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

So, basically you are playing the apologists' game of trying to make
anything that you don't approve of, or understand, appear to be
a kind of religion, which has only arguments from authority.

One more time, just for you, here is the distilled version:

1) religions and philosophies of the past were heavy on ontology and
used claims of an "ultimate authority" as a justification of
absolutist epistemology, and absolutist ethics.

2) in the world of science we have found that this sort of thing simply
does not work very well. What we find works is if we adopt a system
that is light on the ontology, giving only general patterns of the
"way we think it is", and the rest are epistemological standins called
"theories". Thus scientific thinking is light and agile and capable
of detecting errors, fixing them, and capable of responding to new
information.

So basically, backspace, we do not bow before theories as "authorities".
We don't really give a damned about authority figures. What we teach as
"Newtonian physics" would be barely recognizable to Newton.

Do you want to actually learn anything? Or to you just want to hide behind
your pseudonym and post your ridiculous pseudo intellectualism. If you
are supposed to be representing Jesus, then you are failing. You are
more like those ignorant asshole Pharasees that Jesus was always being
heckled by.

I suggest that you grow a pair of balls, come out behind your pseudonym,
and try some real discourse for a change.

-John

[Burkhard]

On Sep 20, 2:54 pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>  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 athttp://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,

Could be, but do we have any reason to believe it is? We have a viable
hypothesis: Dawkins' sentence is the result of an intentional,
planned action. We make this inference on the basis of our world
knowledge - we write sentences that we plan ahead, we observe other's
doing the same, and those of us with exposure ot university life see
in particular academics engaging with this type of activity all the
time.

Of course, it is a defeasible assumption: Should we learn more about
the way Dawkins' writes his books (e.g. we find that he selects pages
suggested by an AI while being himself under hypnosis) we would
change that theory.

> an infinite number or reasons in-fact, inducing infinite
> regress

No, why? It's a simple question, for which we can develop theories,
test them, keep then until refuted (falsified)

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 20 Sep 2012 06:54:44 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
<steph...@gmail.com>:

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 20 Sep 2012 06:54:44 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
<steph...@gmail.com>:

Aside from the above semantic contortions and faulty
"logic", do you have anything to contribute? No? Thought
not...

[backspace]

Platonic primary binary opposites regulates the flow of our mental
traffic, the quote from Kingsley on my wiki is predicated on the
design/chance or non-random/random dichotomy. A driver at a traffic
robot has only one of two choices: drive or remain stationary. The
irony in atheists argument that there is no God is that the only way
this could make sense is as the Platonic contrast to there being a
God: God either exists or he doesn't . Thus the very language they use
to deny His existance , implicitly assumes what they try to deny, a
vivid example of what Freud would have called the return of the
Platonic repressed.

[backspace]

Claims of logic have no authors: nobody says so. Scientific or
falsificationtific theories are always non-falsified via a test by
some author. Falsifiable theories always have authors, without
exception. There is not a single scientific or falsificationtific you
can refer to me that didn't have a *discoverer* or author.

If what you are saying makes perfect logical sense, so logical infact
that it is self-evidentiary like for example the claim that favorable
ones became common and those that became common were favorable in OoS
Struggle for Life , that you wonder in Dennett like frustration why a
YEC creationist like me simply can't understand the *logic* then it is
because you don't grasp that by the precepts of falsificationism the
claims of logic are not falsifiable.

[Kermit]

The existence of Neptune does not depend on accepting the authority of
Alexis Bouvard or anybody else.
Bouvard's math and the later direct observations of others can be
repeated by anyone who has the equipment.

When someone offers a testable model that fits the data, and it is
tested and not falsified, then it is available to everyone. Someone
may get the credit for thinking of it first, but his or her authority
is merely that; credit for saying it first. If it is subsequently
falsified and continues to be when tested, then if will be dropped
quickly.

There are no moral authorities in science, only data and explanations.

You have been told this repeatedly.

>
> If what you are saying makes perfect logical sense, so logical infact
> that it is self-evidentiary

And yet you continue to fail to understand its nature. If you ever
come up with a persuasive case that a phrase is misused, then you have
established nothing else. Science is not a house of cards, a fragile
and unsteady structure built on the words of some prophet. It is a
kaleidoscope, and if you succeed in removing one piece, it will simply
shift into another beautiful pattern, without losing any stability.

And you, BTW, will not be the one to remove even the tiniest fragment.
It is not build of obscure philosophies and conservative but eccentric
linguistics. It is a collection of models that fit the data. You offer
neither new models nor any data of any kind. You are shining images
from a movie projector at a castle, and expecting the walls to tumble
from your attack.

> like for example the claim that favorable
> ones became common and those that became common were favorable in OoS

No. We know ahead of time what many of the favorable traits are. e.g.
thicker fur when the climate turns colder. Others we discover after
the fact, and can test our explanations and confirm our observations.

Bad philosophy and naive word magic will not make the scary world
change. You and I are still cousins - literally - of the pine tree and
the tiger shark.

> Struggle for Life , that you wonder in Dennett like frustration why a
> YEC creationist like me simply can't understand the *logic* then it is
> because you don't grasp that by the precepts of falsificationism the
> claims of logic are not falsifiable.

Is that an image of a battering ram? The castle walls still aren't
shaking, I'm afraid.

Kermit

[John Stockwell]

Usually scientific ideas are created in part by a number of discoverers
or authors. Yet, we do not argue from authority. Scientific notions stand
or fail on their own merit, which is to say their utility in organizing
known facts, simplifying observed patterns, and in guiding future investigations. Argument from authority is bankrupt.

