Rob Osborn Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Out of curiosity, did you ever read the articles I linked in a former thread? The ones from very prominent philosophers of science that argue for what constitute scientific theories and facts and the problems with various ideas on that? You are arguing philosophy of science here, so I am going to point out that because your father is a scientist does not make him a philosopher of science. The two are separate fields. A person could be a great philosopher of science and a terrible scientist and vice versa. Unfortunately, science and the philosophy of science are often thought of as being the same thing, so when questions arise for which philosophers of science are a better resource, often scientists are consulted. If I wanted understand to the exact mathematical and physical details of the theory of relativity, and could choose to ask Sir Karl Popper or Stephen Hawking to explain them to me, I'd ask the latter. My father is actually an engineer in the automotive industry but studied nuclear theory when he was a career man in the navy. He is a genius, graduating in the top of his class from nuclear naval school. He actually had to plan and design an operative nuclear reactor to graduate. He is extremely intelligent with numbers and scientific theory. He has stated on numerous occasions that semantics in todays scientific study has clouded the truth. Certain scientific bodies keep pushing the definition of theory into it having some special definition and in certain cases they even outright say that the theory is actually a fact. They are breaking the rules of the English language though and misusing the word. I have a sister who majored in English from BYU and I put her to task on the issue. She pretty much said that even though science may have a unique definition or "qualification" something to be an "official recognized theory", the word itself still must be defined by itself like this- theory: an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true" Properly understanding this word by itself in this manner then places it with this definition into the greater rigor of "scientific theory. For instance, it still claims the above definition only to be a scientific theory it couples this with other criteria of things like "acceptance from peers", testability, etc. But, nevertheless, it still exactly carries the prequalifier of it being an idea (which it is) presented as truth or possible truth but not known or proven to be true.
The Nehor Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 My father is actually an engineer in the automotive industry but studied nuclear theory when he was a career man in the navy. He is a genius, graduating in the top of his class from nuclear naval school. He actually had to plan and design an operative nuclear reactor to graduate. He is extremely intelligent with numbers and scientific theory. He has stated on numerous occasions that semantics in todays scientific study has clouded the truth. Certain scientific bodies keep pushing the definition of theory into it having some special definition and in certain cases they even outright say that the theory is actually a fact. They are breaking the rules of the English language though and misusing the word. I have a sister who majored in English from BYU and I put her to task on the issue. She pretty much said that even though science may have a unique definition or "qualification" something to be an "official recognized theory", the word itself still must be defined by itself like this-theory: an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true"Properly understanding this word by itself in this manner then places it with this definition into the greater rigor of "scientific theory. For instance, it still claims the above definition only to be a scientific theory it couples this with other criteria of things like "acceptance from peers", testability, etc. But, nevertheless, it still exactly carries the prequalifier of it being an idea (which it is) presented as truth or possible truth but not known or proven to be true.I am going to go ahead and say you are lying about this. It is impossible to get an English degree at a reputable college without learning that the meaning of words is mutable and many have different definitions based on context. I am an English Major btw.I find it incredibly convenient that your family waiting in the wings has exactly the right qualifications to back you but still say things that would get them laughed out of their respective studies by anyone who knows anything about them. I also find it funny that your dad is really intelligent about "numbers and scientific theory"' when neither you or he knows what the latter concept means. Liar, liar.
Rob Osborn Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 I am going to go ahead and say you are lying about this. It is impossible to get an English degree at a reputable college without learning that the meaning of words is mutable and many have different definitions based on context. I am an English Major btw.I find it incredibly convenient that your family waiting in the wings has exactly the right qualifications to back you but still say things that would get them laughed out of their respective studies by anyone who knows anything about them. I also find it funny that your dad is really intelligent about "numbers and scientific theory"' when neither you or he knows what the latter concept means. Liar, liar.Why do you have to be a jerk? Im done dialoguing with you. You lack respect.
