The 116th Skeptics' Circle

The 116th edition of the Skeptics' Circle is up at Beyond the Short Coat, as a doctor wander through a homeopathic ER. Very amusing.
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How our world views can blind us to reality

The way the world-views of a person can interfere with their observation of reality seems to have been a recurring theme this week. In my discussions with aintnuthin on evolution, I find myself accused of this, along with all the "neo-Darwinists". Meanwhile, three other examples appear on a couple of blogs I read from time to time. So, I'm going to talk about all four below the fold.


With regard to myself, I am always hesitant to be quick to my own defense. Every other person (or, nearly so) is prone to allowing their blinders, and in fact I just finished a conversation on the existence of a maximal set of truths where my own inclinations stopped me from seeing what should have been an obvious inference. So, I'm not really sure what to make of the claim that I see the natural explanations for evolution as being far stronger than they are--that saying the theory of evolution is a well founded and demonstrated as heliocentrism is somehow wrong. Part of the problem is that I used to be an Old Earth Creationist, and it was the evidence of evolution that swayed me away. Did the pendulum swing too far in the other direction? I can probably never answer that objectively. However, I do take it as a personal responsibility to question my own views as well as those of others, and to change my views when reliable evidence opposes them. Isn't that part of the heart of being a skeptic? For now, I'll consider myself probably innocent on that particular charge. For those inclined to disagree, please use this thread to talk about skepticism and/or me generally, and let's keep lengthy comments about evolution specifically in the above-linked thread.

Meanwhile, at Martin Cothran's discussion of atheism and logic on vere loqui, an old contention about atheism and morality that I'm not interested in re-arguing today, find inserted this interesting little ditty (any distortion of the meaning by my snips is strictly unintentional).

There were, in fact, moral beliefs before Christianity came along. There are two kinds of virtue: the cardinal (or classical) virtues: Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Courage; and the theological (or Christian) virtues: Faith, Hope, and Charity. The first four, the cardinal virtues, not only can be sustained without explicit religious belief; they in fact were. They arose in a world, not without religion, but without religions that said much about morality.

The cardinal virtues have also been called the “practical” virtues. They had mostly to do with getting along in life. The most familiar examples of this were Aesop’s Fables.

...

All these cases involve sheer self-preservation. This is of the essence of pagan morality: it is exclusively self-preservative or at least self-gratifying (and usually applied only to other members of one’s tribe or race).

...

But there is nothing in Aesop like the parables of the Good Samaritan, or the Lost Sheep, or the Prodigal Son. The theological virtues are completely different from the practical or classical virtues in this: there is literally no practical reason for them.

It turns out this is just plainly false. For example, in this version of the Serpent and the Eagle, there is no virtue more appropriate to describe the action of the man, or the eagle, than Charity. Neither expects to gain a direct benefit from their behavior. Of course, Cothran probably did not bother to actually research all of Aesop's fables before his comment. He knew of a handful, and they confirmed his previous bias that there is some sort of real difference in the notion of virtues between non-Christians and Christians. why should he bother to do any research to see if it was true? Of course, that's a theme skeptics see all the time from the credulous of all sorts.

Meanwhile, from Edward Feser's blog, we are treated to an article where, while trying to disprove “Having a thought with the content that P is identical to, supervenient upon, or otherwise explicable in terms of having a sentence with the meaning that P encoded in the brain", Feser begins by making a comparison to musical notes and numbers, saying that "... the point is that the relationships between notes are clearly not reducible to or entirely explicable in terms of mathematical relationships." Feser seems to have a habit using counter-to-reality claims (in other posts, we see a discussion of the notion of simultaneous cause-and-effect, which has no physical example). On a typical piano, there are seven "B" keys, each of which is exactly described by a number of Hz.

Finally, on the Maverick Philospher's blog, there is a brief post objecting to the term Islamophobia. For a person that prides themself on such a precise use of language that they are careful to distinguish between single quotes for non-direct quotes, and double quotes for direct quotes, this is just an embarrassing oversight. My guess is that it comes from the usual persecution complex we see among the religious, the automatic assumption that any term must be implying the worst possible meaning. While many times phobia indicates fear, the term is also used to indicate dislike or aversion. No one thinks you have to be scared of French or English people to be Francophobic or Anglophobic, similarly, you don't have be afraid of Muslims or Islam to be Islamophobic. It's quite correct to use the term Islamophobic (or homophobic) to describe people who just dislike Islam (or homosexuality). I think Dr. Vallicella needs to stop being "a dumbass PeeCee" conservative, and just accept this is what he is.


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The 115th Skeptics' Circle

You will find the 115th edition of the Skeptics' Circle at Effort Sisyphus, where in it is revealed, among other things, that when asked to name a planet, I can't even figure out they don't mean one of the eight around our sun. Otherwise (or perhaps because of that), it's a delight and a treat.
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My oversight, apologies, and thoughts

After last week's post concerning the Cantorian argument against possible worlds being maximally consistent sets of propositions posted by Dr. Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, I sent an email to Dr. Vallicella for his thought, and his initial response was that I missed the point of the argument entirely. He was kind and patient through out the exchange, and entirely correct instating that I had missed the point. Using "e" to represent the element relation, I had entirely missed the point that the truths being constructed were of the form t₁ e {t₁, t₂} and ~(t₁ e {t₂, t₃}. This means that Dr. Grim/Dr. Vallicella have created a set of size T X P(T) of truths from set T. Why I missed this, and what it means for my analysis of the proof, is below the fold.

As for why I missed it, it just seems to be a blind spot with me. Ii will probably not make this error again in the next month or two, but it will happen eventually, because I see a fundamental difference in the type of between saying "the earth orbits the sun" and "t₁ e {t₁, t₂}", and I don't really see the latter belonging in T. The latter sort of statement I think of as being a formal truth, one that it true based on the initial definitions, definition that we select arbitrarily because of their usefulness. My understand of Dr. Vallicella's worldview (and if I mis-characterise him here, I apologize) is that there is no relevant difference between the two statements. As long as I carry the first view in my brain, I no doubt will fall prey to the same blindness about arguments founded in the second view in the future. I beg the patience of any readers in this regard.

Well, after being so kind and professorial in our exchange, Dr. Vallicella certainly deserves to have Grim's/his analysis validated, and it would have been my pleasure to do so. Unfortunately, I can't do this with honesty, because it turns out that the proof will still fail. One of the unfortunate side effects of mixing formal truths and non-formal truths is the formal truths have a tendency to grow past any reasonable size. When you include all the formal truths of the type "t₁ e {t₁, t₂}", you wind up with T being a proper class, and that means |T| does not exist, and to the degree P(T) can be defined, |P(T)| does not exist either, so obviously you can't have |P(T)| > |T|.

