Liddle Inadvertently Establishes That Which She Attempts to Refute

_{Barry Arrington

November 23, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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Over at The Skeptical Zone Elizabeth Liddle quotes me regarding the circular reasoning that would be necessary to suppose that cladistics establishes common descent:

It does not take a genius to know that cladistic techniques do not establish common descent; rather they assume it. But I bet if one asked, 9 out of 10 materialist evolutionists, even the trained scientists among them, would tell you that cladistics is powerful evidence for common descent. As Johnson argues, a lawyer’s training may help him understand when faulty arguments are being made, sometimes even better than those with a far superior grasp of the technical aspects of the field. This is not to say that common descent is necessarily false; only cladistics does not establish the matter one way or the other.

In response to this Liddle calls me out and charges me with making two errors, which I will address in turn:

PART 1

First Liddle writes that I have

. . . confused the assumption of common descent with the conclusion of common descent, and thus detected circular reasoning where there is none.

Where did I do such a thing? Boiling that paragraph down I made the following claims:

Common descent is not necessarily false.

But Cladistics does not establish common descent one way or the other.

Instead, cladograms are constructed ASSUMING common descent.

It is circular reasoning to conclude that a technique establishes that which it assumes in the first place.

Therefore, anyone who says that cladistics establishes the fact of common descent has used faulty reasoning and is mistaken.

There are in fact people who make that mistake.

To establish beyond doubt point 6, Glen Davidson kindly jumps into Liddle’s own combox with this:

Barry: “This is not to say that common descent is necessarily false; only cladistics does not establish the matter one way or the other.”

Glen: “Of course it does. What a ridiculously ignorant dweeb.”

All six assertions seem to me to be on solid ground. Not only are they true, they are not even controversial. But for Liddle’s charge to be correct, at least one of the points I made must be false. OK Liddle, which of the six totally non-controversial points I have made do you disagree with? If the answer is “none,” then the only gracious thing to do is to withdraw your claim.

PART 2

Secondly, Liddle says I have

. . . confused the process of fitting a model with the broader concept of a hypothesised model . . .

The analogy here with cladistics is: choosing to fit a tree model does not entail the assumption that a tree model will fit. What is tested is the null of “no tree” . . .

So my second point is that when a palaeontologist fits a tree model to her data, she is a) testing the null hypothesis that the data are not distributed as a tree . . .

I take it that Liddle’s point is that cladistics does not always assume common descent but also “tests” the assumption of common descent.

This assertion is risible and betrays a profound misunderstanding of how cladistics works. As a matter of simple logic, a technique cannot test that which it assumes to be true in the first place. The assumption of common descent in cladistics is pervasive from beginning to end.

But don’t take my word for it. This is what that bastion of conservatism and design theory the University of California, Berkeley Museum of Paleontology says in its Journey into Phylogenetic Systematics:

There are three basic assumptions in cladistics:

Any group of organisms are related by descent from a common ancestor.

There is a bifurcating pattern of cladogenesis.

Change in characteristics occurs in lineages over time.

The first assumption is a general assumption made for all evolutionary biology. It essentially means that life arose on earth only once, and therefore all organisms are related in some way or other. Because of this, we can take any collection of organisms and determine a meaningful pattern of relationships, provided we have the right kind of information. Again, the assumption states that all the diversity of life on earth has been produced through the reproduction of existing organisms.

The same site says that cladistics has three uses: (1) it is a system of classification; (2) it helps make predictions about properties of organisms based on the assumption of common descent; and (3) it helps in the testing evolutionary mechanisms.

I invite readers to go to that site and read it in full. It says nothing about Liddle’s proposed fourth use of cladistics – testing (as opposed to assuming) common descent to begin with.

For goodness sake, Liddle, even uber-Darwinist Nick Matzke agrees that cladistics cannot establish common descent. He wrote:

. . . phylogenetic methods as they exist now [cannot] rigorously detect . . . direct ancestry, and, crucially, . . . this is neither a significant flaw, nor any sort of challenge to common ancestry, nor any sort of evidence against evolution.

Certainly Nick is right* that cladistics’ inability to establish common ancestry does not mean that common ancestry is necessarily false. But that is exactly what I said in the part Liddle quoted: “This is not to say that common descent is necessarily false; only cladistics does not establish the matter one way or the other.”

