Darwin's thought experiment to rephrase his claims of logic

[backspace]

From the book : WITTGENSTEIN�S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT
EXPERIMENTS p. 28
-------------------------
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT NEEDED: a planet suitable for supporting life Darwin
asks �Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is
so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature?� Well, after some
learned discussion of giraffes with long necks and so on, he goes on:
In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I
must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations. Let
us take the case of a wolf which preys on various animals, securing
some by craft, some by strength, some by fleetness; and let us suppose
that the fleetest prey, a deer for instance, had from any change in
the country increased in numbers, or that other prey had decreased in
numbers, during the season of the year when the wolf is hardest
pressed for food.

And now Darwin�s answer is emphatic:

I can under such circumstances see no reason to doubt that the
swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the best chance of surviving,
and
so be preserved or selected. (Origin of Species, 1859) Prejudice
against fat wolves not substantiated. But there is a problem
in Darwin�s theory. Fleeming Jenkins, of Edinburgh University, at once
pointed out that there is something dubious about the assumption
that such traits could be passed on. Nature tends to �iron out�
individual differences, not to promote them. If the swiftest, slimmest
wolf is a rare mutant, then that trait, however advantageous, will in
fact die out as the inevitable result of interbreeding.

So, is evolution dead?

In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
collective
effect rather than the individual one. He now writes: under certain
circumstances individual differences in the curvature or
length of the proboscis etc., too slight to be appreciated by us might
benefit a bee or other insect, so that certain individuals would be
able
to obtain their food more quickly than others, and the communities in
which they belonged would flourish and throw off many swarms
inheriting the same peculiarities. So, struggle over. A thought
experiment led Darwin to significantly change and improve his theory.
In fact, it had to evolve in order to survive.
------------------------
http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Wiki

[Burkhard]

No it isn't. Fleeming Jenkins however is, and for quite some time now,
137 years to be precise. So long before the modern synthesis showed
how exactly the mechanism passes on mutations. If you want to analyse
the modern theory of evolution, using a Victorian engineer, for all
his (considerable) merits is not that good an idea. Having said that ,
his criticism did force Darwin to be more precise in the use of his
language. Feeming, in addition to being a pretty good engineer, was
also a bit of a poet, and therefore quite good at spotting
infidelities in language.

>
> In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
> some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
> collective

> effect rather than the individual one. He now writes: �under certain

> circumstances individual differences in the curvature or
> length of the proboscis etc., too slight to be appreciated by us might
> benefit a bee or other insect, so that certain individuals would be
> able
> to obtain their food more quickly than others, and the communities in
> which they belonged would flourish and throw off many swarms
> inheriting the same peculiarities. So, struggle over. A thought
> experiment led Darwin to significantly change and improve his theory.
> In fact, it had to evolve in order to survive.

Well, yes, that's what theories do all the time - we adjust them in
the light of new information - but nice that you finally acknowledge
that the theory is falsifiable and has changed when specific claims of
it were cast into doubt.


> ------------------------http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Wiki

[backspace]

> 137 years to be precise. �So long before the modern synthesis showed

> how exactly the mechanism passes on mutations. If you want to analyse
> the modern theory of evolution, using a Victorian engineer, for all
> his (considerable) merits is not that good an idea. Having said that ,
> his criticism did force Darwin to be more precise in the use of his
> language. Feeming, in addition to being a pretty good engineer, was

> also a �bit of a poet, and therefore quite good at spotting

> infidelities in language.
>
>
>
> > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
> > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
> > collective
> > effect rather than the individual one. He now writes: �under certain
> > circumstances individual differences in the curvature or
> > length of the proboscis etc., too slight to be appreciated by us might
> > benefit a bee or other insect, so that certain individuals would be
> > able
> > to obtain their food more quickly than others, and the communities in
> > which they belonged would flourish and throw off many swarms
> > inheriting the same peculiarities. So, struggle over. A thought
> > experiment led Darwin to significantly change and improve his theory.
> > In fact, it had to evolve in order to survive.
>
> Well, yes, that's what theories do all the time - we adjust them in
> the light of new information - but nice that you finally acknowledge
> that the theory is falsifiable and has changed when specific claims of
> it were cast into doubt.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > ------------------------http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Wiki

I have merely quoted verbatim what was written in a book, I made no
comments on it.

[Mitchell Coffey]

Untrue: you made several comments, as anyone reading your post can
see.

They can also see that you are unaware, even 150 years later, that the
theory of inheritance that Fleeming Jenkins assumed - blending
inheritance - is now known to be wrong.

Mitchell Coffey

[backspace]

On Sep 3, 9:43�pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> 137 years to be precise. �So long before the modern synthesis showed

> how exactly the mechanism passes on mutations. If you want to analyse
> the modern theory of evolution, using a Victorian engineer, for all
> his (considerable) merits is not that good an idea. Having said that ,
> his criticism did force Darwin to be more precise in the use of his
> language. Feeming, in addition to being a pretty good engineer, was

> also a �bit of a poet, and therefore quite good at spotting

> infidelities in language.
>
>
>
> > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
> > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
> > collective
> > effect rather than the individual one. He now writes: �under certain
> > circumstances individual differences in the curvature or
> > length of the proboscis etc., too slight to be appreciated by us might
> > benefit a bee or other insect, so that certain individuals would be
> > able
> > to obtain their food more quickly than others, and the communities in
> > which they belonged would flourish and throw off many swarms
> > inheriting the same peculiarities. So, struggle over. A thought
> > experiment led Darwin to significantly change and improve his theory.
> > In fact, it had to evolve in order to survive.
>
> Well, yes, that's what theories do all the time - we adjust them in
> the light of new information - but nice that you finally acknowledge
> that the theory is falsifiable and has changed when specific claims of
> it were cast into doubt.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > ------------------------http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Wiki

You have your time frames wrong, we are talking about the concept
of: .... The acquisition of new attributes via the *natural means of
competitive selection*(preservation) around 1859, nearly a hundred
years before Neo-Darwinism. Both the quoted paragraphs are claims of
logic , they are longwinded ways of saying: Favorable ones are
preserved, which is logical of course and thus not falsifiable.

The modern synthesis was known as Neo - Darwinism surfaced around
1936, but nobody knows what it is for it isn't defined. Nowhere on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis do they
state how they managed to explain something they can't define Life
itself.

"There is no canonical definition of neo-Darwinism, and surprisingly
few writers on the subject seem to consider it necessary to spell out
precisely what it is that they are discussing. This is especially
curious in view of the controversy which dogs the theory, for one
might have thought that a first step towards resolving the dispute
over its status would be to decide upon a generally acceptable
definition over it. ... Of course, the lack of firm definition does,
as we shall see, make the theory much easier to defend." P.T. Saunders
& M.W. Ho, "Is Neo-Darwinism Falsifiable? - And Does It Matter?",
Nature and System (1982) 4:179-196, p. 179.

[John Vreeland]

On Mon, 3 Sep 2012 19:13:37 -0700 (PDT), Mitchell Coffey
<mitchel...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sep 3, 4:48�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sep 3, 9:43�pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Sep 3, 9:28�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > > From the book : WITTGENSTEIN�S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT

>> > > EXPERIMENTS p. 28
>> > > -------------------------
>> > > SPECIAL EQUIPMENT NEEDED: a planet suitable for supporting life Darwin

>> > > asks �Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is
>> > > so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature?� Well, after some

>> > > learned discussion of giraffes with long necks and so on, he goes on:
>> > > In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I
>> > > must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations. Let
>> > > us take the case of a wolf which preys on various animals, securing
>> > > some by craft, some by strength, some by fleetness; and let us suppose
>> > > that the fleetest prey, a deer for instance, had from any change in
>> > > the country increased in numbers, or that other prey had decreased in
>> > > numbers, during the season of the year when the wolf is hardest
>> > > pressed for food.
>>

>> > > And now Darwin�s answer is emphatic:

>>
>> > > I can under such circumstances see no reason to doubt that the
>> > > swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the best chance of surviving,
>> > > and
>> > > so be preserved or selected. (Origin of Species, 1859) Prejudice
>> > > against fat wolves not substantiated. But there is a problem

>> > > in Darwin�s theory. Fleeming Jenkins, of Edinburgh University, at once

>> > > pointed out that there is something dubious about the assumption

>> > > that such traits could be passed on. Nature tends to �iron out�

>> > > individual differences, not to promote them. If the swiftest, slimmest
>> > > wolf is a rare mutant, then that trait, however advantageous, will in
>> > > fact die out as the inevitable result of interbreeding.
>>
>> > > So, is evolution dead?
>>
>> > No it isn't. Fleeming Jenkins however is, and for quite some time now,

>> > 137 years to be precise. �So long before the modern synthesis showed

>> > how exactly the mechanism passes on mutations. If you want to analyse
>> > the modern theory of evolution, using a Victorian engineer, for all
>> > his (considerable) merits is not that good an idea. Having said that ,
>> > his criticism did force Darwin to be more precise in the use of his
>> > language. Feeming, in addition to being a pretty good engineer, was

>> > also a �bit of a poet, and therefore quite good at spotting

>> > infidelities in language.
>>
>> > > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
>> > > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
>> > > collective

>> > > effect rather than the individual one. He now writes: �under certain

>> > > circumstances individual differences in the curvature or
>> > > length of the proboscis etc., too slight to be appreciated by us might
>> > > benefit a bee or other insect, so that certain individuals would be
>> > > able
>> > > to obtain their food more quickly than others, and the communities in
>> > > which they belonged would flourish and throw off many swarms
>> > > inheriting the same peculiarities. So, struggle over. A thought
>> > > experiment led Darwin to significantly change and improve his theory.
>> > > In fact, it had to evolve in order to survive.
>>
>> > Well, yes, that's what theories do all the time - we adjust them in
>> > the light of new information - but nice that you finally acknowledge
>> > that the theory is falsifiable and has changed when specific claims of
>> > it were cast into doubt.
>>
>> > > ------------------------http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Wiki
>>
>> I have merely quoted verbatim what was written in a book, I made no
>> comments on it.
>
>Untrue: you made several comments, as anyone reading your post can
>see.
>
>They can also see that you are unaware, even 150 years later, that the
>theory of inheritance that Fleeming Jenkins assumed - blending
>inheritance - is now known to be wrong.
>
>Mitchell Coffey