This is easy to see when you consider what must be included in T. For simplicity sake, let's start with a universe with one non-formal truth, t₀, and call the universe itself T₀. We can use the very process describe to create R₀ containing two truths: t₁ saying t₀ e {t₀} and t₂ saying ~(t₀ e {}). Defining T₁ as the union of R₀ and T₀, T₁ = {t₀, t₁, t₂}. Applying the same process to T₁, you get 24 elements in T₂, 402,653,184 elements in T₃, etc. Then, you need to combine the contents of all the T_n into T_aleph-0. From T_aleph-0 you can build (assuming without loss of generality the generalized continuum hypothesis)T_aleph-1, T_aleph-2, etc., so that there will be a version of T_x greater than any specific cardinal number. This means that, when you finally union all these T_x to create T, T has the size of a proper class.

I want to thank Dr. Vallicella for his cooperation and gentlemanly behavior.


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Cantor offers nothing useful on maximally consistent worlds

I fully acknowledge that I am a philosophical amateur, and no doubt from time my thought and questions reflect this. However, I know enough to know that people who have studied philosophy professionally, but not mathematics, make ludicrous mathematical arguments. Such is the case with an attempt by Dr. Vallicella to export a standard Cantorian argument from mathematics to philosophical constructs. While you could say logic is the grammar of mathematics, the difference in vocabulary makes any sort of transition of proofs from one venue to the other a difficult procedure, and not one to be done casually.

So, lets say we have this maximal set T of true statements (truths, for short). {t₁, . . . , t_i, t_{i + 1}, . . .}. In particular, let's consider {t₁ ,t₂}. The first question we need to answer: Is this subset itself a truth? If this subset is not a truth, then the entire argument from the creation of the power set is meaningless, because the power set does not consist of truths, but of collections of truths, and there is no reason to presume the cardinality of all collections of truths would be the same as the cardinality of all truths. In fact, since the proof relies on looking at elements of P(T) as if there were in T, for Dr. Vallicella's argument to be cogent, we need to apply the standard that {t₁, t₂} is itself a truth. We are not given a definition for this truth, unfortunately, and how it relates to t₁ or t₂, possibly via some sort of truth table. At least, since we are using sets, we know that {t₁} = {t₁, t₁} = {t₁, t₁, t₁}.

However, that leads us to another area of fuzzy definition. Is {t₁} the same truth as t₁? Is {t₁} the same truth as {{t₁}}? Will {t₁ ,t₂} be the same truth as {t₁ ,t₂,{t₁ ,t₂}}? Basically, can we remove all internal braces (except for the empty set)?

If we we allow the removal of all internal braces, then the proof falls apart, because all of the elements of P(T) will already be elements of T, after removing the internal braces and reducing the duplications. For example, let's look at a world of one atomic truth (that is, truths that not sets of other truths). T = {{}, t₁}. Then P(T) = {{},{{}},{ t₁},{{},t₁}} = {{},{}, t₁,{},t₁} = {{}, t₁} = T.

So let us consider the construction where we can not remove internal braces. Now, since we have a valid method of creating a new truth from previously existing truths, by inclusion in sets, that means for any set Q of atomic truths, we find the power set of that set of truths, and the power set of that first power set of truths, and the power set of that second power set of truths, etc., already in T. How far can we go? Do we allow for there to be (loosely speaking) an infinite number of brace levels? If we do not allow that, then we know either |T| (the cardinality of T) = |{1, 2, 3, 4, ...}|, that is, T is countable, whenever Q is finite or countable, otherwise |T| = |Q|. However, this has the defect of removing much of P(T) from being eligible to be in T, because P(T) will include elements with an infinite number of braces.

In fact, if we place any limit M at all on the number of braces, we find that |Q| being less than or equal to M means |T| = M, otherwise |T| = |Q|, and either way P(T) will have elements that are not capable of being in T. So, the only way around this is place no restriction on the number of levels of inclusion. This has the side effect of making T a proper class even when |Q| = 1, so P(T) does not even exist.

So, it would seem regardless of set-up we are left with a choice of P(T) = T, P(T) having elements that do not qualify to be in T, or P(T) not existing. Regardless, the attempted proof fails.
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Discussion on evolution, part 2

I am starting this post because I felt the comments on the previous one were too bulky (I'll probably do this when this post gets past 200 comments). This post is a response to 28 consecutive comments, and will be of interest to no one else besides aintnuthin. The content is below the fold.
aintnuthin, did you just return to the JazzFanz as aintsheeit? If so, you should know the account has been banned for a) being an obvious duplicate account (whether of yours or someone else's) and b) profanity filter avoidance in the username.

One Brow said: "Nor am I aware of any serious theoretical problems with the Theory of Evolution."

Which begs the entire question, i.e., what is THE theory of evolution in your view? The hypothesis of common descent?

If you are aware of no serious theoretical problems, maybe it's because you pay little or no attention to the proliferation of inconsistent views generated by different evolutionary theorists.

The inconsistent views are over the parts that people can't demonstrate and don't know how to test. It's all a great deal of fun, but not part of the Theory.

I get the feeling that for you, personally, THE theory is selected from items like a chinese menu. You take one from column A, one from B, one from C, etc., as each is most appealing to your personal tastes. The meal which is then served is, for you, THE dish served by that restaurant.

As long as "appealing to my tastes" is a metaphor for "having been validated by experiment", and "take one" is a metaphor for "accept every proved result", pretty much. I have no problem with a theory being messy.

I'm not sure how you get from "especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena," to your flat assertion that: "A theory is not really a theory until is has been confirmed."

Well, from "especially", I interpreted it to mean that the prototype of a theory is the one that has been confirmed (and by confirmed, as you should be aware by now, I do mean having generated predictions that have survived actual tests). The "especially", to me, said that this is when the usage is most appropriate, and that the word theory was somewhat less accurate if the predictions and verification had not been performed. Not to mention, he definition was not limited to scientific usage. Usually, scientists are more careful about calling something a theory that the general public. Do you disagree with the interpretations of either "especially" or "confirmed"?

Also, you seemed to bypass completely the difference between 1) as a theory for epistemological activities and 3) for formal systems. Did you feel my criticism of your use of 3) to apply to 1) was apt or off-base?

I don't agree with your conclusory assertion at all, and I don't see why you think the dictionary defintion you use supports it. Since it says "especially" ones which are widely accepted, etc., it implies that the definition is not limited to those in particular. If you are tryin to make some semantic hierarchial distinction between "hypotheses," "theories," and "laws," or sumthin OK, but I wasn't tryin to git that refined about it. To me a "hypothesis" is a theory because it is theoretical in it's basic nature, and can make testable predictions even if those predictions have yet to be tested. But if you are using a highly refined sense of the word "theory" we can go with that. Again, the question is what (which) hypotheses, of all those which have been offered over the years on the subject of evolution, is/are THE theory of evolution?

Many different hypotheses have been confirmed over the years in many different ways. They are all part of the Theory of Evolution, and I could write a book out of just listing the proved hypotheses and taking a paragraph or two to explain each one. Some of these hypotheses include descent with modification, the unity of life, the various mechanism involved, the adaptations of bacteria to various sorts of antibiotics, common descent, the pattern of geological radiation of populations, etc.

