Three questions for A. Pagano
Steven J.
supernatural causes have suggested some questions. Other people will
doubtless be astonished at some of the questions that I *don't* raise
here, but they can raise them themselves. I apologize for the length;
I assume that if Tony responds to this, he will do so in sections.
QUESTION ONE: VESTIGIAL ORGANS.
Tony has recently argued against the existence of vestigial structuers
on the grounds that:
[a] such organs are identified by finding structures without obvious
functions which are homologous with structures in other species which
have obvious functions.
[b] this commits two fallacies: assuming that the structures "ought"
to have the same functions as their homologues, and that a structure
has no function simply because no function has yet been identified.
[c] in addition, a structure would only count as "vestigial" if it
could be shown to have been reduced by "neoDarwinian" rather than
"Mendellian" processes (these terms not being clearly defined).
[d] since the modern synthesis ("neoDarwinism") rejects Lamarkian
mechanisms, it implies that "disuse" should not lead a functional
structure to become vestigial, and thus on neoDarwinian grounds
vestigial structures should not exist.
[e] creationism does not expect the Creator to produce creatures with
nonfunctional structures, and thus on creationist grounds also
vestigial structures should not exist.
My own position on these positions is given in my earlier responses to
Tony (and ably augmented by Dunford's, Stockwell's, Groves, etc.
responses as well).
The URL below is a YEC attempt (and AiG document, although I found it
searching on the ICR website) to deal with the question of vestigial
organs. To some extent, it takes the same approach that Tony does,
arguing that we can never know for certain that a structure is truly
functionless (it dismisses the idea of *reduced* functionality). The
authors, however, seem not to care, any more than any evolutionist
does, whether the reduction of the structures takes place by
"neoDarwinian" means, since they manage to accomodate some vestigial
structures as "loss of information" accompaniing evolution within
"kinds." It considers certain legless species of lizards, but I'm
sure the argument could accomodate eyeless cave fish, and perhaps even
vampire bat molars. The authors specifically refuse to allow that the
teeth of embryonic baleen whales are vestigial (since that would imply
that, in evolving from some sort of toothed whales, they had not only
"lost information" -- the teeth -- but "gained information" -- the
baleen).
<http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/446.asp>
So my question to Tony is, given that he apparenlty accepts the idea
of evolution within originally created kinds, is he sure that the
"creation model" does not imply the existence of vestigial organs?
Talk.origins once had a poster, Scott@home, with the annoying habit of
trying to lay hidden traps with his questions. Far be it from me to
do the same; I will lay my traps out in the open. If you answer, to
the above question, that your original position remains unchanged, I
will excoriate you for your obstinance and refusal to yield even to
logic that its apparent to "credentialed creation scientists." But if
you answer that you agree with the authors, I will ask you to tell us
how to distinguish between "really functionless vestiges" within
"kinds," and "merely unknown functions" in homologies between
different "kinds."
QUESTION TWO: OBSERVED EVENTS IN HISTORY
In his posts on the Marian appearances at Fatima, Tony has stressed
such points as the large number of witnesses (70,000, IIRC), and the
fact that many were not Catholics. He has stated that the three
children adhered to their story even under threats. I am not
interested, here, in critiquing Tony's acccounts of the Fatima
incident, or in what exactly happened there.
Rather, note that, as Elmer Bataitis has argued, these are
*naturalistic* arguments. They implicitly assume that the world
operates according to discoverable and consistent rules, in a uniform
manner. If you don't assume this, you might as well conclude that
70,000 independent witnesses are likely to agree on a single fantasy
as to accurately report an actual event. You might as well conclude
that threats on the childrens' lives increased the likelihood of the
behavior for which they were threatened.
Note also that by raising these defenses, Tony implicitly concedes a
point I have made: that eyewitness reports do not create an epistemic
distinction between "observed events in history," and "unique
unobserved events in prehistory." To gain knowledge from eyewitness
testimony, one is forced to try to reconstruct a "unique unobserved
event" -- the eyewitnesses state of mind. One must take into account
the facts that alleged witnesses can lie (even about being witnesses),
or be mistaken, or be misunderstood. Tony has attempted to do
precisely these things with regard to the witnesses at Fatima. And to
do this, he seemingly relied on the same sort of "naturalistic" and
"uniformitarian" assumptions one uses to interpret the evidence of
unobserved events in prehistory.
So my second question for Tony is, what is your response to this
point? Do you actually see any defensible differences between the
investigation of unobserved events in historical times, unobserved
events in prehistory, and (allegedly) witnessed events in history?
What are these differences?
QUESTION THREE: DISTINGUISHABLE EMPIRICAL CONSEQUENCES
Note that neither Cummings nor Stockwell, nor anyone else, has tried
to argue that nothing unusual or noteworthy whatsoever happened at
Fatima in 1917. The evidence demands *some* sort of explanation
beyond "just the usual things we would expect were going on."
However, either would take a rather different view of either the
geological record (which, to be sure, contains relics of catastrophes,
but not, in the view of mainstream geology, any trace of a global
flood), or of the history of the last 10,000 years. The evidence
doesn't seem to demand any sort of "nonuniformitarian" explanation.
What "distinguishable empirical consequences" can you name that argue
that some sort of global hydraulic cataclysm occurred within history,
or even prehistory?
-- Steven J.
A Pagano
(Steven J.) wrote:
>Tony's recent postings on vestigial organs and the investigation of
>supernatural causes have suggested some questions. Other people will
>doubtless be astonished at some of the questions that I *don't* raise
>here, but they can raise them themselves. I apologize for the length;
>I assume that if Tony responds to this, he will do so in sections.
>
>QUESTION ONE: VESTIGIAL ORGANS.
>Tony has recently argued against the existence of vestigial structuers
>on the grounds that:
>[a] such organs are identified by finding structures without obvious
>functions which are homologous with structures in other species which
>have obvious functions.
Pagano replies:
Darwin argued that Lamarckian disuse was the principle cause of
vestigial structures. NeoDarwinians, as near as I can determine, have
not filled the void they created by sweeping away Lamarckism. That
is, they have not presented a detailed explanation of why vestiges or
rudiments would "arise" and how they would be preserved if they did.
>[b] this commits two fallacies: assuming that the structures "ought"
>to have the same functions as their homologues, and that a structure
>has no function simply because no function has yet been identified.
Pagano replies:
The history of science speaks for itself. In 1925 the secular
scientists were postive that the human body contained no fewer than
180 vestiges. That number has been at or near zero since the 1980s.
This means that the generalization using homologous structures to
justify the vestigial characterization is a bad one and shouldn't be
used in this case. In other words by the 1980s not only did we know
that the similarity argument was fallacious but we knew it to be
false.
Modern scientists also presume a structure is "vestigial" if it has no
know function. This turns the label "vestigial" into a place-holder
for ignorance not a corroboration of neoDarwinism.
>[c] in addition, a structure would only count as "vestigial" if it
>could be shown to have been reduced by "neoDarwinian" rather than
>"Mendellian" processes (these terms not being clearly defined).
Pagano replies:
If we're talking about a scientific claim that the neoDarwinian
mechanism is the process that "created" a particular structure then we
need to see some physical evidence that excludes other logical
possibilities. It seems that in many (perhaps all) cases that the
theory is justifying the vestigial characterization rather than the
purported structure standing as a corroboration of the neoDarwinian
framework.
>[d] since the modern synthesis ("neoDarwinism") rejects Lamarkian
>mechanisms, it implies that "disuse" should not lead a functional
>structure to become vestigial, and thus on neoDarwinian grounds
>vestigial structures should not exist.
Pagano replies:
Not exactly. The neoDarwinians rejected Lamarckism because they
believed they had falsified it. As a result this falsified Darwin's
hypothesized cause of rudimentary structures. This alone does not
deductively lead to the conclusion that vestigial structures should
not exist.
But if Darwin was wrong about disuse, what is the cause? The
neoDarwinian mechanism alone does not entail their existence. It does
entail the existence of nascent structures (Darwin agreed with this)
but these haven't been found either.
>[e] creationism does not expect the Creator to produce creatures with
>nonfunctional structures, and thus on creationist grounds also
>vestigial structures should not exist.
Pagano replies:
I don't know whether this is entirely true. The creationist model
does incorporates information theory which is an application of the
second law. Perhaps this could explain them if anyone produced a bona
fide and unambiguous example of a vestige.
In any event until I see good reason to believe otherwise I suspect
that some function will be found for all structures given sufficient
time and study.
>
>My own position on these positions is given in my earlier responses to
>Tony (and ably augmented by Dunford's, Stockwell's, Groves, etc.
>responses as well).
Pagano replies:
Dunford implied that homology leads deductively and conclusively to
the vestigial characterization. Unfortunately for Dunford we
discovered that this sort of generalization with regard to purported
human vestiges was completely wrong. Why would it be expected to hold
in the rest of the animal kingdom?
>
>The URL below is a YEC attempt (and AiG document, although I found it
>searching on the ICR website) to deal with the question of vestigial
>organs. To some extent, it takes the same approach that Tony does,
>arguing that we can never know for certain that a structure is truly
>functionless
Pagano replies:
So far this is exactly what the history of science has taught us.
Secular science was positive in 1925 that the human body contained no
less than 180 vestiges. By the 1980s that number was at or near zero.
If we generalize this history lesson it should form a rational basis
for action. That is, we should refrain from presuming a structure is
vestigial simply because its function is not known. Making such a
presumption is therefore an argument from ignorance.
>(it dismisses the idea of *reduced* functionality).
Pagano replies:
How much of a "reduction" constitutes "reduced functionality?" And
how do we test the claim that the "reduction" was neoDarwinian? And
what caused the "reduction?" We need a testable explanation
otherwise this isn't science but story telling.
>The
>authors, however, seem not to care, any more than any evolutionist
>does, whether the reduction of the structures takes place by
>"neoDarwinian" means,
Pagano replies:
Evolutionists beginning with Darwin saw vestigial structures as one of
the best evidences of neoDarwinian evolution. If so, how can he NOT
care. If neoDarwinism isn't the cause then apparent vestiges are not
corroborations of it.
>since they manage to accomodate some vestigial
>structures as "loss of information" accompaniing evolution within
>"kinds."
Pagano replies:
If the loss of genetic information alone can explain the existence of
apparent vestiges then they do not corroborate neoDarwinism.
> It considers certain legless species of lizards, but I'm
>sure the argument could accomodate eyeless cave fish, and perhaps even
>vampire bat molars. The authors specifically refuse to allow that the
>teeth of embryonic baleen whales are vestigial (since that would imply
>that, in evolving from some sort of toothed whales, they had not only
>"lost information" -- the teeth -- but "gained information" -- the
>baleen).
Pagano replies:
But they offer a non neoDarwinian mechanism. If true then the
existence of these apparent vestiges is not corroborative of
neoDarwinism. Furthermore the mere existence of an apparent
functionless or reduced function structure is not prohibited by the
creation model.
>
><http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/446.asp>
>
>So my question to Tony is, given that he apparenlty accepts the idea
>of evolution within originally created kinds, is he sure that the
>"creation model" does not imply the existence of vestigial organs?