Liddle is simply wrong when she says that cladistics tests, as opposed to assumes, the claim of common ancestry.

Liddle knows this as well as anyone I suspect, and explains why in the very same post she walks back on her initial claim when she writes:

Of course palaeontologists aren’t seriously testing the null hypothesis that the data are distributed as a tree – we know, from countless cladistics studies that they are, and it isn’t even disputed by anyone.

Again, as Matzke says, all of this does not necessarily mean that common descent is false. I made no assertion regarding that matter one way or the other. It does not mean that cladistics cannot simultaneously assume and test common descent. Simple logic.

So Liddle’s attempt to show that a lowly lawyer has nothing useful to say has blown up in her face. Far from establishing that, by using faulty logic and reasoning – things that as a lawyer I am trained to detect – she has actually established that which she set out to refute.

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*Bovina Sancta! Can I actually be agreeing with Nick about something? I suppose it is true that even a blind squirrel finds and acorn now and then.

Comments

kf @ 167 - I didn't respond as you had obviously not even read what I had written. had you done that, you would have realised that Laplace was showing that the sex ratio at birth in Paris at the time was not 1:1.Bob O'H_{November 26, 2015
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groov, there is also the conflation of an observable oblate spheroid shape with unobservables of the past of origins, and worldview impositions that then control allowed inferences and conclusions. KFkairosfocus_{November 26, 2015
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Liddle: just as someone figuring out how to launch a satellite will assume the earth is spherical. Wow. Any engineer in a meeting would be laughed at for such an assumption without substantial qualification, and if not self-correcting could or would be fired. Same as if any engineer invoked "inverse square law" for earth's gravitation. My fifth grade teacher Mrs. Woodall cleared up the "earth spherical" assumption for me to my amazement, no wonder it stuck. Problem is when do you ever see substantial qualification when "tree of life" is invoked in the schools. Big Problem. Not just a scientific one but more so a societal one.groovamos_{November 26, 2015
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Bob O'H: kindly cf 162 above (replying to your 161) on sex ratios. KFkairosfocus_{November 26, 2015
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EugeneS @163 - We're getting nowhere, are we? Yes, we can fit more than one curve to data. But if we fit a curve which represents a theory, then we can test that theory by checking how well that curve fits the data. Again, look at Anscombe's residuals as an example of how this can be done.Bob O'H_{November 26, 2015
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Cladistics is a type of analysis.
Cladistics is a type of analysis that assumes Common Descent and then tries to make evolutionary relationships based on shared characteristics.
There’s no doubt there is a tree-like structure for most biological traits across many taxa.
That is expected from a Common Design.Virgil Cain_{November 25, 2015
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StephenB: Cladistics assumes apriori that any group of organisms is related by descent from a common ancestor. That is the starting point. Any hypothesis that follows is based on the assumption of an evolutionary relationship. Cladistics is a type of analysis. While algorithms will always return a tree, they also usually return a statistical measure of fit. In addition, by using different data-sets, we can determine whether the tree is consistent. This is all within cladistics, though drawing a line between cladistics and the rest of biology has no argumentative power. EugeneS: Actually, if your data is rich enough, you can interpolate it using different curves of your choice: you can choose a straight line or a polynomial spline. Sure, and you can also calculate the statistical measure of fit to each of those curves. Not sure what point is being raised. There's no doubt there is a tree-like structure for most biological traits across many taxa.Zachriel_{November 25, 2015
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Bob, "It makes specific predictions about the data (e.g. a straight line fit),which we can test." Actually, if your data is rich enough, you can interpolate it using different curves of your choice: you can choose a straight line or a polynomial spline. Again, you test the theory but not the underlying assumptions. It is not the same.EugeneS_{November 25, 2015
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Bob O'H Fail. First, through a simple Google Search, you could easily have learned that moral certainty is a practical degree of warrant for X (typically for things not susceptible of deductive proof from generally accepted axioms) where one would be irresponsible to insist on acting as though NOT-X were true, on the balance of the relevant evidence. In the court room, it speaks to warrant beyond a reasonable doubt. Here is a Law Dictionary definition:
moral certainty n. in a criminal trial, the reasonable belief (but falling short of absolute certainty) of the trier of the fact (jury or judge sitting without a jury) that the evidence shows the defendant is guilty. Moral certainty is another way of saying: "beyond a reasonable doubt." Since there is no exact measure of certainty it is always somewhat subjective and based on "reasonable" opinions of judge and/or jury. (See: verdict, beyond a reasonable doubt) (n.d.) Burton’s Legal Thesaurus, 4E. (2007). Retrieved November 25 2015 from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/moral+certainty
Second, it is actually not the case that sex ratio at birth is consistently not statistically different from 1:1; here is a quick clip from Wiki:
In a study around 2002, the natural sex ratio at birth was estimated to be close to 1.06 males/female.[7] In most populations, adult males tend to have higher death rates than adult females of the same age (even after allowing for causes specific to females such as death in childbirth), both due to natural causes such as heart attacks and strokes, which account for by far the majority of deaths and also to violent causes, such as homicide and warfare (for example, in the USA as of 2006, an adult non-elderly male is 3 to 6 times more likely to become a victim of a homicide and 2.5 to 3.5 times more likely to die in an accident than a female of the same age),[8] resulting in higher life expectancy of females. Consequently, the sex ratio tends to reduce as age increases, and among the elderly there is usually an excess of females. For example, the male to female ratio falls from 1.05 for the group aged 15 to 65 to 0.70 for the group over 65 in Germany, from 1.00 to 0.72 in the USA, from 1.06 to 0.91 in mainland China and from 1.07 to 1.02 in India. In the United States, the sex ratios at birth over the period 1970–2002 were 1.05 for the white non-Hispanic population, 1.04 for Mexican Americans, 1.03 for African Americans and Indians, and 1.07 for mothers of Chinese or Filipino ethnicity.[9] Among Western European countries ca. 2001, the ratios ranged from 1.04 in Belgium to 1.07 in Switzerland,[10] Italy,[11] Ireland[12] and Portugal. In the aggregated results of 56 Demographic and Health Surveys[13] in African countries, the ratio is 1.03, though there is also considerable country-to-country variation.[14] Even in the absence of sex selection practices, a range of "normal" sex ratios at birth of between 103 to 108 boys per 100 girls has been observed in different economically developed countries,[15] and among different ethnic and racial groups within a given country. In an extensive study, carried out around 2005, of sex ratio at birth in the United States from 1940 over 62 years,[16] statistical evidence suggested the following: For mothers having their first baby, the total sex ratio at birth was 1.06 overall, with some years at 1.07. For mothers having babies after the first, this ratio consistently decreased with each additional baby from 1.06 towards 1.03. The age of the mother affected the ratio: the overall ratio was 1.05 for mothers aged 25 to 35 at the time of birth; while mothers who were below the age of 15 or above 40 had babies with a sex ratio ranging between 0.94 to 1.11, and a total sex ratio of 1.04. This United States study also noted that American mothers of Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Cuban and Japanese ethnicity had the highest sex ratio, with years as high as 1.14 and average sex ratio of 1.07 over the 62-year study period . . . . the trends in human sex ratio are not consistent across countries at a given time, or over time for a given country. In economically developed countries, as well as developing countries, these scientific studies have found that the human sex ratio at birth has historically varied between 0.94 to 1.15 for natural reasons. In a scientific paper published in 2008,[19] James states that conventional assumptions have been: there are equal numbers of X and Y chromosomes in mammalian sperm X and Y stand equal chance of achieving conception therefore equal number of male and female zygotes are formed, and that therefore any variation of sex ratio at birth is due to sex selection between conception and birth. James cautions that available scientific evidence stands against the above assumptions and conclusions. He reports that there is an excess of males at birth in almost all human populations, and the natural sex ratio at birth is usually between 1.02 to 1.08. However the ratio may deviate significantly from this range for natural reasons.
In short it is pretty clear that human sex ratio at birth can and does vary significantly from 1:1 for various reasons. KFkairosfocus_{November 25, 2015
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wd400 @ 100 -
What on earth “Moral certainty” has do with any of this I can’t imagine
Well, actually, quite a lot. Laplace used his development of what we now call Bayesian methods to look at whether the sex ratio in Paris children was 1:1. Condorcet's summary of this is that "there is a very great probability, almost equivalent to a moral certainty that the excess of the number of births of boys has a physical cause for Paris". So there you go. Busted.Bob O'H_{November 25, 2015
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EL, given the obvious a priori imposition of evolutionary materialist scientism, there is no effective room for serious testing of major commitments tied to that ideology. No wonder Johnson warned:
For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.