So, then, would you say that geocentricism, heliocentrism, and jupitercentrism are all equally compatible with the "Theory of planetary motion?" If they are "equally compatible" are they all the same theory, despite wildly different initial premises?

To my understanding, using either geocentrism or jupitercentrism would require massive inputs of energy into the system from sources unknown and unseen, to force the Sun to orbit these bodies under the Theory of Planetary Motion. So I would say that, to the degree that heliocentrism/jupitercentrism make predictions regarding why the Sun orbits the earth/Jupiter, its predictions fail, it is not compatible with the current theory.

Now, if you come up with a different example that does produce identical predictions, like various incarnations of string theory (according to my understanding), then I would say none of them are part of the theory, but all are compatible with it.

One Brow said: "It's an older book."

It's 21st century (2001 edition, accordin to Vallicella).

My error. I did not realize Mayr was alive for that long. However, since he was in his 90s when that book was written, it is understandable that it would not reflect the most modern understanding of evolutionary theory at the time of writing. In any case, strict genetic determinism is certainly older thinking.

If the new information contradicts a central claim of the pre-existing theory, does that contradiction automatically generate a brand new, widely accepted and thoroughly tested, theory, as you see it?

That's the first step in the process. You have to verify those observations, come up with new explanations for those observations, incorporate those explanations in a systemic way, and test the new system to get a revised theory.

One Brow said: "You think so? Perhaps you can quote a few texts penned within the last five years or so that agree?"

Well, Eric, why not ask for ones in the last 5 days? Those would be more likely to reflect THE theory of evolution, doncha figure?

How about quotes like this from a 1998 publication by the NAS entitled "Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science?":

You are defending a claim about textbooks by quoting book of under 150 pages?

"...selection can work only on the genetic variation that already is present in any new generation, and genetic variation occurs randomly, not in response to the needs of a population or organism." http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5787&page=16

Note the breezy, strictly "a matter of fact," presentation of this claim. Note also that it purports to apply to any and all variation "present in any new generation."

When did "genetic variation" become "any and all variation"? When did evidence of non-random genetic variation (not regions where variation is more permitted, but the actual variation itself) appear?

This same publication approvingly cites another NAS publication which states that "Fossils found in rocks of increasing age attest to the interrelated lineage of living things, from the single-celled organisms that lived billions of years ago to Homo sapiens. The most recent fossils closely resemble the organisms alive today, whereas increasingly older fossils are progressively different, providing compelling evidence of change through time."

Note that this was in 1998, long after reputable scientists called attention to the fact that the fossil record essentially amounts to a disconfirmation of "interrelated lineage of living things," e. g."

The standard denailist tactics reappear. You're really better than this, on most topics most of the time. You don't even bother to try to show the quoted sentence is false, instead you bring in a range of quotes that have nothing to do with whether the sentence is true, with an apparent motive to cast doubt on fossil evidence generally.

1. "Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)

How does a lack of confirmation of a species-to-species translation equate to a disconfirmation of the interrelated lineage?

2. "The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)

How does the sudden appearance of some major groups equate to a disconfirmation of the interrelated lineage?

3. "In spite of these examples, it remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all new categories above the level of families, appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences." (Simpson, George Gaylord, The Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p. 360)

How does a lack of completeness in transitional sequences equate to a disconfirmation of the interrelated lineage?

4. The principle problem is morphological stasis. A theory is only as good as its predictions, and conventional neo-Darwinism, which claims to be a comprehensive explanation of evolutionary process, has failed to predict the widespread long-term morphological stasis now recognized as one of the most striking aspects of the fossil record." (Williamson, Peter G., "Morphological Stasis and Developmental Constraint: Real Problems for Neo-Darwinism," Nature, Vol. 294, 19 November 1981, p. 214)

How does morphological stasis equate to a disconfirmation of the interrelated lineage?

5. "But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition." (Woodroff, D.S., Science, vol. 208, 1980, p. 716)

How does a lack species-level translations equate to a disconfirmation of the interrelated lineage?

6. Darwin himself, ...prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search ...One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. ...The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way." (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 45-46)

Actually, thousands of gaps were filled in. Eldredge is making an observation for punctuated equilibrium, not against the interrelated lineage.

A few more, just for good measure, eh? These relate mainly to your recurring claim that we should expect the fossil record to be incomplete:

1. "One of the most surprising negative results of paleontological research in the last century is that such transitional forms seem to be inordinately scarce. In Darwin's time this could perhaps be ascribed with some justification to the incompleteness of the paleontological record and to lack of knowledge, but with the enormous number of fossil species which have been discovered since then, other causes must be found for the almost complete absence of transitional forms." (Brouwer, A., "General Paleontology," [1959], Transl. Kaye R.H., Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh & London, 1967, p. 162-163)

Other causes have been discussed and explored.

2.There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich, and discovery is out-pacing integration. The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps." (Neville, George, T., "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science Progress, vol. 48 January 1960, p. 1-3)

To be even close to complete, we would need some 100 complete vertebrate fossils for each vertebrate species (not to mention all the other types of living things).

3. "A persistent problem in evolutionary biology has been the absence of intermediate forms in the fossil record. Long term gradual transformations of single lineages are rare and generally involve simple size increase or trivial phenotypic effects. Typically, the record consists of successive ancestor-descendant lineages, morphologically invariant through time and unconnected by intermediates." (Williamson, P.G., Palaeontological Documentation of Speciation in Cenozoic )

Again a reference to the lack of species-level changes.

4. "In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation." (Ridley, Mark, "Who doubts evolution?" "New Scientist", vol. 90, 25 June 1981, p. 831)

Obviously wrong. Many evolutionists make such a claim. It makes me wonder what he was really trying to say.

"We have long known about stasis and abrupt appearance, but have chosen to fob it off upon an imperfect fossil record." (Gould, Stephen J., "The Paradox of the First Tier: An Agenda for Paleobiology," Paleobiology, 1985, p. 7)

Like, whooda thunk, I ax ya!?)

*Yawn*. I am still waiting for some quote that addresses the interrelated lineage that fossils make evident.

With respect to the education about evolution of high school students, T. Ryan Gregory says:

...

Of course, it is these very "college graduates" (Alters) and biology majors with at least two years of undergraduate education (Gregory) who go on to teach the next generation of high school students, eh?

In schools with a reasonably large student base (let's say 800 students), the preference has been (in my experience) to hire biology teachers who took a full secondary biology education curriculum, which would have included a handful of upper-level courses. I think it would be much better if every single biology teacher had this background, but it's not always possible.

I don't see what this has to do with the content of textbooks on the subject.

Gould, after complaining about concessions to creationists in high school texts, go on to complain about a more serious problem:

This is from an essay that is pre-Edwards, referring to a 1983 textbook and the pre-Edwards texts generally.