Pagano replies:
As far as I know the creationist model does not prohibit apparent
vestiges.
And even if the creation model did specifically entail vestiges (which
I doubt) those vestiges wouldn't be the result of the neoDarwinian
mechanism because the neoDarwinian mechanism is not part of the model.
In other words if apparent vestiges were entailed by the creation
model and its mechanism were true then those vestiges would NOT
corroborate neoDarwinism.
>
>Talk.origins once had a poster, Scott@home, with the annoying habit of
>trying to lay hidden traps with his questions. Far be it from me to
>do the same; I will lay my traps out in the open. If you answer, to
>the above question, that your original position remains unchanged, I
>will excoriate you for your obstinance and refusal to yield even to
>logic that its apparent to "credentialed creation scientists." But if
>you answer that you agree with the authors, I will ask you to tell us
>how to distinguish between "really functionless vestiges" within
>"kinds," and "merely unknown functions" in homologies between
>different "kinds."
Pagano replies:
Quite honestly what the creationist model entails or doesn't entail
concerning apparent vestiges is irrelevent to the issues at hand. The
creationist model is not science according to modern secular science;
it is considered silly superstitious nonsense. This makes it
irrelevent.
The issues for the reigning, pet, secular, theory and its adherents
are these:
(1) Are there any genuine examples (as opposed to merely apparent
ones or presumptive characterizations from ignorance) of a vestigial
structure?
(2) Is there any physical evidence that those vestiges were the
result of the neoDarwinian mechanism?
(3) Does neoDarwinism predict vestiges and if so what is the
explanation?
(4) What is the cause if Lamarckian disuse has been falsified?
Regards,
T Pagano
Bill Rogers
> Pagano replies:
> Quite honestly what the creationist model entails or doesn't entail
> concerning apparent vestiges is irrelevent to the issues at hand. The
> creationist model is not science according to modern secular science;
> it is considered silly superstitious nonsense. This makes it
> irrelevent.
Finally, something I completely agree with you on. But if you are
saying that the observable empirical consequences of the creationist
model are not relevant, then you are conceding a good deal. Without
that, why would anyone want to accept a creationist model unless he
were motivated by non-scientific beliefs? If you accept that your
creationist beliefs are independent of scientific evidence and are
solely due to revelation we can stop arguing.
>
> The issues for the reigning, pet, secular, theory and its adherents
> are these:
>
> (1) Are there any genuine examples (as opposed to merely apparent
> ones or presumptive characterizations from ignorance) of a vestigial
> structure?
This is asking us to prove a negative. Pretty difficult to prove
beyond doubt that any candidate vestigial structure absolutely has no
function. But cases of reduced functionality (cavefish eyes) do not
seem that hard to come up with.
As an example of a vestigial trait, consider sickle cell trait in
American blacks. Away from a malaria endemic area it has no useful
function. It is vestigial in that sense, and will drift away over
generations.
>
> (2) Is there any physical evidence that those vestiges were the
> result of the neoDarwinian mechanism?
What you want, I guess, is some direct linkage between a specific
mutation in a gene controlling optic development in a cave fish and
the reduced functionality of its eye, considering a closely related,
non-cave dwelling fish as the wild-type. Certainly sounds doable, if
that sort of evidence would make a difference to you.
>
> (3) Does neoDarwinism predict vestiges and if so what is the
> explanation?
It suggests that mutations will accumulate in genes involved in
producing structures which no longer provide an increase in fitness to
the organism, because there is no selective pressure against such
mutations.
>
> (4) What is the cause if Lamarckian disuse has been falsified?
Accumulation of mutations in genes which are not under selective
pressure anymore, usually as a result of changes in the organism's
environment (e.g. genes controlling eye morphogenesis in cave dwelling
fish, sickle cell trait in people no longer living in malarious
areas).
This really isn't very hard to understand.
>
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
A Pagano
>
>In his posts on the Marian appearances at Fatima, Tony has stressed
>such points as the large number of witnesses (70,000, IIRC), and the
>fact that many were not Catholics. He has stated that the three
>children adhered to their story even under threats. I am not
>interested, here, in critiquing Tony's acccounts of the Fatima
>incident, or in what exactly happened there.
>
>Rather, note that, as Elmer Bataitis has argued, these are
>*naturalistic* arguments. They implicitly assume that the world
>operates according to discoverable and consistent rules, in a uniform
>manner.
Pagano replies:
No, this is what secularists assume. Secularists assume some
UNIVERSAL law of uniformity which Hume and Popper both showed was
false and misquided. I only assume that there could be some
regularities in nature. And finally supernatural action is
independent of the hypothesized regularities. They neither suspend
them nor violate them. This collapses Bataitis's postion.
The event at Fatima is then a problem for Bataitis and his secular
brethren not I. This event would question the uniform law of gravity
and motion as described by Newton and Einstein if one were an atheist,
agnostic or secularist. This would require the atheist, the agnostic
and the secularist to produce a testable purely naturalistic
explanation of this deviation. Stockwell offered the mass optical
illusion theory which was offered long ago and was discounted long
ago. And it certainly has not been tested. Wonder why, given the
magnitude of the number of witnesses.
Furthermore the three illiterate children under age 11 predicted the
event 90 days in advance to the hour. That accuracy defies
naturalistic explanation.
> If you don't assume this, you might as well conclude that
>70,000 independent witnesses are likely to agree on a single fantasy
>as to accurately report an actual event.
Pagano replies:
Unfortunately for your argument 70, 000 people showed up on October
17, 1917 because the three illiterate farm children under the age of
11 predicted an observable miracle 90 days prior to this date to the
hour. This was a bold prediction that was testable. The atheists and
enemies of the church turned out in droves to ridicule the children
safe in their belief that no such deviation from expectation and
natural law could occur. But they were wrong.
There was no agreed upon fantasy. A bold prediction 90 days in
advance to the hour which was ridiculed by a significant number of nay
sayers including christians. The fantasy argument collapses.
> You might as well conclude
>that threats on the childrens' lives increased the likelihood of the
>behavior for which they were threatened.
Pagano replies:
Of course this is absurd. No one claimed that generalizations are not
a valuable basis for action. It is often when we make an observation
that deviates from expectations that a revolution in science occurs.
This was the case with Einstein.
Why did the three small children refuse to recant under threat of a
violent painful death. The authorities took each child out of a room
one at a time. When the guard returned for the next child they
believed that their friend had been executed. They still did not
recant. This is remarkable. This is why the agnostic Mark Twain
found St Joan of Arc so unusual.
>
>Note also that by raising these defenses, Tony implicitly concedes a
>point I have made: that eyewitness reports do not create an epistemic
>distinction between "observed events in history," and "unique
>unobserved events in prehistory."
Pagano replies:
Since there are no "eyewitness reports" for "unique UNobserved events
in prehistory" this is absurd nonsense.
>To gain knowledge from eyewitness
>testimony, one is forced to try to reconstruct a "unique unobserved
>event" -- the eyewitnesses state of mind.
Pagano replies:
Steven J must not be getting much sleep. This is absurd also.
In the case of the miracle of the sun on October 17, 1917 the
eyewitness testimony concerned a UNIQUE and OBservable event. Over
50, 000 people saw it happen including atheists and christians who
doubted that it would.
Taken to its absurd conclusion this bit of nonsense would collapse all
observational science.
> One must take into account
>the facts that alleged witnesses can lie (even about being witnesses),
>or be mistaken, or be misunderstood.
Pagano replies:
This is laughable. The children made a bold prediction 90 days in
advance to the hour. 50,000 people came to test the bold prediction.
There were simply too many witnesses for this claim to stand.
>Tony has attempted to do
>precisely these things with regard to the witnesses at Fatima. And to
>do this, he seemingly relied on the same sort of "naturalistic" and
>"uniformitarian" assumptions one uses to interpret the evidence of
>unobserved events in prehistory.
Pagano replies:
Nonsense. This was an OBservable event NOTan unobservable one. It
was predicted in advance to be unique and the result of supernatural
action. There is no comparison between this OBservable event and the
secular assumption of the universal law of uniformity and its
application to UNobservables.
The fact that the miracle occurred in accordance with a bold
prediction, violated all expectations (based upon rational
generalizations) and seemingly violated well established gravitational
laws which back up those generalizations demands a testable purely
naturalistic explanation. But there is none. And atheists have
stopped trying in the hopes that people will forget. But they
haven't.
Steven J will never understand because he cannot distinquish the
difference between generalization and theory.
>
>So my second question for Tony is, what is your response to this
>point? Do you actually see any defensible differences between the
>investigation of unobserved events in historical times, unobserved
>events in prehistory, and (allegedly) witnessed events in history?
>What are these differences?
Pagano replies:
Since the miracle at Fatima was OBserved by over 50,000 witnesses I
haven't clue what Steven J is talking about. In any event I disposed
of most of his above premises leading to the question so it doesn't
matter much anyway.
A final note: Again, I should point out to Steven J that it has often
been the deviation from expectation that has been the impetus for
scientific revolution. It was in Einstein's case.
Regards,.
T Pagano
Klivo
> Pagano replies:
> So far this is exactly what the history of science has taught us.
> Secular science was positive in 1925 that the human body contained no
> less than 180 vestiges. By the 1980s that number was at or near zero.
Of course, creationists love to quote Bergman and Howe, but they
have no credibility. The fact is, the appendix and coccyx are
vestigial. There may be other vestigial organs, but these two
are enough to throw a monkey wrench into the theory of 'Intelligent
Design'.
> Pagano replies:
> How much of a "reduction" constitutes "reduced functionality?" And
> how do we test the claim that the "reduction" was neoDarwinian? And
> what caused the "reduction?" We need a testable explanation
> otherwise this isn't science but story telling.
Why would a creator give an animal useless organs?
> Regards,
> T Pagano
Cleve
Elmer Bataitis
> The history of science speaks for itself.
Ahhh, but one must use "naturalistic" methods to hear it. It is no
wonder you have problems Tony. ;-)
***************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis “Hot dog! Smooch city here I come!”
Planetech Services -Hobbes
585-442-2884
"...proudly wearing and displaying, as a badge of honor, the
straight jacket of conventional thought."
***************************************************************
Elmer Bataitis
> No, this is what secularists assume. Secularists assume some
> UNIVERSAL law of uniformity which Hume and Popper both showed was
> false and misquided. I only assume that there could be some
> regularities in nature.
*Could be?* Bwahahaha! And the WalMart *could* disappear as you walk
into it? :-)
And finally supernatural action is
> independent of the hypothesized regularities. They neither suspend
> them nor violate them. This collapses Bataitis's postion.
Nope, not at all Tony. If supernatural action is independent of natural
actions, then then is nothing to be discovered in any way, shape, or
form about the "supernatural".
John Stockwell
>>
>>In his posts on the Marian appearances at Fatima, Tony has stressed
>>such points as the large number of witnesses (70,000, IIRC), and the
>>fact that many were not Catholics. He has stated that the three
>>children adhered to their story even under threats. I am not
>>interested, here, in critiquing Tony's acccounts of the Fatima
>>incident, or in what exactly happened there.