[--> notice, the power of an undisclosed, question-begging, controlling assumption . . . often put up as if it were a mere reasonable methodological constraint; emphasis added. Let us note how Rational Wiki, so-called, presents it:
"Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific "dead ends" and God of the gaps-type hypotheses."
Of course, this ideological imposition on science that subverts it from freely seeking the empirically, observationally anchored truth about our world pivots on the deception of side-stepping the obvious fact since Plato in The Laws Bk X, that there is a second, readily empirically testable and observable alternative to "natural vs [the suspect] supernatural." Namely, blind chance and/or mechanical necessity [= the natural] vs the ART-ificial, the latter acting by evident intelligently directed configuration. [Cf Plantinga's reply here and here.] And as for the god of the gaps canard, the issue is, inference to best explanation across competing live option candidates. If chance and necessity is a candidate, so is intelligence acting by art through design. And if the latter is twisted into a caricature god of the gaps strawman, then locked out, huge questions are being oh so conveniently begged.]
That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." . . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [Emphasis added.] [The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]
To think other than such, would be naive at best. We need to rethink the underlying controlling assumptions at work. KFkairosfocus_{November 25, 2015
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Of course, informally, someone doing a phylogenetic analysis will "assume" in the sense of "expect" a signal of common descent, just as someone figuring out how to launch a satellite will assume the earth is spherical. But formally, what is tested is the null hypothesis, i.e. the provisional assumption that there is no underlying tree signal in the data, even though the investigator might take it for granted that there will be. Though I should point out, again, that testing a provisional assumption by finding out what would happen if it were true, and finding out whether that thing happened or not, does NOT "assume the consequent". It is perfectly possible from such an argument to conclude that the initial provisional assumption was false. It's the basic principle of falsification. People seem to be confusing "assumption" as in "hypothesis" with "assumption" as in "premise". In the former sense, the assumption is provisional and can be shown to be false.Elizabeth B Liddle_{November 25, 2015
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StephenB: "No. Cladistics assumes apriori that any group of organisms is related by descent from a common ancestor. That is the starting point. Any hypothesis that follows is based on the assumption of an evolutionary relationship." Are you suggesting that all statistical hypothesis testing assumes the consequent? Or only in "cladistics"?Elizabeth B Liddle_{November 24, 2015
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Mung: formally, Mung, in null hypothesis testing, such as at least some forms of phylogenetic analysis such as that described by Nick Matzke, the hypothesis that it tested is the null. That is why you generate a "null distribution". Mapou: Yes, I get that. Perhaps read some of my posts above for examples of why making a provisional assumption, finding out what is entailed if the assumption is true, and finding out whether those entailments are observed, allows you to draw the conclusion that your assumption is false. Your provisional assumption is in this case called a "hypothesis" as in "hypothetical": we consider the "hypothetical" case in which the "assumption" is true. "Reductio ad absurdum" is an example, and is NOT fallacious.Elizabeth B Liddle_{November 24, 2015
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For Elizabeth, because she still doesn't get it.
In logic, an argument is valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false.
Mung_{November 24, 2015
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Lizzie, does cladistics test the null or the non null?Mung_{November 24, 2015
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Elizabeth Liddle
However, the fact remains that in null hypothesis testing of phylogenetic relationships, the “assumption” i.e. the hypothesis that is tested is the null of “no tree”. So the formal starting assumption is NOT that there is an underlying tree. It is that there is not.
No. Cladistics assumes apriori that any group of organisms is related by descent from a common ancestor. That is the starting point. Any hypothesis that follows is based on the assumption of an evolutionary relationship.StephenB_{November 24, 2015
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Analysis and Synthesis! Back to Newton!Mung_{November 24, 2015