According to that article: "The books critiqued are limited to 1991 editions of Biology I textbooks adopted by the state of Texas as listed under References.

Well, I sure hope no one is using that text anymore.

One Brow said: "By the way, I still have not heard an epistemological reason to call these variations non-random. When all of the experiments conducted show distribution's that are indistinguishable from being random, and there are no known mechanism for making the distribution non-random, then random is the only epistemological interpretation."

1. Your reference is to "these variations," whereas as my post was addressed to the source of variation (without limiting the question to a specific range of variation, such as "those which occur on the 3rd Sunday in each new millenium," or sumthin.

Variations can come from any number of sources, and I am not aware of sources that are inherently non-random within themselves. They are random with respect to the needs of the organism, as far as anyone can tell.

2. The literature is rife with examples which suggest that some variation is highly correlated to the needs of the organism with respect to, and are apparently generated by "interaction with," the environment. One such example I recall is of a certain type of insect that has several typical predators, one of which is the dragonfly. If dragonflies are present while the larva is still developing, the larva will be born with a certain color (say green) which makes it more likely to escape detection by dragonflies. If not, it will be born a different color, which provides more natural defense against other common predators.

So, if you don't feed a human food that has Vitamin C, they get scurvy? How does change the notion of random variation?

One Brow said: "When all of the experiments conducted show distributions that are indistinguishable from being random...

To begin with, I would interested in knowin how you came to be familiar with "all the experiments conducted," and just what the nature and methods of all experiments were.

You have mentioned yourself the work of James A. Shapiro, for example, wherein the mutations themselves seem to be randomly distributed within the high-mutation regions. I certainly don't claim to have read every paper on the subject. I'll happily revise my opinion when you provide a counter-example.

But let's leave that to the side. Randon mutation of DNA plays a central explicatory role in prevailing evolutionary theory, because it, and it alone, supposedly provides the "variation" which leads to hundreds of species (genera, phylum, or whatever) disversifying into thousands of species which diversify into millions of species, etc. But, as just noted, the fossil record does not seem to support such a notion, with long-term stasis of phenotype, rather than constant, continuous gradual changes to same, being what is found in the fossil record, and abrupt, rather than transitional, changes being the overwhelming norm.

That would be genetic variation, not all variation, and why is random genetic variation incompossible with long-term morphological stability?

The first answer, presumably from a "scientist," flatly states that: "The fact that chimpanzees and humans have different numbers of chromosomes immediately causes a reproductive barrier and would be an immediate speciation event."

Scientist or not, that's just wrong. Even today we can find humans with broken chromosomes (so they technically have more than 46), fused chromosomes, or a combination of the two, who mate and can pass this condition on their descendants

An "immediate speciation event," eh? How so, if the "speciation event occurred long before? And how, I wonder, would such a rare chromosome split thereafter become, by the process of natural selection, the ONLY type of chromosome structure found in humans?

Populationgenetics models do account for the occasional split/fusion becoming dominant and even exclusive over time, if it is one among many such events.

One last comment on the foregoing website. It is apparently a government-sponsered one for "K-12 educators," designed in part to provide answers to high school students. It identifies itself as follows: "NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators.
Argonne National Laboratory, Division of Educational Programs, Harold Myron, Ph.D., Division Director."

It appears that the answer a high school student gets to such questions is highly dependent on the "educator" who responds.

If you have recommendations for improving the quality of educators in high school science, that would be great to try to put into action, but seems to be off-topic here.

Eric, I kinda been waitin for you to go wild with a "quote-mining" charge, ya know?

Let's talk about "quote-mining" and the allegations thereof, for a second, whaddaya say?
...

This quote does not represent any purported "refutation" of Ridley's point, it IS Ridley's point (about use of the fossil record).

Since Ridley's point is that there are better reasons to accept evolution than the fossil record, it would be a legitimate use to quote him in the context of the appropriateness of fossils, and not legitimate to quote him in a effort to claim special creation is better supported. So, anointed-one.net would still be quote-mining.

It's seems that the allegations of "quote-mining" often rely on the imputation of disingenous attempts to "imply" sumthin which "attempts" are created, whole cloth, by the accuser in order to create a strawman through which he can level at unwarranted and unsubstantiated charge of dishonesty.

It is dishonest to take criticisms of certain types of evolution, or quotes that bemoan the lack of a particular types of fossil, and portray them as general proclamations against fossil evidence generally.

Here the author of the quote-mining entry claims that the quote has been used in an attempt to "discredit evolution." Where does the evidence of that "attempt" come from? Ridley is sayin the fossil record aint where it's at if one wants to argue for evolution, and that's all he bein quoted as sayin. What's the problem?

Quoting Ridley without the caveat Ridley added makes unwary readers think Ridley's issue is with evolution generally, and not fossils specifically, and this is the sort of error quote-miners rely upon.

Mebbe we can quit beatin round the bush here, a little, eh, Eric? An article I cited above summarizes some views of Yale biologist Keith Thomson as follows:.

I can always rely on you to pull out anti-evolution denialists, such as ARN, from far and wide. I see no reason to treat this as being an accurate summary.

"[Thomson] indicates three commonly employed meanings of evolution:

1. Change over time
2. Relationships of organisms by descent through common ancestry
3. A particular explanatory mechanism for the pattern and process of (1.) and (2.), such as natural selection.

Red flag: a biologist who says "evolution" means the same thing as "a mechanism of evolution"? Or, is the biologist critiquing some other work? Are you presenting a fourth-hand account (your quote of a summary of a critique of an original text), with a link to the third-hand account??

Thomson notes that factual patterns of change over time, particularly as seen in the fossil record, can be studied in the absence of theories of how these patterns came to be.

Didn't you just provide several quotes about how there were no factual patterns of change over time? No particular fossil changes, so there is no "factual change". However, the summarizer (which is quite possibly not an accurate reflection of Thomson) is willing to accept a certain amount of evolution (often described as "within kinds"), and so describes this amount of change as "factual".

Thomson also emphasizes that the second meaning, descent through common ancestry, is a hypothesis, not a fact, and that it is derived from the twin premises that life arose only once on Earth and that all life proceeds from preexisting life.

Actually, common descent is perfectly compatible with multiple origins of life, but Thomson may not have been familiar with the work of Woese, and once life becomes omnipresent on earth, there is no place for life to develop de novo. Also, descent through common ancestry as passed the hypothesis stage decades ago, it is now certainly theory. Either Thomson was speaking over a century ago, or this is editorializing on the part of the summarizer.

Cladistic analysis, championed currently by a number of biologists, has sought to eva1uate relationships among organisms without regard to the twin premises cited above. In regard to the third meaning, a particular explanatory mechanism, there are currently many alternative hypotheses. Darwin insisted that changes had to be small and gradual. However, Gould and his associates (1980) have proposed static intervals (stasis), followed by periods of rapid change (punctuated equilibrium).