>>
>>Rather, note that, as Elmer Bataitis has argued, these are
>>*naturalistic* arguments. They implicitly assume that the world
>>operates according to discoverable and consistent rules, in a uniform
>>manner.
>
> Pagano replies:
>No, this is what secularists assume. Secularists assume some
>UNIVERSAL law of uniformity which Hume and Popper both showed was
>false and misquided. I only assume that there could be some
>regularities in nature. And finally supernatural action is
>independent of the hypothesized regularities. They neither suspend
>them nor violate them. This collapses Bataitis's postion.
Indeed, we all assume that uniformity the basic attribute of reality.
That is the basis of all science. It is also the basis of all day
to day activities. In fact, uniformity is so much a part of our collective
human experience, that any deviations from this must be exceedingly
rare events indeed, if they exist at all.
>
>The event at Fatima is then a problem for Bataitis and his secular
>brethren not I. This event would question the uniform law of gravity
>and motion as described by Newton and Einstein if one were an atheist,
>agnostic or secularist. This would require the atheist, the agnostic
>and the secularist to produce a testable purely naturalistic
>explanation of this deviation. Stockwell offered the mass optical
>illusion theory which was offered long ago and was discounted long
>ago. And it certainly has not been tested. Wonder why, given the
>magnitude of the number of witnesses.
On the contrary, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Anectdotes, no matter how colorful or inspirational have little weight
in science.
First of all, we really only know that a handful of witnesses saw the
alleged miracle of the sun. We can accept that there was a large number
of people assembled at the site. There much cause to doubt that the
number were "50,000" or "70,000" people present. The statements from
the press at the time said that the group dispersed quietly. That indicates
to me that people gathered hoping to see something, some of the faithful
had some sort of religious experience, but eventually everybody left.
As to Tony's claim that the idea of an optical phenomenon of some sort
has been discounted is specious. It is
certainly difficult to believe that 70,000 people had a "mass hallucination".
However, the fact is that most of what is known about Fatima is
from a mere handful of statements. Indeed, the idea of a handful of people
looking at the sun is plausible. Tony's claim that the idea "has not
been tested" is also specious. Anybody who was foolish enough (as I was
as a kid) to stare into the sun for an extended period of time would
see many of the same things that were reported from Fatima. Indeed, when
I first heard the story of the miracle of the sun as a kid, it sounded
just like what I had seen when I myself had stared into the sun.
>
>Furthermore the three illiterate children under age 11 predicted the
>event 90 days in advance to the hour. That accuracy defies
>naturalistic explanation.
>
>> If you don't assume this, you might as well conclude that
>>70,000 independent witnesses are likely to agree on a single fantasy
>>as to accurately report an actual event.
>
> Pagano replies:
>Unfortunately for your argument 70, 000 people showed up on October
>17, 1917 because the three illiterate farm children under the age of
>11 predicted an observable miracle 90 days prior to this date to the
>hour. This was a bold prediction that was testable. The atheists and
>enemies of the church turned out in droves to ridicule the children
>safe in their belief that no such deviation from expectation and
>natural law could occur. But they were wrong.
>
>There was no agreed upon fantasy. A bold prediction 90 days in
>advance to the hour which was ridiculed by a significant number of nay
>sayers including christians. The fantasy argument collapses.
More specious arguments. First of all Pagano should get his facts
straight. The alleged event happened on 13 Oct 1917. For 4 months prior
these children had been claiming that they had been visited by the
Virgin Mary on the 13th of the month. This became a media sensation.
I would refer Pagano to the following web site:
http://www.geocities.com/fatimaforagnostics/FAT.12.NEWSPAPER.2.htm
which gives a translation of the full text of the article that appeared
in the Portugese newspaper _O Seculo_ regarding the alleged miracle
of the Sun. You will note that the estimate of the number of people
gathered was "thirty or forty thousand" not the oft quoted 50,000 or
70,000. (I suspect that Pagano will continue to quote the higher numbers,
as he is not noted for revising his errors even when having them pointed
out.)
On the same web site, we have the section about the journalist who
reported the story:
Avelino de Almeida
The journalist from O Século, Avelino de Almeida, worked for the newspaper
founded in 1881 by Magalhães Lima, Grand Master of the Masons, and whose
director J.J. Silva Graça, kept an editorial line of free thinking.
Avelino had been in a seminary and left, but he hadn?t abandoned the Catholic
faith. In this first article, he distances himself from the apparitions,
which he presents as a consequence of ?the great tribulations that
society was going through. The times of great tribulations have always
favored the rebirth of religious ideas and the war adds to their
expansion creating a fertile environment.?
Avelino de Almeida says that he saw ?the sun dance?, but his fellow
reporter, the photographer, Judah Ruah, nephew of the famous
photographer Joshua Benoliel, who worked with him, saw nothing.
Why? According to him, because nothing strange happened to the Sun.
When he saw all those people kneeling, he understood that it was the
happening and that is why he photographed it.
So, in short we might be able to say that a single reporter "saw the
sun dance" (likely a result of staring into the sun). It may be that
a few other people also stared into the sun and saw something similar.
The rest of the story of the miracle of the sun is apparently a synthesis
of a collection of one-liners presented in the article in _O Seculo_.
Now, I would point out that it is merely the alleged "miracle of the Sun"
at Fatima that I am commenting on. I am not commenting on the veracity
of the visions, or the other comments made regarding the real miracle
of Fatima, which would be the visions that the children had. We have no
way of evaluating what they saw or did not see.
The fact that there has been a great effort to conflate the alleged
miracle of the Sun with the other events of Fatima has led people to
abandon critical thinking in a matter that is obviously more media hype
than "miracle".
(The main page of all of this is: http://www.portcult.com/index.fat.htm)
>
>Regards,.
>T Pagano
--
John Stockwell | jo...@dix.Mines.EDU
Center for Wave Phenomena (The Home of Seismic Un*x)
Colorado School of Mines
Golden, CO 80401 | http://www.cwp.mines.edu/cwpcodes
voice: (303) 273-3049
Our book:
Norman Bleistein, Jack K. Cohen, John W. Stockwell Jr., [2001],
Mathematics of multidimensional seismic imaging, migration, and inversion,
(Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, V. 13.), Springer-Verlag, New York.
David Sienkiewicz
It seems to ME that you said Andy Groves would be "up next."
A Pagano <anthony...@verizon.net> wrote in message news:<5aartus2dk4etkahd...@4ax.com>...
> On Wed, 20 Nov 2002 07:09:29 +0000 (UTC), stev...@altavista.com
> (Steven J.) wrote:
>
> >Tony's recent postings on vestigial organs and the investigation of
> >supernatural causes have suggested some questions. Other people will
> >doubtless be astonished at some of the questions that I *don't* raise
> >here, but they can raise them themselves. I apologize for the length;
> >I assume that if Tony responds to this, he will do so in sections.
> >
> >QUESTION ONE: VESTIGIAL ORGANS.
> >Tony has recently argued against the existence of vestigial structuers
> >on the grounds that:
> >[a] such organs are identified by finding structures without obvious
> >functions which are homologous with structures in other species which
> >have obvious functions.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Darwin argued that Lamarckian disuse was the principle cause of
> vestigial structures. NeoDarwinians, as near as I can determine, have
> not filled the void they created by sweeping away Lamarckism. That
> is, they have not presented a detailed explanation of why vestiges or
> rudiments would "arise" and how they would be preserved if they did.
And, as was explained by Mike Dunford in very good detail, this is not
important.
A vestige is a vestige regardless as to how it got to be a vestige.
> >[b] this commits two fallacies: assuming that the structures "ought"
> >to have the same functions as their homologues, and that a structure
> >has no function simply because no function has yet been identified.
>
> Pagano replies:
> The history of science speaks for itself.
Sigh. Here we go again:
> In 1925 the secular
> scientists were postive that the human body contained no fewer than
> 180 vestiges.
As you showed with your reference, this was a statement made with
regard to an earlier reference - written in the late 19th Century, if
I recall correctly.
(Are you abandoning your 200+ total vestiges mentioned at Scopes,
Tony?)
We still don't know what specifics this "list" might have contained.
You haven't provided it; and it seems that it's not in your reference,
either.
> That number has been at or near zero since the 1980s.
And how was this done, Tony?
A vestigial structure is not necessarily one that, as you say, has
"little or no utility." A vestigial structure may or may not have a
function - or even a function that is unknown.
But I'm straying from my point. My point HERE is that you're simply
repeating yourself and not really responding to Steven at all.
You want to say that the vestigials mentioned at Scopes are no longer
considered so because they have been discovered to have a function.
You draw this conclusion from only one vague fact.
You state that there was a reference to 180 such vestiges just in
humans. That's fine. That's verified by your reference.
But where are the specifics of that "list?" What were the 180
structures? Can you tell us? Does a "list" appear in your reference
or is it only vaguely cited?
In order for you to claim, as you do, that this number has been
reduced to "near zero," you have to know what was on the list and you
have to know that each of the structures indicated on that list are
now known to have a function. You have to be able to identify all of
the 180 structures that were vaguely referenced and identify functions
for each of them.
So why is it, Tony, that when we ask for specifics along these lines,
you can't provide them?
Can you give us even 18 structures - 10 percent of the list - and
identify them as having a function?
That will give us a start, since we also know that a vestigial
structure is not necessarily lacking in function and, by your own
definition, may have "little" function.
> This means that the generalization using homologous structures to
> justify the vestigial characterization is a bad one and shouldn't be
> used in this case. In other words by the 1980s not only did we know
> that the similarity argument was fallacious but we knew it to be
> false.
No, Tony, we didn't.
You're making all of this up.
It is perfectly reasonable to attempt to determine function and
vestigiality (which are not necessarily related as you would claim)
based on homologues in other creatures or fossil relatives.
The mechanisms by which they became vestigial does NOT have to be
specifically identified any more than the mechanisms that cause
certain cancers have to be known before a condition can be identified
as a cancer.
> Modern scientists also presume a structure is "vestigial" if it has no
> know function. This turns the label "vestigial" into a place-holder
> for ignorance not a corroboration of neoDarwinism.
This, too, was answered already by Mike Dunford and I also identified
this nonsense as "wishful thinking."
First of all, it is NOT true that scientists require a structure to be
of no known function before it can be considered vestigial. A
structure can have a function - often changed - and still be a vestige
of an earlier structure with a different function (or even a related
function).
Secondly, your apparent reliance on "history" to bolster your by now
incredibly stupid claim that there are no vestigial structures is
simple question-begging and wishful thinking. Yes, some vestigials
are known to have a function. Some previously functionless structures
also have later been discovered to have a function.
That doesn't mean that it happens every time, Tony. Evolution is not
going to be disproven because YOU WISH IT based on the fact that some
theories in the past later turned out to be false. Vestigial
structures will likewise not stop being vestiges because YOU WISH IT
based on the fact that some functionless structures were later found
to be functional.
You quibble, you change the conditions of tests, you move the
goalposts and you redefine terms to suit your arguments - often
without telling the readership about the details of these
misdirection.