thesometimesaint Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 You know, this is just going to go back and forth forever. The whole world knows what a theory is. In any theory there is the aspect of figuring out the unknown. If we knew it, it wouldnt be a theory. Get over it already, the theory of evolution from common descent involves unknowns and may be modified, changed or even proven outright as false. Get used to that fact. Lets move on, this is BS True we are going back and forth. Because you keep making asinine demonstrably false statement about science. The whole world may know what a theory is but you sure don't. Any time you must impute a God into science to make it work. It isn't science any more. IE: 2+2+God=4. What is the unneeded factor? A theory does no such thing. A theory is an explanation of an observation having been repeatedly confirmed by other observations. IE: Ptolemy' s geocentric solar system was where the planets stopped and went backwards in their orbits around the earth. That was his observation with the tools he had available. It was a brilliant theory. It was brilliantly wrong, but still brilliant. That theory lasted some 1500 years. Then Galileo came along and using his better tools observed that the we are a heliocentric solar system. Repeated observations since have confirmed his theory. Newton's theory of gravity gave the mechanism for the observation. The earth is constantly falling towards the sun. Other factors make that a very long process, but we're stilling falling. I never said it didn't involve unknowns. As with any theory new observations continue to make adjustments to the theory. IE: Copernicus theorized that the orbits were perfect circles. They are not they are ellipses, a kind of flattened circle. Copernicus was still right with using the tools he had available.Bruno had the misfortune to not have the necessary tools to demonstrate a heliocentric solar system and was burned at the stake for it. Galileo almost suffered the same fate, but having the Pope as a friend has its advantages. If you really want to disprove the theory of evolution. Don't appeal to God, Devils, or the Angels. Do the work of a scientist. Go dig up a fully modern human skeleton in a previously undisturbed layer of Precambrian dirt. Otherwise you still don't know what the heck you're talking about.
The Nehor Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Why do you have to be a jerk? Im done dialoguing with you. You lack respect.Because you do not discuss things rationally and you continually repeat demonstrably false statements after it is shown they are false. You break the rules for discussion. There is no dialogue to stop.I respect many people and many things. It is true that I do not respect you because you lie even after it is pointed out that you are lying (so you cannot claim you are mistaken) and liars go to hell. They are on almost every "go to hell" list in scripture.
stemelbow Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Because you do not discuss things rationally and you continually repeat demonstrably false statements after it is shown they are false. You break the rules for discussion. There is no dialogue to stop.I respect many people and many things. It is true that I do not respect you because you lie even after it is pointed out that you are lying (so you cannot claim you are mistaken) and liars go to hell. They are on almost every "go to hell" list in scripture. I say you need to find more reasons to respect people. Jesus says love everyone. Everyone's a liar in some sense. How many lies have you told compared to Ron? Only God knows that. It'd be shame if He's sitting up there right now, having figured out the difference, and it came out in Rob's favor, huh?
The Nehor Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 I say you need to find more reasons to respect people. Jesus says love everyone. Everyone's a liar in some sense. How many lies have you told compared to Ron? Only God knows that. It'd be shame if He's sitting up there right now, having figured out the difference, and it came out in Rob's favor, huh?I love him enough to tell him when he is wrong on the internet.Not really, I repented of those. Rob has not....because he keeps telling the same lie again and again.
VideoGameJunkie Posted March 27, 2014 Author Posted March 27, 2014 Gray I agree with the part of that chart that says today we have loss of mental function and mobility problems. Happened to both my grandparents and I'll probably lose my mind eventually.
Gray Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Gray I agree with the part of that chart that says today we have loss of mental function and mobility problems. Happened to both my grandparents and I'll probably lose my mind eventually. I'm well on my way there
VideoGameJunkie Posted March 27, 2014 Author Posted March 27, 2014 We all are! Act accordingly. Haha, but seriously I don't want to be 90 and lose control of my body and have to suffer.
