animals on the closest mainland, and that the older and more distant the island, the more distant the relationship.
  
  
• Evolution predicts that features of living things will fit a hierarchical arrangement of relatedness. For example, arthropods all have chitinous exoskeleton, hemocoel, and jointed legs. Insects have all these plus head-thorax-abdomen body plan and 6 legs. Flies have all that plus two wings and halteres. Calypterate flies have all that plus a certain style of antennae, wing veins, and sutures on the face and back. You will never find the distinguishing features of calypterate flies on a non-fly, much less on a non-insect or non-arthropod.
  
  
• Evolution predicts that simple, valuable features will evolve independently, and that when they do, they will most likely have differences not relevant to function. For example, the eyes of molluscs, arthropods, and vertebrates are extremely different, and ears can appear on any of at least ten different locations on different insects.
  
  
• In 1837, a Creationist reported that during a pig's fetal development, part of the incipient jawbone detaches and becomes the little bones of the middle ear. After Evolution was invented, it was predicted that there would be a transitional fossil, of a reptile with a spare jaw joint right near its ear. A whole series of such fossils has since been found - the cynodont therapsids.
  
• It was predicted that humans must have an intermaxillary bone, since other mammals do. The adult human skull consists of bones that have fused together, so you can't tell one way or the other in an adult. An examination of human embryonic development showed that an intermaxillary bone is one of the things that fuses to become your upper jaw.
  
  
• From my junk DNA example I predict that three specific DNA patterns will be found at 9 specific places in the genome of white-tailed deer, but none of the three patterns will be found anywhere in the spider monkey genome.
  
  
• In 1861, the first Archaeopteryx fossil was found. It was clearly a primitive bird with reptilian features. But, the fossil's head was very badly preserved. In 1872 Ichthyornis and Hesperornis were found. Both were clearly seabirds, but to everyone's astonishment, both had teeth. It was predicted that if we found a better-preserved Archaeopteryx, it too would have teeth. In 1877, a second Archaeopteryx was found, and the prediction turned out to be correct.
  
  
• Almost all animals make Vitamin C inside their bodies. It was predicted that humans are descended from creatures that could do this, and that we had lost this ability. (There was a loss-of-function mutation, which didn't matter because our high-fruit diet was rich in Vitamin C.) When human DNA was studied, scientists found a gene which is just like the Vitamin C gene in dogs and cats. However, our copy has been turned off.
  
  
• In "The Origin Of Species" (1859), Darwin said:
  "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection." Chapter VI, Difficulties Of The Theory
  
  This challenge has not been met. In the ensuing 150 years, no such thing has been found. Plants give away nectar and fruit, but they get something in return. Taking care of other members of one's own species (kin selection) doesn't count, so ants and bees (and mammalian milk) don't count.
  
  
• Darwin pointed out that the Madagascar Star orchid has a spur 30 centimeters (about a foot) long, with a puddle of nectar at the bottom. Now, evolution says that nectar isn't free. Creatures that drink it pay for it, by carrying pollen away to another orchid. For that to happen, the creature must rub against the top of the spur. So, Darwin concluded that the spur had evolved its length as an arms race. Some creature had a way to reach deeply without shoving itself hard against the pollen-producing parts. Orchids with longer spurs would be more likely to spread their pollen, so Darwin's gradualistic scenario applied. The spur would evolve to be longer and longer. From the huge size, the creature must have evolved in return, reaching deeper and deeper. So, he predicted in 1862 that Madagascar has a species of hawkmoth with a tongue just slightly shorter than 30 cm.
  
  The creature that pollinated that orchid was not learned until 1902, forty years later. It was indeed a moth, and it had a 25 cm tongue. And in 1988 it was proven that moth-pollinated short-spurred orchids did set less seed than long ones.
  
  
• A thousand years ago, just about every remote island on the planet had a species of flightless bird. Evolution explains this by saying that flying creatures are particularly able to establish themselves on remote islands. Some birds, living in a safe place where there is no need to make sudden escapes, will take the opportunity to give up on flying. Hence, Evolution predicts that each flightless bird species arose on the island that it was found on. So, Evolution predicts that no two islands would have the same species of flightless bird. Now that all the world's islands have been visited, we know that this was a correct prediction.
  