I view your tactics as incredibly dishonest, based on your arrogance
and your own "unteachable" nature - which you have admitted. You
simply refuse to admit that you are wrong.
What is the function of the molars in vampire bats, Tony?
< snip for now >
David Sienkiewicz
< snip >
What is the function of the rudimentary pelvic bones on whales and boas, Tony?
4nobletruths
Oh, it's THAT "A" guy! Sorry I dropped in.
A Pagano
>QUESTION THREE: DISTINGUISHABLE EMPIRICAL CONSEQUENCES
>
>Note that neither Cummings nor Stockwell, nor anyone else, has tried
>to argue that nothing unusual or noteworthy whatsoever happened at
>Fatima in 1917.
Pagano replies:
Have no idea what Cummings wrote. However, Stockwell did recently
argue, in effect, that nothing unusual or noteworthy happened at
Fatima. Stockwell attempted (rather weakly) to debunk the events of
Oct 17, 1917. Perhaps some quotes from Stockwell would be in order to
correct the record for Steven J:
STOCKWELL QUOTE ONE: "I do think that the Fatima sightings have been
greatly hyped. We read estimates of 50,000 to 70,000 as the number of
alleged eyewitnesses. However, one has to ask, how did they get the
count? It's not like there was anybody selling tickets, and keeping a
head count."
STOCKWELL QUOTE TWO: " In fact, the testimonial evidence for
"something" happening on that day boils down to a couple of press
reports, a handfull of statements from people who were expecting to
see something."
STOCKWELL QUOTE THREE: "I believe that the descriptions of the
alleged miracle are consistent with the scenario of people looking at
the sun through a thin veil of clouds. They kept looking at the sun
until after the clouds started clearing. The "spinning" and "multiple
colors" described are entirely consistent with what a person sees when
looking at the sun. (I know this, because I did this myself as a small
child, before I knew any better.) The descriptions of the sun changing
colors and bouncing around is entirely consistent with what happens
when you look away after having been looking at the sun. You don't see
much of anything but the afterimage of the sun, which moves with
your gaze.
>The evidence demands *some* sort of explanation
>beyond "just the usual things we would expect were going on."
Pagano replies:
How 'bout we shoot for finding the objectively true explanation?
>However, either would take a rather different view of either the
>geological record (which, to be sure, contains relics of catastrophes,
>but not, in the view of mainstream geology, any trace of a global
>flood), or of the history of the last 10,000 years.
Pagano replies:
This is not necessarily true. The secular scientist interprets the
evidence in the light of the explanatory theory currently hailed as
best available. The available evidence never uniquely determines the
one true theory. Remember that the secular uniformitarian model
hypothesizes that calm, global-like floods occurred over eons. So
some subset of the evidence (perhaps a great deal of it) will
corroborate both models.
>The evidence
>doesn't seem to demand any sort of "nonuniformitarian" explanation.
Pagano replies:
There is nothing particularly significant about this. The evidence
doesn't demand a uniformitarian one either. The evidence rarely (if
ever) uniquely determines a single kind of theory. In the parlance of
philosophers of science the evidence always "underdetermines" every
theory. So what now?
>What "distinguishable empirical consequences" can you name that argue
>that some sort of global hydraulic cataclysm occurred within history,
>or even prehistory?
Pagano replies:
Excellent question. One could deductively infer some bold observable
predictions (or retrodictions) from the true statements from each
competing model and search for those predictions. One could
determine what empirical observations would be prohibited by each
model and search for those prohibitions.
How each model interprets the stratigraphic layers and how they are
correlated locally and globally might be a possible distinquishing
characteristic.
I'm done.
Regards,
T Pagano
Klivo
> >
> > > Pagano replies:
> > > How much of a "reduction" constitutes "reduced functionality?" And
> > > how do we test the claim that the "reduction" was neoDarwinian? And
> > > what caused the "reduction?" We need a testable explanation
> > > otherwise this isn't science but story telling.
> >
> > Why would a creator give an animal useless organs?
> >
> > > Regards,
> > > T Pagano
> >
> > Cleve
>
> Oh, it's THAT "A" guy! Sorry I dropped in.
Really, you're quite welcome, with or without a tail.
Cleve
Steven J.
>
> >Tony's recent postings on vestigial organs and the investigation of
> >supernatural causes have suggested some questions. Other people will
> >doubtless be astonished at some of the questions that I *don't* raise
> >here, but they can raise them themselves. I apologize for the length;
> >I assume that if Tony responds to this, he will do so in sections.
> >
> >QUESTION ONE: VESTIGIAL ORGANS.
> >Tony has recently argued against the existence of vestigial structuers
> >on the grounds that:
> >[a] such organs are identified by finding structures without obvious
> >functions which are homologous with structures in other species which
> >have obvious functions.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Darwin argued that Lamarckian disuse was the principle cause of
> vestigial structures. NeoDarwinians, as near as I can determine, have
> not filled the void they created by sweeping away Lamarckism. That
> is, they have not presented a detailed explanation of why vestiges or
> rudiments would "arise" and how they would be preserved if they did.
>
apparently vestigial organs, like the human appendix, are extremely
variable, and explains this by noting that if an organ is "disused,"
then natural selection can no longer limit the variation on it.
Darwin, at times, attributed the appearance of new variation in a
population to "Lamarckian" inheritance of acquired characteristics,
which the neoDarwinians rejected, and which the modern synthesis
replaces with mutations.
But Darwin's original point about "disuse" remains. If a species has
a structure, but doesn't use it for anything, then alleles won't be
favored by the environment if they make it work better (since how can
you work better at doing nothing?), nor disfavored if they reduce or
degrade it. Aside from the fact that most new random variation
(mutations) will tend to "wear down" rather than "build up" a
structure anyway, mutations that reduce unused structures will make it
better at "doing nothing," and free up the resources used to build
those structures for functional structures.
>
> >[b] this commits two fallacies: assuming that the structures "ought"
> >to have the same functions as their homologues, and that a structure
> >has no function simply because no function has yet been identified.
>
> Pagano replies:
> The history of science speaks for itself. In 1925 the secular
> scientists were postive that the human body contained no fewer than
> 180 vestiges. That number has been at or near zero since the 1980s.
> This means that the generalization using homologous structures to
> justify the vestigial characterization is a bad one and shouldn't be
> used in this case. In other words by the 1980s not only did we know
> that the similarity argument was fallacious but we knew it to be
> false.
>
You have cited an allusion to (not a list of), in the Scopes trial
record, 180 vestigial structures in the human body. You have claimed,
on the basis of no obvious evidence, that most of these unidentified
structures are now known to have functions. I don't know why I should
accept your unsupported assertion on this matter. Vague conjectures
that because muscles happen to store glycogen, that this is the
"function" for the body of, say, the muscles that move the human ear,
or the plantaris muscle that, in apes, clenches the toes but in humans
doesn't attach to them, aren't evidence that this is the actual
function of these reduced structures.
Indeed, if you eliminate fanciful speculations about what structures
*might* help to do, I'm not sure any of these structures have been
demonstrated to do anything signficant. And no one in 1925 knew about
pseudogenes (which creatinists also like to speculate might do
something -- might even produce proteins, despite all the evidence),
which seem like the ultimate in nonfunctional vestiges of functional
antecedants.
>
> Modern scientists also presume a structure is "vestigial" if it has no
> know function. This turns the label "vestigial" into a place-holder
> for ignorance not a corroboration of neoDarwinism.
>
No, you had it right before -- "vestigial" refers to a structure that
is homologous to structures with known and obvious functions, which
obviously doesn't have those functions. E.g., whatever the m-position
teeth in vampire bats do, it isn't the sort of thing molars, or teeth
in general, in other groups of bats do -- they don't stab, slice,
crush, or grind. This is not an argument from ignorance; it is an
argument from knowledge. It is known what the homologs do, and it is
known that the vampire "molars" don't do it.
Note again that one of Darwin's arguments for common descent with
modification, rather than special creation using common design, was
the use of similar structures for dissimilar purposes, and dissimilar
structures for similar purposes. Vestigial organs are simply an
extreme case of this general point. Thus the *wings* of the vampire
bat share a common function with, but do not share a common design
with, the wings of birds and pterosaurs, while the cheek teeth of
vampire bats share a common design with, but surely not a common
function with, the molars of other sorts of bats, even could it be
shown that they serve any function at all.
>
> >[c] in addition, a structure would only count as "vestigial" if it
> >could be shown to have been reduced by "neoDarwinian" rather than
> >"Mendellian" processes (these terms not being clearly defined).
>
> Pagano replies:
> If we're talking about a scientific claim that the neoDarwinian
> mechanism is the process that "created" a particular structure then we
> need to see some physical evidence that excludes other logical
> possibilities. It seems that in many (perhaps all) cases that the
> theory is justifying the vestigial characterization rather than the
> purported structure standing as a corroboration of the neoDarwinian
> framework.
>
To say that a structure is vestigial is merely to explain its reduced
structure and functionality as the result of modification of an
(unused) functional ancestral structure. Such structures are evidence
of common descent, rather than of a specific mechanism, and are not
offered as evidence of what you call the "neoDarwinian mechanism."
The "neoDarwinian framework" explains how such structures can come
into existence, but the framework is not necessary to recognize them,
or even to recognize them as vestigial.
>
> >[d] since the modern synthesis ("neoDarwinism") rejects Lamarkian
> >mechanisms, it implies that "disuse" should not lead a functional
> >structure to become vestigial, and thus on neoDarwinian grounds
> >vestigial structures should not exist.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Not exactly. The neoDarwinians rejected Lamarckism because they
> believed they had falsified it. As a result this falsified Darwin's
> hypothesized cause of rudimentary structures. This alone does not
> deductively lead to the conclusion that vestigial structures should
> not exist.
>
Point noted. Your argument (which is wrong) is that the modern
synthesis does not predict such features, not that it prohibits them.
However, you seem not really understand either Darwin's original
theory or the modern sythesis.
>
> But if Darwin was wrong about disuse, what is the cause? The
> neoDarwinian mechanism alone does not entail their existence. It does
> entail the existence of nascent structures (Darwin agreed with this)
> but these haven't been found either.
>
As organisms move into new niches, old structures will either be
pressed into new uses, or become unused. In the former case, natural
selection will favor changes that adapt the old structures to new uses
(that is, they become "nascent" structures). Examples are the wing of
_Archaeopteryx_, with its avian plumage over a lengthened but
otherwise typical theropod arm, or the flattened but not finned tail
of the marine iguanas of the Galapagoes.
In the latter case, either natural selection will let any changes have
the same chances as any other, or favor changes that reduce the energy
and resource costs of the disused part (by shrinking and simplifying
it). Since most mutations will tend to degrade a complex structure,
the lack of selection, all by itself, will tend to wear down unused
structures (e.g. a random change to an eye is more likely to blind it
than make it see better; only the early death of most such mutants in
populations that need vision prevent all species from going blind.).
>
> >[e] creationism does not expect the Creator to produce creatures with
> >nonfunctional structures, and thus on creationist grounds also
> >vestigial structures should not exist.