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@151 "If evolutionism could account for rabbits a Cambrian rabbit may have some significance. However, given that evolutionism cannot account for rabbits any discussion about rabbits is nothing but a desperate attempt at distraction and obfuscation." You're damn right Mr Cain, They need to account for rabbits in the first place and they can't. Now...We know Evolutionists deny known chemistry with their faith of life originating spontaneously and they rely on magic words when it comes to their faith in general. Evolutionists Explain Design Using Unscientific "Magic Words" "The term "magic words" is used here as a concise idiom that describes the best words evolutionists use to explain "apparent" design. Evolutionists confidently insist that a complex biological feature simply "appeared," "emerged," "arose," "gave rise to," "burst onto the scene," "evolved itself," "derived," "was on the way to becoming," "radiated into," "modified itself," "became a miracle of evolution," "was making the transition to," "manufactured itself," "evolution's way of dealing with," "derived emergent properties," or "was lucky." How do words like "appeared" explain design? Just like magic, the use of this word invokes mysterious powers within unseen universes that are capable of leaping over enormous scientific obstacles without having to provide any scientific consideration for how a particular physical result was achieved. Magic words convey wish-like convictions that if evolutionists just believe deeply enough, their explanations must be true and someday will be true--though currently resisted by all scientific evidence. Explaining design by believing it "arose" appeals to imaginary special forces which help evolutionists to connect the evolutionary dots. But as in any magical kingdom, the connections are mental fantasies that are not grounded in reality. Magic words lack explanatory power because they fail to tie real observations to detailed descriptions of how features of design originate. Claiming that novel biological features "burst onto the scene" abandons the need for experimental verification; indeed, the implication is to not even try. Take any biological observation. In evolutionary thinking, any observation can be transformed into a proof that explains its own existence by applying the magic phrase: "It exists because it is favored by natural selection." In reality, observations are only observations and are neither proofs nor explanations. Engineers, medical doctors, and other scientists who rely on studies or experiments do not use these kinds of words. Their products do not "emerge" but develop via thought-filled processes." http://www.icr.org/article/unmasking-evolutions-magic-words/Jack Jones_{November 24, 2015
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If evolutionism could account for rabbits a Cambrian rabbit may have some significance. However, given that evolutionism cannot account for rabbits any discussion about rabbits is nothing but a desperate attempt at distraction and obfuscation.Virgil Cain_{November 24, 2015
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Zachriel @ 144
Elizabeth B Liddle: What sort of mechanism do you suggest? Alien rabbits? Time traveling rabbits. ETA: Note to self; pitch idea to HBO.
Great idea! Bugs Bunny for the next Dr Who - the wascally time twaveling wabbit! But instead of the rabbit in the Cambrian we find “What’s up, doc?” engraved on one of the strata.Seversky_{November 24, 2015
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However, feel free to produce a rabbit in the Cambrian, and we can have that conversation.
Feel free to tell us how evolutionism can explain the existence of rabbits.Virgil Cain_{November 24, 2015
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Elizabeth, There isn't any null distribution. If Common Ancestry is true it would only produce an orderly tree under specific circumstances- ie special pleading. Common Ancestry remains an untestable concept and as such is not scientific regardless of whether or not it is true.Virgil Cain_{November 24, 2015
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Stephen B: "In cladistics, common descent is assumed to be true prior to the introduction of the evidence." No, it isn't. That's why, as Nick explains, you construct a null distribution. In any case, an argument that goes "let us assume X is true. If our assumption is correct, we should then see Y. We do not see Y. Therefore X is not true", is a perfectly valid argument, and does not result in confirmation of the starting assumption. In that context, "assumption" is used as a synonym for "hypothesis". We allow for the possiblity that the "assumption" may be false, and test its truth against observations we would expect if it were true. However, the fact remains that in null hypothesis testing of phylogenetic relationships, the "assumption" i.e. the hypothesis that is tested is the null of "no tree". So the formal starting assumption is NOT that there is an underlying tree. It is that there is not.Elizabeth B Liddle_{November 24, 2015
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In cladistics, common descent is assumed to be true prior to the introduction of the evidence. If the explanation is established before the evidence speaks, then it cannot also be established after the evidence speaks. "Before" cannot also be "after." Zachriel
In hypothetico-deduction, the basis of the scientific method, the hypothesis is the tentative assumption, and entailments are deduced from the hypothesis. It takes the form if H then E.
Cladistics does not hypothesize common descent. A hypothesis can be falsified. Cladistics does not allow common descent to be falsified. Cladistics assumes apriori that common descent is a fact.
The hypothesis is tentatively accepted as true in order to deduce its entailments, which are then subject to verification.
Cladistics does not accept common descent tentatively; cladistics assumes common descent unconditionally.
For instance, if we hypothesize the Earth rotates, from the assumption of the Earth’s rotation, we can make a series of deductions, that we should observe the retardation of the pendulum near the equator. We then test that entailment to either support or falsify the hypothesis.