The question bothering me is: was Backspace truly unable to see on his
own why Jenkins was wrong, or was he quote-mining for effect?
__
Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!---Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

[Stephanus]

On Sep 5, 4:28�pm, John Vreeland <vreejackatyahoodot...@nonesuch.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, 3 Sep 2012 19:13:37 -0700 (PDT), Mitchell Coffey
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> <mitchell.cof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Sep 3, 4:48�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Sep 3, 9:43�pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >> > On Sep 3, 9:28�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > > From the book : WITTGENSTEIN�S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT

> >> > > EXPERIMENTS p. 28
> >> > > -------------------------
> >> > > SPECIAL EQUIPMENT NEEDED: a planet suitable for supporting life Darwin

> >> > > asks �Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is
> >> > > so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature?� Well, after some

> >> > > learned discussion of giraffes with long necks and so on, he goes on:
> >> > > In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I
> >> > > must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations. Let
> >> > > us take the case of a wolf which preys on various animals, securing
> >> > > some by craft, some by strength, some by fleetness; and let us suppose
> >> > > that the fleetest prey, a deer for instance, had from any change in
> >> > > the country increased in numbers, or that other prey had decreased in
> >> > > numbers, during the season of the year when the wolf is hardest
> >> > > pressed for food.
>

> >> > > And now Darwin�s answer is emphatic:

>
> >> > > I can under such circumstances see no reason to doubt that the
> >> > > swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the best chance of surviving,
> >> > > and
> >> > > so be preserved or selected. (Origin of Species, 1859) Prejudice
> >> > > against fat wolves not substantiated. But there is a problem

> >> > > in Darwin�s theory. Fleeming Jenkins, of Edinburgh University, at once

> >> > > pointed out that there is something dubious about the assumption

> >> > > that such traits could be passed on. Nature tends to �iron out�

> >> > > individual differences, not to promote them. If the swiftest, slimmest
> >> > > wolf is a rare mutant, then that trait, however advantageous, will in
> >> > > fact die out as the inevitable result of interbreeding.
>
> >> > > So, is evolution dead?
>
> >> > No it isn't. Fleeming Jenkins however is, and for quite some time now,

> >> > 137 years to be precise. �So long before the modern synthesis showed

> >> > how exactly the mechanism passes on mutations. If you want to analyse
> >> > the modern theory of evolution, using a Victorian engineer, for all
> >> > his (considerable) merits is not that good an idea. Having said that ,
> >> > his criticism did force Darwin to be more precise in the use of his
> >> > language. Feeming, in addition to being a pretty good engineer, was

> >> > also a �bit of a poet, and therefore quite good at spotting

> >> > infidelities in language.
>
> >> > > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
> >> > > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
> >> > > collective

> >> > > effect rather than the individual one. He now writes: �under certain

The quoted page interprets Jenkins with the word 'mutant' did Jenkins
know about genetic mutations? I don't think so, it is interesting how
authors make 100 year jumps in between arguments. What remains
consistent are the claims of logic from Lucretius, Empedocles and
Aristotle which resurfaces rephrased in each generation.

[backspace]

On Sep 3, 9:43�pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
> > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
> > collective
> > effect rather than the individual one.

Now I finally know why were are constantly told: Evolution takes place
in populations and not individuals. It was a means of getting around
certain logical flaws or at least a perception of flaws. I will come
back to this issue later with a followup post in this thread.

My standard question to everything is: Who says so? Who says that the
planets follows an inverse square law : thus says Newton. All
scientific theories are formally established, without exception.
Evolutionary theory has vague generalized dictums like when Larry
Moran(http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/) hammers the table his laptop is
on and thunders: Evolution takes place in pop. , not individuals.

As the din of his declamation recedes into the Internet ether one is
left with the question: established by which person?

[Greg Guarino]

On 9/5/2012 3:42 PM, backspace wrote:
> **one** is

> left with the question: established by which person?

"One" indeed.

[Burkhard]

On Sep 5, 8:43�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 3, 9:43�pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
> > > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
> > > collective
> > > effect rather than the individual one.
>
> Now I finally know why were are constantly told: Evolution takes place
> in populations and not individuals. It was a means of getting around
> certain logical flaws or at least a perception of flaws. I will come
> back to this issue later with a followup post in this thread.
>
> My standard question to everything is: Who says so?

and it is as misguided and irrelevant as it was the firs time

> Who says that the
> planets follows an inverse square law : thus says Newton.

And what he knew about planets was different from what we know today
about planets, to the degree that one could as well say he meant
something different with the term. Doesn't matter diddle. all
theories, his too, evolve as our knowledge increases, and if the field
is worth studying at all the understanding of even the students will
be different form that of their teacher. as long as they understand
each other good enough for practical purposes, no problem

[backspace]

In this post I will show how the *claim of logic* from Matthew's
natural means of competitive selection that Darwin contracted to
natural selection applies to both *individuals* and *populations*. On
wikipedia rhetorical tautology article I wrote: .... Thus rhetorical
tautologies guarantee the truth of the proposition, where the
expectation (premise) was for a falsifiable construct, any conclusion
is a non sequitur (logic). .....

Darwin's mistake was that his conclusion doesn't follow logically from
his formulation. Whether the conclusion is correct or not. must be
determined elsewhere. His arbitrary conclusion was wrong on
observational grounds, extremes beyond the bell curve gets ''ironed
out'' as the individuals merge into the population, even if they were
in isolation for generations . But because his formulation was a
rhetorical tautology and thus Popper unfalsifiable, it allowed him to
effortlessly concoct a different arbitrary conclusion, in response to
Flemming, with the emphasis on *populations* instead of
*individuals* . Whether individuals and/or populations gain attributes
or not is a separate topic that must be disentangled from the Matthew,
Lucretius, Aristotle, Darwin's *claims of logic*.

The chance conclusion from Darwin's tautology(rest of his book) was
itself falsified with the discovery of the probability calculations
around the protein combinations. But , because the *chance theory*
never followed logically in the first place , it allowed for a
*discovery* like it was discovered that water is h20 to falsify the
chance conclusion. When it was falsified the materialists simply
changed tactic and asserted that the Platonic chance/design dichotomy
never existed in the first place as I documented at
http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Richard_Dawkins (google tautology +
dawkins)

From the book Concepts in Biology by Enger: p270
''....The theory of natural selection is the idea that some
individuals whose genetic combinations favor life in their
surroundings are more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on their
genes to the next generation than are individuals who have
unfavorable genetic combinations

The theory of natural selection is based on the following assumptions
about the nature of living things:
1. All organisms produce more offspring than can survive.
2. No two organisms are exactly alike.
3. Among organisms, there is a constant struggle for survival.
4. Individuals that possess favorable characteristics for their
environment have a higher rate of survival and produce more offspring.
5. Favorable characteristics become more common in the species, and
unfavorable characteristics are lost.
..............''

Claim of logic core:

rephrase p270:
Patrick Matthew's theory of *natural means of competitive selection*
is that *individuals* whose attributes favor life in their
surroundings are more likely to survive and pass on their
attributes(genes) to the next generation than are individuals who have
unfavorable genetic combinations......''

rephrase:
Patrick Matthew's theory of *natural means of competitive
selection*(contracted to ns by Darwin) is that *individuals* whose
attributes allows them to survive their surroundings are more likely
to pass on their attributes(genes) to the next generation than are
individuals who's traits don't allow them to survive......''

rephrase:
Patrick Matthew's theory of *natural means of competitive selection*
is that *individuals* whose attributes allows them to survive their
surroundings are more likely to pass on their attributes(genes) to the
next generation than are individuals who's traits don't allow them to
survive......''

rephrase:
Matthew's theory of *natural means of competitive selection* is that
*individuals* whose attributes allows them to survive
are more likely to pass on their attributes to the next generation
than are individuals who's traits don't allow them to survive......''


rephrase:
Matthew's theory of *natural means of competitive selection* is that
*individuals* whose attributes allows them to survive
are more likely to pass on their attributes to the next generation
than are individuals who's traits don't allow them to survive......''

claim of logic individuals:
Individuals whose attributes allows them to survive are more likely to
pass on their attributes to the next generation than individuals
who's traits don't allow them to survive......''

claim of logic is universal, substitute populations:
Populations whose attributes allows them to survive are more likely to
pass on their attributes to the next generation than Populations who's
traits don't allow them to survive......''

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 7 Sep 2012 11:48:41 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
<steph...@gmail.com>:

>In this post I will...

....ignore the other threads in which I was roundly defeated
and start a new one, destined for the same fate."

Yes, we're familiar with your debating "technique".
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."

- McNameless

[backspace]

The book (WITTGENSTEIN�S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS
p. 28) says that Darwin changed his theory. Wrong, he didn't change
his formulation but changed the method by which
the acquisition of attributes occur. I other words the process of
speciation is being assumed in the conclusion. Because his argument
wedged between his premise and conclusion is a claim of logic , it
neither refutes nor verifies any possible arguments linking the
premise to the conclusion. Thus his conclusion is a restatement of the
premise and thus reasons in a circle which is a different concept than
begging the question.

Burkhard explained to me and the way I understood him is that circ.
reasoning is where there was an *expectation* of either an argument or
series of arguments demonstrating how the conclusion follows from the
premise. In the absence of any such argument or arguments we rule out,
such as claims of logic, we have despite the length or complexity of
the intermediate steps between premise and conclusion,
merely the restatement of the premise as the conclusion: reasoning in
a circle. Such an argument might be of any length of complexity and
containing claims of logic or rhetorical tautologies violates our
*expectation*.