You would think Thomson would be aware that the the changes in punctuated equilibrium are small and gradual, except when compared to neo-Darwinism.

The authors then state that:

Is this supposed to be Thomson, or the posters on ARN?

The biology texts, in general, do a poor job of distinguishing between these three different meanings of evolution. They generally fail to note that it is possible to accept the factual evidence for change over time, while having a more restricted view of descent through common ancestry. For example, to speak of ancestral descent in regard to the relationship of an ancestral horse to a modern horse would be a very restricted use when compared to the relationship of an ancestral one-celled organism to a modern mammal. Likewise, accepting the factual evidence for change over time does not require the acceptance of a particular explanatory mechanism for these changes.

It is possible to accept every part of the water cycle, except that you believe evaporation water is being skimmed by angels, and rain is caused by God, with no connection between the various molecules involved. After all, the water cycle is only a theory. Just because a position is possible does not make that position reasonable nor scientific.

On another level, many scientists prefer to differentiate between microevolution and macroevolution: the former being the relatively small changes noted in the diversification of species, and the latter being the changes required in the development of new phyla, or possibly of new orders or classes. The term macroevolution has also been used in regard to development of new functions, such as vision or hearing..

Mostly, this terminology is preferred by anti-evolutionary scientists or by people responding to them.

Many proponents of Darwinian natural selection have argued that processes demonstrated for microevolution may be extrapolated to account for macroevolution as well. When this type of extrapolation is used in an attempt to validate a theory, we have moved beyond the reasonable bounds of science. Scientifically, we should simply state that at present, there is no satisfactory scientific explanation for macroevolutionary events. Those explanations that have been presented lie in the realm of philosophy.".

Gosh, an anti-evolutionist thinks we should state there is no scientifically supported explanation? Que surprise!

These observations strike me as sound. (1) is a simple fact, (2) is a hypothesis, one which entails certain (unproven) assumptions, and only with (3) do we enter into the realm of "theory.".

Except, (1), which is a fact and a theory, is supported by the exact same evidence as (2), which is also a fact and a theory, and (3) seems like wither a confusion or a distortion.

Of course not all which parades as "theory" is actually scientific in nature. The attempt to "validate" by projected extrapolation, rather than empirical evidence, is not, in itself, a "scientific" form of validation. It may be part of the theory, which I claim is independent from empirical validation, but it is not any kind of "evidence.".

Duh. It is the verification of the extrapolation that either raises the hypothesis to the level of theory of sweeps it to the dustbin of science.

Do you have any major disagreement with Thomson's summary? Are you using the term "theory" in the same sense Thomson does, or are you perhaps calling (1) and/or (2) THE theory?.

I would not presume to agree or disagree with Thomson based upon a quote of a summary of Thomson.

With regard to the issue of how much ideology is an inherent part of "evolutionary theory," I found the following report interesting. I am taking it as accurate:

"...in 1995 the NABT issued the following statement: ... On the last day of the October 8-11, 1997 annual NABT meeting, the board met again and voted to remove the two objectionable words, "unsupervised" and "impersonal"....

Good to know it was removed. The words don't belong in government-run schools.

But most prominent evolutionary biologists do not see the blind watchmaker thesis (as defined above) as an optional ideological add-on to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. Rather, they see it as a central part of the propositional content of neo-Darwinian theory, as indeed Darwin himself did. .

Perhaps they just have not sufficiently considered the difference between their ontological and epistemological equivalents.

Is their a side on this matter which you agree with, Eric? Should the two words have remained? Is Pigliucci right that "NABT’s two-word alteration to the definition of evolution betrays the core...?".

While I think those words are accurate, I think you can find better ways to describe the concepts that only refer to epistemological concepts, possibly replacing "unsupervised" with "without apparent direction" and "impersonal" with "with no detectable outside influence".

Does it imply anything to you about how high school biology teachers may generally approach the teaching of evolution ...

Since some biology teachers are young-earth creationists, I don't draw any general conclusions from the statement of the NABT.

It seems that the website with Pigliucci's "open letter" to the National Association of Biology Teachers is no longer functional. A few excerpts appear here, though: .

Thiswould be the plea the NABT decided to reject?

Eric, you often suggest that you believe most, if not all, opposition to neo-darwinism is motivated by religious motivations. At the same time, you deny that "scientists" (with the exception of a few, like Dawkins) have any ideological agenda..

Since neo-Darwinism is dead, and was opposed by many scientists even when it was thought to be viable, this is plainly false, and seems worded to again attempt to intertwine neo-Darwinism with modern evolutionary theory.

I think this letter (apparently signed by a number of high profile "scientists")and the position of the high school biology teachers
indicates otherwise. While they may confess that naturalistic fundamentalism is "philosophy," that doesn't temper their certainty that is is ontologoically correct in the least..

Most philosophers, and most people, accept some unproven ontological truths as correct.

I have come to view both theism and atheism as equally "religious" doctrines. What's ironic about it is that the atheists come out looking worse than those they oppose in this view. This look like total hypocrites with little or insight or thoughtfulness because they deny their religious faith, and accuse their opponents of being "soft-minded" and "stupid" for openly admitting their religious faith..

Some forms of atheism make no ontological claim and require no faith, other forms do. Either way, they don't fit the term "religion". It is true there are fuzzy-headed atheists,both of the type that make no claims and of the type that do.

I did find the contents of Pigliucci's open letter after lookin a little more:.

I see no reason to care.

I am still unable to give meaning to your dual assertions that (1) Life could have independently arisen on earth a million times without in any way contradicting premise 1 from above, .

I feel it is unfortunate that, after all your efforts to quote Woese, et. al., you still retain this blind spot.

and (2) that anyone who even questions the the "factual" status of the doctrine of common descent is a "denialist.".

Denialism is a matter of tactics, not topic. Not everyone who questions common descent is a denialist (I used to question common descent, but I never used the tactics of denialism to do so, and changed my opinion after a careful examination of the evidence).

According to the NEScent website, this "workshop for educators" is "designed to provide an overview of key evolutionary concepts and explore cutting-edge topics in evolutionary biology for instructors at the high school and introductory college level."

http://www.nescent.org/eog/eognews.php?id=92

Cuttin edge, eh!? Sounds interestin, sho nuff! Like what, I wonder?.

I'm not going to go through the various topics individually, because I think you are missing the point. It's not about cutting-edge topics in biology, for the most part they don't even belong in introductory biology courses. It's about cutting-edge topics in biology education. I've been to math seminars that discussed cutting-edge ideas in mathematics. I assure, it was not the mathematics that was novel.

Arlin Stoltz, a research biologist in working in the CAMEL (Computational and Analyitical Molecular Evolution) lab at CARB (Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology)

Is this supposed to be Arlin Stolzfus?

does a good job of articulating some of my general thoughts about both theory and the neo-darwinistic axiom of random mutation as the source of genetic variation, eh, Eric?