>
>
>
> If what you are saying makes perfect logical sense, so logical infact
>
> that it is self-evidentiary like for example the claim that favorable
>
> ones became common and those that became common were favorable in OoS
>
> Struggle for Life , that you wonder in Dennett like frustration why a
>
> YEC creationist like me simply can't understand the *logic* then it is
>
> because you don't grasp that by the precepts of falsificationism the
>
> claims of logic are not falsifiable.

So called "verificationist" or "falsificationist" ideas are only part of the
process of science. Science is a game of "last theory standing". The "last
theory standing" isn't necessarily the "best theory" in any absolute sense,
it is the survivor. As I said above, it is not mere "verificationism" or
"falsificationism" that is the touchstone of scientific validity, it is the
combined epistemological strength of the theory in organizing observations,
simplifying our general theoretical structure. and guiding future scientific
work by generating useful hypotheses. That is as good as we can do. That apparently as good as anybody has done in the history of the world.

The reason that you are having trouble as a creationist is that you have adopted the unnecessarily detailed and baggage ridden ontology of young
earth global flood Biblical literalism. Of course,
you "believe" your Bible-based scenarios about the way the world is. If
you are going to stick to such notions, dyed-in-the-wool, then there really
is no more point in talking to you. You will continue to try to make up
arguments that are resting on a supposed authority that no scientist would
view as being valid.

Consider this. If all of the Bibles were removed from the earth, and all
knowledge of the Bible were removed, would future humans write down the same
Bible. No. Of course, not. The Bible is the result of a vast collection of
historical events that cannot be repeated.


On the other hand, if all scientific
results were lost, and civilization went into an extended dark age, it is
conceivable that humans would rediscover the notion of scientific investigation, and eventually make the majority of scientific discoveries
that we are familiar with today. The language would be different, but the
notions of mathematics could be rediscovered, and the notions of mathematical
physics could be rediscovered as well. The world would not look the same, to
be sure, but much basic knowledge could be recognized.



-John

[Burkhard]

Not sure what this has to do with the above, but in a manner of
speaking, yes that's true. In logic it is called "forcing" - you can
always reduce an arbitrary complex problem into a tree of binary
decisions. It is the reason why the meta-theory of even the most
exotic logical systems tends to be classical bi-valued, or why people
think they can use chips build on yes/no gates to model human
intelligence. But because it is so trivial, nothing particularly
interesting follows from it, specially not statements about the
outside world

>the quote from Kingsley on my wiki is predicated on the
> design/chance or non-random/random dichotomy. A driver at a traffic
> robot has only one of two choices: drive or remain stationary.

You think so? What about: driver leaves car and walks - not
stationary, and not driving either. Or: leaves car and pushes it over
the traffic light. Or: calls a helicopter and has himself and the car
lifted over the crossing. Whenever people claim that there are only
two choices, they tend to lack imagination.

> The
> irony in atheists argument that there is no God is that the only way
> this could make sense is as the Platonic contrast to there being a
> God: God either exists or he doesn't . Thus the very language they use
> to deny His existance,

That would be "existance" in the sense of Derrida, or a simple
misspelling?

> be in the implicitly assumes what they try to deny,

Only in the sense that any proper name poses the same problem - so an
atheist could happily concede that point and just point out that
exactly the same logic applies to "Zeus" or "Harry Potter". That being
able to deny that something exists is a slightly puzzling property of
human language is not exactly new, one obvious solution, historically,
was to show that "exists" is not a predicate, but a quantifier - which
Kant argued.

Me. I'm a Meinongian, everything exists, just not in the same way. The
number 3, the battle of Waterloo, the first thought I had this
morning, the concept of beauty, Sherlock Holmes etc all exist, just in
very different ways.

[RAM]

So you are ignorant of Freud as well.

[backspace]

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?MeinongianLogic

[Burkhard]

Yes? Any specific point you want to make? Personally, i prefer Zalta's
logic of abstract objects as an approximation of Meinong's ideas, and
myself, I use Lesniewski quantifies, but none of this has much to do
with the issues under discussion here.

[John S. Wilkins]

Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Sep 22, 12:15 am, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sep 21, 10:10 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > On Sep 21, 7:25 pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >

...

I knew there was a reason I liked you. I also like Ed's theory of
abstract objects (although I have nothing to say about the jungle).
--
John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

[Stephanus]

You can either move or not move: do you know of any other options? By
Dawkins logic if chance/design isn't our only options then neither is
to move or not to move. He stated that a ''deep understanding of
Darwinims'' leads to this conclusion. Both John Wilkins and I want to
know where we can by scientific Darwinism measurement machine.

[Burkhard]

Let's restore the part you snipped without indicating it, shall we?
Unacknowledged snips are generally considered dishonest and deceptive
under normal rules netiquette:

That's the part you deleted: "You think so? What about: driver leaves

car and walks - not
stationary, and not driving either. Or: leaves car and pushes it over
the traffic light. Or: calls a helicopter and has himself and the car
lifted over the crossing. "

With other words I have given you several options to the dichotomy you
originally posed, now you are asking a totally different one. And if
you look at it, it is rather different in logical structure from the
first. Driving/remaining stationary are just two contingent
alternatives, the terms are logically independent of each other.
"Move or not move" by contrast is a pair where the second is simply
the negation of the first, they are logically dependent on each other.
So no, in this case there is trivially no alternative - however, we
can of course subdivide each of them with further dichotomies. I can
move either fast or not fast. I can move not fast either in the car or
not in the car etc. That is what is called "forcing" and is pretty
trivial, in particular, it does not allow you to make any substantial
claims about available options, as trivially, it is always possible.

By
> Dawkins logic if chance/design isn't our only options then neither is
> to move or not to move.

As shwon above, the "chance design" dichotomy is of a totally
different nature as the "move not move". The second is a tautology,
the first not.