This leads to confusing tautologies with circular reasoning, they are
not the same thing as Wilkins pointed out to me. (Wilkins
independently of me was able to identify Butler as the first person to
recognize DArwin's tautological reasoning, without actually using the
term *tautology*.) He doesn't come out more strongly against this
logical fallacy because , well he needs a job and the materialist
pointed out to Wilkins that they aren't stupid and also aware of the
tautologies but have no actual theory to propose as substitute if they
were to drop their claims of logic from the Evolutionary narrative.
Thus we are stuck with two types of academics
1) Those with a cognitive deficiency who can't grasp that Evolutionary
theory reduces to a gaggle of truisms and tautologies between premise
and conclusion, enabling circular reasoning . (Dana Tweedie,
Kermit,Dawkins, Dennett, Jerry Coyne, primary school students don't
seem to have the intellectual capacity to understand what I wrote on
the Wikipedia tautology page). Daniel Dennett thinks that natural
selection is the best idea anybody ever had: which begs the question-
what is a natural selection? Meaning is only expressed at the level
of
sentences , thus the term natural selection is used a contracted
shorthand or metaphor for a sentence defined elsewhere - what is this
sentence?

2) Those who do understand this and also the need by many in academia
keep the tautological farce going in the absence of an actual theory
that could explain how nothing begets something or how unconsciousness
begets consciousness, non-design design or chaos order. (Burkhard,
Wilkins, Harshman, Chomsky, Fodor)

On Wikipedia I explained the concept of a rhetorical tautology as
defeating the *expectation* that an argument of various length or
complexity must not guarantee the truth of the proposition. We don't
want the truth of the proposition guaranteed nor the premise restated
as the conclusion because our *expectation* is for falsifiable
arguments.

(I need to read up on a few journal papers exploring the difference
between circ. reasoning and begging the question. I think I have the
difference approximately figured out)

Raising the question means that when all relevant observers agree that
the conclusion follows logically from a premise, that additional
questions are raised in such a manner that the premise isn't in
dispute.

Begging the question means that a conclusion is stated without stating
the assumption or that the assumption or premise isn't clear and any
possible arguments linking the two. It isn't a fallacy to assume a
premise in a conclusion, if what is being assumed is made clear.
Begging the question, circular reasoning , raising the question and
tautologies are different concepts.

Darwin tried to show by what mechanism the acquisition of attributes
took place. Problem is that the very premise is in dispute by observer
Fleeming Jenkin who made the point at http://archive.org/stream/cu31924012236109#page/n465/mode/2up
there should be
millions of intermediate fossils, which there aren't . This is an
independent issue from any possible mechanism, if we were to assume
the premise despite the lack of transitional fossils.

If the premise of speciation is outright rejected, then by logic no
questions are raised as to a possible mechanism that would have
allowed such speciation either Punk-Eek(Gould and Aristotle) or
gradualism(Darwin , Dawkins). Both Aristotle, Darwin, Lucretius,
Empedocles, Democritus and Dawkins formulated their propositions
unfalsifiably, which by the precepts of falsificationism guarantees
that their conclusions are non-sequiturs.

If we assume for sake of argument the premise(disputed) that there was
speciation, then it raises the question: by what mechanism. Darwin's
formulation was done in such a manner that he assumes a disputed
premise obfuscated in a thicket of claims of logic, so that his
premise is merely restated as the conclusion without falsifiable
justification and thus reasoned in a circle.

For example in South-Africa ISP support staff were quick to console
irate customers over the phone who have reached their 3Gig Internet
cap that most of their other customers never use more than 3Gigs: this
begs the question why aren't the others using more than 3Gigs? Because
there is no point in watching youtube videos half-way, they limited
their Internet activity to browsing and email and because most people
only have time to read not more than 500Meg(I made this up) of html
pages , their data usage remained low.

Larry Moran http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2012/09/john-wilkins-defends-philosophy-begging.html
wrote:
''......Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which an argument
is assumed to be true without evidence other than the argument
itself. It doesn't mean to raise the question. ....''

This is actually the fallacy of circular reasoning and not begging the
question.

In summary:
a) Circular reasoning
b) Begging the question
c) Raising the question
d) Claims of logic
e) Rhetorical tautologies , which are claims of logic masquerading as
falsifiable propositions.

[Burkhard]

On Sep 8, 7:58�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The book (WITTGENSTEIN�S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS
> p. 28) says that Darwin changed his theory. Wrong, he didn't change
> his formulation but changed the method by which
> the acquisition of attributes occur.

a distinction without a difference, the method is part of the theory.

>I other words the process of
> speciation is being assumed in the conclusion.

Not in any meaningful sense. Speciation is what the theory explains.

> Because his argument
> wedged between his premise and conclusion is a claim of logic , it
> neither refutes nor verifies any possible arguments linking the
> premise to the conclusion. Thus his conclusion is a restatement of the
> premise and thus reasons in a circle which is a different concept than
> begging the question.

You have failed to give any evidence for the "because" and the thus
part - that is you make your mere assertions look like arguments, They
aren't . and you keep ignoring the various examples given to you that
simply falsify your claim that in the section you quoted, or anywhere
else in the ToE, unfalsifiable claims are made.

On the last point, whether circular arguments are different from
begging the question:Aristotle seems to have thought so, but the
passage is not easy to interpret (and he may have simply been
confused) most modern treatise on argumentation theory treat them as
more or less the same.

> Burkhard explained to me and the way I understood him is that circ.
> reasoning is where there was an *expectation* of either an argument or
> series of arguments demonstrating how the conclusion follows from the
> premise.

Really? I must have been very drunk, as this does not ring a bell and
sounds extremely muddled. A circular argument is simply an argument
that fails to be convincing as it assumes the very thing it tries to
prove.

>IIn the absence of any such argument or arguments we rule out,

> such as claims of logic, we have despite the length or complexity of
> the intermediate steps between premise and conclusion,
> merely the restatement of the premise as the conclusion: reasoning in

> a circle. �Such an argument might be of any length of complexity and

> containing claims of logic or rhetorical tautologies violates our
> *expectation*.
>
> This leads to confusing tautologies with circular reasoning, they are
> not the same thing as Wilkins pointed out to me.

They are indeed not the same thing, though related. All circular
arguments are tautologies but not all tautologies are circular
arguments.

>(Wilkins
> independently of me was able to identify Butler as the first person to
> recognize DArwin's tautological reasoning, without actually using the

> term *tautology*.) �He doesn't come out more strongly against this
> logical fallacy because

.. there isn't any.

<snip ad hominem>

> Thus we are stuck with two types of academics
> 1) Those with a cognitive deficiency who can't grasp that Evolutionary
> theory reduces to a gaggle of truisms and tautologies between premise

> and conclusion, enabling �circular reasoning . (Dana Tweedie,

> Kermit,Dawkins, Dennett, Jerry Coyne, primary school students don't
> seem to have the intellectual capacity to understand what I wrote on
> the Wikipedia tautology page).

There was once a driver on the motorway. he hears on the radio a
traffic announcement: drive carefully on the Route 66, an idiot is
driving on the wrong side of the road. "One?". the driver said, "There
are thousands of them!".

Nobody understands what you wrote on the wikipedia tautology page,
because what you wrote is unintelligible.

>Daniel Dennett thinks that natural

> selection is the best idea anybody ever �had: which begs the question-

> what is a natural selection?

No it doesn't . It may raise that question in the mind of someone who
does not know what the term means, but that is merely a reflection on
the level of education of the person that the argument is addressed
at, not the argument itself.

>Meaning is only expressed at the level
> of
> sentences , thus the term natural selection is used a contracted
> shorthand or metaphor for a sentence defined elsewhere - what is this
> sentence?
>

I've given you a perfectly good definition several times, you ignored
it every single time. Doesn't make it go away though.

> 2) Those who do understand this and also the need by many in academia
> keep the tautological farce going in the absence of an actual theory
> that could explain how nothing begets something or how unconsciousness
> begets consciousness, non-design design or chaos order. (Burkhard,
> Wilkins, Harshman, Chomsky, Fodor)
>
> On Wikipedia I explained the concept of a rhetorical tautology as
> defeating the *expectation* that an argument of various length or

> complexity must not �guarantee the truth of the proposition.

Well, if you really tried to say that, no wonder people keep laughing
at you, It is the very definition of a deductively valid argument that
the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the definition.

I doubt there is a valid category of "rhetorical tautology". There a
are certain rhetorical figures of speech such as pleonasms. They are
just a stylistic device and have nothing to do with the validity or
lack thereof of an argument.

> We don't
> want the truth of the proposition guaranteed nor the premise restated
> as the conclusion because our *expectation* is for falsifiable
> arguments.
>

You don't understand what a valid argument is, and you don't
understand what it means that a theory is falsifiable.

premise 1: Whenever two bodies interact by exerting force on each
other, these forces are equal in magnitude, but opposite in direction.
premise 2: Earth and moon interact by exerting force on each other
Conclusion: These two forces between earth and moon are equal in
magnitude.

A deductively valid argument using modus ponens. The conditional truth
of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. And the
conclusion is indeed entailed in the premise (because you can rewrite
every universally quantified sentence as a mere concatenation of
"and" sentences)

Does this mean Newton's theory is unfalsifiable, or that our mini
theory here about earth and moon is unfalsifibale? Of course not. It
can be falsified by showing that either premise 1 or premise 2 are
factually wrong.

> (I need to read up on a few journal papers exploring the difference
> between circ. reasoning and begging the question. I think I have the
> difference approximately figured out)

That I would doubt. Aristotle seems to have made a distinction between
them, but I don't know of anybody who follows him on this. Ultimatly a
question of terminology and not very interesting, today both terms are
used synonymously.

Aristotle may have had something like this in mind:
"begging the question" is logically fallacious, because it makes a
factual claim look as if it were self evidence or a tautology, whereas
circular arguments are logically valid, just don't tell you anything.

2 examples:

a)
Peter: I am the greatest man on earth
John: Why should I believe this?
Peter: because I am the greatest man on earth

Begging the question, because the argument simply restates the point
under discussion. This according to Aristotle is legitimate only if
the point is self evidence, for instance if it id a tautology. From a
logical perspective, tautologies can indeed be derived from the empty
set of premises {} |- A v -A
Begging the question is logically invalid in this analysis because it
has the form {} |- A, where A is a contingent claim.

b)
Peter: I am the greatest man on earth
John: Why should I believe you
Peter: Great man are born to great mothers. It is part of the concept
of greatness that a great person never lies. I'm the greatest man on
earth. Therefore my mother is the greatest mother on earth. She said
I'm the greatest. Since it is part of the concept of greatness that
you don't lie, her answer must be true
Therefore I'm truly the greatest

Circular argument, because the conclusion is on of the premises that
triggers a chain of other inferences which then lead to the
conclusion. Logically valid, because it instantiates a valid
argumentation scheme, but does not prove the point under contention.