The Nehor Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Those statistics are correct but very misleading. Life expectancy is an average and takes into account infant and childhood deaths and you were looking at much lower odds of surviving those periods. If you did though and made it to 20 your odds of making it to 60 were almost as good as they are today.Looking at those statistics without that understanding suggests that in (for example) Greece and Rome that adults were rarely making it to 40 when in truth most people who made it to adulthood lived many years beyond that. 1
MiserereNobis Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 My father is actually an engineer in the automotive industry but studied nuclear theory when he was a career man in the navy. He is a genius, graduating in the top of his class from nuclear naval school. He actually had to plan and design an operative nuclear reactor to graduate. He is extremely intelligent with numbers and scientific theory. He has stated on numerous occasions that semantics in todays scientific study has clouded the truth. Certain scientific bodies keep pushing the definition of theory into it having some special definition and in certain cases they even outright say that the theory is actually a fact. They are breaking the rules of the English language though and misusing the word. I have a sister who majored in English from BYU and I put her to task on the issue. She pretty much said that even though science may have a unique definition or "qualification" something to be an "official recognized theory", the word itself still must be defined by itself like this-theory: an idea that is suggested or presented as possibly true but that is not known or proven to be true"Properly understanding this word by itself in this manner then places it with this definition into the greater rigor of "scientific theory. For instance, it still claims the above definition only to be a scientific theory it couples this with other criteria of things like "acceptance from peers", testability, etc. But, nevertheless, it still exactly carries the prequalifier of it being an idea (which it is) presented as truth or possible truth but not known or proven to be true. This is a good example of you missing the point I was trying to make. Your father is a scientist, not a philosopher of science. Your sister is an English major, not a philosophy of science major. The issue of what is a theory or fact in science is in the realm of the philosophy of science. It is not in the realm of science or English. Please go back and read some of the articles I gave you. Seriously. Then you will be more conversant in the philosophy of science and the debates going on over what is a theory, a fact, etc, and the positives and negatives of the various ideas put forth to answer those questions. If I wanted to build a nuclear reactor, I'd ask your dad. If I wanted to know what a theory was, I'd ask Hempel, or Cartwright, or Lambert and Britten, or Salmon. If I wanted to know how language worked, I probably wouldn't ask your sister, because her understanding is quite naive. 1
Ahab Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 This is a good example of you missing the point I was trying to make. Your father is a scientist, not a philosopher of science. Your sister is an English major, not a philosophy of science major.The issue of what is a theory or fact in science is in the realm of the philosophy of science. It is not in the realm of science or English.Please go back and read some of the articles I gave you. Seriously. Then you will be more conversant in the philosophy of science and the debates going on over what is a theory, a fact, etc, and the positives and negatives of the various ideas put forth to answer those questions.If I wanted to build a nuclear reactor, I'd ask your dad. If I wanted to know what a theory was, I'd ask Hempel, or Cartwright, or Lambert and Britten, or Salmon.If I wanted to know how language worked, I probably wouldn't ask your sister, because her understanding is quite naive.Or we could just get a basic understanding of what a word or phrase refers to by looking on the internet at sites like wikipedia or Wolfram alpha.And Rob has a good point even if he isn't using the correct terminology anyway, so don't get all stuck up on semantics.
Gray Posted March 27, 2014 Posted March 27, 2014 Those statistics are correct but very misleading. Life expectancy is an average and takes into account infant and childhood deaths and you were looking at much lower odds of surviving those periods. If you did though and made it to 20 your odds of making it to 60 were almost as good as they are today.Looking at those statistics without that understanding suggests that in (for example) Greece and Rome that adults were rarely making it to 40 when in truth most people who made it to adulthood lived many years beyond that. Good points
Rob Osborn Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 This is a good example of you missing the point I was trying to make. Your father is a scientist, not a philosopher of science. Your sister is an English major, not a philosophy of science major. The issue of what is a theory or fact in science is in the realm of the philosophy of science. It is not in the realm of science or English. Please go back and read some of the articles I gave you. Seriously. Then you will be more conversant in the philosophy of science and the debates going on over what is a theory, a fact, etc, and the positives and negatives of the various ideas put forth to answer those questions. If I wanted to build a nuclear reactor, I'd ask your dad. If I wanted to know what a theory was, I'd ask Hempel, or Cartwright, or Lambert and Britten, or Salmon. If I wanted to know how language worked, I probably wouldn't ask your sister, because her understanding is quite naive. I understand what scientific theory is. If we want to get real technical, the theory of evolution from common descent is actually more of a hypothesis rather than a true scientific theory. It lacks a lot of the basic criteria to even meet the definition of scientific theory. The problem is that we have this fact of species that do evolve in small ways. We document these changes all the time. The mechanism for explaining this is a theory. Then we have this hypothesis out there that is just a hypothesis concerning the origin of all life using these small changes over time. Its a nice idea, but how does one truly formulate this or present it in theory form to where we can test and observe? As far as I know, there is no known way to test this or observe this- it just remains a hypothesis.