  
• The "same" protein in two related species is usually slightly different. A protein is made from a sequence of amino acids, and the two species have slightly different sequences. We can measure the sequences of many species, and cladistics has a mathematical procedure which tells us if these many sequences imply one common ancestral sequence. Evolution predicts that these species are all descended from a common ancestral species, and that the ancestral species used the ancestral sequence.
  
  This has been done for pancreatic ribonuclease in ruminants. (Cows, sheep, goats, deer and giraffes are ruminants.) Measurements were made on various ruminants. An ancestral sequence was computed, and protein molecules with that sequence were manufactured. When sequences are chosen at random, we usually wind up with a useless goo. However, the manufactured molecules were biologically active substances. Furthermore, they did exactly what a pancreatic ribonuclease is supposed to do - namely, digest ribonucleic acids.
  
  
• An animal's bones contain oxygen atoms from the water it drank while growing. And, fresh water and salt water can be told apart by their slightly different mixture of oxygen isotopes. (This is because fresh water comes from water that evaporated out of the ocean. Lighter atoms evaporate more easily than heavy ones do, so fresh water has fewer of the heavy atoms.)
  
  Therefore, it should be possible to analyze an aquatic creature's bones, and tell whether it grew up in fresh water or in the ocean. This has been done, and it worked. We can distinguish the bones of river dolphins from the bones of killer whales.
  
  Now for the prediction. We have fossils of various early whales. Since whales are mammals, evolution predicts that they evolved from land animals. And, the very earliest of those whales would have lived in fresh water, while they were evolving their aquatic skills. Therefore, the oxygen isotope ratios in their fossils should be like the isotope ratios in modern river dolphins.
  
  It's been measured, and the prediction was correct. The two oldest species in the fossil record - Pakicetus and Ambulocetus - lived in fresh water. Rodhocetus, Basilosaurus and the others all lived in salt water.

Do you want more?

 

[Царь Славян]

Let's take a specific example

Almost all animals make Vitamin C inside their bodies. It was predicted that humans are descended from creatures that could do this, and that we had lost this ability. (There was a loss-of-function mutation, which didn't matter because our high-fruit diet was rich in Vitamin C.) When human DNA was studied, scientists found a gene which is just like the Vitamin C gene in dogs and cats. However, our copy has been turned off.

Tell me, would it be possible that there happened a mutation in a pre-human lineage that had a mutation that turned that gene on again, so that humans evolved with the ability to produce Vitamin C?

 

[lrkun]

Let's take a specific example

Almost all animals make Vitamin C inside their bodies. It was predicted that humans are descended from creatures that could do this, and that we had lost this ability. (There was a loss-of-function mutation, which didn't matter because our high-fruit diet was rich in Vitamin C.) When human DNA was studied, scientists found a gene which is just like the Vitamin C gene in dogs and cats. However, our copy has been turned off.

Tell me, would it be possible that there happened a mutation in a pre-human lineage that had a mutation that turned that gene on again, so that humans evolved with the ability to produce Vitamin C?

Primates diverge into suborders Strepsirrhini (wet-nosed primates) and Haplorrhini (dry nosed primates). Strepsirrhini contain most of the prosimians; modern examples include the lemurs and lorises. The haplorrhines include the three living groups: prosimian tarsiers, simian monkeys, and apes. One of the earliest haplorrhines is Teilhardina asiatica, a mouse-sized, diurnal creature with small eyes. The Haplorrhini metabolism lost the ability to make its own Vitamin C. This means that it and all its descendants had to include fruit in its diet, where Vitamin C could be obtained externally.

(1)

Consider the GULOP (or GULO) pseudogene for example. In most mammals this is an active gene encoding the enzyme L-glucono-γ-lactone oxidase (LGGLO). GULO is located on chromosome 8 at p21.1 in a region that is rich in genes (see figure). This is the enzyme that catalyzes the last step in the synthesis of ascorbic acid (vitamin C). As it turns out, this particular gene is defective in humans and other primates as well as several other creatures to include guinea pigs, bats and certain kinds of fish. Compared to the rat GULO gene, the human version, as well as the great ape version, has large or clearly functional deletions involving exons I-III, V-VI, VIII, and XI (see figure above).18-21 Compare this with the significant deletions of the guinea pig GULO sequence that involve exons I, V, and VI - - all of which match the same losses of the primate mutations. In addition to this, all four functionally detrimental stop codons (3TGA and 1TAA sequences) that are identified in the guinea pig are shared at the same sites locations in the primate GULO pseudogene.