It seems as if Aristotle wanted to keep the two apart, but in modern
parlance, there is no difference between the to concepts.

> Raising the question means that when all relevant observers agree that
> the conclusion follows logically from a premise, that additional
> questions are raised in such a manner that the premise isn't in
> dispute.
>

Eh, what? The above makes hardly any sense. Raising a question is
simply a request for more information, or asking for support for a
premise. It is a reflection of the knowledge/beliefs of the person you
try to convince, not a feature of the argument.

Peter: I'm the greatest man on earth
John: Why should I believe that
Peter; because my mother said so!
John: Fair enough, but why should I take her word for this?

Peter's answer raises the question why his premise ("what my mother
says is true") should be accepted. Logically, it is always possible
to query an answer further and to require additional evidential
support. Whether this is rational, advisable or helpful is another
question. Very little children do it of course all the time - asking
"why" to whatever answer is given - the result is eventually a
"because I say so". Amongst adults, raising the question often betrays
simply ignorance on the side of the person who raises the question:

Peter: Why do you put a French dictionary in the travel bag?
John: Because we go to Paris
Peter: Why do you need a French dictionary in Paris?
John: because Paris is in France
Peter: oh, I did not know that

Or it can show an inability to focus on the problem at hand - if we
want to describe the current residential campaigns in the US, we
probably do not need to go back to the Celtic settlement of England,
even though there is a chain of "why" questions that could lead us
there.

> Begging the question means that a conclusion is stated without stating
> the assumption or that the assumption or premise isn't clear and any
> possible arguments linking the two.

No, that would be an enthymeme

> It isn't a fallacy to assume a
> premise in a conclusion, if what is being assumed is made clear.
> Begging the question, circular reasoning , raising the question and
> tautologies are different concepts.

Depends. In modern logic, begging the question and circular reasoning
are the same, and both are tautologies, but not all tautologies are
circular reasoning.
Raising the question is the odd one out and has nothing to do with the
others.

> Darwin tried to show by what mechanism the acquisition of attributes
> took place. Problem is that the very premise is in dispute by observer

Which premise would that be? And is it reasonable for the observer to
dispute that premise, or does he e.g. contradict himself in doing so?

> Fleeming Jenkin who made the point athttp://archive.org/stream/cu31924012236109#page/n465/mode/2up

> there should be
> millions of intermediate fossils, which there aren't . This is an
> independent issue from any possible mechanism, if we were to assume
> the premise despite the lack of transitional fossils.

That again does not make any sense. The lack of transitional fossil
could be a possible falsification of the theory, IF it predicted that
these should be found. That means, it is a possible implication of the
theory. In this case, what we know, and what we learned since, about
the way in which animals fossilise, we can show that having millions
of intermediate fossils is not an implication of the theory.

>
> If the premise of speciation is outright rejected, then by logic no
> questions are raised as to a possible mechanism that would have

> allowed such speciation either .


Don;t know what you mean with "the premise of speciation". If it is
something like: "speciation exists" then yes, if you don't accept that
premise, then for you, the question on how speciation occurs is not
raised. However, as there is very good evidence that speciation does
occur, rejecting it outright simply shows a disregard for the
evidence.

Punk-Eek(Gould and Aristotle) or
> gradualism(Darwin , Dawkins). Both Aristotle, Darwin, Lucretius,
> Empedocles, Democritus and Dawkins formulated their propositions
> unfalsifiably, which by the precepts of falsificationism guarantees
> that their conclusions are non-sequiturs.

You confuse issues of logic with issues of empirical methodology.
The issue of whether a theory is falsifiable or not has no implication
on the logical status of its conclusions, and in particular does not
make them non sequiturs - otherwise, every mathematical proof would be
a non-sequitur.

>
> If we assume for sake of argument the premise(disputed) that there was
> speciation, then it raises the question: by what mechanism. Darwin's
> formulation was done in such a manner that he assumes a disputed
> premise obfuscated in a thicket of claims of logic, so that his
> premise is merely restated as the conclusion without falsifiable
> justification and thus reasoned in a circle.
>

So you claim, and as was shown over and over again, you are plain
wrong. I alone have given you more than 10 possible observations that
can fasify the theorym so your claim is falsified.

> For example in South-Africa ISP support staff were quick to console
> irate customers over the phone who have reached their 3Gig Internet
> cap that most of their other customers never use more than 3Gigs: this
> begs the question why aren't the others using more than 3Gigs? Because
> there is no point in watching youtube videos half-way, they limited
> their Internet activity to browsing and email and because most people
> only have time to read not more than 500Meg(I made this up) of html
> pages , their data usage remained low.
>

> Larry Moranhttp://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2012/09/john-wilkins-defends-philosophy-...� wrote:
>
> ''......Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which an argument
> is assumed to be true without evidence other than the argument
> itself. It doesn't mean to raise the question. ....''
>
> This is actually the fallacy of circular reasoning and not begging the
> question.

Moran is correct wrt current usage.

[RAM]

On Sep 8, 1:58�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Snip of tedious distortions. (one kept below)

> e) Rhetorical tautologies , which are claims of logic masquerading as
> falsifiable propositions.

Falsifiable propositions that you fail to understand are not
"Rhetorical tautologies" since your term is a meaningless rhetorical
trope.

Burkhard in his post to your verbal meanderings identifies clearly why
you are wrong. I in the past have attempted to point it out to you.
Quite simply it is that you refuse to understand the empirical nature
of science. It is the empirical (i.e. inductive) side that allows one
to test (by a problematic empirically accessible hypothesis) what you
see as a theoretical/(logical) tautology. It is this empirical
testing that allows science to confirm, modify or reject hypotheses
and ultimately theories. Falsifiability is a core feature of
empirical science strategies through testing problematic empirical
hypotheses. Falsifiability is not just a deductive logic issue for
science but also and critically an inductive one.

[backspace]

On Sep 9, 5:28�pm, RAM <ramather...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 8, 1:58�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Snip of tedious distortions. (one kept below)
>
> > e) Rhetorical tautologies , which are claims of logic masquerading as
> > falsifiable propositions.
>
> Falsifiable propositions that you fail to understand are not
> "Rhetorical tautologies"

That's what I wrote.

> Burkhard in his post to your verbal meanderings identifies clearly why
> you are wrong.

He is equivocating between rhetorical tautologies, logical validities
and circular reasoning.

>�I in the past have attempted to point it out to you.

> Quite simply it is that you refuse to understand the empirical nature
> of science.

YOu mean the empirical nature of falsificationism, nobody knows what
science means, we do though know how to test Newton's inverse square
law with a laser beam. Your very sentence that I don't understand
science can itself not be tested with voltmeter.

> It is the empirical (i.e. inductive) side that allows one
> to test (by a problematic empirically accessible hypothesis) what you
> see as a theoretical/(logical) tautology.

You'll have to be more specific. For starters communicate to PZ Myers
that he must get his facts correct at
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/29/someone-has-taken-the-coulter-challenge/
: Darwin never said differential reproductive success, which is a
phrase and not a sentence.

> It is this empirical
> testing that allows science to confirm, modify or reject hypotheses
> and ultimately theories.

> Falsifiability is a core feature of
> empirical science strategies through testing problematic empirical
> hypotheses.

Falsifiability and its Platonic opposite unfalsifiability are our only
options: either what you say can be tested or it can't . For something
not be testable doesn't mean it is incorrect. For example what I just
wrote can't be measured with a scale.

> Falsifiability is not just a deductive logic issue for
> science but also and critically an inductive one.

rephrase:
... Falsifiability is not just a deductive logic issue for
*falsifiability* but also and critically an inductive one.....

Do you see that you have no idea what you mean with *science*? We do
science when we *measure* things, this very sentence itself can't be
measured. If science is all we accept then our thinking is self-
refutational.

[eridanus]

El martes, 4 de septiembre de 2012 16:48:25 UTC+1, backspace escribi�:
> On Sep 3, 9:43�pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 3, 9:28�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > > From the book : WITTGENSTEIN�S BEETLE AND OTHER CLASSIC THOUGHT

>
> > > EXPERIMENTS p. 28
>
> > > -------------------------
>
> > > SPECIAL EQUIPMENT NEEDED: a planet suitable for supporting life Darwin
>

> > > asks �Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is
>
> > > so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature?� Well, after some

>
> > > learned discussion of giraffes with long necks and so on, he goes on:
>
> > > In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I
>
> > > must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations. Let
>
> > > us take the case of a wolf which preys on various animals, securing
>
> > > some by craft, some by strength, some by fleetness; and let us suppose
>
> > > that the fleetest prey, a deer for instance, had from any change in
>
> > > the country increased in numbers, or that other prey had decreased in
>
> > > numbers, during the season of the year when the wolf is hardest
>
> > > pressed for food.
>
> >
>

> > > And now Darwin�s answer is emphatic:

>
> >
>
> > > I can under such circumstances see no reason to doubt that the
>
> > > swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the best chance of surviving,
>
> > > and
>
> > > so be preserved or selected. (Origin of Species, 1859) Prejudice
>
> > > against fat wolves not substantiated. But there is a problem
>

> > > in Darwin�s theory. Fleeming Jenkins, of Edinburgh University, at once

>
> > > pointed out that there is something dubious about the assumption
>

> > > that such traits could be passed on. Nature tends to �iron out�

>
> > > individual differences, not to promote them. If the swiftest, slimmest
>
> > > wolf is a rare mutant, then that trait, however advantageous, will in
>
> > > fact die out as the inevitable result of interbreeding.
>
> >
>
> > > So, is evolution dead?
>
> >
>
> > No it isn't. Fleeming Jenkins however is, and for quite some time now,
>

> > 137 years to be precise. �So long before the modern synthesis showed

>
> > how exactly the mechanism passes on mutations. If you want to analyse
>
> > the modern theory of evolution, using a Victorian engineer, for all
>
> > his (considerable) merits is not that good an idea. Having said that ,
>
> > his criticism did force Darwin to be more precise in the use of his
>
> > language. Feeming, in addition to being a pretty good engineer, was
>

> > also a �bit of a poet, and therefore quite good at spotting

>
> > infidelities in language.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
>
> > > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
>
> > > collective
>

> > > effect rather than the individual one. He now writes: �under certain

>
> > > circumstances individual differences in the curvature or
>
> > > length of the proboscis etc., too slight to be appreciated by us might
>
> > > benefit a bee or other insect, so that certain individuals would be
>
> > > able
>
> > > to obtain their food more quickly than others, and the communities in
>
> > > which they belonged would flourish and throw off many swarms
>
> > > inheriting the same peculiarities. So, struggle over. A thought
>
> > > experiment led Darwin to significantly change and improve his theory.
>
> > > In fact, it had to evolve in order to survive.
>
> >
>
> > Well, yes, that's what theories do all the time - we adjust them in
>
> > the light of new information - but nice that you finally acknowledge
>
> > that the theory is falsifiable and has changed when specific claims of
>
> > it were cast into doubt.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > > ------------------------http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Wiki
>
>
>
> You have your time frames wrong, we are talking about the concept
>
> of: .... The acquisition of new attributes via the *natural means of
>
> competitive selection*(preservation) around 1859, nearly a hundred
>
> years before Neo-Darwinism. Both the quoted paragraphs are claims of
>
> logic , they are longwinded ways of saying: Favorable ones are
>
> preserved, which is logical of course and thus not falsifiable.