Cladistics does not allow common descent to be falsified. It assumes, without qualification or condition, that common descent is true. Then it arranges the evidence to harmonize with that claim.StephenB_{November 24, 2015
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One thought people might like to consider wrt to the idea that an initial "assumption" necessarily mandates a conclusion that supports it:
Reductio ad absurdum (Latin: "reduction to absurdity"; pl.: reductiones ad absurdum), also known as argumentum ad absurdum (Latin: argument to absurdity), is a common form of argument which seeks to demonstrate that a statement is true by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its denial, or in turn to demonstrate that a statement is false by showing that a false, untenable, or absurd result follows from its acceptance.[1]
In other words, it doesn't. That said, what is actually done in null hypothesis testing is that we formally assume the null ("there is no underlying tree pattern") and compute how probable our results are if our null is true. Just as the way you infer that 500 heads were not the result of 500 fair tosses of a fair coin is by computing the probability of that result if the null (a fair coin, fairly tosses) is true. In both cases, if the probability is very low, you reject the null, and if the probability is high, you retain it.Elizabeth B Liddle_{November 24, 2015
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John S: Every observation affirms my assumption, therefore I have proven it’s a car. That would be fallacy of affirming the consequent. Instead, you have supported the hypothesis. However, the claim is always considered tentative, and can be revised with new information, in this case, taking a look. Phinehas: If it is a tree, then isn’t it demonstrating common descent by definition? Trees can occur in other contexts, such as the command structure in an army. Phinehas: Surely the rabbit in the Cambrian would only be a temporary setback. I’m sure an additional mechanism would be postulated rather quickly and the evolution of evolution would continue unabated. It's possible, but unlikely. If verified, it would precede any plausible ancestor, and would be contrary to what is known about the history of life. However, feel free to produce a rabbit in the Cambrian, and we can have that conversation. Elizabeth B Liddle: What sort of mechanism do you suggest? Alien rabbits? Time traveling rabbits. ETA: Note to self; pitch idea to HBO.Zachriel_{November 24, 2015
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EL:
It’s not bias against the idea of God, it’s just a feature of scientific methodology that it can’t test unfalsifiable hypotheses.
Really, now! The patent truth is that anti-theism has been institutionalised in the mindset of those inculcated with evolutionary materialist scientism. As well you know. As far as the design inference is concerned, the god of the gaps talking point and pretense that it is about the natural vs the supernatural have long since been shown to be a false dichotomy. We have causal factors tracing to mechanical necessity and/or chance (which can be defined and we need not play around with probability distributions to do so) and/or intelligently directed configuration (= the artificial). As in these were on record since Plato in The Laws Bk X, 2350+ years past. And as recently as ~ 1970, this trichotomy was the context of Monod's Chance and Necessity. An outright famous work and book title. What the modern design movement has done, and what you and others of like ilk have expended every effort to rhetorically obfuscate, is to posit that there is the reasonable possibility of empirically reliable indicia of intelligently directed configuration as material causal process . . . not even requiring that there are such, just to be open to that possibility, genuinely open. Process, not agent responsible for process. (Oh, how clever objectors love to drag the focus away from testable . . . much less problematic than "falsifiable . . . and observed reliable indicia of process to wanting to debate about agents, and to then appeal to institutionalised prejudice against the supernatural. For, long since in Ari's The Rhetoric Bk I ch 2, it was noted that our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are very different from those we make when we are pained and hostile. And from my days of dealing with foaming at the mouth communists to this, I find that atheistical agitators -- never mind their professions to sweet reason and to have even cornered the market on rationality [itself a big problem] -- are forever seeking to cloud what would be otherwise quite simple even almost trivially clear issues through divide, polarise and rule tactics. And at length that is exactly what the rhetoric about suspect injection of the supernatural into science, or lies about creationists in cheap tuxedos etc etc are. And I dare use the l-word. For, this means to speak in disregard to truth, in hopes of profiting by what is said or suggested being taken as true.) One of these is something as commonplace as what you and others manifest by typing and posting text strings to this blog. Namely, functionally specific complex organisation and associated information. A descriptive term. Something that text strings show, and the nodes-arcs pattern of a functional