>
> Pagano replies:
> I don't know whether this is entirely true. The creationist model
> does incorporates information theory which is an application of the
> second law. Perhaps this could explain them if anyone produced a bona
> fide and unambiguous example of a vestige.
>
Information theory is not an application of the second law of
thermodynamics; "entropy" in Shannon information theory is a different
concept from entropy in thermodynamics. Nor does the creation model
incorporate information theory, so much as allude to it, and plaster
its terms over arguments having nothing to do with information theory
_strictu sensu_.
I'm not sure how one would satisfy, even in principle, your conditions
for a "bona fide and unambiguous example of a vestige." If you can
suspect that vampire cheek teeth (which some vampire bats have none
of, and others have several of) might have some function, what
*couldn't* you suspect of having a function? If a structure truly had
no function at all, how would one ever be sure of it (since simply
noting that it has no discernable function, and clearly lacks the
functions of its homologs, is evidently insufficient).
>
> In any event until I see good reason to believe otherwise I suspect
> that some function will be found for all structures given sufficient
> time and study.
>
The "argument from ignorance" is the argument that if your opponent
can't prove you wrong, you are right. That is precisely the position
you are taking here -- you cannot find any function for vampire
molars, or cave fish eyes, but maintain that there must be one until
your opponents have disproved every possible function for them.
>
> >My own position on these positions is given in my earlier responses to
> >Tony (and ably augmented by Dunford's, Stockwell's, Groves, etc.
> >responses as well).
>
> Pagano replies:
> Dunford implied that homology leads deductively and conclusively to
> the vestigial characterization. Unfortunately for Dunford we
> discovered that this sort of generalization with regard to purported
> human vestiges was completely wrong. Why would it be expected to hold
> in the rest of the animal kingdom?
>
That was not the conclusion I drew from his post and your response.
>
> >The URL below is a YEC attempt (and AiG document, although I found it
> >searching on the ICR website) to deal with the question of vestigial
> >organs. To some extent, it takes the same approach that Tony does,
> >arguing that we can never know for certain that a structure is truly
> >functionless
>
> Pagano replies:
> So far this is exactly what the history of science has taught us.
> Secular science was positive in 1925 that the human body contained no
> less than 180 vestiges. By the 1980s that number was at or near zero.
>
You keep saying this, but you offer no evidence, no references, not
even a list of structures whose formerly unknown functions are now
known. I would guess that, with pseudogenes, the number is probably
higher now than then.
>
> If we generalize this history lesson it should form a rational basis
> for action. That is, we should refrain from presuming a structure is
> vestigial simply because its function is not known. Making such a
> presumption is therefore an argument from ignorance.
>
Again, that is not why we assume a structure is vestigial. They are
assumed to be vestigial because they observably and obviously lack
some or all of the known functions of their nearest homologs (and
haven't picked up any obvious new functions). Again, the appeal to
merely possible undiscovered functions is hte true argument from
ignorance. It is also irrelevant, since even if the structure has a
function, evolution explains, but special creation does not, why that
function is so different from that of structures sharing "common
design" with the "vestigial" structure.
>
> >(it dismisses the idea of *reduced* functionality).
>
> Pagano replies:
> How much of a "reduction" constitutes "reduced functionality?" And
> how do we test the claim that the "reduction" was neoDarwinian? And
> what caused the "reduction?" We need a testable explanation
> otherwise this isn't science but story telling.
>
Well, eyes (in cave fish) that don't sense light at all certainly have
reduced functionality. Wings of flightless birds surely have less
functionality than the wings of flying birds. And the cheek teeth of
vampire bats seem to have extremely reduced functionality, given that
such bats don't chew. The teeth of fetal baleen whales don't develop
into functional teeth (or any other kind of teeth) in baleen whales
that have been born, and the same goes for their hind limb buds. All
these structures seem to have severely reduced functionality.
It is not neccesary to establish that the explanation is
"neoDarwinian." The claim of vestigiality is a claim about
modification of functional ancestral structures; it says nothing about
the mechanism of such modification except that it must work by
incremental modification of existing structures. It happens that
mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift are the only
demonstrated mechanisms for doing this, but vestigial organs would
still stand as evidence of common descent if some other mechanism
could be demonstrated.
>
> >The
> >authors, however, seem not to care, any more than any evolutionist
> >does, whether the reduction of the structures takes place by
> >"neoDarwinian" means,
>
> Pagano replies:
> Evolutionists beginning with Darwin saw vestigial structures as one of
> the best evidences of neoDarwinian evolution. If so, how can he NOT
> care. If neoDarwinism isn't the cause then apparent vestiges are not
> corroborations of it.
>
You fail to distinguish between descent with modification (which
Darwin deduced shortly after his return from South America), and the
mechanisms for it (which Darwin worked out a couple of years later,
and which have been continuously researched and revised since then).
The apparent vestiges are corroborations of common descent, regardless
of mechanism.
>
> >since they manage to accomodate some vestigial
> >structures as "loss of information" accompaniing evolution within
> >"kinds."
>
> Pagano replies:
> If the loss of genetic information alone can explain the existence of
> apparent vestiges then they do not corroborate neoDarwinism.
>
Aside from the fact that corroboration of the mechanism is irrelevant
to the point at hand, "loss of genetic information" is a result of a
mechanism, not a mechanism itself. It is a creationist claim that
most mutations, and virtually all beneficial mutations, result in
"loss of information." Now, either "information" means something like
"complexity and functionality," and the loss takes place by purely
"neoDarwinian" means, or "information" is a measure of the total
variety of alleles -- and their reduction is, again, a Darwinian
processs.
>
> > It considers certain legless species of lizards, but I'm
> >sure the argument could accomodate eyeless cave fish, and perhaps even
> >vampire bat molars. The authors specifically refuse to allow that the
> >teeth of embryonic baleen whales are vestigial (since that would imply
> >that, in evolving from some sort of toothed whales, they had not only
> >"lost information" -- the teeth -- but "gained information" -- the
> >baleen).
>
> Pagano replies:
> But they offer a non neoDarwinian mechanism. If true then the
> existence of these apparent vestiges is not corroborative of
> neoDarwinism. Furthermore the mere existence of an apparent
> functionless or reduced function structure is not prohibited by the
> creation model.
>
Actually, they offer no mechanism at all. They implicity accept the
mechanisms of mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift, but try
to limit the amount of change they can produce to within the
boundaries of "created kinds." Within kinds, such structures reamin
evidence of common descent (that is, blind cave fish and seeing
species of the same genus outside of caves share a common ancestor,
which had functional eyes). Presumably, they would concede that
vampire bats "lost information" to become bloodsuckers rather than
insect eaters, but share a common ancestor with other bats in their
family.
I recall arguing, at one time, that the creation model allowed not
only vestigial organs (within "kinds," of course), but also punitive
organs put in place after the Fall as part of the Curse, and even
(following Phillip Johnsons' suggestion that the peacock's tail was an
expression of the Designer's "caprice") the existence of purely
artistic, nonfunctional organs. You didn't seem to like this idea,
but it's perfectly consistent (but then, what isn't?) with the
premises of creationism.
What distinguishes the nonfunctional or reduced-functional structures
expected on evolutionary grounds is the existence of homologous
structures with obvious functions in otherwise similar species. And,
again, this is part of the general pattern of "dissimilar structures
serving similar purposes, and similar structures serving dissimilar
purposes" that evolution predicts, given a pattern of opportunistic
and _ad hoc_ modifications of existing species for new functions in
new environments.
>
> ><http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/446.asp>
>
> >
> >So my question to Tony is, given that he apparenlty accepts the idea
> >of evolution within originally created kinds, is he sure that the
> >"creation model" does not imply the existence of vestigial organs?
>
> Pagano replies:
> As far as I know the creationist model does not prohibit apparent
> vestiges.
>
Yes, but is that because the Designer likes to incorporate really
obscure functions into parts that look as though they should do
something else, and more obvious, or is it because some apparent
vestiges are *real* vestiges? The former is simply adherence to your
earlier argument from ignorance. The latter is an acknowledgement
that vestigial organs exist, and imply common descent. And that, of
course, raises the question of how one would tell true from merely
"apparent" vestiges (by exegeting the bible, and finding out whether
the creation "model" allowed them to be really vestigial, of course,
rather than by examining the organisms themselves).
>
> And even if the creation model did specifically entail vestiges (which
> I doubt) those vestiges wouldn't be the result of the neoDarwinian
> mechanism because the neoDarwinian mechanism is not part of the model.
> In other words if apparent vestiges were entailed by the creation
> model and its mechanism were true then those vestiges would NOT
> corroborate neoDarwinism.
>
False. "Loss of information," to the extent the phrase even means
anything, is the *result* of a mechanism, and the mechanisms subsumed
by the modern synthesis are the only ones in the running. And the
precise mechanism is irrelevant to the explanation of rudimentary
structures as vestiges of functional (common) ancestral structures.
>
> >Talk.origins once had a poster, Scott@home, with the annoying habit of
> >trying to lay hidden traps with his questions. Far be it from me to
> >do the same; I will lay my traps out in the open. If you answer, to
> >the above question, that your original position remains unchanged, I
> >will excoriate you for your obstinance and refusal to yield even to
> >logic that its apparent to "credentialed creation scientists." But if
> >you answer that you agree with the authors, I will ask you to tell us
> >how to distinguish between "really functionless vestiges" within
> >"kinds," and "merely unknown functions" in homologies between
> >different "kinds."
>
>
> Pagano replies:
> Quite honestly what the creationist model entails or doesn't entail
> concerning apparent vestiges is irrelevent to the issues at hand. The
> creationist model is not science according to modern secular science;
> it is considered silly superstitious nonsense. This makes it
> irrelevent.
>
In other words, you claim that you want science to examine the
evidence for your "model," but don't feel obliged to talk about your
model, or what predictions it makes, or what evidence would support
it. Personally, I think this is simple personal obstinance on your
part; it isn't necessary to defend whatever remains of the "creation
model." You simply feel that, if you happen to be wrong, you should
never back down as long as you can obfuscate, bloviate, and
pontificate.
>
> The issues for the reigning, pet, secular, theory and its adherents
> are these:
>
Ah, yes. The "pet" theory. The one that was accepted, and modified,
on the basis of evidence, rather than accepted by people who swear an
oath that the evidence will support the theory before they actually
look at the evidence.
>
> (1) Are there any genuine examples (as opposed to merely apparent
> ones or presumptive characterizations from ignorance) of a vestigial
> structure?
>
Yes. Of course, you can always shift the burden of proof, move the
goalposts, redefine words to suit your fancy, and invoke the mere hope
that a function will be found as evidence, so I don't suppose I will
convince you. But [a] you haven't even given a hint of a possible
function for vampire bat cheek teeth, and [b] it's pretty obvious they
don't serve the same functions as cheek teeth in allied groups of
bats.
>
> (2) Is there any physical evidence that those vestiges were the
> result of the neoDarwinian mechanism?