With respect to theory, he says, for example:

"Sometimes one hears the claim that, in science, "theory" refers to hypotheses that have been repeatedly confirmed and that are widely accepted by the scientific community, but (not to put too fine a point on it) this is a ridiculous position. One only hears of this interpretation of "theory" in discussions of evolution,

Actually, I've read a couple of similar discussion about string theory. Stolzfus seems to be ignorant of the general dispute on what is a theory.

Elsewhere he claims, with respect to the importance of variation to any evolutionary theory, that:

...

"Contempory discord" with "competing views," eh?

This is inevitable in science.

A "yet to be named" new view which abandons neo-darwinistic assumptions and acknowledges "non-randomness in evolution," eh?

Highly unlikely. For one thing, non-randomness was an essential component of many of the mechanisms in neo-Darwinism.

Is this now THE Theory of Evoluton, I wonder? If so, I wonder when they will tell the high school teachers, ya know?

Pretty much the same thing as always.

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The 114th edition of the Skeptics' Circle

You can now find the 114th edition of the Skeptics' Circle at Homologous Legs. He was even kind enough to include my last-minute submission.

I plan on having two new posts up this weekend (one a very long response to some 28 comments of another post, the other on how some philosophers are as bad at mathematics as I am at philosophy, and an example of how the job should be done). Until then, may all you fellow Americans enjoy Independence Day.
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Category confusion persists

In My first post on this blog, I touched on the notion that formal systems are not derived from empirical facts, but are the result of the constructions we make to simplify the way we interact with reality. This would seem to be a very simple and elementary observation, but one that routinely escapes the notice of the believers in the supernatural, even those with philosophical backgrounds. One of the latest examples comes from the Maverick Philosopher, in his discussion of kinds of ontological arguments.

In particular, I find that the examples he chooses for his proof and disproof on the existence of non-divine items are counter-productive, assuming he wishes to treat God as actually existing, because notions such as circle, square, and logical truth are assigned notions, as opposed to items with an independent existence of their own. The entire system of logic that we use is a constuct, highly useful in many ways, but ultimately the result of arbitrary decisions that were built into its construction. For example, the Law of the Excluded Middle and the Law of Non-Contradiction are results of the initial decision that there will be exactly two truth values, and that every proposition will receive exactly one of these values. If you choose to create your model differently (such as the addition of additional truth-states), one or both of these laws becomes untrue in the new system.

The other example actually makes for a bit of fun. If you use the definition for "circle" as the set of point in a plane that are the same distance from a given point, and the definition of square is "regular four-sided polygon", then all you need is to choose the appropriate difinition of distance, and in fact every circle will be a square, though not every square will be a circle. The taxi-cab metirc will do nicely.

I don't know if there are sound ontological proofs of the sort Dr. Vallicella mentions. I am sure that, by making his non-divine arguments strictly in the area of formal systems, he is basically saying that the primary proofs for God amount to making inital assumpitons about God and setting up rules that insure God's existence. Certainly, this has always seemed the case to me but I would nothave thought Dr. Vallicella would agree.
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The 113 Skeptics Circle

Skeptics circle #133 is up and running at The Uncredible Hallq. Low quantity, but high quality (whether that is despite my not having a post, or in part because of it, is left as an exercise to the reader).
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Easier means harder, at least this time

I teach math at a local community college, as an adjunct. This past school year that mean 13 credit hours each fall and spring, and now 7 this summer. One of the courses is the Liberal Arts math class. I have taught this quite a few times, and really enjoy it. The other course is the one I am struggling with.

I received a Review of Arithmetic course (the high-school equivalent of pre-algebra). Honestly, I had been avoiding this course, but it was all they had left. I feel completely inadequate to teach it. 15-20 years ago, I really struggled to relate to students at this level, and usually came across as condescending and smug (although I never felt that way). This go-round, I've actually been working my way "down" the ladder (College Algebra, than Intermediate Algebra, then Geometry, and Introductory Algebra last summer).

I have never felt so intimidated about teaching a class, though. This summer will tell me a lot about myself, one way or another. Here's to learning, teaching,and learning by teaching!
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On the discussion of the language of design in biology

The Maverick Philosopher is examining the notion of design as used by Dawkins in particular, and evolutionary biologists in general, in what seems to be either an argument that design requires a designer, or an objection to the terminology of design being used absent a designer and the assignment of purpose requiring an intention, maybe a little of both. Personally, this seems to me to be trying to force evolutionary biology into creating highly technical jargon for no particularly useful purpose. We have no common English words to describe the overall shaping action that selection places upon living things, but I don't see how abandoning the terminology of design improves the understanding of these actions. Details below the fold.

Our starting point must be ordinary language. As David Stove points out, "it is a fact about the meaning of a common English word, that you cannot say that something was designed, without implying that it was intended; any more than you can say that a person was divorced, without implying that he or she was previously married." (Darwinian Fairytales, p. 190, emphasis added.) In other words, it is an analytic proposition that a designed object is one that was intended in the same way that it is an analytic proposition that a divorced person is one who was previously married. These are two conceptual truths, and anyone who uses designed object and divorced person in a way counter to these truths either does not understand these concepts or else has some serious explaining to do.

We can put aside for the moment that biologists have actually written multiple volumes to do this serious explaining. Perhaps this work is not serious enough for Dr. Vallicella, as most of the work is written for the popular audience. The first step, I think, is to acknowledge that no individual book, no matter how well or carefully written, would suffice to introduce an entirely new vocabulary, one that has no real equivalences into English, as a part of a discussion on a topic that already requires years of post-graduate study and work to understand, and result in something that a person with high-school education, or even a degree in philosophy, will understand. Scientists spend years learning to adjust and adapt their understanding of the English words, any new vocabulary would merely occupy an academic niche that has no need for it.

1. Mayr tells us in the chapter on Natural Selection that "Every species produces vastly more offspring than can survive from generation to generation." (117) Sorry to be such a quibbler, but is this true? 'Every' includes homo s. Does our kind produce vastly more offpsring than can survive from generation to generation?

Yes, we do. This restraint has been lifted in the last 10,000 years or so since the discovery of agriculture, and in that time our population has grown exponentially (which is the alternative when a species is temporarily unable to fill its niche). However, we will at some point exceed the ability of our environment to support our numbers. China is already experiencing a version of this issue, hence their official policy of couple being allowed one child. Eventually every culture will be facing this issue.

Then we read: "All the individuals of a population differ genetically from each other. They are exposed to the adversity of the environment, and almost all of them perish or fail to reproduce." (117) Really? Almost all of the members of our species perish or fail to reproduce?

Again, this was historically true. In pre-industrial times, it was commonplace to lose more children before puberty have children reach puberty.

Quoting Mayr, with interspersed comments, he says:

Selection is not teleological (goal-directed). Indeed, how could an elimination process be teleological? [It can't be, my man!] Selection does not have a long-term goal. [Or a short-term one either!]