entity such as an ABU 6500 reel, or for that matter the units, piping, valves and instrumentation framework of a petroleum refinery. D/RNA manifests such FSCO/I in the cell as text strings (implying codes and language and communication systems). Functional units such as the ribosome, or the ATP synthase rotary enzyme or the bacterial flagellum show the second type, and the metabolic reaction network is similar to the third. Linked, is the issue of smart gated encapsulation, joined to a metabolic automaton with a von Neumann, code using, kinematic self replication facility. Which at OOL, has to be jointly explained. And the attempt to say of=h life forms reproduce so analogies to machines are flawed fails at this level, right at the root of the tree of life icon. Now, there is a glorified common sense principle put forth by Newton and acknowledged by Lyell and Darwin alike, vera causa. Namely that in explaining what we cannot directly observe on its traces, we ought to only revert to causal factors shown observationally to be capable of the like effect in the here and now. On trillions of cases in point only intelligently directed configuration has that demonstrated capability. But on flimsy rhetorical excuses driven by a priori ideological materialism, it is excluded . . . often by being smeared as the suspect supernatural and as unfalsifiable or the like. As to unfalsifiable, I think you need to distinguish the falsifiable n principle from the falsified in fact. In principle, a simple demonstration of blind chance and mechanical necessity producing FSCO/I on a reliable observational basis, would suffice. Something yu pretty well accepted several years ago when you were studying programming and intending to produce a program that would do the trick. Whatever attempt you have made has fallen foul of the usual problem of intelligence by the back door. And, as for the ideological bias, Rational Wiki has been pretty clear on this:
>"Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method . . .
I have too much respect and concern for genuine science to allow it to be ideologically redefined as applied atheism like that or the like. And you and ilk full well know that we can readily show that the above is typical, not exceptional. KFkairosfocus_{November 24, 2015
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Or they may say what Stephen Westrop said "That unfalsifiable Cambrian rabbit, and sanity … September 13, 2013 Further to “Top psychology mag asks if creationists are sane ,”someone reminded us this morning of something Jonathan Wells, author of The Myth of Junk DNA, has pointed out: When J.B.S. Haldane said that a fossil rabbit found in the Cambrian would prove Darwin’s theory wrong, Darwin’s followers don’t actually believe that. This was accidentally tested. On September 29, 2009, Dr. Stephen Westrop, Sam Noble Museum of Natural History Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology, gave a free public lecture to pre-refute a scheduled lecture by Steve Meyer at the museum later that evening on the Cambrian Explosion. Westrop concluded by taking exception to J.B.S. Haldane’s claim that finding a fossil rabbit in the pre-Cambrian would prove Darwin’s theory wrong. If such a fossil were found, Westrop said, paleontologists would simply revise their reconstruction of the history of life. During the Q&A, one student asked him whether any fossil find could falsify Darwin’s theory, and Professor Westrop said “No,” since Darwin’s theory is really about natural selection, which operates on a much shorter time scale than the fossil record. If finding a mammalian vertebrate fossil in the Cambrian, half a billion years ago, would prompt no serious rethink in paleontology, the belief in Darwinism is actually irrelevant to evidence from nature. Is that sane?" https://uncommondescent.com/darwinism/that-unfalsifiable-cambrian-rabbit-and-sanity/ It is pretty pathetic as the rabbit example was said long after the pattern of the fossil record was known. This Liddle woman is meant to be a professional and yet she uses such a sophomoric argument.Jack Jones_{November 24, 2015
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@135 . "That’s why the fabled rabbit-in-the-Cambrian would be such a problem." That example is so pathetic, it was said long after the pattern of the fossil record was already known. They probably would never classify such a fossil as Cambrian even if it was in such strata, if they did then they would use a term like "rabbit like" or they would invoke convergent evolution and that such a creature re evolved again much later on. If none of that helped then they would stack it on the shelf as an anomaly to be explained later on. "It would seriously muck up the tree predicted by common descent" No... What common descent would predict is continuity not stasis and discontinuity, the fact that we are able to have a classification system and classify organisms is because of the discontinuous nature of living things, on common descent then there would be continuums of organisms in all populations, in the middle of evolutionary change except where there was the toll of extinction. The nature of biology is discontinuous where your faith if you were consistent is about one of continuity. The fact that you can accommodate such a thing inconsistent with your faith is more down to your dogmatic need for your faith to be true than anything else.Jack Jones_{November 24, 2015
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