> He stated that a ''deep understanding of
> Darwinims'' leads to this conclusion. Both John Wilkins and I want to
> know where we can by scientific Darwinism measurement machine.

Word salad.

[Stephanus]

On Sep 21, 8:45 pm, Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> When someone offers a testable model that fits the data, and it is
> tested and not falsified, then it is available to everyone.  Someone
> may get the credit for thinking of it first, but his or her authority
> is merely that; credit for saying it first. If it is subsequently
> falsified and continues to be when tested, then if will be dropped
> quickly.
>
> There are no moral authorities in science, only data and explanations.
>
> You have been told this repeatedly.
>
>
>
> > If what you are saying makes perfect logical sense, so logical infact
> > that it is self-evidentiary
>
> And yet you continue to fail to understand its nature. If you ever
> come up with a persuasive case that a phrase is misused, then you have
> established nothing else. Science is not a house of cards, a fragile
> and unsteady structure built on the words of some prophet.

> It is a kaleidoscope, and if you succeed in removing one piece, it will simply
> shift into another beautiful pattern, without losing any stability.

The irony in your reply is that this very sentence isn't falsifiable:
no test can be devised to refute or verify it.

> And you, BTW, will not be the one to remove even the tiniest fragment.
> It is not build of obscure philosophies and conservative but eccentric
> linguistics. It is a collection of models that fit the data.

Here is what Fleeming Jenkin wrote:

http://archive.org/stream/cu31924012236109/cu31924012236109_djvu.txt
(last page)
The mathematical relations between numbers and magnitudes
require separate consideration.

In geometry they involve the comparison of dimensions, and
dimensions are, in the sense explained above, things. But where
mathematics deal with the relations between symbols, whether
algebraic or numerical, they do not compare things. They
essentially substitute a symbol for the thing itself, and use the
symbols to facilitate not measurement but ratiocination con-
cerning measurements. Number is not an object, a condition,
a property, an attribute, or even an abstraction. Numbers ex-
press the result of measurement; they cannot themselves be
measured. The relation between them is stated when they are
stated. The very conception of number involves the assumption
that two things can be identical, or may for a special purpose
be regarded as identical. This is neither the result of abstrac-
tion nor reasoning ; it is merely a short way of saying that
any four things which we choose to regard as identical, may be
counted in two ways, described as regards number in two
different phrases .
-----------------

What I add to this is the observation that we see rocks falling, it is
an inference that gravity is the cause. Gravity isn't observed but
inferred. Therefore a scientific theory must at the very least be a
claim of inference, with such inference a well reasoned description of
the observation. If evolution is an observation or fact and not an
inference, then it isn't a scientific theory.

Ray Martinez in the Stanford tautology thread pointed at that by the
precepts of empiricism the claims of logic are not falsifiable: you
can't experience a claim of logic. To this I added that by the
precepts of falsificationism any *rhetorical* argument which derives
its conclusions using claims of logic are non-sequiturs, or doesn't
follow logically. The chance *conclusion* that Darwin had never
derived logically in the first place from his premise that information
or attributes were acquired via Patrick Matthew natural means of
competitive preservation(selection) of those favorable attributes that
became more common and those less favorable became less common int the
*Struggle for Life* because it rationalizes after the fact (post-
factum): we would be told the same story if the other creature became
more common. Claims of logic apply under all conditions and all time
frames past present and future by logical necessity.

Because chance was a non-sequitur it still left open the possibility
to be falsified , which it was when it was discovered that it will
take 10 to 400 permutations to get a living cell, needing more than
eternity. Because the conclusion chance never derived logically, it
allowed the materialist to substitute a different non-sequitur
conclusion as Dawkins did with his infinite regress options as
alternative to chance/design.

Tautologies neither confirm nor verify a conclusion,which means the
conclusion itself could be verified or falsified due to a discovery.
Tautologies clutter this process of discovery by entangling our
logic.

> You offer
> neither new  models nor any data of any kind. You are shining images
> from a movie projector at a castle, and expecting the walls to tumble
> from your attack.
>
> > like for example the claim that favorable
> > ones became common and those that became common were favorable in OoS

> No. We know ahead of time what many of the favorable traits are. e.g.
> thicker fur when the climate turns colder.

And if they had thin skin in the desert and *favorable* for survival
you would tell the same story - after the fact.

[Stephanus]

The issue with the works of Shakespear that it assumes the composite
integrity of grammar, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Even if the
works of Shakespear were to by typed out by a monkey it still wouldn't
actually mean anything because for this a mind is needed. Meaning is
always inferred as a composite functionality of base concepts or
elements.
Schützenberger in the French interview after Wistar described how we
only derive meaning as functionality: the function of a car, function
of a battery.
http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/schutz172.htm . He echoed D'Arcy
Thompson's description of composite integrity with functional
integrity, revived by Behe under the rubric of IC.
:''.... The laboratory biologists' normal and unforced vernacular is
almost always couched in functional terms: the function of an eye, the
function of an enzyme, or a ribosome, or the fruit fly's antennae --
their function; the concept by which such language is animated is one
perfectly adapted to reality......''

Without a mind the monkey typing would be no different than a random
string of letters. Hence *mind first* is implicitly assumed
commensurate with our everyday experience: designed objects always
existed in a mind before being expressed physically. For the sonnets
of Shakespear to be classified as designed, the very concept of
*design* must exist a-priori before any expression in a physical
dimension(cars, letters) of such mind. With such design deriving its
meaning as the opposite of random,chance. If there are more infinite
options, then we would have to wait an infinite time to explore them
all, off into the abyss of infinite regress. The best explanation for
design is that it is the opposite of chance, therefore the explanation
doesn't need an explanation or the explanation itself would need one,
ad-infinitum .

[Stephanus]

On Sep 22, 2:05 pm, Stephanus <srensbu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Fleeming Jenkins wrote: ..... numbers themselves can't be measured...