This seems to be odd position. As was pointed out twice in the comments, there are several ways to design by elimination.

The following three positions need to be distinguished:

1. There is design in nature, and a complete account of it is impossible without recourse to a cosmic designer such as God.
2. There is intrinsic design in nature, and it is wholly explainable in naturalistic terms.
3. There is no intrinsic design in nature: all features that exhibit design, purpose, function are observer-relative, and the only observers are themselves denizens of the natural world.

Theists who rely on design arguments subscribe to (1), while some naturalist philosophers come out in favor of (2). (2), however, involves the claim that there is intrinsic design in nature, a claim that is far from obvious, and is arguably inconsistent with Darwinism.

...

So it looks as if (3) is the correct view. The following considerations will be based on passages from John Searle's The Construction of Social Reality (The Free Press, 1995). We consider the case for the contention that there are no intrinsic design features in nature, equivalently, that biological functions are observer-relative.

Again, we see an example of a trilemma, one that is played subtlety and much more carefully than the ham-fisted approach outlined by Cothran. The very first question I would have regarding these is why the designer must be cosmic and singular, as opposed to highly limited and plural. The other is the restriction of purpose to designers and other external agents.

2. Searle's point about functions is that they are never intrinsic but always observer-relative. Functions are assigned or imposed by us. A burro (my example) is not intrinsically a beast of burden but is susceptible to having that functional role imposed on it. Or else we fabricate a mechanical 'burro' to suit our purposes. Similarly, cats and dogs are not pets intrinsically: the pet role is imposed by us.

There are no functions in the natural world: "nature knows nothing of functions." (14). Hearts occur in nature, and it is an observer-independent fact that they cause blood to course through the bodies that house them. But the function of the heart to pump blood is not intrinsic to nature.

This is a very human-centric position. Does a bird, or even an ant, assign a function to it's own heart? You can make arguments about degrees of consciousness, but I don't think anyone understands consciousness well enough to give a precise degree as to the level needed to say something has a function. Remove the ant's heart, and it is dead. I don't know as much about intention, consciousness, or the philosophical discussions thereof to claim any sort of expertise, but I know enough to be fairly sure that there is no universal position on whether an ant can assign purpose, on some level, to its own survival, and by extension its own heart.

So although one does discover how the heart works -- its mechanism -- one does not discover any teleology. Searle:

It is because we take it for granted in biology that life and survival are values that we can discover that the function of the heart is to pump blood. If we thought that the most important value in the world was to glorify God by making thumping noises, then the function of the heart would be to make a thumping noise, and the noisier heart would be the better heart.

To the organisms involved, survival is a value, at least in the sense that their reactions to stimuli are those that developed to ensure survival. The language confusion here, to the degree it exists at all, is quite small.

4. Compare airplane wings and eagles' wings. The wings of an airplane are designed by human engineers for a purpose: to generate lift so that a heavier-than-air craft can become airborne. They are for flying. Now it might seem that the same is true of eagle's wings: they too are for flying. This is true, but only relative to us. Because we value mobility and survival, we project onto the eagles' wings the function of being for flying and escaping predators. Searle's point, however, is that nothing in nature intrinsically has a function. He is not saying that airplane wings have a purpose while eagles' wings don't: they both have a purpose, but it is observer-relative. In a world without beings like us, bird's wings and birds' nests would exist and have causes and effects but lack functions.

The eagle will likely interpret this differently.
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The limited miracle argument

Sometimes, you will see a person arguing against some religious record by claiming that the events as presented would have lead to disasters not addressed by the texts, and that since the book in question does not address how these disasters were prevented, the record of the book must be wrong. Basically, they are trying to disprove miracles by claiming they would have created too much havoc or damage. The unstated, and probably unrealized, assumption in these arguments is the notion that the extent of a miracle is limited to the scope of the text. I find this to be an ineffective method of argument, because once you posit one or more effectively omniscient beings, miracles no longer have a scope or limitation.

One common example is the global flood myth. It is ineffective to say that certain types of fish would have died due to the mixing of salt and fresh water, various plants would have drowned, etc. Any omnipotent deity can easily create vast pockets of preserved salinity levels, or just recreate them all from scratch, for that matter. Note that this is not to say all arguments are ineffective. Any argument that requires currently observable evidence to be wrong (like geological continuity) require either a trickster deity or just flat-out denial of the reliability of observations, and both lead to nonsense.

Another common example is the story of the sun holding still in Joshua. Any claims of disastrous effects from stopping the rotation of the earth just beg the question of why some putative god can halt the inertia of the earth, but not of a person standing on it, a curious limitation. Such a deity could even lessen the effects of gravity to compensate the loss of acceleration from "centrifugal force". It's much more difficult to explain that there was no notice taken of the stoppage of the sun in other places in the world.

I'm not completely sure why I care so much about topics like this. I just generally hate bad arguments, I suppose.
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A quick thank you

I want to devote a post on Memorial Day to thank the soldiers who have dedicated their lives to our country. I don't think America is perfect, but it is one of the freest countries in the world, and I'm glad I live here.
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The 111th Skeptics' Circle is up

One of the funniest presentations I've seen for a Skeptic's Circle is now up at Action Skeptics, and I have no doubt my regular poster (aintnuthin) will find unintentional irony in the presentation.
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A lesson in overly simple logic

Creationists really like their world simple, it seems to me. A simple interpretation of their holy book, simple ideas of right and wrong, and of course a simple logic to express it all in. Thus, we get a first lesson in logic from Martin Cothran that teaches a couple of ideas which are too simple to be correct.

Examples below the fold.
For example:

Just for fun, I am going to employ the most sophisticated and beautiful of all logical arguments: the dilemma. The dilemma is a way of putting your opponent in a box; it is a way of showing him that, no matter what in fact is the case, his assumption leads to an unacceptable conclusion. Again, there are numerous ways of attacking the truth of a statement—this is only one of them.

If I am making this argument, here’s how I do it: There are only two kinds of rights: those that originate in divine law and those that originate in human law. If the claim is that same-sex marriage is a right originating in divine law, then it must be false, since (if it is addressed at all) it is precluded by the holy books of all major religions. If the claim is that same-sex marriage is a right originating in human law, then it must, again, be false, since the law of the land (at least in the United States) does not acknowledge it. Therefore, in either case—whether the appeal is to divine or human law—the claim is false.

Note the nice clean division of originating in divine law or human law. Only the very naive, inexperienced would not that the argument does not address interactions between divine law and human law, nor the other potential sources of rights. This is not valid argumentation, it is a rhetorical trick. Unfortunately, Cothran seems to think this is some sort of valid method. Maybe this is a matter of necessity. maybe the world of the creationist can't survive in a world of shades and colors.