>
Irrelevant. The vestiges are offered as evidence of common descent;
they are explicable in terms of mutation and natural selection, and
other mechanisms are not known which might explain them (I've never
figured out what you imagine a "neoMendellian mechanism" might be).
>
> (3) Does neoDarwinism predict vestiges and if so what is the
> explanation?
>
Yes. The explanation is given above.
>
> (4) What is the cause if Lamarckian disuse has been falsified?
>
"Disuse" in the Darwinian sense is not a Lamarckian mechanism. This
is explained above.
>
> Regards,
> T Pagano
-- Steven J.
Steven J.
> >QUESTION TWO: OBSERVED EVENTS IN HISTORY
> >
> >In his posts on the Marian appearances at Fatima, Tony has stressed
> >such points as the large number of witnesses (70,000, IIRC), and the
> >fact that many were not Catholics. He has stated that the three
> >children adhered to their story even under threats. I am not
> >interested, here, in critiquing Tony's acccounts of the Fatima
> >incident, or in what exactly happened there.
> >
> >Rather, note that, as Elmer Bataitis has argued, these are
> >*naturalistic* arguments. They implicitly assume that the world
> >operates according to discoverable and consistent rules, in a uniform
> >manner.
>
> Pagano replies:
> No, this is what secularists assume. Secularists assume some
> UNIVERSAL law of uniformity which Hume and Popper both showed was
> false and misquided. I only assume that there could be some
> regularities in nature. And finally supernatural action is
> independent of the hypothesized regularities. They neither suspend
> them nor violate them. This collapses Bataitis's postion.
>
that uniformity is valid. Nonetheless, he and everyone else assumed
that, in fact, uniformity of natural law holds. I suspect you imagine
that the invalidity of induction, represents some argument for the
possibility of the supernatural. I would say, rather, that the whole
concept of supernatural events implies the uniformity of natural law.
To raise the dead is hardly an impressive sign from God, if we don't
infer from repeated examples that dead people ordinarily don't get
better. Turning water into wine is just one more event, without a
background assumption of the constancy of material nature. And, of
course, noting that either of these events has ever happened assumes
that our sense and minds, and light and sound and the rest of nature,
function as we are accustomed to having them function. There is no
value to your case in this harping on the invalidity of induction.
What I insist on is actual evidence for the existence of the events
included in the "creation model." My point in this post is that, with
Fatima, you are arguing that evidence means something, and that it's
not all a matter of interpretation. You are quite derisive of rival
interpretations of the evidence as you describe it. It seems to me,
therefore, that you should be willing to offer actual evidence for the
creation model, rather than simply fall back on the "creation science"
vs. "evolution science" interpretations of the same facts.
>
> The event at Fatima is then a problem for Bataitis and his secular
> brethren not I. This event would question the uniform law of gravity
> and motion as described by Newton and Einstein if one were an atheist,
> agnostic or secularist. This would require the atheist, the agnostic
> and the secularist to produce a testable purely naturalistic
> explanation of this deviation. Stockwell offered the mass optical
> illusion theory which was offered long ago and was discounted long
> ago. And it certainly has not been tested. Wonder why, given the
> magnitude of the number of witnesses.
>
I believe I said I was not interested in discussing Fatima
specifically. This is talk.origins, not talk.marian-apparitions. I
was raised an evangelical Protestant, a nonbeliever in Marian
apparitions (or in her status as the Queen of Heaven, etc.). Please
understand; I have always accepted Catholics as Christians, but even
my inner supernaturalist sees no reason to credit Fatima to
supernatural causes (unless you count demonic deceptions). I had
hoped, really, to avoid all that; I have no wish to offend the
Catholics on this newsgroup.
Note that, even if 70,000 people saw the sun move in the sky (and as
John Stockwell notes, the actual number of witnesses providing reports
is much smaller), roughly a billion people in the Eastern hemisphere
*didn't* see this, which would be quite inexplicable if the sun had
actually altered its position relative to the Earth. The phenomenon
was local rather than cosmic.
Why do you imagine that ideomotor responses (the tendency of the mind
to confuse the motions of the eye with those of the bright, isolated
object being stared at) are not a testable (and confirmed) phenomenon?
No doubt those determined to regard the events at Fatima as a "cosmic
phenomenon" will "discount" this, but that is hardly evidence against
the idea.
>
> Furthermore the three illiterate children under age 11 predicted the
> event 90 days in advance to the hour. That accuracy defies
> naturalistic explanation.
>
I will defer to Stockwell's explanation here. Although I will note
that the only reason large numbers of people were gathered there
staring at the sun at that hour and day was because of the prophecy --
surely you have heard of "self-fulfilling prophecies?"
>
> > If you don't assume this, you might as well conclude that
> >70,000 independent witnesses are likely to agree on a single fantasy
> >as to accurately report an actual event.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Unfortunately for your argument 70, 000 people showed up on October
> 17, 1917 because the three illiterate farm children under the age of
> 11 predicted an observable miracle 90 days prior to this date to the
> hour. This was a bold prediction that was testable. The atheists and
> enemies of the church turned out in droves to ridicule the children
> safe in their belief that no such deviation from expectation and
> natural law could occur. But they were wrong.
>
You seem to miss my point, preferring to address a different one. It
is *your* argument that "uniformitarian" arguments invoking cause and
effect ("if-so arguments") are invalid, and therefore useless. I
merely note that if you really believed this, you wouldn't assume that
either multiple witnesses or bold testable predictions (and aren't you
the one who holds that confirmations are useless to establish the
"truthlikeness" of a claim?) show anything about what happened at
Fatima.
>
> There was no agreed upon fantasy. A bold prediction 90 days in
> advance to the hour which was ridiculed by a significant number of nay
> sayers including christians. The fantasy argument collapses.
>
It collapses, *if* you invoke uniformitarian arguments about how human
thought and perception work. I would hope that your reading skills
would be sufficient that you would realize that I am NOT presenting
this "fantasy argument." I recognize its absurdity; I merely note
that it is only SEEN to be absurd if you abandon your assumption that
evidence only means something if you want to believe it does.
>
> > You might as well conclude
> >that threats on the childrens' lives increased the likelihood of the
> >behavior for which they were threatened.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Of course this is absurd. No one claimed that generalizations are not
> a valuable basis for action. It is often when we make an observation
> that deviates from expectations that a revolution in science occurs.
> This was the case with Einstein.
>
Observations that differ from expectations provoke revolutions in
science, only to the extent that they are repeatable -- in short, even
revolutions in science depend on the idea that the rules, whether we
understand them yet or not, operate in regular, consistent, and
discoverable ways.
>
> Why did the three small children refuse to recant under threat of a
> violent painful death. The authorities took each child out of a room
> one at a time. When the guard returned for the next child they
> believed that their friend had been executed. They still did not
> recant. This is remarkable. This is why the agnostic Mark Twain
> found St Joan of Arc so unusual.
>
I thought that Mark Twain died before the incident at Fatima (and that
Fatima had nothing much to do with Joan of Arc).
Assuming what you say is true, the children evidently strongly
believed their story. But that is a fact about their beliefs, not
about the grounds for their beliefs. And, furthermore, my point is
that their beliefs, which cannot be directly observed, can be inferred
from their actions. The general point I'm trying to support is that
one can in fact draw accurate inferences about unique, unobserved
events by evaluating surviving empirical evidence.
>
> >Note also that by raising these defenses, Tony implicitly concedes a
> >point I have made: that eyewitness reports do not create an epistemic
> >distinction between "observed events in history," and "unique
> >unobserved events in prehistory."
>
> Pagano replies:
> Since there are no "eyewitness reports" for "unique UNobserved events
> in prehistory" this is absurd nonsense.
>
No, it is not. By an "epistemic" difference, I meant a difference in
our ability to find out about an event (I suppose I just should have
said it that way the first time). You can't peer into the children's
minds -- their private thoughts and beliefs are "unique, unobserved
events" -- and as far as private thoughts go, everything before your
own birth might as well be "prehistory." All you can do is
reconstruct their thoughts from their "empirical consequences" in the
observable world.
Indeed, this is the case for ALL the reports of Fatima -- to conclude
that they are not pure fiction or fantasy, one must make inferences
about matters one cannot observed directly. This is not different in
principle from the same sort of inference, based on indirect evidence,
of the Big Bang, or common descent.
>
> >To gain knowledge from eyewitness
> >testimony, one is forced to try to reconstruct a "unique unobserved
> >event" -- the eyewitnesses state of mind.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Steven J must not be getting much sleep. This is absurd also.
>
> In the case of the miracle of the sun on October 17, 1917 the
> eyewitness testimony concerned a UNIQUE and OBservable event. Over
> 50, 000 people saw it happen including atheists and christians who
> doubted that it would.
>
You have the reports (although hardly 50,000 of them). So what? We
both agree that some accounts of events are erroneous in some respect.
What prevents several dozen (or several thousand) reports from all
being erroneous, even in the same particulars? You are the one who
has repeatedly told me that no number of corroborations is sufficient
to establish the truthlikeness of a hypothesis.
The hypothesis in this case is that the sun moved in the sky, at the
predicted time. Even if you had 50,000 independent eyewitness
accounts, that is merely a number of corroborations; on your own
grounds, I have no reason to accept your hypothesis about Fatima. On
your own grounds, I have no reason to accept the (uniformitarian)
assumption that people's minds worked in 1913 as they worked today,
and that reports that would be reliable, given today, should be seen
as reliable, given then.
Of course, I don't accept your epistomological principles. But there
are not better reasons to accept that the witnesses at Fatima spoke
truly, than there are to accept that the geological record speaks
truly of an ancient Earth, and faunal succession, and no global flood.
>
> Taken to its absurd conclusion this bit of nonsense would collapse all
> observational science.
>
Uh, Tony, that is the point I'm trying to argue to you.
>
> > One must take into account
> >the facts that alleged witnesses can lie (even about being witnesses),
> >or be mistaken, or be misunderstood.
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is laughable. The children made a bold prediction 90 days in
> advance to the hour. 50,000 people came to test the bold prediction.
> There were simply too many witnesses for this claim to stand.
>
But that is a tacit admission that a single witness need not be
accepted if his testimony is unlikely. But you don't *have* 50,000
eyewitnesses to a global flood (well, let's face it; you don't have
50,000 eyewitnesses to Fatima; you have a few eyewitnesses who say
there were 50,000 eyewitnesses, whose testimony you don't have). And
it is a tacit admission of my point -- it is not enough to have the
testimony of an eyewitness; we must have evidence that lets us
reconstruct what was on his mind (e.g. an actual observation, which
others could share, rather than a vagrant fantasy that others
couldn't). And, again, the point is simply that whether we're
studying fossils and radioisotopes, or witness accounts of Fatima, we
are trying to infer what caused the evidence -- and in both cases we
either rely on the assumption that known effects result from known
causes, or we abandon the idea that evidence means anything at all.
>
> >Tony has attempted to do
> >precisely these things with regard to the witnesses at Fatima. And to
> >do this, he seemingly relied on the same sort of "naturalistic" and
> >"uniformitarian" assumptions one uses to interpret the evidence of
> >unobserved events in prehistory.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Nonsense. This was an OBservable event NOTan unobservable one. It
> was predicted in advance to be unique and the result of supernatural
> action. There is no comparison between this OBservable event and the
> secular assumption of the universal law of uniformity and its
> application to UNobservables.