Of course, it seems that we humans are able to get along just fine without this gene because we eat a lot of foods that are rich in vitamin C, like citrus fruits. So, what's the big deal? Well, the argument goes something like this (as per a popular Talk.Origins essay by Edward E. Max, Ph.D.):



In most mammals functional GLO genes are present, inherited - according to the evolutionary hypothesis - from a functional GLO gene in a common ancestor of mammals. According to this view, GLO gene copies in the human and guinea pig lineages were inactivated by mutations. Presumably this occurred separately in guinea pig and primate ancestors whose natural diets were so rich in ascorbic acid that the absence of GLO enzyme activity was not a disadvantage--it did not cause selective pressure against the defective gene.

Molecular geneticists who examine DNA sequences from an evolutionary perspective know that large gene deletions are rare, so scientists expected that non-functional mutant GLO gene copies--known as "pseudogenes"--might still be present in primates and guinea pigs as relics of the functional ancestral gene. . . [Beyond this], the theory of evolution would make the strong prediction that primates [like apes and monkeys] would carry similar crippling mutations to the ones found in the human pseudogene. A test of this prediction has recently been reported. A small section of the GLO pseudogene sequence was recently compared from human, chimpanzee, macaque and orangutan; all four pseudogenes were found to share a common crippling single nucleotide deletion that would cause the remainder of the protein to be translated in the wrong triplet reading frame (Ohta and Nishikimi BBA 1472:408, 1999). 11,20

(2)

If acoels do fit within the deuterostomes, the worms must have evolved from an ancestor with a central nervous system, a body cavity and a through-going gut that connected an anus and mouth , features seen in existing deuterostomes. So researchers would need to explain how acoels and Xenoturbella lost those and other characteristics. They would also be left to search for another primitive-looking lineage that represents the evolutionary step between jellyfish-like animals and bilaterians. (If one even exists. Peterson says that many complex features may have emerged all at once.)

(3)

The marsupial frog G. guentheri didn't have lower teeth, then "boom, around 5 to 15 million years ago, it got them ... ," said John Wiens, who authored a recent study on the phenomenon.

(4)


---

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution

2. http://www.detectingdesign.com/pseudogenes.html

3. a. Philippe, H. et al. Nature 470, 255-258 (2011). | Article
b. Ruiz-Trillo, I., Riutort, M., Littlewood, D. T., Herniou, E. A. & Baguà±a, J. Science 283, 1919-1923 (1999). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
c. Hejnol, A. et al. Proc. R. Soc. B 276, 4261-4270 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ISI

4. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110209-frogs-teeth-evolution-science/

 

[Deleted member 619]

Well now you specified teh probabilistic resources, so now I can answer. You said 10 throws. I can calculate that.
Probabilistic resources, 10
Target, 10 heads in a row
Target complexity, 2 (Only 10 heads in a row, and 10 tails in a row have this complexity)
Probability of any event, 1/2^10

So, we have a probability of 1:1024, which means that given 1024 people all tossing coins, the 'improbable' event of 10 heads in a row should turn up on the first attempt.

 

[Rumraket]

Let's take a specific example

Almost all animals make Vitamin C inside their bodies. It was predicted that humans are descended from creatures that could do this, and that we had lost this ability. (There was a loss-of-function mutation, which didn't matter because our high-fruit diet was rich in Vitamin C.) When human DNA was studied, scientists found a gene which is just like the Vitamin C gene in dogs and cats. However, our copy has been turned off.

Tell me, would it be possible that there happened a mutation in a pre-human lineage that had a mutation that turned that gene on again, so that humans evolved with the ability to produce Vitamin C?

That would probably be theoretically possible, but as the gene drifted fruther away from it's original sequence, a complete restoration would only become increasingly improbable.

Even at it's immediate deactivation, a reactivation would have been unlikely, in a degree proportional to the way in which it initially got deactivated. For example, if it deactivated by the removal of a start-codon, it's reactivation would require the insertion of a new complete start-codon in the exact position in the genome where old one was.

 

[Rumraket]

Where did he suddenly go? And here I was expecting some grand scheme of his to argue against the deactivation of the Vitamin C gene.

Oh well...

 

[lrkun]

Where did he suddenly go? And here I was expecting some grand scheme of his to argue against the deactivation of the Vitamin C gene.