Science is the process of measuring things, yet the very numbers it
uses to express the attributes of our observations in order to make
inferences can't itself measured. The implications are that
falsifiability itself can't be falsified. Hence if our descriptions is
logical then there is the intuitive deduction that no matter how
refined our logic becomes, there will always be something about the
logic that the logic itself can't prove and thus incomplete.
Incomplete is the dissimilar term or shorthand for saying that there
is something about a logical description we know to be true but will
never be able to prove, as Godel pointed out.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:32:14 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

>On Thu, 20 Sep 2012 06:54:44 -0700 (PDT), the following
>appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
><steph...@gmail.com>:
>
>> 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
>
>Aside from the above semantic contortions and faulty
>"logic", do you have anything to contribute? No? Thought
>not...

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

[Kermit]

On 22 Sep, 06:05, Stephanus <srensbu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 21, 8:45 pm, Kermit <unrestrained_h...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > When someone offers a testable model that fits the data, and it is
> > tested and not falsified, then it is available to everyone.  Someone
> > may get the credit for thinking of it first, but his or her authority
> > is merely that; credit for saying it first. If it is subsequently
> > falsified and continues to be when tested, then if will be dropped
> > quickly.
>
> > There are no moral authorities in science, only data and explanations.
>
> > You have been told this repeatedly.
>
> > > If what you are saying makes perfect logical sense, so logical infact
> > > that it is self-evidentiary
>
> > And yet you continue to fail to understand its nature. If you ever
> > come up with a persuasive case that a phrase is misused, then you have
> > established nothing else. Science is not a house of cards, a fragile
> > and unsteady structure built on the words of some prophet.
> > It is a  kaleidoscope, and if you succeed in removing one piece, it will simply
> > shift into another beautiful pattern, without losing any stability.
>
> The irony in your reply is that this very sentence isn't falsifiable:
> no test can be devised to refute or verify it.

It is a poetic (however bad the poetry) description. Let's engineer it
a bit, shall, we?

I am claiming that scientific methodology is not, as a whole
endangered by the falsification of any scientific theory, either in
part or on the whole. The scientific community is not disrupted by it,
nor thrown into disarray. Nor do the practitioners, the teachers and
researchers of science, find less wonder or beauty in their field when
a theory is replaced or modified.

We can measure any of these, although not easily - the social sciences
are more difficult in many respects than, say, physics.

We can define robustness of scientific methodology, read papers that
reference it, read several books that discuss methodology, define it
for our purposes, then retroactively investigate the numbers of
opinions on the subject and what those opinions were after
revolutionary theories were introduced. I think were we to do that,
then we would find that if anything, the methodology itself wa
enriched with new techniques, and seen to be stronger than it was
before.

While arguments were common when new theories were introduced, within
a generation, consensus was generally reached after the data were
confirmed, and communications (letters, emails, journal articles)
would reflect this.

And scientists still wonder and find beauty. Their blogs, diaries,
letters, etc. would express this.

A social scientist or philosopher of science could investigate these,
and finding data other than I predict above would falsify it.

So... gravity is not a fact *and a theory?

How about atoms?
Germs?

All observations are deductions to some degree; we often use a key
word to describe a class of generally-accepted observations and more
derived observations and a more abstract model to explain them.

>
> Ray Martinez in the Stanford tautology thread pointed at that by the
> precepts of empiricism the claims of logic are not falsifiable: you
> can't experience a claim of logic.

Certainly not in the way we experience heat, or the image in a
microscope eyepiece.

> To this I added that by the
> precepts of falsificationism any *rhetorical* argument which derives
> its conclusions using claims of logic are non-sequiturs, or doesn't
> follow logically.

Any purely rhetorical argument, perhaps. Are you saying that logic
doesn't apply to the real world?

How about numbers?

> The chance *conclusion* that Darwin had never
> derived logically in the first place from his premise that information
> or attributes were acquired via Patrick Matthew natural means of
> competitive preservation(selection) of those favorable attributes that
> became more common and those less favorable became less common int the
> *Struggle for Life* because it rationalizes after the fact (post-
> factum): we would be told the same story if the other creature became
> more common. Claims of logic apply under all conditions and all time
> frames past present and future by logical necessity.

This world salad does not obscure your confusion on this issue.

Natural selection acting on a pool of variable inheritable traits is
the primary driving force behind the evolution of species.

We can predict some traits which will be favorable ahead of time; for
instance thicker fur in a colder climate, or bacteria evolving the
ability to eat a new source of nutrients. There are a number of ways
the theory could be falsified in principle. For instance, if there
were some divine or genetic archetype being reinforced, we might see
an organism with favorable traits reproducing more successfully, but
not passing on those trait to their grandchildren.

Or if favorable traits - like thicker fur when it's cold - are never
inheritable.

>
> Because chance was a non-sequitur it still left open the possibility
> to be falsified , which it was when it was discovered that it will
> take 10 to 400 permutations to get a living cell, needing more than
> eternity.

Nope. Bad math. Genetic processing is parallel, not serial. And we
don't know all the steps necessary to get to a cell. We don't have to
get from here to there all at once. It only has to be an incremental
improvement for that trait in that generation, no matter how small. Or
even not favorable at all, just not significantly disfavorable.

>  Because the conclusion chance never derived logically,

Word salad.

The mutations are random (with respect to the needs of the organism),
but the changes are not.

It is not chance that leads most rolling rocks to travel downhill.

> it
> allowed the materialist to substitute a different non-sequitur
> conclusion as Dawkins did with his infinite regress options as
> alternative to chance/design.

Nope, no infinite regress. What are you talking about?

>
> Tautologies

What do tautologies have to do with the theory of evolution?