>
Really? I've never observed any event at Fatima; have you? Has
anyone you actually known observed the event in 1913? I see nothing
but *reports* of observations, and we all know that *reports* of
observations can be false. Without concluding (in a deductively
invalid manner, of course) that human nature (e.g. multiple
independent witnesses with different and rival agenda don't
collaborate on an elaborate deception), we have no way to distinguish
between their reports and an elaborate and deliberate fraud -- and
that is taking your account of the reports at face value.
The assumption of uniformity is not more reasonable applied to humans
in 1913 than to uranium atoms in one billion BC (maybe less so --
humans are complicated, and the way they think strongly subject to
complex cultural influences). You simply want to be arbitrary, and
assume uniformity when it lets the evidence support your beliefs, and
deny it when it makes the evidence contradict them. This is not
honest or consistent.
>
> The fact that the miracle occurred in accordance with a bold
> prediction, violated all expectations (based upon rational
> generalizations) and seemingly violated well established gravitational
> laws which back up those generalizations demands a testable purely
> naturalistic explanation. But there is none. And atheists have
> stopped trying in the hopes that people will forget. But they
> haven't.
>
Again, the prediction *caused* people to be present and observing at
the predicted time; it quite probably caused the observation (along
with well-knonw physiological and psychological phenomena associated
with the ideomotor response). This *is* a testable and tested
prediction, notwithstanding the lack of experiments with 70,000 test
and control subjects. And quite a number of theists -- quite a number
of Christian creationists -- reject Fatima as either an illusion
(aside from those that reject it as a work of the devil).
>
> Steven J will never understand because he cannot distinquish the
> difference between generalization and theory.
>
I rather thought I *did* understand them; this idea that your
opponents think that theories are arrived at purely by observation and
induction is surely your favorite straw man (albeit a very stupid and
dishonest one). If I don't understand the difference, I doubt that
attention to your turgid and evasive lucubrations will enlighten me
(or any "confused Christians" lurking about).
I will never understand this, because you apply radically inconsistent
standards for evaluating the evidence, depending on whether it
supports or contradicts your dogma (which, oddly, does not entirely
coincide with that of the Catholic Church, which certainly has no
problem with an old earth or a Big Bang, and very little with
evolution).
>
> >So my second question for Tony is, what is your response to this
> >point? Do you actually see any defensible differences between the
> >investigation of unobserved events in historical times, unobserved
> >events in prehistory, and (allegedly) witnessed events in history?
> >What are these differences?
>
> Pagano replies:
> Since the miracle at Fatima was OBserved by over 50,000 witnesses I
> haven't clue what Steven J is talking about. In any event I disposed
> of most of his above premises leading to the question so it doesn't
> matter much anyway.
>
You need to establish that the witnesses aren't all telling the same
lie, or making the same mistake, or being misunderstood in the same
way. And the only way to do that is to interpret their reports in
light of the assumption that human nature operates consistently and
understandably. This is not a different sort of assumption than the
assumption that nature in general operates consistently and
understandably.
>
> A final note: Again, I should point out to Steven J that it has often
> been the deviation from expectation that has been the impetus for
> scientific revolution. It was in Einstein's case.
>
You made that point already (although I suspect you couldn't give the
details of the unexpected observations that inspired Einstein).
Again, unexpected observations still are meaningful only on the
assumption of uniformity -- that the observational apparatus worked as
it had in other cases, and that the unexpected observation implies a
new, consistent regularity of nature.
>
> Regards,.
Steven J.
> >QUESTION THREE: DISTINGUISHABLE EMPIRICAL CONSEQUENCES
> >
> >Note that neither Cummings nor Stockwell, nor anyone else, has tried
> >to argue that nothing unusual or noteworthy whatsoever happened at
> >Fatima in 1917.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Have no idea what Cummings wrote. However, Stockwell did recently
> argue, in effect, that nothing unusual or noteworthy happened at
> Fatima. Stockwell attempted (rather weakly) to debunk the events of
> Oct 17, 1917. Perhaps some quotes from Stockwell would be in order to
> correct the record for Steven J:
>
particularly outside the known laws of physics happened in October
1917 at Fatima (and "weak" is merely your personal standard label for
any argument you don't like and can't refute). My point is that no
one denies that a large number of people gathered and observed
*something*. Something occurred (even if entirely naturalistic) that
wasn't an everyday event in early-20th-century Portugal. One can't
explain the evidence with "everyone just went about their everyday
business, and there's no reason to suppose anybody looked for or saw
anything odd in the sky."
>
>
> >The evidence demands *some* sort of explanation
> >beyond "just the usual things we would expect were going on."
>
>
> Pagano replies:
> How 'bout we shoot for finding the objectively true explanation?
>
> >However, either would take a rather different view of either the
> >geological record (which, to be sure, contains relics of catastrophes,
> >but not, in the view of mainstream geology, any trace of a global
> >flood), or of the history of the last 10,000 years.
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is not necessarily true. The secular scientist interprets the
> evidence in the light of the explanatory theory currently hailed as
> best available. The available evidence never uniquely determines the
> one true theory. Remember that the secular uniformitarian model
> hypothesizes that calm, global-like floods occurred over eons. So
> some subset of the evidence (perhaps a great deal of it) will
> corroborate both models.
>
know *anything* about mainstream theories in geology? For that
matter, do you know anything about flood "geology?"
The "secular scientist" (and remember that the originators of
mainstream, old-earth geology were creationists, who reluctantly
abandoned first the idea of a young Earth and a single global
catastrophe, and later the idea of any global flood) assumes that the
current theories about the effects expected from various physical
causes are the best guide to interpreting the evidence. It is not a
matter of assuming the Earth is old, and that a global flood never
occurred. Indeed, modern geology started with the opposite
assumptions.
It is a matter of assuming that floods don't, in fact, sort rocks by
the levels of various radioisotopes in them, or similarly-sized and
shaped species phylogenically. It is a matter of assuming that sudden
changes in the heights of mountains and the depths of oceans would
leave vast, detectable traces we don't see (as would the sudden
run-off of a couple of miles worth of floodwater into the newly-formed
sea basins). It is a matter of assuming that layers of evaporites
(forms of salt observed to be formed *only* by evaporation of
saltwater) will be deposited between layers of sediment laid by a
single episode of flooding.
And I think I've already pointed out elsewhere that you don't seem to
apply your "the evidence never uniquely determines one theory" to your
own claims about the evidence at Fatima. The inconsistency is
glaring.
>
> >The evidence
> >doesn't seem to demand any sort of "nonuniformitarian" explanation.
>
> Pagano replies:
> There is nothing particularly significant about this. The evidence
> doesn't demand a uniformitarian one either. The evidence rarely (if
> ever) uniquely determines a single kind of theory. In the parlance of
> philosophers of science the evidence always "underdetermines" every
> theory. So what now?
>
So, now you come up with some evidence for the Noachic Flood. Or,
rather, you posture, bloviate, and pontificate, and *don't* come up
with any evidence.
>
> >What "distinguishable empirical consequences" can you name that argue
> >that some sort of global hydraulic cataclysm occurred within history,
> >or even prehistory?
>
>
> Pagano replies:
> Excellent question.
>
I'm so glad you like it.
>
> One could deductively infer some bold observable
> predictions (or retrodictions) from the true statements from each
> competing model and search for those predictions. One could
> determine what empirical observations would be prohibited by each
> model and search for those prohibitions.
>
This has been done for the last couple of centuries. The idea of a
global flood was shown to contradict the evidence a century and a half
ago. The idea of the Noachic Flood *prohibits* the aforementioned
layers of evaporites between sediments. On any reasonable
understanding of prediction and evidence, it prohibits layers of
rocks, isochron-dated to millions of centuries apart, intersticed with
the supposed flood sediments. It almost surely forbids findin no
trace of human remains or artifacts underneath the lowest flood layers
(what -- did the buildings themselves, the cemetaries, the sick, lame,
and blind, all flee to the mountaintops in time?).
>
> How each model interprets the stratigraphic layers and how they are
> correlated locally and globally might be a possible distinquishing
> characteristic.
>
In short, you cannot cite any evidence for a global flood, not a
single solitary testable prediction that's actually made by your
"model," not a single fact that confirms it.
>
> I'm done.
>
I rather suspected you would be.
>
> Regards,
Steven J.
> Tony's recent postings on vestigial organs and the investigation of
> supernatural causes have suggested some questions. Other people will
> doubtless be astonished at some of the questions that I *don't* raise
> here, but they can raise them themselves. I apologize for the length;
> I assume that if Tony responds to this, he will do so in sections.
>
>
I raised three questions. Stripped of explanatory verbiage, they (and
Tony's answers to them) are:
[Q1] Given that even many young-earth creationists admit that "loss of
information" in the course of evolution within kinds may lead to
vestigial structures, will you concede that such structures can exist?
[A1] Maybe.
I'm not clear here on whether Tony is more interested in defending
creationism, or his own ego. He insists on his own definition of
"vestigial" (i.e. it must be demonstrably the result of "neoDarwinian
mechanisms" before it counts, and it must be shown to have no
function). It is not clear that anything could possibly meet this
definition, but if it could, the creation model could accomodate it.
[Q2] Tony likes to emphasize the distinction between historical
events with eyewitnesses, and "unwitnessed, unique events in
prehistory." But, given that eyewitnesses can lie (even about being
eyewitnesses), or make honest mistakes, or be misunderstood, is it not
obvious that reliance on eyewitnesses forces us to reconstruct an
"unwitnessed, unique event" -- the state of mind of the (alleged)
eyewitness? And does this not require making assumptions about the
operation of human minds and perceptions, based in inductions from the
observed behaviors of humans? Is it not clear that the knowledge we
can obtain from unique witnessed events is not in fact more certain
than that we infer from the "empirical consequences" of unique
unwitnessed events?
[A2] No.
Tony will not concede that the rules of evidence he applies to other
sorts of evidence applies to eyewitness accounts, or, in general, that
the rules he applies to evidence that supports his views ought to
apply to the evidence that contradicts it, and vice versa.
[Q3] Do you have any empirical evidence that actually supports the
Noachic Flood, or any aspect of the creation model.
[A3] Such evidence could exist, but Tony doesn't have any.
All in all, I would consider question three to be satisfactorily
answered, and posters who take part in discussions with Tony should
mark it well. Question one seems to me to be less satisfactorily
addressed; Tony has worked very hard to avoid committing himself here
to any position which could be attacked with evidence. I can't quite
decide whether Tony misunderstood question two, or whether he
understood it, and decided to avoid dealing with it.
-- Steven J.
R. Baldwin
news:127ccf2e.02112...@posting.google.com...
Good summary.
Andy Groves
<snip>
> Modern scientists also presume a structure is "vestigial" if it has no
> know function. This turns the label "vestigial" into a place-holder
> for ignorance not a corroboration of neoDarwinism.