Oh well...

maybe he finally read what we wrote or viewed the video. I, therefore, would like to imagine that he changed his mind. ^^ (baseless conclusion haha)

 

[Gnug215]

Baseless paranoia. There was a report on you, and only you, in the reports inbox. And Squawk only read the message that had the report. It's as simple as that.

Joke's on you.

The fact remains that he didn't read his point that I was replying to. If he did, hew would have seen what the guy said. Anyway, the reason there was only one report is because I'm not a pussy. I don't go around reporting people.

No, the fact doesn't remain.

Here is your original response to Squawk:

I wasn't laughing at him for recieving a warning. I was laughing at YOU for giving him a warning after it was obvious that you only intended to give me a warning. Yet you were not about to give him one, even though he called me a dumb ass first. You should not have bothered giving him the warning after I pointed this fact out.

As you can see, there is nothing in this post indicating that you were pointing to any fact about Squawk's reasons for warning you. So, the fact that actually remains is that you made a baseless, paranoid assertion.

As for you not being a pussy... what does that have to do with anything? Is this 6th grade or something, where being called a pussy is supposed to have any sway over anyone?

Nice move of goalposts, though. Very much in keeping with your style, I suppose. Too bad you moved the goalposts to another own goal.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Yes it was. You asked me is 10 heads in a row with 10 throws probable or not. I answered that.

Does the event of throwing a balanced coin 10 times in a row and have it always land heads constitutes a very improbable event, that couldn't otherwise happen if it hasn't be rigged to produce that event?

Depends on how you calculated the odds. I gave you my equation, how did you do it? I assume you simply multiplied 1 * 1/2^10. Which is not as good as estimate as mine is. But then you would get 0.000976563, not 0.0009765625. So tell me, how did you get that number?

What you call "Depends on how you calculated the odds", I call it "I don't have a fucking clue how to calculate this". And what you call "Which is not as good as estimate as mine is", I call it "I was dead fucking wrong". And to calculate that odd is the simplest thing, all you have to do is say that each throw is a different event, realize that each event is indepent from one other that you can calculate by theorem that the conjoint probability of events is the same as the product of each individual event probability, i.e. 1/2^10
And trying to be a smart ass doen't help you either because 0.0009765625 is an exact value, and you should have realised this because it ends with a 5 in the 10th decimal place, if you got another value that doesn't do that and call it exact then you are just simply wrong. You just simply mashup some numbers in the calculator in a desperate attempt to grab at anything and you didn't realised that the value you got was rounded because your calculator doesn't have enough numeric precision.

At least you are consistent at failing hard.

 

[Darkchilde]

Although I think that Czar has me on his ignore list, I will try to explain to him the difference between improbable and impossible.

When something is impossible, it means that this is something that with the current conditions will never happen. For example, it is impossible for a horse or a donkey to fly on their own on earth.
When something is improbable, it does not mean that it is impossible, it means that the probability of such an event occurring is very small. Even a small probability given enough tries will happen. For example, in order to get 3 times in a row a 6 on a 6-sided die, is 0.004629629, or 1/216. If you try 1000 times to get 3 times in a row a 6 with a 6 sided die, according to probability you will approximately succeed about 4-5 times. If you try 2160 times, you will succeed 10 times. However, even with 1000 tries, there is a probability associated with it, that you will succeed each time! A very very small probability, but there is one.

A lot of creationists equate improbable with impossible. But that is false. An event that is impossible, will never happen; an event that is improbable, given enough tries, and enough time, will happen as many times as predicted by probability theory.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Indeed. The serial trials fallacy in all its glory.

Given a large enough sample set, even the hugely improbable becomes inevitable.

 

[Squawk]

laughing at another user receiving a warning is essentially trolling. You are on the verge of trolling anyway. Please refrain

I wasn't laughing at him for recieving a warning. I was laughing at YOU for giving him a warning after it was obvious that you only intended to give me a warning. Yet you were not about to give him one, even though he called me a dumb ass first. You should not have bothered giving him the warning after I pointed this fact out.

Why should I not have bothered. Do you have evidence to suggest that I mod this forum in anything other than a fair and unbiased way? If you do present it, or kindly fuck off with the baseless assertions. I do not read every post in this forum: I read the posts that interest me and I read the posts that get reported. I acted on a report. When further information was brought to light I acted again, and if you're paying attention you will note that I gave a final warning to a long standing user in this very thread.

If you are to question the nature of my moderation then you had better come with a fucking shit load of evidence, because one thing you are not going to question is my integrity.