Rob Osborn Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 True we are going back and forth. Because you keep making asinine demonstrably false statement about science. The whole world may know what a theory is but you sure don't. Any time you must impute a God into science to make it work. It isn't science any more. IE: 2+2+God=4. What is the unneeded factor? A theory does no such thing. A theory is an explanation of an observation having been repeatedly confirmed by other observations. IE: Ptolemy' s geocentric solar system was where the planets stopped and went backwards in their orbits around the earth. That was his observation with the tools he had available. It was a brilliant theory. It was brilliantly wrong, but still brilliant. That theory lasted some 1500 years. Then Galileo came along and using his better tools observed that the we are a heliocentric solar system. Repeated observations since have confirmed his theory. Newton's theory of gravity gave the mechanism for the observation. The earth is constantly falling towards the sun. Other factors make that a very long process, but we're stilling falling. I never said it didn't involve unknowns. As with any theory new observations continue to make adjustments to the theory. IE: Copernicus theorized that the orbits were perfect circles. They are not they are ellipses, a kind of flattened circle. Copernicus was still right with using the tools he had available. Bruno had the misfortune to not have the necessary tools to demonstrate a heliocentric solar system and was burned at the stake for it. Galileo almost suffered the same fate, but having the Pope as a friend has its advantages. If you really want to disprove the theory of evolution. Don't appeal to God, Devils, or the Angels. Do the work of a scientist. Go dig up a fully modern human skeleton in a previously undisturbed layer of Precambrian dirt. Otherwise you still don't know what the heck you're talking about. I admit that I am being a quite persistent with the proper definition of theory. Whether it is a scientific theory or just some generalized random philosophical theory it still means the same thing in context of there existing a part unknown or not proven to be true. This is true of all theories regardless of what context it is used in. And that precisely is my point. The theory of evolution of ll life from a common ancestor remains to be proven true and includes unknowns. Thus, it could in fact be proven either true or false at a future date when more unknowns become known.
The Nehor Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 I understand what scientific theory is. If we want to get real technical, the theory of evolution from common descent is actually more of a hypothesis rather than a true scientific theory. It lacks a lot of the basic criteria to even meet the definition of scientific theory. Nope. I admit that I am being a quite persistent with the proper definition of theory. Whether it is a scientific theory or just some generalized random philosophical theory it still means the same thing in context of there existing a part unknown or not proven to be true. This is true of all theories regardless of what context it is used in. And that precisely is my point. The theory of evolution of ll life from a common ancestor remains to be proven true and includes unknowns. Thus, it could in fact be proven either true or false at a future date when more unknowns become known. You can't prove a scientific theory true.......ever! You continue to ignore this. A theory comes from scientific facts (observable data). You can discredit the data on which a theory is based and prove it false or find a theory that better explains the data but you cannot prove it true. No scientific theory is proven. Take relativity. Relativity is an explanation for why particles act the way they do. It is accepted because we have found no data to discredit it and all the relevant data supports it. There may be a better theory to explain the data. If it is ever shown not to work the theory must either be modified to encompass the new data or discarded. A theory is not guesswork. It does not mean there is a part of it that is unknown (though there could be data we don't know). Of course it is possible that data could show up to discredit evolution. All science is forever tentative. That is the way the game is played. But don't pretend that it has no backing because it hasn't been "forever proven true". Nothing in science has been proved true forever so that is not a black mark against it no matter how hard you try to twist it into one. It is one of the limitations of science. Perhaps gravity will help. The Law of Gravity tells us that describes the attraction between two objects. Laws, like anything else in science, can be overturned if the data changes. The Theory of Gravity explains why the two objects are attracted to each other. If you want things "proven true" you should not go to science. It is not equipped to make those kinds of determinations. It is all "the best explanation we have" and raw data. Science cannot predict with surety that gravity will still work tomorrow though their best guess is that it will. Evolution falls into that kind of a category. No, we can't prove it but we have heaps of data supporting it and no better credible explanation for the data exists. And no, Creationism is not a scientific theory. 1