We use the word "logic" a lot. As it were some sort
of enchantment. Logic is a good thing, specially when
when things work as we predicted. But the word "logic"
serves also to be in error.

A logical operation is only an intent to understand or
to reason. For for millennia, humans had been using
logic, but they were mostly in error.

Then, logic is not error proof. Since the times of
Aristotle, there was repeated that heavy things fall
faster than light ones. If even this was true for a
feather, it was not true in general, for a material
that is twice heavier than other, do not fall in half
the time. The idea was still debated when I was in
school. What weights more, a pound of straw or a pound
of iron. If you replied they both weight the same, the
other boy argued that if a pound of straw falls on your
foot, it does not do any harm, while a pound of iron do.

All this is about logic, But logic can easily get
astray. Then an argument that looks logical does not
prove that the argument is valid. There is something
that can be called, erroneous logic. The worse case
occurs when we are not aware that a piece of logic can
erroneous.

Eridanus

[RAM]

On Sep 9, 2:48�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 9, 5:28�pm, RAM <ramather...@gmail.com> wrote:> On Sep 8, 1:58�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Snip of tedious distortions. (one kept below)
>
> > > e) Rhetorical tautologies , which are claims of logic masquerading as
> > > falsifiable propositions.
>
> > Falsifiable propositions that you fail to understand are not
> > "Rhetorical tautologies"
>
> That's what I wrote.

Yes but you fail to understand that "falsifiable
propositions" are for science "problematic
empirically accessible hypotheses" about any
phenomena being empirically investigated.
So science means something different when
they use the term "falsifiable propositions."
When scientist use they mean it is subject to
empirical research.

Indeed you are as confused and intellectually
inept as a HS freshman when it comes to
understanding science. Yet you presume
to criticize it.

All what follows as your response to my post is
mostly empty verbiage, unintelligible or wrong.

>
> > Burkhard in his post to your verbal meanderings identifies clearly why
> > you are wrong.
>
> He is equivocating between rhetorical tautologies, logical validities
> and circular reasoning.

No he is pointing out your ignorance of the
logic of science.

>
> >�I in the past have attempted to point it out to you.
> > Quite simply it is that you refuse to understand the empirical nature
> > of science.
>
> YOu mean the empirical nature of falsificationism, nobody knows what
> science means

This is stupid. I do know what science means.
It is, in a very general sense, an empirical
investigation into phenomena employing
research strategies and methods that may
be replicated by other investigators with the
ultimate goal of developing, testing or falsifying
an explanatory model of the phenomena i.e. a
scientific theory.

>, we do though know how to test Newton's inverse square
> law with a laser beam. Your very sentence that I don't understand
> science can itself not be tested with �voltmeter.

This is even more stupid. And reveals the
extent of your scientific ignorance.

>
> > It is the empirical (i.e. inductive) side that allows one
> > to test (by a problematic empirically accessible hypothesis) what you
> > see as a theoretical/(logical) tautology.
>
> You'll have to be more specific.

If I did, I sincerely doubt that you would be able to understand it.
But I try below.

>For starters communicate to PZ Myers

> that he must get his facts correct athttp://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/29/someone-has-taken-t...

> : Darwin never said differential reproductive success, which is a
> phrase and not a sentence.

This is orthogonal to what is being pointed out to you.

>
> > It is this empirical
> > testing that allows science to confirm, modify or reject hypotheses
> > and ultimately theories.
> > Falsifiability is a core feature of
> > empirical science strategies through testing problematic empirical
> > hypotheses.
>
> Falsifiability and its Platonic opposite unfalsifiability are our only
> options: either what you say can be tested or it can't . For something
> not be testable doesn't mean it is incorrect. For example what I just
> wrote can't be measured with a scale.

Damn you are dense. Are you on psychotropic drugs.

>
> > Falsifiability is not just a deductive logic issue for
> > science but also and critically an inductive one.
>
> rephrase:
> ... Falsifiability is not just a deductive logic issue for
> *falsifiability* but also and critically an inductive one.....
>

Damn you lack the ability to think coherently.

> Do you see that you have no idea what you mean with *science*? We do
> science when we *measure* things, this very sentence itself can't be
> measured. If science is all we accept then our thinking is self-
> refutational.

This is so confused (wrong if even meaningful) and logical idiotic one
marvels that you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

It is good that you know science measures things. Next step is to
learn what is measured and how it relates to hypotheses and theories.
Then the next step is to learn how one connects these measures to both
hypotheses and theories. The last step is to learn the methods and
procedures science employs to assure they avoid the kind of illogical
and fallacies you engage in.

Get a science methods text and seriously study it. Not just read it
for the ability to pump out more empty rhetoric. You may think you
know what you are talking about but it is impossible to understand
what you are attempting to say given your proclivity for bloviation.

In sum, your posts reveal you have no idea how scientists deal with
empirical phenomena. And yes you look like an idiot trying to
criticize something you fail to understand.

[Burkhard]

On Sep 9, 8:48�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 9, 5:28�pm, RAM <ramather...@gmail.com> wrote:> On Sep 8, 1:58�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.
>

> > Burkhard in his post to your verbal meanderings identifies clearly why
> > you are wrong.
>
> He is equivocating between rhetorical tautologies, logical validities
> and circular reasoning.
>

Quite on the contrary, I explained to you what these terms actually
mean, as you keep getting them wrong. Here again:

Rhetorical tautology: there is no such thing. Or rather, there is no
natural class of linguistic phenomena that can be grouped under that
label. The excruciatingly bad wiki article shows why: no refences to
the academic literature, and a hotch potch of phenomena that have
little or nothing to do with each other. An intro paragraph that talks
about arguments, is confused and/or plain wrong from the word go,
followed by a list of stylistic issues that have nothing to do with
argumentation or validity of arguments, but elgance of writing. The
part of pleonasm is about the only thing that is correct - and that is
of course a perfectly good group on its own. ( and has nothing to do
with valid argumentation, a valid argument can have as many pleonasms
as you like)

Logically valid reasoning: in deductive logic, any argument is
logically valid where the truth of the premises guarantees the truth
of the conclusion.

Circular reasoning: any inference of the form A /- A ( A implies A)
As can easily be verified using a standard truth table, this form of
argument is logically valid in the sense of classical, deductive
logic - if the premise is true, trivially, the conclusion is also
guaranteed to be true. However, it fails as an argument for the
conclusion, as the listener does not get any new reasons to believe
the proposition. The argument is not false or invalid, it is simply
irrelevant. There are some more exotic logical systems, in particular
relevance logic, which therefore do not permit this type of
inference.

> >�I in the past have attempted to point it out to you.
> > Quite simply it is that you refuse to understand the empirical nature
> > of science.
>
> YOu mean the empirical nature of falsificationism, nobody knows what
> science means, we do though know how to test Newton's inverse square
> law with a laser beam. Your very sentence that I don't understand
> science can itself not be tested with �voltmeter.

It can be tested with a very simply multiple choice test, or simply by
comparing what you write about science with actual scientific
practice.

>
> > It is the empirical (i.e. inductive) side that allows one
> > to test (by a problematic empirically accessible hypothesis) what you
> > see as a theoretical/(logical) tautology.
>
> You'll have to be more specific. For starters communicate to PZ Myers

> that he must get his facts correct athttp://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/29/someone-has-taken-t...

> : Darwin never said differential reproductive success, which is a
> phrase and not a sentence.
>

Doesn't matter if he used the same words, he talked about the
phenomenon. There are always different ways to express the same idea.

[backspace]

On Monday, September 10, 2012 8:38:06 AM UTC+1, Burkhard wrote:

> followed by a list of stylistic issues that have nothing to do with
> argumentation or validity of arguments, but elgance of writing.

Correct, I have this pointed this out many times, they are confusing pleonasms with rhetorical tautologies. It is a mixture of editors, most are atheists and don't want the concept of rhetorical tautology understood.

> The part of pleonasm is about the only thing that is correct - and that is
> of course a perfectly good group on its own. ( and has nothing to do
> with valid argumentation, a valid argument can have as many pleonasms
> as you like)

Agreed, it just shows you how dumb atheists really are.

[Burkhard]

On Sep 10, 2:23�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, September 10, 2012 8:38:06 AM UTC+1, Burkhard wrote:
> > followed by a list of stylistic issues that have nothing to do �with
> > argumentation or validity of arguments, but elgance of writing.
>
> Correct, I have this pointed this out many times, they are confusing pleonasms with rhetorical tautologies. It is a mixture of editors, most are atheists and don't want the concept of rhetorical tautology understood.

There is no such thing as "rhetorical tautology" that is not either a
proper logical tautology, or a mere stylistic issue such as pleonasm,
that was my point. Your concept of "rhetorical tautology" is pretty
much meaningless, a false flag that pretends to be something it isn't

>
> > The part of pleonasm is about the only thing that is correct - and that is
> > of course a perfectly good group on its own. ( and has nothing to do
> > with valid argumentation, a valid argument can have as many pleonasms
> > as you like)
>
> Agreed, it just shows you how dumb atheists really are.

