Fallacies of Evolution - Part 2

Discussion in 'Science' started by ChemEngineer, Oct 27, 2019.

  1. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Self awareness is a trait exhibited by a wide variety of animals. From primates to cetaceans to birds etc.

    .

    I think this "self awareness" is the foundation upon which our "sapience" (our unique creative intelligence) is built. I'm partial to the the neurobiological evolution notion that the key differentiator between ourselves and the other animals with large Pre Frontal Cortex's is the density of von economo neurons. Humans being the first to achieve some threshold resulting in our intellectual primacy (I'm a huge fan of Sapolsky).

    BTW, I think you don't give elephants enough intellectual and emotional credit as studies of their complex social and individual behaviors would attest
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2019
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  2. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    Like hell it is.
    I explained that in the next sentence...
    ...of which you evidently understood nary a word; and you haven't the foggiest idea of what self-awareness is.
     
  3. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    From an animal behavioral science perspective self awareness is a binary state. An animal either possesses it or not. There is no concept of partial self awareness.
     
  4. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    So all people are equally self aware then at all times are they? No-one ever deviates, by even by the smallest of margins from some precisely defined 'quantum' of self awareness, ever? Not when overly tired, not when emotionally distressed, not even when asleep or unconscious perhaps? Self awareness is fixed constant in the universe? And presumably no other species of the planet can be even slightly self aware. Sorry I hadn't heard that news - I must have been asleep at the time.

    You did?

    You mean I not self aware? That means there is someone living in my mirror. I new it! I'll have to track the bastard down at once - he shouldn't be living in my house. ...

    My apologies. I do get the message you smart, me dumb.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2019
  5. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I’d say the chances are 100% because it happened. On the other hand, the idea of a mystical omnipotent entity who can cause a woman to give birth to twin rhinoceroses is delusional at best, and a deep seated psychosis at worst.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2019
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  6. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Life evolves, gravity exists, and an atom can be split, but God, angels, demons, the devil, ghosts, witches, goblins, and heaven and hell are the psyche remnants of the human being’s first attempt to understand the unknown.
     
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  7. ChemEngineer

    ChemEngineer Banned

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    1. You have no concept of statistics. None.
    2. Your angry and hateful atheism is as pretentious as it is misguided.
    3. Brandolini's Law: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
     
  8. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The degree of effort to disprove magic is minimal—look at reality.
     
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  9. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I did, and you got the point. That’s why you are so pissed.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2019
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  10. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    One doesn’t need to be an evolutionary scientist to realize God is a delusion. All one need to do is think.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2019
  11. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    With respect I think you are falling into the same trap Chem Engineer has. (Incidentally Chem has 'blocked' me because I kept pointing this out to him). :frown:

    You can't disprove the existence of God using scientific observation, logic and reason anymore than you can prove he exists using those same tools. So if you insist on arguing that the idea God is 'delusion' then you have to find some way of supporting that statement. And good luck doing so.

    The simple solution to this dilemma I would argue is to simply leave science to deal with scientific questions and religion to deal questions about God. As a side benefit this strategy tends to lead to many more hours of rest and recreation. It's up to you of course.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2019
  12. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    In logic, one doesn’t disprove, one proves. The asserter of fact is responsible for providing evidence to back up their assertion.


    I assert the belief in a God is a delusion—if by God you mean a omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent mystical entity who can defy the laws of existence, identity, and causality, e.g., turn a giraffe into a coke can that gives birth to purple zebras who are human and speak one million different languages, or stop the Earth’s rotation, or raise the dead, or feed thousands from one picnic basket, or part the Red Sea, or help the delusional win the lottery.

    Why Is God a delusion? Because reality is objective, not subjective. And wishing otherwise won’t make it so.

    BTW: Does your criteria for proof and disproof also apply to ghosts, gremlins, trolls, leprechauns, fairies, elves, minotaurs, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus and his flying reindeer?
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2019
  13. truth and justice

    truth and justice Well-Known Member

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    Why don't you start with the chemical/biologiogical makeup of a virus instead of a human body?
     
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  14. truth and justice

    truth and justice Well-Known Member

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    I think that practically every one except those that have the same beliefs as him have been blocked (I'm not 100% sure if I'm on his ignore list yet). It must be lovely to be on a debating forum where everyone agrees with you..........
     
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  15. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Yup, all two of them! ;)
     
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  16. ChemEngineer

    ChemEngineer Banned

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    1. You evade and pretend. You never get any point that runs contrary to your ancient Magic Wand of Selection paradigm.
    2. I'm not remotely pissed. You missed there as well. I resent pretend know-it-alls and call them on their nonsense.
    You failed even to attempt to answer because you cannot.
    3. This is your last chance to try to inform others, if you possibly can. Say something enlightening. Act as smart as you pretend to be. I'll read one more from you and if it is like all your previous one-liners, I'll add you to my Ignore List of others just like you.
    Have fun storming the castle!

    Post Script: After posting the above, I read your next two inane comments attempting to derail the thread - a violation of the rules here.

    The SUBJECT is "fallacies of evolution." Try to pay attention and address the subject. Otherwise start your own thread of hate in another forum. Darwinism has to stand on its own, and it fails very miserably. People such as you get very "pissed" at anyone who dares to challenge your archaic paradigm.
    "In China we can criticize evolution but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not evolution." - Prominent Chinese Paleontologist
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2019
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  17. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hmmm? Explaining the obvious to the willingly blind--sounds like faith to me.
    Here goes: The denial of Evolution implies the validity of Creationism--Its either Evolution or Creationism, as in it's either real or it's not; as in it's either science or it's mysticism; as in it's either reason or its faith--there is no in-between.