Rob Osborn Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 Nope. You can't prove a scientific theory true.......ever! You continue to ignore this. A theory comes from scientific facts (observable data). You can discredit the data on which a theory is based and prove it false or find a theory that better explains the data but you cannot prove it true. No scientific theory is proven. Take relativity. Relativity is an explanation for why particles act the way they do. It is accepted because we have found no data to discredit it and all the relevant data supports it. There may be a better theory to explain the data. If it is ever shown not to work the theory must either be modified to encompass the new data or discarded. A theory is not guesswork. It does not mean there is a part of it that is unknown (though there could be data we don't know). Of course it is possible that data could show up to discredit evolution. All science is forever tentative. That is the way the game is played. But don't pretend that it has no backing because it hasn't been "forever proven true". Nothing in science has been proved true forever so that is not a black mark against it no matter how hard you try to twist it into one. It is one of the limitations of science. Perhaps gravity will help. The Law of Gravity tells us that describes the attraction between two objects. Laws, like anything else in science, can be overturned if the data changes. The Theory of Gravity explains why the two objects are attracted to each other. If you want things "proven true" you should not go to science. It is not equipped to make those kinds of determinations. It is all "the best explanation we have" and raw data. Science cannot predict with surety that gravity will still work tomorrow though their best guess is that it will. Evolution falls into that kind of a category. No, we can't prove it but we have heaps of data supporting it and no better credible explanation for the data exists. And no, Creationism is not a scientific theory. The bottom line is then that the theory of evolution is not a fact because it cant be proven. (according to your own definition).
LittleNipper Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 So, what is being said is that if abortions were figured into the lifespan of "Modern" humans, then his lifespan average would be rather low.
The Nehor Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 The bottom line is then that the theory of evolution is not a fact because it cant be proven. (according to your own definition). The theory of evolution is not a fact (in the scientific sense) period. It exists to explain scientific facts. It is the best explanation we have and has not been disproven. And again, in science nothing can ever be definitively and utterly proven. For comparison science cannot definitively prove that you exist. The evidence is strong that you do. There seems to be a being there. The facts back it up so you could say that you exist only as a scientific theory. It is possible that the facts backing up this theory may be found to be in error or we will find a better theory to explain the facts that doesn't include you existing. In other words theories are as close as it gets to a "fact" (non-scientific definition). So your bottom line is at best misleading and at worst nonsense.
thesometimesaint Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 The bottom line is then that the theory of evolution is not a fact because it cant be proven. (according to your own definition). No theory is ever proven. It can only be disproven. IE; Gravity is an observable fact. The Theory of Gravity, developed by Issac Newton, is the mathematical explanation of that theory. While perfectly good for human scaled objects(We've sent space probes to outside our solar system using it along with other scientific theories). Einstein successfully disproved the theory for very large scale objects. Quantum Mechanic disproved it for very small scale objects. We still have gravity. We still observe it, and it works quite well. Though the Theory of Gravity has been modified somewhat over the last 400 years or so.BTW ; We still don't know exactly what gravity is. Evolution is a fact. We observe it every time we have children. They are not absolute genetic copies of us. Sexual reproduction produces a change in allele frequency. That produces variation. Irrespective of if it is so called micro-evolution, or so called Macro-evolution It is still just evolution. That is establish fact. The Theory of Evolution explains that fact. In over 150 years of serious rigorous testing no one has ever disproven that theory. Though it has been modified somewhat over that time span. IE; Charles Darwin didn't know a thing about genetics. That information was added later by Mendel and his peas.
MiserereNobis Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 (edited) That information was added later by Mendel and his peas. Yay for Catholic Augustinian Friars! P.S. Here's a nice list of many of the Catholic clergy who also made great advances in science. Edited March 28, 2014 by MiserereNobis 2
thesometimesaint Posted March 28, 2014 Posted March 28, 2014 So, what is being said is that if abortions were figured into the lifespan of "Modern" humans, then his lifespan average would be rather low. Not derail the discussion but abortion has so little to do with average life span it isn't worth talking about.
Recommended Posts