Then he gives what he imagines to be a lesson in reducito as absurdum, attempting to show that a lack of testability does rule ID out of science:

The best place to look for scientific theories that are not falsifiable is physics. Everyone accepts that physics, and the theories that are included under it, are scientific. But many of them are not falsifiable—at least not now. The most famous of these is superstring theory. Superstring theory is the theory that particles and fundamental forces in the universe can be explained by the vibration of very tiny symmetrical strings. The problem is that the theory is not only not falsifiable, but, as some scientists have pointed out, it isn’t even conceivably falsifiable. Some of Einstein’s thought experiments (many of which he later set forth as full scientific theories), the scientific status of which have never been questioned, are not falsifiable either.

Your opponent could swallow hard and say that these things are not science, but he will know he is on shaky ground—and he will know you know he knows it.

Note how he projects his own limited world-view onto others. In fact, I don't feel that I am at all on shaky ground in saying that any hypothesis which is not testable is not relevent scientifically. However, there are differences between hypotheses that are inherently untestable (Intelligent Design can not be falsified under any conditions) and those that are untestable under current technology, but may eventually prove testable. Neither is a part of science today, but the latter can at least eventually be scientific.
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The responsible one

Son#1 (freshly 17) is 16 months older than Son#2 (15). Normally, with Son#1 being PDD-NOS, you would think this would make Son#2 the better choice for babysitting.

However, Son#1 takes his responsibilities very seriously. When Charity and I are home, h3e gets very sensitive to noise, overreacts to kids complaining, adn the like. However, when we go out for dinner, the rest fo the clan says he stays calm. I dont know how much of this is Son#1 rising to the challenge and how much is the kids changing their behavior when he's in charge. It's getting to the point where we are felling comfortable with Son#2 getting a summer job while Son#1 watched the kids on his own. I never thought I'd see the day,
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On the difference between gradualism and relativism

Going back to Iliocnetrim's take on compromise, there is an interesting tidbit, almost a throwaway, that reveals a sadly limited mindset.

Just as it is impossible for you and me to compromise between my desire to murder you and your desire not to be murdered, it is likewise impossible to compromise between truth and non-truth. To put it bluntly: the world is black-and-white, after all.

It's quite popular these days to sing peans to relativism: to assert either that there is no such thing as objective truth -- especially in regard to morality -- or, that if there is, it cannot be known (and so, is unimportant). I refer to this "All The Pretty Shades Of Grey."

It the typical fashion of Ilion's black-and-white thinking, he confounds the existence of shades of grey with the existence of relativism. Lest the reader think I am judging on the basis of this one small blurb, rest assured that this is a regular feature of his writing. The existence of objectively quantified shades of grey, and of bi-valued relative positions, are so commonplace that such thinking can only be considered a departure from reality.

An example of the former would be the question of taking a shot from the upper elbow on a fast break. You can quantify the value of this shot compared to the standard value of a possession for your team when you reset the offense. There is no absolute true or false answer to taking the elbow shot, but the answer is quantifiable probabilistically, and the means of evaluating those answers are certainly objective. In any area of endeavor that allows you to evaluate outcomes numerically, you wind up weighing costs, benefits, resources, commitments, etc. and generate a large array of variables, very few of which will correspond to 1 or 0. This reasoning can certainly be extended to moral issues. Money spent on the support for underage mothers will cause fewer of them to desire abortions. Saving lives, at need for increased taxation: absolutely good or absolutely evil?

On the other hand, how about kid's programming that is designed around a toy line? I have no trouble conceding that you could say it is good or evil, but how would you show either objectively? This becomes a matter of personal taste, in many respects.

Well, I don't expect this sort of thinking to change Ilion's ideas anytime soon. For him there may always be just two camps, even though the world of black-and-white is itself not black-and-white.
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A man who eats dog dung

It's probably bad form to pick on a person like Ilion, but sometimes a nut just seems to ask to be cracked.

In a discussion on whether or not it would be good for the anti-abortion and pro-choice forces to combine efforts on reducing the need for abortions, Ilion compares this type of compromise to putting dog dung into ice cream and serving. No, I'm not kidding. Then, as mere days later, he offers up this gem on the nature of government.

Victor, that some level of governmnet is necessary does not at all mitigate the fact that government is an evil; nore does it even begin to mitigate the fact that government's sole method of funding itself is indistinguishable from a Mafia protection racket -- "Give us your money and do what we tell you to do or we'll kill you."

I guess we should all be grateful to Ilion for eating his daily dose of feces.
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Discussion on evolution

Below follows a response to a long list of comments in the third post in my series on Nagel's articles. If I have any other regular readers who are bored by this, my apologies.

I decided to move the bulk of the post to the comments.

aintnuthin,

Before a detailed response, let me see if I can correctly summarize our disagreement. You seem to be claiming that the Modern Synthesis of population genetics with natural selection is defunct, out of favor, discredit, or something similar. I have been saying that the many additional mechanisms we are seeing recently are things that will be incorporated into the Modern Synthesis, and that complement it rather than replace it.

On that topic, consider this link (with a hat tip to Panda’s Thumb).

LH: What are the most exciting recent developments in systematics / comparative methods?

JF: The availability of genome-scale information is certainly one. The arrival of a generation of young researchers who are comfortable with statistical and computational approaches is another. But the most important development is reflected in recent work on coalescent trees of gene copies within trees of species. What this does is tie together between-species molecular evolution and within-species population genetics. Those two lines of work have been developing almost independently since the 1960s. But now, with population samples of sequences at multiple loci in multiple related species, they are coming back together. This is not another Modern Synthesis, but it is a major event that needs a name. How about the "Family Reunion"? Long-estranged relatives who have not been in touch are getting together.

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Why some types of "political correctness" are necessary

Someone recently reminded me that I said I would do a post on this topic. As it happens, there was an interesting kerfluffle recently that discussed this topic.

Comrade PhysioProf discusses the appearance of a few sexist comments in the responses to a bog post welcoming a new female scientist to discover blogs, and why the "compliments" are still inappropriate. Now, grown men and women are certainly capable of slapping this sort of nonsense down independently. Teenagers are not as experienced, knowledgeable, nor independent. It is much harder for a teenager to speak out against a community of peers than it is for adults. Also, language guides thought, and teenagers are still learning their thought-patterns. Teaching them not to say such things will mean they all be less inclined to think these things.

A second type of case is when the legislature of a state/nation chooses a symbol that is deeply offensive to a large selection of the populace, when there are many other non-offensive ways to proclaim the same message. An example would be when South Carolina flew the Confederate flag over their statehouse. Many of those same sentiments would have been expressed by flying the "Live free or die" flag, or any one of dozens of other possible flags. It is inappropriate to choose a symbol for black South Carolinians that they hate. Note,that this is different from groups that hate the flag chosen by South Carolina because it is South Carolina.

I agree that many of the reactions of people get overblown (such as the response to "niggardly"), and that no one has a right to keep adults from saying offensive things. However,in the two situations of trying to educate people, and of government speech, I think that considerations teaching what/how to think and of being a government for all the people do make it important keep speech and symbols inoffensive.
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