    Creationism: The belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism

    Evolution: The process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

    I'd call that spot on. Wouldn't you?

    Best Premises.
     
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  18. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Whatever errors in the details, real or imagined, Evolution is a scientific fact--life evolves not magically appears.
     
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  19. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    I don't suppose we can expect an exposition of the logic by which the conclusion follows from the premise any time soon.
     
  20. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Yes, at the rate he's going the only one left to 'debate' with will be himself. Personally I don't like or need the 'ignore' button. If you reach the point where you believe the debate as gone as far as is practicable and/or is getting a little repetitive just say so, bow out and ignore any future posts on that thread. That way, in the (unlikely) event some new point is raised that interests you can always jump back in.
     
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  21. ChemEngineer

    ChemEngineer Banned

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    "The Fallacy of the Argument From Incredulity" Snark



    “My wonder button is being pushed all the time.” ― Carl Sagan


    Anyone of faith who points out the wonders surrounding us as powerful, indeed incontrovertible evidence of our Creator is invariably snarked by the Godless Left (the counterpart to "the Religious Right," of course). "You're simply ignorant of science! That's the argument from incredulity, ha ha ha". This is a favorite of Richard Dawkins.


    Was astronomer, professor, author Carl Sagan likewise ignorant of science? Of course not. He was one of them, a liberal agnostic, whose memorial service was ironically held at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City.

    ______________

    The Failure of Science Educators


    Recent opinion polls show that 25-50% of adult Americans do not know that the Earth goes around the Sun and takes a year to do it.” - Carl Sagan, Carl Sagan's Universe, page 146


    Public education is a socialist monopoly, a real one. - The Late Milton Friedman


    [​IMG]

    November, 2017 A YouGov survey found that more millennials would rather live in a socialist (44%) or communist (7%) country than a capitalist one (42%). America and our once cherished ideals are doomed.


    “In 1950, we spent (in 1989 dollars) $1,333 per student. In 1989 we spent $4931. As John Silber, the President of Boston University, has written, ‘It is troubling that this nearly fourfold increase in real spending has brought no improvement. It is scandalous that it has not prevented substantial decline.’ ” – William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education, in The De-Valuing of America
     
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  22. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I suspect the yougov survey is picking up on the difference between a socialist government and socialized solutions to specific problems that capitalism is not even slightly interested in addressing.

    As for k-12 education, we have numerous outstanding public schools. We should be identifying those and holding them up as examples. Plus, today far too many officials in education are chosen without any significant track record in education. And, that's a crime. What successful company would choose officers who had zero success record??

    Plus, there are many reasons for k-12 to be more expensive. For example, teachers have been historically underpaid and accepting of those who have no qualifications in education itself or in the subject matter - partly because finding such people is HARD given compensation and job description competition from the private sector which is highly motivated to find smart people.

    As for higher education, we've shown very little interest as a nation for promoting the education that is more and more required for middle class compensation and for successful competition with other countries.

    We have less than 5% of the brains. We have millions of brains born into generational poverty. Yet we leave education to those whose parents can pay.
     
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  23. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Don't tell me, tell Yguy. I deliberately adopted a very 'conservative' appraoch to the question of self awareness in animals. Firstly because I am not an expert in the field and secondly because studies on elephant self awareness (and other species) are still ongoing and 'jury' is still out on the parameters of self awareness in that species and others.
     
  24. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    And there is the problem in a nutshell. You as an atheist would 'assert' that God does not exist and then proceed to provide evidence for that position. A theist meanwhile will 'assert' the opposite and also proceed to provide evidence for their position.

    You will (presumably) point to the laws of science governing the operation of the physical universe as currently understood while also pointing to the apparent lack of evidence of Gods active role in human affairs i.e no miracles etc.

    The theist meanwhile will point to the limits of current scientific theory, the question of events before the start of the observable universe and after its (currently presumed) demise and of course to the nature and limits of time as we understand it. Not to mention all the great philosophical questions around the purpose of existence and the teachings of their particular religion on those questions.

    And being equally convinced of your positions you will argue yourselves to a standstill, indefinitely - until time ends. Meanwhile for my part, having made my own observations of this question and reached my own conclusions I will be off somewhere enjoying the company of friends and if I am lucky a cold beer. Enjoy.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2019
  25. Starjet

    Starjet Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As an atheist, I don’t assert there is or is not a God, or a First Cause or a Prime Mover—being an atheist simply means without belief in God.

    However, as a rational man with the utmost respect towards reality, reason, and science, what I do assert is that the belief in a supernatural deity that can defy the laws of Identity and Causality is a delusion—not even God can play deuces wild with the Universe, e.g., make a rock an ant, an ant a skyscraper, or a skyscraper a lion giving birth to twin unicorns.

    In other words, magic as an art form is illusionary, as a belief, delusional.

    And when you are off with your friends drinking your beer, rest assured, they won’t turn into Jessica Alba triplets, nor will your beer turn into Dalmore Scotch Single Malt 1964, no matter how good your psychedelics are.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2019
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