Not true. Can you give me an example. I would guess that most modern
biologists would be quite happy with a biological definition of
"Vestige" as set out in the dictionary:
"a bodily part or organ that is small and degenerate or imperfectly
developed in comparison to one more fully developed in an earlier
stage of the individual, in a past generation, or in closely related
forms"
<snip>
> The issues for the reigning, pet, secular, theory and its adherents
> are these:
>
> (1) Are there any genuine examples (as opposed to merely apparent
> ones or presumptive characterizations from ignorance) of a vestigial
> structure?
Clearly yes. I have e-mailed you (twice) a review article on eyeless
cavefish. If you claim that the eyes of these fish are not vestigial,
please explain why.
> (2) Is there any physical evidence that those vestiges were the
> result of the neoDarwinian mechanism?
What a slippery question! What evidence would you expect to see?
> (3) Does neoDarwinism predict vestiges and if so what is the
> explanation?
Indeed. Darwin predicted such structures. There are two broad
explanations:
- Neutral evolution: Cavefish living underground do not require highly
developed visual organs (note that other senosry organs of
cave-dwelling fish have become enhanced). Thus, mutations that cause
the degeneration of eyes are not selected against.
- Positive selection: The energetic advantage to not having eyes
outweighs the advantages of retaining them in a cave.
> (4) What is the cause if Lamarckian disuse has been falsified?
Lamarckian disuse has not been falsified. It has been shown to be
extremely unlikely. Ted Steele, IIRC, has proposed a Lamarckian-type
mechanism for evolution in the immune system, although this is highly
controversial. For details, Google on
lamarck immune system steele
Andy
David Sienkiewicz
> >QUESTION THREE: DISTINGUISHABLE EMPIRICAL CONSEQUENCES
> >
> >Note that neither Cummings nor Stockwell, nor anyone else, has tried
> >to argue that nothing unusual or noteworthy whatsoever happened at
> >Fatima in 1917.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Have no idea what Cummings wrote.
< snip >
That's not true, Tony.
AFTER telling us that you did not read nor had any intention of
reading Joe's criticisms of the Fatima incident, you identified a
couple of short but accurate points that Joe had made. You did that
in this message:
(Make a Shorter Link: http://makeashorterlink.com/?P3ED11B82)
This is what you wrote:
"What did Cummings write that I or anyone should take notice of?
Should I take notice of the drivel about the Portugese Army
hypothesis?; the hype about Fatima; the skepticism about the exact
number of witnesses; or the nonsense about 50,000 people all falling
victim to the same optical illusion?"
How could you know that Cummings's comments contain these points of
"drivel" if you hadn't read them? As you noted in the very message in
which this diatribe is contained, I had not quoted any portion of
Joe's messages. I only referred you to links.
Tony, it's one thing for you to get arguments confused and another
thing to pontificate endlessly on subjects about which you are clearly
ignorant and, as you say, "unteachable."
It's whole 'nuther thing to lie to us.
I think we have seen enough times lately that you are not being honest
with us when you claim - as you have many times - that you don't read
responses to you and that you don't pay that much attention to the
newsgroup.
This may fool the few sycophants that I'm sure exist - probably in
fewer numbers than you would claim - and that "support" you in email.
But I'll lay odds that it's pretty obvious to the rest of us.
If you're going to be so dishonest with us, Tony, at least TRY not to
be so obvious about it.
David Sienkiewicz
> >
> >Note that neither Cummings nor Stockwell, nor anyone else, has tried
> >to argue that nothing unusual or noteworthy whatsoever happened at
> >Fatima in 1917.
>
> Pagano replies:
> Have no idea what Cummings wrote. However, Stockwell did recently
> argue, in effect, that nothing unusual or noteworthy happened at
> Fatima. Stockwell attempted (rather weakly) to debunk the events of
> Oct 17, 1917. Perhaps some quotes from Stockwell would be in order to
> correct the record for Steven J:
>
> STOCKWELL QUOTE ONE: "I do think that the Fatima sightings have been
> greatly hyped. We read estimates of 50,000 to 70,000 as the number of
> alleged eyewitnesses. However, one has to ask, how did they get the
> count? It's not like there was anybody selling tickets, and keeping a
> head count."
And what, exactly, did you provide as evidence that John was wrong or
that his arguments along these lines were "weak?"
> STOCKWELL QUOTE TWO: " In fact, the testimonial evidence for
> "something" happening on that day boils down to a couple of press
> reports, a handfull of statements from people who were expecting to
> see something."
Same question, Tony.
What did you say that would refute any of this? What evidence did you
provide to the contrary?
Or are we supposed to just take your word that the arguments were
"weak?"
> STOCKWELL QUOTE THREE: "I believe that the descriptions of the
> alleged miracle are consistent with the scenario of people looking at
> the sun through a thin veil of clouds. They kept looking at the sun
> until after the clouds started clearing. The "spinning" and "multiple
> colors" described are entirely consistent with what a person sees when
> looking at the sun. (I know this, because I did this myself as a small
> child, before I knew any better.) The descriptions of the sun changing
> colors and bouncing around is entirely consistent with what happens
> when you look away after having been looking at the sun. You don't see
> much of anything but the afterimage of the sun, which moves with
> your gaze.
And your substantive rebuttal to this would be what, Tony?
> >The evidence demands *some* sort of explanation
> >beyond "just the usual things we would expect were going on."
>
> Pagano replies:
> How 'bout we shoot for finding the objectively true explanation?
That would be a refreshing change from your normal method of
operation, Tony.
The problem is, of course, what YOU think constitutes "objective
truth."
You've been asked that many times and I have yet to see you provide
some measure of how this is determined.
You ignore clear evidence of things and accept myths and legends as
"objective truth."
You require a standard of evidence for things that you oppose but do
not require that same standard for things you already believe.
(For example, you want a detailed explanation as to how neodarwinian
mechanisms can result in specific vestigial structures before you will
accept those structures as "vestigial" but you will NOT explain the
supernatural mechanisms that resulted in the "miracle" at Fatima" -
nor do you feel that this is necessary.)
If we can't use evidence as a measure of "objective truth," Tony,
what's left?
> >However, either would take a rather different view of either the
> >geological record (which, to be sure, contains relics of catastrophes,
> >but not, in the view of mainstream geology, any trace of a global
> >flood), or of the history of the last 10,000 years.
>
> Pagano replies:
> This is not necessarily true. The secular scientist interprets the
> evidence in the light of the explanatory theory currently hailed as
> best available.
"Currently hailed as best available."
Think about that, Tony.
There was once a time when the "best available" was the Flood.
In response to you, Mike Dunford entered an article into the newsgroup
that explained how CREATIONIST scientists of the 19th century, using
EVIDENCE, repudiated the idea.
That article was good enough to merit a "Post of the Month"
designation. You can read it here, Tony:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr02.html
(We'll pretend that you haven't read it already.)
Think about that as I continue:
> The available evidence never uniquely determines the
> one true theory.
Really!
Is there ANY evidence that undermines the "currently...best available"
theory, Tony?
Any at all?
> Remember that the secular uniformitarian model
> hypothesizes that calm, global-like floods occurred over eons.
This is, of course, a lie.
Tony, you've been corrected on this too many times for it to be a
simple mistake; and I am not interested in your claims to being
unteachable. As far as I'm concerned, "unteachable" equates to
"willfully ignorant."
First of all, you have no idea what the "uniformitarian model"
entails. That's been clear enough over the years. As a result of
your DEMONSTRATED IGNORANCE about it, a number of writers in this
group have refuted your claims about it and asked you specifically
what it is you think the "model" entails.
You've never answered, because you don't know.
Secondly, there was no indication of "calm, global-like floods" as any
part of any model within the uniformitarian framework.
I recall from geology taken 50 years ago that there were some
hypotheses that the Earth was once covered in water; but there was
nothing "calm" about that period and, as I understand it, that idea
has since been largely discarded. Forty years ago, in college
geology, I recall being taught of the turbulent periods of the early
Earth. There was nothing about "calm, global-like floods."
In fact, I'm not even sure I know what "global-like" is supposed to
mean; but I'd guess that it's a means by which you can waffle when
challenged about it.
> So
> some subset of the evidence (perhaps a great deal of it) will
> corroborate both models.
Provide ANY evidence that "corroborates" the Flood described in
Genesis.
> >The evidence
> >doesn't seem to demand any sort of "nonuniformitarian" explanation.
>
> Pagano replies:
> There is nothing particularly significant about this. The evidence
> doesn't demand a uniformitarian one either. The evidence rarely (if
> ever) uniquely determines a single kind of theory.
Gee, Tony, you should probably tell that to all of my law school
professors (if most of them weren't dead by now), my fellows in the
legal profession who work in criminal law, or any of the hundreds of
thousands of crime scene investigators - sworn or not sworn that work
for law enforcement agencies all over the world.
> In the parlance of
> philosophers of science the evidence always "underdetermines" every
> theory. So what now?
"What now" is that you explain which "philosophers of science" say
this and where we might reference it AFTER you tell us what YOU mean
by "underdetermines."
> >What "distinguishable empirical consequences" can you name that argue
> >that some sort of global hydraulic cataclysm occurred within history,
> >or even prehistory?
>
> Pagano replies:
> Excellent question. One could deductively infer some bold observable
> predictions (or retrodictions) from the true statements from each
> competing model and search for those predictions.
You weren't asked this, Tony.
I do SO enjoy how you dance around an issue with speeches when just a
direct citation of evidence would be so much more effective against
the arguments of a debate opponent.
> One could
> determine what empirical observations would be prohibited by each
> model and search for those prohibitions.
You weren't asked that, either, Tony.
You were asked for evidence that the Flood described in Genesis
occurred as described.
> How each model interprets the stratigraphic layers and how they are
> correlated locally and globally might be a possible distinquishing
> characteristic.
So...where's the evidence for the Flood?
> I'm done.
That you are. Once again, you danced around the challenges,
prevaricated and even lied to us; and failed yet again to deliver the
goods.
Elmer Bataitis
> The available evidence never uniquely determines the
> one true theory.
> The evidence rarely (if
> ever) uniquely determines a single kind of theory.
So a burned shell of a house does not determine that the house burned? I
suppose one could postulate that Hollywood effects people came in and
painted it to look burned and sprayed special smells in it and such, but
that needs more corroborating evidence than just figuring the house
burned down. One could even theorize that imps fool our eyes and nose
and other senses into believing the house is burned down, when it is, in
fact, brand new. How are we to choose?
> One could
> determine what empirical observations would be prohibited by each
> model and search for those prohibitions.
Nah, we can't do that. The would require that we think "naturalism"
true, and you have claimed it is false. We are then at an philosopical
impasse. Poor Tony, what a strange world you inhabit.
Pope Dilbert
Still spreading the bull shit, eh Pagano?
Noticed you didn't have any valid, scientific or unbiased cites for your
claims.
Also, I don't even need to look to assert that you still never answer the
reputable rebuttals of previous ludicrous claims you have made over the
years.
Though it is true Einstein's theories have changed science, that has nothing
to do with religious delusions and fantasies.