The Mystery of the "Frozen Mammoths"

Jukia

New member
djconklin said:
Unfortunately, in the real world scientists are still human and we all have an ego problem to deal with. For more info on how things really work in science read Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
I think most people buy Kuhn's analysis, unfortunatley it is often put forth as a reason to support ID or creation science. However, one should look at plate tectonics to put Kuhn into the real world. Plate tectonics was laughed at, until continued work and peer reviewed publications supported it. We have yet to see that in ID or creation science or with those who have knee jerk religious objections to evolution, the age of the earth, etc.
 

bob b

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Sealeaf said:
I would have said that the cardinal virtue of a scientist is that he or she in more interested in learning more that they are in being right. A scientist who's experiment develops in an unexpected direction has been proved wrong but has gained new information. Since gaining reliable information is the whole point of science, this is a win.

Nice try, but most scientists would fight for their view right up to their death beds unless experiments would decisively prove them wrong.

Unfortunately in some fields of science experiments to prove or disprove a theory decisively are not possible: e.g. string theory, evolution, etc.
 

Jukia

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bob b said:
Nice try, but most scientists would fight for their view right up to their death beds unless experiments would decisively prove them wrong.

Unfortunately in some fields of science experiments to prove or disprove a theory decisively are not possible: e.g. string theory, evolution, etc.
You continue to be wrong as far as evolution goes.
 

djconklin

New member
Jukia said:
You continue to be wrong as far as evolution goes.

The statement: "Unfortunately in some fields of science experiments to prove or disprove a theory decisively are not possible: e.g. string theory, evolution, etc." is quite correct. There is no way one can disprove either theory at this time.
 

djconklin

New member
Jukia said:
I think most people buy Kuhn's analysis, unfortunatley it is often put forth as a reason to support ID or creation science. However, one should look at plate tectonics to put Kuhn into the real world. Plate tectonics was laughed at, until continued work and peer reviewed publications supported it. We have yet to see that in ID or creation science or with those who have knee jerk religious objections to evolution, the age of the earth, etc.

Can you give me some sources in which Kuhn's work is cited in support of ID?

I object to the characterization of "knee jerk religious objections to evolution." There are many scientists who believe in creation who object to evolution solely on scientific grounds. That kind of praseology (and the "thinking" behind it) has ab't as much meaning and value as the 'n' word in race relations.
 

TheLaughingMan

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djconklin said:
The statement: "Unfortunately in some fields of science experiments to prove or disprove a theory decisively are not possible: e.g. string theory, evolution, etc." is quite correct. There is no way one can disprove either theory at this time.

This is not completely true. Some aspects of string theory are falsifiable, though it is up to date weather string theory as a whole is testable.

Evolution on the other-hand could be proven false, in fact many creationists continue to try to prove it false! ID on the other hand is completely un testable!

Ways to falsify evolution (from talkorigins):
* a static fossil record;
* true chimeras, that is, organisms that combined parts from several different and diverse lineages (such as mermaids and centaurs) and which are not explained by lateral gene transfer, which transfers relatively small amounts of DNA between lineages, or symbiosis, where two whole organisms come together;
* a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating;
* observations of organisms being created.
 

bob b

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TheLaughingMan said:
Ways to falsify evolution?
* a static fossil record;
After hundreds of years of collecting fossils, it is already known that the fossil record is not absolutely static. So under what circumstances could all that data be changed?

* true chimeras, that is, organisms that combined parts from several different and diverse lineages (such as mermaids and centaurs) and which are not explained by lateral gene transfer, which transfers relatively small amounts of DNA between lineages, or symbiosis, where two whole organisms come together;

Chimeras are known and no theory that I know of explains them. The cases are simply ignored because they are so rare.

* a mechanism that would prevent mutations from accumulating;

The "mechanism", if one must call it that, is already known, or at least suggested: it is called the protein folding problem.

observations of organisms being created.

Or else the lack of observations of organisms evolving from one type into another.

BTW, some of the stuff at talk.origins is unbelievably silly.
 

djconklin

New member
Ways to falsify evolution

The items listed only work for organisms after life has occured. I have no problem with animals changing over time and adapting to new/different ecological niches.

What evolution cannot prove (nor can it be disproven), however, is how life came to be in the first place and how whole new kinds of beings (cats to dogs, for instance) could emerge from a previous life form.
 

BillyBob

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bob b said:
Nice try, but most scientists would fight for their view right up to their death beds unless experiments would decisively prove them wrong.

Yeah, I'm sure you and Walt Brown fall in that category.
 

drbrumley

Well-known member
Just curious Billy, are the Scriptures wrong about anything? It seems you dispute the dating of the creation of earth at 6000-7000 years? It also seems you dispute the scriptures revealing the earth was a globe before it even became fashionable to utter those words. I deduced that by reading you saying "learn science!" The Scriptures are not a science book, I agree, but scriptures do reveal how God decided to do things, and science has been catching up ever since.
 

Lon

Well-known member
drbrumley said:
Just curious Billy, are the Scriptures wrong about anything? It seems you dispute the dating of the creation of earth at 6000-7000 years? It also seems you dispute the scriptures revealing the earth was a globe before it even became fashionable to utter those words. I deduced that by reading you saying "learn science!" The Scriptures are not a science book, I agree, but scriptures do reveal how God decided to do things, and science has been catching up ever since.

Even from a Biblical perspective alone, is the earth 6000-7000 years old? What leads you to this? (Don't answer if I am hi-jacking the thread)
 
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