> neither confirm nor verify a conclusion,which means the
> conclusion itself could be verified or falsified due to a discovery.
> Tautologies clutter this process of discovery by entangling our
> logic.

As does turgid prose, obscure philosophical references, and obfuscated
pseudo-logic.

>
> > You offer
> > neither new  models nor any data of any kind. You are shining images
> > from a movie projector at a castle, and expecting the walls to tumble
> > from your attack.
>
> > > like for example the claim that favorable
> > > ones became common and those that became common were favorable in OoS
> > No. We know ahead of time what many of the favorable traits are. e.g.
> > thicker fur when the climate turns colder.
>
> And if they had thin skin in the desert and *favorable* for survival
> you would tell the same story - after the fact.

No, we could predict head of time for many characteristics, but not
all. But after the fact we could test it. If thinner fur helped in the
desert, we could introduce it to numerous groups of that species in
various conditions, We could looks to see if it developed when the
species was introduced historically to that environment (perhaps by
change of climate), and also look at past changes moving in the other
direction.

It can get complicated, of course, but it's simple to test in
principle.

Kermit

[Kermit]

Yes. That's why many scientists will say something along the lines of
"these are working assumptions".

Too bad for you emotional comfort level, but science works. As long as
it works, scientists will keep doing science as we know it. Science
has given us the internet, a good cure rate for childhood leukemia,
wiped out smallpox, reattached severed limbs, developed the GPS
system, and much, much more. Do you refute those with your claims of
tautologies?

> Hence if our descriptions is
> logical then there is the intuitive deduction that no matter how
> refined our logic becomes, there will always be something about the
> logic that the logic itself can't prove and thus incomplete.

Yes. Rather like the definitions of words in dictionaries. Will you
now argue that words have no definitions, and we cannot use them?

> Incomplete is the dissimilar term or shorthand for saying that there
> is something about a logical description we know to be true but will
> never be able to prove, as Godel pointed out.

Yes. One needs to know enough words to be able to use a dictionary. It
is a useful tools nonetheless.

Kermit

[Kermit]

This is because science is grounded in reality. Religions diverge;
science converges.

Kermit

[Stephanus]

10 to the power 400 is what I meant.
With materialism design is ruled out apriori and chance is
impossible , given the complexity of the cells, the proteome phase-
space is too large ( ~2^400 ), too fragile ( E0~kt ) and too
nucleation-dependent (hydrophobic core) to ever produce stable
organisms, let-alone allow them to dissimulate - Bio-evolution lacks
both a dynamic and an object.

[eridanus]

The idea of design would be correct if we had a prove that the
supernatural events exist, and then god exist. We have not reasons
to believe such a thing.

Then when thinking about evolution, we do not count as alternative a
miracle or a god creator, but natural events. Then, considering the
relative complexities of some organs, we have to explain its existence
as an step by step approach from the simpler forms to the more complex.

Even accepting that we are not able to explain every complex organ
in a step by step progression.

Then, there is not any absurdity in the book of Dawkins. Unless you can demonstrate that god and the supernatural events exist and are not in
fact a swindle to fleece people.

Eridanus

[backspace]

All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
numbers, but numbers themselves can't be measured as pointed out by
Fleeming Jenkin, this intuitively reflects Godel's incompleteness
theorem : there is something about Popper falsifiability itself that
can't be falsified. By extension language itself can't be measured yet
all falsifiable physics equations are sentences.

If numbers themselves could be measured it would raise the question as
to what would measure such measurement and then the measurement of
such measurement ad-infinitum: God constructed numbers so they can't
be measured to avoid infinite regress. Numbers is a form of language,
Jesus Christ as God, who is Language incarnate can't be measured, our
language itself is bound and instantiated by Language Himself, which
is why Antony Flew's falsification tests for God isn't raised

[eridanus]

you cannot swindle anyone with this arguments. Numbers has not any
meaning unless they have a relation with some piece of reality you
understands thoroughly. You are talking here about cells, but you
cannot know cells entirely. Then, you are attributing probabilities
to things you do not know. It is a little like some NASA engineers
that were telling Richard Feynnman about the probabilities of failing
a spacecraft once in a million travels.

This engineer was lying, and you are lying also.
You are trying to prove the existence of god by lying.

But if you want honestly prove that god exists, you only need to
perform a few simple miracles. With a sign of your hand, you pull
down a skyscraper, then, when the tower is smashed in the floor,
with another sign the building recovers his previous form without
any sign of damage, and with all the people that were working
there in perfect state, as if nothing had happened.

This is a miracle. But you can even perform before me another
spectacular miracle. I crack an egg and pour it on a hot frying
pen, then when the egg is perfectly fried to eat, you reverse the
whole process and the egg recovers the previous appearance, become
liquid and jumps up and enters inside the cracked shell where it
was previously. Then the cracked eggshell recovers the previous
appearance it had, and now look as a normal egg in my hand again.

The miracle can be performed easily many times with the same egg,
and any stubborn atheist like me, can become a believer in
supernatural events. It is pretty easy. Not any need to be
lying to prove that god exists. Just perform some easy miracles
that would reverse the law of entropy.

Eridanus

[eridanus]

El s�bado, 6 de octubre de 2012 10:39:33 UTC+1, backspace escribi�:

You can swindle a gullible person with this pseudo-intelligent chatter.
You can only swindle a person that is impressed with words he does not
understand.

In general, I am as rule skeptic, and only believe in banal certitudes.
Even, on science matters I do not understand a kept a prudent distance,
and do not accept or reject a question that I do not understand.

Basically, your argument smells of your trying to sell me the existence
of a god, and some piece of creationism. But using fake chattering that
looks as science, or a gullible philosophy.