I have no idea of the religious affiliation, or lack thereof, of the
wikipedia editors of that specific article. But whoever wrote the
paragraph after "A rhetorical tautology can also be defined" has no
clue what he is talking about , and the rest should have been under
the proper headers where it belongs. There is no need for an entry on
"rhetorical tautology", everything in that entry that is not plain
wrong or badly made up stuff is either said (and said better) in the
entry on logical tautologies , or in the entry on pleonasm.

[backspace]

On Sep 10, 8:38�am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Sep 9, 8:48�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Sep 9, 5:28�pm, RAM <ramather...@gmail.com> wrote:> On Sep 8, 1:58�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.
>
> > > Burkhard in his post to your verbal meanderings identifies clearly why
> > > you are wrong.
>
> > He is equivocating between rhetorical tautologies, logical validities
> > and circular reasoning.
>
> Quite on the contrary, I explained to you what these terms actually
> mean, as you keep getting them wrong. Here again:
>
> Rhetorical tautology: there is no such thing. Or rather, there is no
> natural class of linguistic phenomena that can be grouped under that
> label.

The following proposition is made after observing tigers in the wild
in a park:

The report was that the tiger population declined in one parkA, but
increased in another parkB and the reporter attempted to explain the
actual reason why the tiger population declined with the following:

1) Tigers in parkA had favorable traits which allowed them to become
more common.
2) Tigers in parkB had unfavorable traits which made them become less
common.

Based on 1 and 2 alone , how would we construct a test to falsify the
reporters proposition: favorable ones become more common.

favorable <=> more common .. Favorable implies and is implied by
''more common''. The fact that tigers in parkB become more common
*implies* they were favorable. But because the implication is
implicit, it says the same thing twice by referring to the same
fact(more common) self-referentially.

In other words the actual reason as to why the tigers became more
common isn't explained, he thus guaranteed the truth of his
proposition. All we know is they become more common, we don't know the
actual reason they became more common. By insisting they were
*favorable* , it cuts off the possibility that somebody could have
been secretly feeding them meat at night. The actual reason for
becoming more common isn't revealed.

Thus we have an observation: Tigers in parkB become more common. This
observation isn't in dispute, it now raises the question: Why did they
become more common? Since the reported has no idea he said because
they were *favorable*. Therefore he formulated a rhetorical tautology,
guaranteeing the truth of his proposition, it is impossible to test
and now counter evidence can falsify it, because he said the same
thing twice using dissimilar terms that imply the same fact.

This is not the same thing as a logical validity because in a logical
validity the expectation is for the
truth of the explanation to be guaranteed. With the tigers we don't
want the truth of the explanation to be guaranteed.

[backspace]

All standard evolutionary stories have this element of 'favorable' <->
'more common' or 'perpetuators' <-> 'proliferate' embedded as their
central rhetorical trope.

With the tigers in parkA or parkB becoming more common we have an
*observation*. The premise that they indeed did become more common
isn't in dispute.

With dinosaurs etc. there is the *assumption* that they did indeed
become more common for at least a few million years. This is not an
observation but an inference. Because it is an inference and not
observed the premise is therefore in dispute. By assuming a disputed
premise in a conclusion we have circular reasoning. To obfuscate the
circular reasoning , rhetorical tautologies are wedged between
premiseand conclusion(new species). Falsification deals with what we
can observe and repeat, the death of dino's can't be repeated all
claims about it are *inferences*.

[Burkhard]

On Sep 10, 3:08�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 10, 8:38�am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 9, 8:48�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Sep 9, 5:28�pm, RAM <ramather...@gmail.com> wrote:> On Sep 8, 1:58�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.
>
> > > > Burkhard in his post to your verbal meanderings identifies clearly why
> > > > you are wrong.
>
> > > He is equivocating between rhetorical tautologies, logical validities
> > > and circular reasoning.
>
> > Quite on the contrary, I explained to you what these terms actually
> > mean, as you keep getting them wrong. Here again:
>
> > Rhetorical tautology: there is no such thing. Or rather, there is no
> > natural class of linguistic phenomena that can be grouped under that
> > label.
>
> The following proposition is made after observing tigers in the wild
> in a park:
>
> The report was that the tiger population declined in one parkA, but
> increased in another parkB and the reporter attempted to explain the
> actual reason why the tiger population declined with the following:
>
> 1) Tigers in parkA �had favorable traits which allowed them to become
> more common.
> 2) Tigers in parkB had unfavorable traits which made them become less
> common.
>
> Based on 1 and 2 alone , how would we construct a test to falsify the
> reporters proposition: favorable ones become more common.

Compare tigers in park A and park B, e.g. by doing genetic screening.
If they are for all intends and purposes identical (that is, they only
vary within the range that you expect within a species) the
explanation that their different traits contributed to their different
decline in numbers is falsified, and you can look for another
explanation, such as : there are poachers at one park but not the
other.

In reality of course, no competent biologist or wildlife expert would
report something as bland as "tigers in park A had favorable traits
which allowed them to become more common". What you will find instead
is that people form specific hypothesis that instantiate that
explanatory scheme, such as : "The tigers in Park A (assuming the
parks are similar environments) have a mutation that makes them immune
to a common virus that still kills tigers in Park B". You can then
test this again by genetic screening, or by vaccinating the tigers in
park B to see if their numbers recover .If not, then the hypothesised
cause for their differential reproductive success is falsified, and
you have to look for a new one.

The main role of the idea that different traits can in the same
environment lead to differential reproductive success is as a
heuristic device, that allows us to formulate very specific theories
that can then be tested.

>
> favorable <=> more common .. �Favorable implies and is implied by
> ''more common''. The fact that tigers in parkB become more common
> *implies* they were favorable.

No it doesn't. Tigers in Park B could simply be subject to poachers,
in this case it is differences in the environemnt that are the causal
factor, not differences in the traits,

>But because the implication is
> implicit, it says the same thing twice by referring to the same
> fact(more common) self-referentially.
>
> In other words the actual reason as to why the tigers became more
> common isn't explained, he thus guaranteed the truth of his
> proposition. All we know is they become more common, we don't know the
> actual reason they became more common.

That's why scientists will typically fill in that variable by forming
a scpecific hypothesis. You wont; fidn in any biology book on tgers
and their habitats a statement as unhelpful as the one you used.

>By insisting they were
> *favorable* , it cuts off the possibility that somebody could have
> been secretly feeding them meat at night.

That in fact would be another falsification of the statement.

>The actual reason for
> becoming more common isn't revealed.
>
> Thus we have an observation: Tigers in parkB become more common. This
> observation isn't in dispute, it now raises the question: Why did they
> become more common? Since the reported has no idea he said because
> they were *favorable*. Therefore he formulated a rhetorical tautology,

No, it is just an example of very sloppy reporting. It may or may not
be true that they become more common because of an advantageous
traits. That can be tested. It can be tested much easier when there is
a specific trait suggested, which is what will happen in reality.

> guaranteeing the truth of his proposition, it is impossible to test
> and now counter evidence can falsify it, because he said the same
> thing twice using dissimilar terms that imply the same fact.

You've in fact given a test yourself that would falsify the theory. If
you think that it may be difference in feeding that causes the
different survival rates, test it by removing the feeder - if rates
than converge again, the hypothesis that it was caused by a difference
in traits has been falsified.

>
> This is not the same thing as a logical validity because in a logical
> validity the expectation is for the
> truth of the explanation to be guaranteed. With the tigers we don't
> want the truth of the explanation to be guaranteed.

No, it is not the job of a logically valid explanation to guarantee
the truth of the explanation. it only guarantees the truth _under the
assumption_ that the premises are true. Logical validity os defiend
as: preserves the truth of the premises to the conclusion, that is it
does not sya anything about the actual truth of the conclusion.

[backspace]

Is a claim of logic, it must be so by logical necessity. Obviously
different traits will lead to differences in success in a generalized
context.

[Burkhard]

a) I noticed you snipped the sentence halfway through without
indicating the snip. This is considered bad netuqiette at te very
least

And no it isn't a logical necessity There are lots of traits that do
not lead to differential reproductive success, all neutral traits for
instance. Form the point of logic only, there is nothing to prohibit a
world were all traits are neutral. To find out if there are non-
neutral traits requires research, testing and measuring. Nor is it a
logical necessity that there is differential reproductive success in
the first place (logically, it would just as possible that everyone
has the same number of offspring) .

>Obviously
> different traits will lead to differences in success in a generalized
> context.

It may be obvious to you, it was not obvious for people before Darwin.
And it is not something that is required by logic. In a "world full of
plenty" (think of Garden Eden) , everyone reproduces equally, as there
is no competition for resources. That possibility alone falsifies your
claim that this has anything to do with logical necessity. If it were
logically necessary, we could not even think consistently of a world
where it does not apply.

[Burkhard]

Alls scientifically interesting claims are inferences, they infer
universal statements on the basis of finite observations, that is what
makes falsification an issue in the first place. You test theories by
asking: what else should we find if the theory is true" - that is all
that is needed. The standard theory of the rise and fall of the
dinosaurs makes plenty such implications , and hence can be tested. If
we were to find e.g. clear patterns of dinosaur fossils in the pre-
cambrian, our current theories woudl be falsified.

[backspace]

Which begs the question: what is a differential reproductive success?
Would differential be a dissimilar term for incremental in the same
way that the author of the Blank Swan used contingency for
probability at http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Meaningless_sentence#The_Blank_Swan

Spencer and Tyndall used 'differential' and from the context used they
meant:
The acquisition of new attributes through the
incremental(differential) reproduction of those *favorable* creatures
who *became more common* , being selected or preserved via the
natural(unintentional) competitive action(non-design usage).

[backspace]

> probability �athttp://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Meaningless_sentence#The_Blank_Swan

>
> Spencer and Tyndall used 'differential' and from the context used they
> meant:
> The acquisition of new attributes through the
> incremental(differential) reproduction of those *favorable* creatures
> who *became more common* , being selected or preserved via the
> natural(unintentional) competitive action(non-design usage).

The argument does two things. It assumes, making an inference that the
dinosaurs increased their numbers over a very long period. This
inference is in contrast to the YEC *inference*(not observation).
Secondly it tries to pass off an *inference* as persuasive as an
observation by guaranteeing the truth of the *explanation*.

[Burkhard]

No it doesn't It might raise the question for someone who has never
read a good textbook of evolutionary biology, and/or is really bad in
English. It simply means that some have more success (differ in their
success rate) than others.

> Would differential be a dissimilar term for incremental in the same
> way that the author of the Blank Swan used contingency for

> probability �athttp://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Meaningless_sentence#The_Blank_Swan

No it isn't. it is a term for "differently" as in: "some more than
others."

[Burkhard]

Fine. Then look at the different implications that these two theories
predict, and have a look around which one matches best what we
actually observe - from the growth rate of corals to the way sediments
can be observed forming to the decay rates of certain elements to the
type of pattern we find in the fossils. That's how you decide between
theories - you test them by querying what they imply

> Secondly it tries to pass off an *inference* as persuasive as an
> observation by guaranteeing the truth of the *explanation*.

word salad that does not make any sense. There have been and are
several competing theories about the rise and fall of dinosaurs within
evolutionary biology, that alone shows that nothing is guaranteed here
through logic alone.

[backspace]

This drags a dead herring around the perimeter of my argument, we are
not talking about the genetic discovery after DArwin but the claims of
logic in his context, Lucretius, Democritus and Aristotle, which had
nothing to do with genes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
''.......Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable
characteristics of an organism, but the genetic (heritable) basis of
any phenotype that gives a reproductive advantage will become more
common in a population (see allele frequency). .....''''

http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Lucretius :
''...... Of these the fit ones persisted, while the unfit ones
disappeared. ....''

http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Aristotle:
Those constituted didn't perish in the acquisition of new arms, legs
that Empedocles determined were on the ground, of those that were
constituted , they were constituted in an a spontaneous fashion in
contrast to a gradual fashion.

Rephrase in terms of Lucretius claim of logic:
Those with an advantage will become more common.
The favorable ones become more common.
The fit ones persist.
The fit ones become more common.

Question: other than noting they became more common how was their
favorability or advantage measured with a laser?

[backspace]

The wikipedia article states that they had an ''advantage'', with what
laser beam or strain gauge did the calibrate the zero and span of this
''advantage''?

[Burkhard]

Doesn't matter diddle, since genes existed long before they were
discovered, and long before Darwin. A theory is falsifiable if there
is a _possible_ observation that falsifies it, whether the observation
is known at the time or not. Many of the tests of Newton's theory too
were not known or possible at Newton's days.

Anyhow, you asked a clear question about tigers in zoos. You claimed,
as always wrongly, that the hypothesis that their different rate of
increase was due to their traits was unfalsifibale. I falsified your
claim by giving a simple, straightforward test.

Every time you made this assertion a simple example has shot you down.
What this demonstrates is that you do not actually understand what it
means that a theory is falsified, otherwise you wouldn't repeat over
and over again a claim that has been falsified several times over .


<snip lots of red herrings that try to detract from the fact that once
again, you were proven to be wrong>

[Burkhard]

Counting their offspring gives you a nice metric.

[backspace]

..... The favorable ones are preserved..... What would falsify this
claim of logic? It could be genes, robots, planents, metals, gold or
Democritus atoms.

> Many of the tests of Newton's theory too
> were not known or possible at Newton's days.
> Anyhow, you asked a clear question about tigers in zoos. You claimed,
> as always wrongly, that the hypothesis that their different rate of
> increase was due to their traits was unfalsifibale.

Another example might suffice. Googling tautology+culture brings up my
page at nr1. on the issue here
http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Culture

In this page I made the point that the journalist didn't know the
actual reason why Solera the solar firm went bust, I said ''......
maybe they stole the money....'' . Few weeks later it surfaced that
the FBI is
investigating them for making Yahoo's out of government by steeling
$400mil stimulus money.

Of course we still don't know the actual reason why the solar firms
went bust. In the absence of a *falsifiable explanation* the
journalist invoked a claim of logic.

''..Those that closed their doors were weeded out. Weeded out implies
they closed their doors and closed their doors implies they were
weeded out but does not give us the actual reason they don't operate
anymore....''

This has nothing to do with genes, but reformulates the competition
mythology of Democritus atoms competing against one another. Natural
selection was 'natural competitive selection of favorable traits in
the struggle for survival, those were more favorable became more
common. This is a claim of logic, no test can refute nor verify it.

[Burkhard]

The same observations that were given to you last time. Stable
populations where all traits are equally preserved. Catastrophic
populations where all traits are equally eliminated after a set period
of time, and and and and ... That you ignore all these possible
falsifications ta were given to you over and over and over won't make
them go away, they are proof positive that your are plain wrong.

>It could be genes, robots, planents, metals, gold or
> Democritus atoms.
>
> > Many of the tests of Newton's theory too
> > were not known or possible at Newton's days.
> > Anyhow, you asked a clear question about tigers in zoos. You claimed,
> > as always wrongly, that the hypothesis that their different rate of
> > increase was due to their traits was unfalsifibale.
>
> Another example might suffice.

no it might not. it just demonstrates again tha while you sue the
wqord "falsification" all the time, you have no idea what it means.
Popper shows the asymetry between positive and negative evidence - no
amount of positive data can prove a (universal) claim, but a single
counterexample can potentially falsify one. Once your claim was
falsified, no amout of other new examples tha you try to bring to the
table will change this. Your claim that the ToE is unfalsifiable is a
universal statement of the form: there is no possible observation X
that would render the theory false. As I've given you several such
possible observations, your claim has been falsified.

>Googling tautology+culture brings up my

> page at nr1. on the issue herehttp://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Culture

>
> In this page I made the point that the journalist didn't know the
> actual reason why Solera the solar firm went bust, I said ''......
> maybe they stole the money....'' . Few weeks later it surfaced that
> the FBI is
> investigating them for making Yahoo's out of government by steeling
> $400mil stimulus money.
>
> Of course we still don't know the actual reason why the solar firms
> went bust. In the absence of a *falsifiable explanation* the
> journalist invoked a claim of logic.

It seems to me that once again, you did actually provide the
falsification. The journalists proposed a theory, essentially that
their business model did not meet the needs of the market. You
proposed a possible alternative explanation, theft. The crucial
experiment that decides between the theories, falsifies one and
support the other, is to go through the accounts. In this case, if
theft was found, this theory wins.

> ''..Those that closed their doors were weeded out. Weeded out implies
> they closed their doors and closed their doors implies they were
> weeded out but does not give us the actual reason they don't operate
> anymore....''

So what? A bad journalist who has to fill the lines rambles a bit.
Has nothing to do with biology, or the theory of evolution. Finding
bad journalists writing incompetently about the economy is not really
an argument against evolutionary biology.

>
> This has nothing to do with genes, but reformulates the competition
> mythology of Democritus atoms competing against one another. Natural
> selection was 'natural competitive selection of favorable traits in
> the struggle for survival, those were more favorable became more
> common. This is a claim of logic, no test can refute nor verify it.

The tests were given to you again and again and again - you just put
the finger in your ears and shout lalalal.

[backspace]

By logic they became more common(counting their offspring) and by
implication they were more favorably adapted to propagate after
competing *naturally* and selected , retained or preserved.
But if the competing species that became less common , were to be the
ones becoming more common, we would be told the same story in post-
factum way. There is therefore no test to falsify the concept that new
attributes are *enacted* by surviving and being selected or preserved
the natural competitive environment.

There are two underlying premises that conflict:
1) That attributes are acquired or that new information increases.
2) That information is only expressed, neither created nor destroyed
like matter is neither created nor destroyed.

[Burkhard]

This has nothing to do with logic, but is contingent fact

>and by
> implication they were more favorably adapted to propagate after
> competing *naturally* and selected , retained or preserved.
> But if the competing species that became less common , were to be the
> ones becoming more common, we would be told the same story in post-
> factum way.

No, tere would be a different trait identified as causal agent.

There is therefore no test to falsify the concept that new
> attributes are *enacted* by surviving and being selected or preserved
> the natural competitive environment.
>

This claim of yours has been falsified by the counterexamples given to
you. That a theory can;t be falsified by one specific proposed test
does not mean it is unfalsifiable.
If I find a broken vase on the floor and animal hair around it, one
possible explanation is that a cat pushed it from the table, and
gravity made it fall to the ground. If I later discover it is dog;s
hair, I tell the "same story" just replace "cat" with "dog" - tat does
not mean teh teory of gravity can't be falsified.

> There are two underlying premises that conflict:
> 1) That attributes are acquired or that new information increases.

Which has nothing to do directly with NS, but is something we can
observe in agriculture, the lab and when looking at DNA

> 2) That information is only expressed, neither created nor destroyed
> like matter is neither created nor destroyed.

Sound like meaningless garble.

[backspace]

NS is a term for what full sentence did you use it as a metaphor? The
sentence itself must not contain NS
You refuse to define or answer Jerry Fodor's question on LRB - why
pigs don't have wings -: What is the intended meaning of natural
selection.

[Burkhard]

I did not use it as a metaphor for anything.
And I have given you several times a perfectly good definition of the
term which you chose to ignore.

The
> sentence itself must not contain NS
> You refuse to define or answer Jerry Fodor's question on LRB - why
> pigs don't have wings

On the contrary, I answerd it several times, that you chose to ignore
the answers dfon;t make thenm go away

[Burkhard]

Here the last time I answered that question, which was cut and pasted
from the answer I had given you previously, and before that, and
before that...
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2ce4e18f7e9831f3?hl=en

[eridanus]

El mi�rcoles, 12 de septiembre de 2012 12:13:00 UTC+1, backspace escribi�:

you can say parodying racist theories, that so far, the most successful races are the "inferior races"; those are the one breeding a lot faster, the "Aryans" or other "superior races" like white Americans, the KKK, and members of NRA.

Eridanus

[Kermit]

If the favorable traits do not lead to a an increased reproductive
rate. Or it they did, but their offspring did not inherit those
traits. Or if their offspring did, but *their reproductive success was
not improved. Or if it was, but there turned out to be some sort of
inexplicable but observed limit to the amount of change a species
could undergo (i.e. an archetype, with limited adaptation).