To the existence a god it is very easy to demonstrate, and you would
not need to lie using pseudoscientific arguments. God simple means the
supernatural. Or to perform supernatural events easily, with a simple
sign of your hand. The most single supernatural demonstration is to
reverse the entropy of a phenomenon.
I had mentioned already the experiment of the fried egg, that reverse to
its previous form inside the eggshell.

I know that god does not like to come here to perform physical
demonstrations of his power. This is the main reason why there are
atheists. But if god does not come here to demonstrate his power,
because he is short of timid or do not like to brag in public of his
supernatural power, at least some contumacious preachers are not.
I challenge those preachers to prove the existence of god with very
simple miracles that defy a basic law of physics, like entropy.

Your pseudo scientific chattering only can swindle a person that is
impressed easily with words and arguments he does not understand.

It is not my case, for I am a contumacious skeptic. I only believe
in banal certitudes. That include some parts of maths, some physics,
some chemistry, and some amounts natural sciences.
My position as skeptic means that any scientific argument that I
could not understand, I cannot believe it. Of course, I cannot either
reject it. It simple does not serve to convince me, for I do not
understand it.

Then, god to me, means the supernatural. You want me that I believe
in god? Prove that supernatural events are possible.

Eridanus

[backspace]

On Oct 6, 11:59�am, eridanus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
> El s�bado, 6 de octubre de 2012 10:39:33 UTC+1, backspace �escribi�:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
>
> > numbers, but numbers themselves can't be measured as pointed out by
>
> > Fleeming Jenkin, this intuitively reflects Godel's incompleteness
>
> > theorem : there is something about Popper falsifiability itself that
>
> > can't be falsified. By extension language itself can't be measured yet
>
> > all falsifiable physics equations are sentences.
>
> > If numbers themselves could be measured it would raise the question as
>
> > to what would measure such measurement and then the measurement of
>
> > such measurement ad-infinitum: God constructed numbers so they can't
>
> > be measured to avoid infinite regress. Numbers is a form of language,
>
> > Jesus Christ as God, who is Language incarnate can't be measured, our
>
> > language itself is bound and instantiated by Language Himself, which
>
> > is why Antony Flew's falsification tests for God isn't raised
>
> You can swindle a gullible person with this pseudo-intelligent chatter.
> You can only swindle a person that is impressed with words he does not
> understand.
>
> In general, I am as rule skeptic, and only believe in banal certitudes.
> Even, on science matters I do not understand a kept a prudent distance,
> and do not accept or reject a question that I do not understand.
>
> Basically, your argument smells of your trying to sell me the existence
> of a god, and some piece of creationism. �But using fake chattering that
> looks as science, or a gullible philosophy.

God became a man Jesus Christ and said I am Language, but because
language, numbers can't be measured God can't measured. To falsify
something is to measure something, but that which is defined as
unmeasurable is therefore unfalsifiable, hence Antony Flew's
falsification questions aren't raised to begin with by logical
necessity because it would induce a M�nchhausen Trilemmian regressive
argument.
See http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/The_God_delusion for my notes on
this issue.

[Burkhard]

On 6 Oct, 05:39, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
> numbers,

Nonsense. "tomorrow the sun will rise in the north" is extremely
falsifiable, yet does not involve numbers at all

but numbers themselves can't be measured as pointed out by
> Fleeming Jenkin, this intuitively reflects Godel's incompleteness
> theorem :

Nonsene. There are perfectly good mathematical systems around that
provide more than enough expressive powers for most reasoning tasks,
including many scientific theories. They will be fragmennts of Peano
arithmetic, but very powerfull fragments.

)there is something about Popper falsifiability itself that
> can't be falsified.

So far, whenever you tried to make this argument you failed. Nothing
has changed. There are no self-referential problems with
falsification, in the way they earlier neo-positivist theories had
them that linked verification/falsification not to the narrow issue of
what counts as science, but the much more ambitious claim to what is
meaningful.

)By extension language itself can't be measured yet

> all falsifiable physics equations are sentences.

Lots of aspects of language can be measured, e.g. Length of sentences
or number of Morphemes of a language.

>
> If numbers themselves could be measured

That's what we have ordinal numbers for - they measure sets which in
turn are numbers.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 6 Oct 2012 02:36:33 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
<steph...@gmail.com>:

>All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
>numbers,

Really? What numbers are required to test the proposition
that "When I release a rock I'm holding over the head of the
moron known as 'backspace' it will move downward until it
contacts his head, after which I'll be happier"?

Free association and random groups of words are Not Your
Friends.

[eridanus]

El sábado, 6 de octubre de 2012 12:39:33 UTC+1, backspace escribió:
> On Oct 6, 11:59 am, eridanus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> necessity because it would induce a Münchhausen Trilemmian regressive

>
> argument.
>
> See http://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/The_God_delusion for my notes on
>
> this issue.

most of the products of language are irrelevant or are outright lies.

You do not impress me chanting with your pretentious chattering.
And you would not impress any intelligent human being here.

Eridanus

[backspace]

On Oct 6, 4:59 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> On 6 Oct, 05:39, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
> > numbers,
>
> Nonsense. "tomorrow the sun will rise in the north" is extremely
> falsifiable, yet does not involve numbers at all

Tomorrow could be any day of the calender say day 23, which is after
today day 22. Let me rephrase it as follows:
All falsifiable constructs involves either the explicitly expressed
measurement of something using numbers or the unstated assumption
that something/nothing, tomorrow/today binary opposite event taking
place. All such events will assume a numerical concept because our
language functions strictly on binary semantic opposites.

[backspace]

On Oct 6, 6:29 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Oct 2012 02:36:33 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace

> <stephan...@gmail.com>:

>
> >All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
> >numbers,
>
> Really? What numbers are required to test the proposition
> that "When I release a rock I'm holding over the head of the
> moron known as 'backspace' it will move downward until it
> contacts his head, after which I'll be happier"?