>
> > Many of the tests of Newton's theory too
> > were not known or possible at Newton's days.
> > Anyhow, you asked a clear question about tigers in zoos. You claimed,
> > as always wrongly, that the hypothesis that their different rate of
> > increase was due to their traits was unfalsifibale.
>
> Another example might suffice. Googling tautology+culture brings up my

> page at nr1. on the issue herehttp://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/Tautology_Culture

>
> In this page I made the point that the journalist didn't know the
> actual reason why Solera the solar firm went bust, I said ''......
> maybe they stole the money....''

Solyndra. They went bust because the Chinese and others produced
cheaper solar technology with equivalent capabilities.

> . Few weeks later it surfaced that
> the FBI is
> investigating them for making Yahoo's out of government by steeling
> $400mil stimulus money.

Nothing there. the stimulus money used here has been in use for
decades; it encourages start-ups in promising new fields of
technology. Solyndra failed, as a certain percentage of these always
do; The government didn't lose money because most of these companies
are still around and have paid off their loans, and their company
taxes and interest paid and worker payroll taxes have made up for the
small initial losses.

>
> Of course we still don't know the actual reason why the solar firms
> went bust. In the absence of a *falsifiable explanation* the
> journalist invoked a claim of logic.

Most of them didn't, and they are one of the fastest-growing sectors
of the economy.

>
> ''..Those that closed their doors were weeded out. Weeded out implies
> they closed their doors and closed their doors implies they were
> weeded out but does not give us the actual reason they don't operate
> anymore....''

Well, in Solyndra's case, they had traits which required more support
than some of its competitors. Biologists often speak of the expense of
a biological function in an organism. A big human brain is more
expensive than a smaller chimp brain. We had to evolve a lifestyle
that produce more calories(1) before we could get much smarter than
the chimp.

>
> This has nothing to do with genes, but reformulates the competition
> mythology of Democritus atoms competing against one another.

? Atoms don't compete.

And why are atoms Democritus's - why not Bohr atoms? Did I miss a
post?

> Natural
> selection was 'natural competitive selection of favorable traits in
> the struggle for survival, those were more favorable became more
> common. This is a claim of logic, no test can refute nor verify it.

Other than the short list I provided above, which I have given you
before, and you ignored. Others have given you more specific examples,
which you also ignored.

The things you have established so far are:
1. You hold philosophy in contempt. For example, you disdain logic -
you repeat arguments over and over after they have been refuted.
That's not philosophy, that's street fighting.
2. You cannot rephrase anybody accurately, nor honestly. You should be
able to respond to what they have actually said, not tell us what they
"really mean", and refuting *that. This is a type of straw man
argument.
3. You express a fear and loathing of reality. You wrap yourself in
the comfort of obscure and archaic philosophers, while ignoring the
evidence and testable models in use today.
4. Like all religious fanatics, you think that our "beliefs" depend on
the moral authority of the founder. If you can just use your powerful
word magic to establish that he said something invalid (you think),
all of biology will come tumbling down. Well, no, it wouldn't. It
would just mean that something was poorly worded, or at most, poorly
understood. The twin nested hierarchies of morphology and genetics
still stand, as do the fossil record and many classes of evidence.


(1) Hunting game animals by running them down and spearing them, then
later and additionally, cooking our food.

Kermit

[backspace]

https://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/2ce4e18f7e9831f3?hl=en
The sum total of causal interaction between organisms and their
environment, such that having a certain inheritable trait increases
the statistical chances of the individual to have offspring, and
lacking that trait decreases that chance.

rephrase: Some traits leads to increased offspring and other traits to
decreased offspring.

This is a claim of logic, furthermore the offspring will implement a
composite integrity of control algorithms . Where did these algorithms
such neural inverted pendulum control come from?

[backspace]

The premise in Darwin's increase of superior race argument was:
increase in numbers is proportional to intelligence and decrease in
numbers proportional to decrease in intelligence.

But ones intellect is actually expressed in how one responds to the
habitat, therefore a hew hundred years ago in a remote forest it would
make sense to have a large family to help with the work. While in
today's urban setting having a smaller family is the wiser choice.

[backspace]

decreased offspring and in those that increase new information is
generated or new attributes are acquired. Between your premise(new
traits) and conclusion(new traits) is a claim of logic. Since our
expectation is not for a claim of logic but a falsifiable argument you
have in effect merely restated the premise as the conclusion , instead
of deriving the conclusion using falsifiable arguments from the
premise, reasoning in a circle.

Begging the question means a conclusion is stated without stating the
premise. You are not begging the question but reasoning in a circle
because we know what your premise is.

[Burkhard]

This is not a rephrase, this is changing the meaning of the sentence
(a form of lying), by dropping the "causal interaction" part

>
> This is a claim of logic,

No it isn't. There is nothing in the meaning of the word "trait" that
logically implies incerase or decerase. Things could stay just way
they are. Or they could change, but not in response to causal factors.
They could osscilate in all sorts of patterns. .

> furthermore the offspring will implement a
> composite integrity of control algorithms . Where did these algorithms
> such neural inverted pendulum control come from?

The above sentence is meaningless word salad that tries to hide,
badly, that all your claims have been, again, debunked.

[eridanus]

El viernes, 14 de septiembre de 2012 21:27:53 UTC+1, backspace escribi�:

What Darwin did not contemplate was the probably case of zero growth as a rule of thumb. Let's suppose, Darwin did not declare this, that the rule is zero growth, and a group grows and displace or eliminates their competitors, robbing them of their lands and means of survival. Then, to grow as fast as possible was a winner bet, for those children without land to cultivate a garden, would go to rob another people with less young people.

This example is valid for the times in which the excess population was appearing some six or seven thousand years ago. It had been discovered in some ancient excavations in Europe the rest of a wooden wall. You only know that there was a wall in this place because the great quantity of arrow points found in a straight line, as the probably place of the wall where the arrows hit.

Then, as History proves populations with greater number of hungry people, went to wage war to other people to take their lands. It is in the origins of war.

Then, analyzing this from a modern perspective, the populations that grew too fast, find themselves with a shortage of resources; the resources were mostly suitable lands for gardening. Then, by exterminating other populations, these people could to win the race for a moment. But the continuous growth would put them again in problems. There is a moment in which you cannot find more land to grab, not more populations to exterminate.

I was reading about the "reconquista" (reconquering) of Spain by the Christians in the North. Some studies seem to suggest that Christians were using more iron in their war actions and in machines, that the Muslim culture. This was due probably to a more abundance of firewood to make charcoal, an important energy source to produce iron and to work steel. Then, In the North of Spain was cheaper to produce iron and steel than in the south, the land occupied by Islamic dominant population.

Then, the ascent of Europe over the rest of the world was probably due to the abundance of forest in the North. This permitted to produce greater amounts of iron and steel, that not other nations were able to produce. Then, the wars were waged with great amounts of steel, apart from the young human blood; of course.

Then, when poor nations, like Vietnam, were supplied with modern arms and ammunition, from China and Russia, little advantage existed for US, except to kill them with atomic bombs.

Then, the problem is "resources". There is the limit. Now the main resource is oil, but oil have already a predicted date of exhaustion. And this is very probably the future Armageddon predicted by Nostradamus; this is a joke.

But are we really investing in something serious to substitute oil? If the reply is yeah, would we have enough time to put in place a substitute? Are we aware that this is a problem? It looks to me that we are not aware.

Eridanus

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 08:05:32 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
<steph...@gmail.com>:

<snip>

>...What is the intended meaning of natural
>selection.

Differential reproductive success due primarily to
environment acting on genotype.

I *know* you've been told this in the past; are you
developing memory problems, and have you visited an
Alzheimer's clinic?
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."

- McNameless

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:03:32 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

>On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 08:05:32 -0700 (PDT), the following
>appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
><steph...@gmail.com>:
>
><snip>
>
>>...What is the intended meaning of natural
>>selection.

>Differential reproductive success due primarily to
>environment acting on genotype.
>
>I *know* you've been told this in the past; are you
>developing memory problems, and have you visited an
>Alzheimer's clinic?

....and backspace runs away again...

[Kermit]

Your rephrases are sophomoric strawman pseudoarguments.

I'd ask you to stop, but you'd have little left if you did.

> Some traits leads to increased offspring and other traits to
> decreased offspring.

You forgot to mention the "inheritable" part. Also the "environment"
part.

>
> This is a claim of logic,

No, it's an empirical observation, akin to "it's raining more today
than it did yesterday".

> furthermore the offspring will implement a
> composite integrity of control algorithms . Where did these algorithms
> such neural inverted pendulum control come from?

Says you. If you think word salad with a cyber dressing applies, and
contributes to the conversation, then it is up to you to express it.

Kermit

[backspace]

Dawkins wrote in the God delusion p.114
''...A deep understanding of Darwinism teaches us to be wary of the
easy assumption that design is the only alternative to chance, and
teaches us to seek out graded ramps of slowly increasing
complexity...... ''

as I quoted him at http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/The_God_delusion

Applying Dakwins logic to his very sentence itself reveals its own
self-refutational nature. Since design/chance isn't our only dichotomy
then on what basis is Dawkins sentence either designed or the result
of chance? His sentence could be for some other yet to be determined
reason, an infinite number or reasons in-fact, inducing infinite
regress

[John Stockwell]

On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 1:43:21 PM UTC-6, backspace wrote:
> On Sep 3, 9:43�pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > In the later editions of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin makes
>
> > > some small but significant changes. The emphasis shifts to the
>
> > > collective
>
> > > effect rather than the individual one.
>
>
>
> Now I finally know why were are constantly told: Evolution takes place
>
> in populations and not individuals. It was a means of getting around
>
> certain logical flaws or at least a perception of flaws. I will come
>
> back to this issue later with a followup post in this thread.
>
>
>
> My standard question to everything is: Who says so? Who says that the
>
> planets follows an inverse square law : thus says Newton. All
>
> scientific theories are formally established, without exception.
>
> Evolutionary theory has vague generalized dictums like when Larry
>
> Moran(http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/) hammers the table his laptop is
>
> on and thunders: Evolution takes place in pop. , not individuals.