Your understanding that downward is binary opposite of upwards.
Designate downwards as ' 0 ' and upwards as ' 1 '. Like the binary
numbering system forms a composite integrity, so our language works on
Platonic binary opposites which can't be falsified. Implicit in every
sentence we state is the binary opposites assumption, which can't be
falsified or it would raise the question as to what would falsify such
falsificationism, inducing infinite regress.

[backspace]

On Oct 6, 7:54�pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 6, 4:59 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > On 6 Oct, 05:39, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
> > > numbers,
>
> > Nonsense. "tomorrow the sun will rise in the north" is extremely
> > falsifiable, yet does not involve numbers at all
>
> Tomorrow could be any day of the calender say day 23, which is after
> today day 22. Let me �rephrase it as follows:
> All falsifiable constructs involves either the explicitly expressed
> measurement of something using �numbers or the unstated assumption
> that something/nothing, tomorrow/today binary opposite event taking
> place. All such events will assume a numerical concept because our
> language functions strictly on binary semantic opposites.

Let me add this by rephrasing your sentence to make it clear what is
being assumed:

Burkhard wrote: "tomorrow the sun will rise in the north" is

extremely falsifiable, yet does not involve numbers at all

rephrase Burkhard:
Today is the 23rd , tomorrow the 24th the sun will rise in the north

is extremely falsifiable, yet does not involve numbers at all

Do you agree with me now that your sentence did indeed involve a
number and that this number can't itself be measured?

[eridanus]

El s�bado, 6 de octubre de 2012 19:59:32 UTC+1, backspace escribi�:

> On Oct 6, 6:29�pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
>
> > On Sat, 6 Oct 2012 02:36:33 -0700 (PDT), the following
>
> > appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
>
> > <stephan...@gmail.com>:
>
> >
>
> > >All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
>
> > >numbers,
>
> >
>
> > Really? What numbers are required to test the proposition
>
> > that "When I release a rock I'm holding over the head of the
>
> > moron known as 'backspace' it will move downward until it
>
> > contacts his head, after which I'll be happier"?
>
>
>
> Your understanding that downward is binary opposite of upwards.
>
> Designate downwards as ' 0 ' and upwards as ' 1 '. Like the binary
>
> numbering system forms a composite integrity, so our language works on
>
> Platonic binary opposites which can't be falsified. Implicit in every
>
> sentence we state is the binary opposites assumption, which can't be
>
> falsified or it would raise the question as to what would falsify such
>
> falsificationism, inducing infinite regress.
>

Many of the shits we have to suffer in philosophical argument comes from
some pernicious influence of Platonic thinking. I read long ago some
works Plato and I its philosophical thinking looked rather wrong to me.

Most of all for the problems he present about the essence of things.
Then, he speaks of the essence of things including the living beings.
I had seen as an echo the words of some religious people arguing about
perfection and stability of living beings. If a human has the essence
of a human is somewhat perfect. But it does not exist any perfect model
of a human being, or a living dog, or a living cow. Each human being
can be slightly different to another. One human being can be blind, or
idiot, or autistic, can be deaf, or mental retarded. Then, the idea of
an essential model is wrong. One man can be tall, other short, one can
brave, other submissive, one can be a ruler, or a conqueror, and other
is simply a slave captured in a war and sent to work on the quarries.

Some differences also exist among other animals, like dogs, hens, doves,
etc. or even among wild animals like zebras, lions, rhinos, etc. All
of them have a slight difference, some hidden weakness, or some illness,
etc. A lion in captivity in a zoo can live like 30 years, but in the
wild it can die as old as 15 years. But the life expectancy of live
for lion cub at birth is 12 months. On average, it does not live more
than 1 year. only a few lucky cubs can last as much as 15 years to die.

Most of the male lions would not last alive more than a few weeks after
being kicked out of their pride. They would die of hunger.
While the younger females that stay at the pride could last a little
longer for they are fed by the group that hunt together. But being
without experience most young females would die of an accident of
hunting. Not so much by the accident, but by the consequences of the
accident. For sometimes the prays of lions kick back to them, and some
get a leg or a jaw broken by a kick. Some others get stabbed by sharp
horns, etc.
In old age, many lions are infected by ticks or fly larvae, and can die
of septicemia, or other parasites.
Then, there is not such a thing as perfection or essence, in any living
being. Each animal can have a small defect or other bigger. This
explains the work of evolution. Evolution works because there exist
small differences among the individuals of a population.

A fishing boat was wreck in a storm near Iceland and all of the sailors
died, but one that was a very fat man. He lasted like half an hour in
sea and he was able to cling to the rocks and arrive safely to land. Later
he saw a small house and went walking there. I think he had saved himself
of dying of hypothermia because he was rather fat. It was fat like walrus.
This helped him to survive at sea. The Inuit people is rather fat, and
had changed its genes to survive on a diet of fat and meat. Then, when
they eat sweets and biscuits, or bread they had a rise of sugar. They have
a propensity to being diabetic.

Eridanus

[Nick Keighley]

On Oct 6, 10:39 am, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
> numbers,

no. Much of astronomy consists of pictures. Yes pictures can be turned
into measurements and numbers, but this doesn't pictures *are*
numbers.

> but numbers themselves can't be measured as pointed out by
> Fleeming Jenkin,

could you expand on this? Numbers are an abstraction so you can't
perform measurements on them. Measurements are represented as numbers
(with some error bound).

> this intuitively reflects Godel's incompleteness
> theorem : there is something about Popper falsifiability itself that
> can't be falsified. By extension language itself can't be measured yet
> all falsifiable physics equations are sentences.

stretching the meaning of "sentence". What dictionary are you using
for your definition of "sentence"?

> If numbers themselves could be measured it would raise the question as
> to what would measure such measurement and then the measurement of
> such measurement ad-infinitum: God constructed numbers so they can't
> be measured to avoid infinite regress.

numbers are a human invention.

> Numbers is a form of language,

stretching the meaning of "language"

> Jesus Christ as God, who is Language incarnate can't be measured, our
> language itself is bound and instantiated by Language Himself, which
> is why Antony Flew's falsification tests for God isn't raised

pseudo religious clap-trap

[Nick Keighley]

cite

> but because
> language, numbers can't be measured God can't measured. To falsify
> something is to measure something, but that which is defined as
> unmeasurable is therefore unfalsifiable, hence Antony Flew's
> falsification questions aren't raised to begin with by logical

> necessity because it would induce a Münchhausen Trilemmian regressive
> argument.
> Seehttp://tautology.wikia.com/wiki/The_God_delusionfor my notes on
> this issue.

[Burkhard]

No I don't. That you can trivially rephrase a sentence to include
numbers does not mean that numbers are necessary to express the
sentence's meaning. No numbers are necessary for its falsification,
not any more as they are for the statement: there are giraffe's in my
living room. Another statement that can be falsified without using
measurements. There is indeed a entire field of physics, called naive
physics, that does without numbers.

[RAM]

On Oct 7, 9:09 am, Nick Keighley <nick_keighley_nos...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> On Oct 6, 12:39 pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 6, 11:59 am, eridanus <leopoldo.perd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> > > El s bado, 6 de octubre de 2012 10:39:33 UTC+1, backspace escribi :

>
> > > > All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
>
> > > > numbers, but numbers themselves can't be measured as pointed out by
>
> > > > Fleeming Jenkin, this intuitively reflects Godel's incompleteness
>
> > > > theorem : there is something about Popper falsifiability itself that
>
> > > > can't be falsified. By extension language itself can't be measured yet
>
> > > > all falsifiable physics equations are sentences.
>
> > > > If numbers themselves could be measured it would raise the question as
>
> > > > to what would measure such measurement and then the measurement of
>
> > > > such measurement ad-infinitum: God constructed numbers so they can't
>
> > > > be measured to avoid infinite regress. Numbers is a form of language,
>
> > > > Jesus Christ as God, who is Language incarnate can't be measured, our
>
> > > > language itself is bound and instantiated by Language Himself, which
>
> > > > is why Antony Flew's falsification tests for God isn't raised
>
> > > You can swindle a gullible person with this pseudo-intelligent chatter.
> > > You can only swindle a person that is impressed with words he does not
> > > understand.
>
> > > In general, I am as rule skeptic, and only believe in banal certitudes.
> > > Even, on science matters I do not understand a kept a prudent distance,
> > > and do not accept or reject a question that I do not understand.
>
> > > Basically, your argument smells of your trying to sell me the existence
> > > of a god, and some piece of creationism. But using fake chattering that
> > > looks as science, or a gullible philosophy.
>
> > God became a man Jesus Christ and said I am Language,
>
> cite

Backspacey pulled that from his nether regions. Clearly the primary
source of all his TO posts.

>
> > but because
> > language, numbers can't be measured God can't measured. To falsify
> > something is to measure something, but that which is defined as
> > unmeasurable is therefore unfalsifiable, hence Antony Flew's
> > falsification questions aren't raised to begin with by logical

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 6 Oct 2012 11:59:00 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace

<steph...@gmail.com>:

>On Oct 6, 6:29 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:

>> On Sat, 6 Oct 2012 02:36:33 -0700 (PDT), the following
>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
>> <stephan...@gmail.com>:

>> >All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
>> >numbers,

>> Really? What numbers are required to test the proposition
>> that "When I release a rock I'm holding over the head of the
>> moron known as 'backspace' it will move downward until it
>> contacts his head, after which I'll be happier"?
>
>Your understanding that downward is binary opposite of upwards.
>Designate downwards as ' 0 ' and upwards as ' 1 '.

I didn't say one couldn't *assign* numbers to anything; any
idiot can do that, as you demonstrate. I said (actually,
"implied") that numbers aren't *required* for evaluation of
a test. And they aren't.

> Like the binary
>numbering system forms a composite integrity, so our language works on
>Platonic binary opposites which can't be falsified. Implicit in every
>sentence we state is the binary opposites assumption, which can't be
>falsified or it would raise the question as to what would falsify such
>falsificationism, inducing infinite regress.

Wiggle, wiggle...

I'm still waiting for a reason why *numbers* (not
"conceptual binary opposites") are required to evaluate the
results of *all* tests, as you claimed to be the case.

<snip>

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 6 Oct 2012 12:09:32 -0700 (PDT), the following

appeared in talk.origins, posted by backspace
<steph...@gmail.com>:

>On Oct 6, 7:54 pm, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> On Oct 6, 4:59 pm, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>> > On 6 Oct, 05:39, backspace <stephan...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> > > All falsifiable constructs involves the measurement of something using
>> > > numbers,

>> > Nonsense. "tomorrow the sun will rise in the north" is extremely
>> > falsifiable, yet does not involve numbers at all

>> Tomorrow could be any day of the calender say day 23, which is after
>> today day 22.

....and which is totally unnecessary to evaluate Burkhard's
statement; the word "tomorrow" requires no numbers,
calendrical or otherwise, for comprehension. Note that
"requires" is not equivalent to "can be assigned".

>> Let me  rephrase it as follows:

Let's don't; the issue is quite clear and you are incorrect,
as usual.

<snip>

>Let me add this by rephrasing...

Let's don't; the issue is quite clear and you are incorrect,
as usual.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 07 Oct 2012 10:40:15 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>:

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