Originally Posted by Rudiger

So I think it's completely wrong to say "I have no other theories, but there's missing data so you're all probably wrong about evolution." It's not skepticism to me, it's just bad reasoning.

Problem is, this isn't what I'm saying...

What I'm suggesting is more along the lines of "If a biology student challenged (macro)-evolution for whatever reason, we can't just bite their head off."

As Marlowe said, I'm "having qualms as to the proposed "road map" of how humans (and other species) evolved, in terms of ancestors." I've never once said anything remotely close to "Evolution is rubbish." (though, mind you, I haven't said the converse either)

I have some reasons myself (I've mentioned but one, about anatomic similarities between "distant" relatives on the evolutionary tree, and a corresponding suggested correction that's currently being researched (or at least it was about 3 years ago, maybe it's been disproven since)), and my quote unquote "argument" about statistical chance of being correct is simply to show that such a person can't be instantly ridiculed for doubting it.

In other words, as I said, I'm aiming to answer the question "How can someone well-educated doubt evolution?" as opposed to what everyone thinks I'm trying to suggest: "Evolution is wrong."

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And now that I've had a bit of rest, I'll try one last time to explain the point of the second half of my posts (nothing to do specifically with evolution):

The tl;dr of my last few posts is that perception is not absolute. As with physics, we need a definite framework for referencing what is "real." This is the goal of science.

But science is inherently flawed: I'll use an analogy from Mathematics to help explain my point, since Math suffers from a similar flaw (except that it's much more readily known)

As I mentioned, Math has a 'ground up' approach. It's in many ways, like a house: We lay an appropriate foundation (a set of Axioms, or, "assumed truths"), and we use rules of deduction, or logic (blueprints) to infer what theorems arise due to our choice of axioms (the finalized house).

For instance, if 2 + 2 = 4, and 4 + 4 = 8 are axioms, then we can infer (2 + 2) + (2 + 2) = 8 using logic.

In the early 1900s, the goal of many mathematicians was to figure out which axioms describe reality...we now know this is an impossible task. One mathematician created a set of rules, another one found a huge contradiction (which sent the entire scientific community into a panic ("Math is broken! Maybe physics, chemistry, etc. is too!")), and within a couple of decades, another pair of mathematicians came along and made a new set of rules.

These rules are still in use today, but what we don't know, is that these rules will always be in use...in 1,000 years, perhaps someone else will find a contradiction.

To wrap up this story, there was a brilliant mathematician named Kurt Goedel who proved that any set of axioms + rules of inference (any mathematical "house") can not be consistent and complete. What this means is, basically, if our system does not have any contradictions (it's "consistent"), we will never be able to prove it doesn't have any (We're missing some theorems, so it's not "complete").

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Science suffers this same flaw...even if we do stumble upon the right set of 'rules' governing say, how atoms interact, we won't know for sure. Perception is not absolute...I'm suggesting we have "5 axioms" (Sight, Sound, Taste, Smell and Touch), which we've arbitrarily decided are complete (because it's our best guess, I don't doubt this). But the problem is, we'll never know if we're missing certain senses, or even in some cases, if our senses mislead us. I also mentioned that to me, personally, the idea that we evolved the way current science believes we did, casts doubt on the fact that our senses are complete.

The goal of a mathematician, as with a scientist, is to investigate. The difference is a mathematician may not be investigating reality, and may instead be looking at a "fictitious approximation" to reality. All I'm suggesting is, maybe science is also such an approximation.

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And the bottom line is, no, I'm not saying we shouldn't investigate. We're doing the best we can...but sometimes, we have to stop and realize that things are not necessarily as absolute as we'd like them to be.

It's funny how we both came up with essentially the same response...mathematic al hivemind?

Most christians in fields such as biology actually believe the world was made billions of years ago ("days" in genesis aren't literal 24 hour periods) and that evolution occurred within the span of each "day" until humans were made. I think they call it old earth creationism.

Regular creationism makes no sense whatsoever unless god went scattering fossils everywhere for laughs.

just because inferences (or even direct observation, as suggested by mahratta) may not be absolute, does not mean that we can use that as an argument to reject evolution. Just because Goedel proved that a set of axioms can't define all of reality entirely/consistently, doesn't imply that the idea that species change and evolve over time should be rejected, no more so than the idea that 2+2=4 should.

Perhaps our current model of evolution isn't exact, or our interpretations are incomplete (e.g. altruism was thought to be contradictory to evolution, now it seems that, in certain cases, co-operative behaviour is advantageous to individuals, thus it would be selected for), but the idea that our details may be inconsistent/incomplete isn't a valid argument for our basic, general inferences based on evidence being wrong. we can observe evolution, and we can infer natural selection based on physical and genetic similarity, historical artifacts, as well as extensive controlled testing of its predictions, to the point that its acceptance can be put beyond reasonable doubt.

Originally Posted by waldo92

just because inferences (or even direct observation, as suggested by mahratta) may not be absolute, does not mean that we can use that as an argument to reject evolution. Just because Goedel proved that a set of axioms can't define all of reality entirely/consistently, doesn't imply that the idea that species change and evolve over time should be rejected, no more so than the idea that 2+2=4 should.

Perhaps our current model of evolution isn't exact, or our interpretations are incomplete (e.g. altruism was thought to be contradictory to evolution, now it seems that, in certain cases, co-operative behaviour is advantageous to individuals, thus it would be selected for), but the idea that our details may be inconsistent/incomplete isn't a valid argument that our basic, general inferences based on evidence are wrong. we can observe evolution, and we can infer natural selection based on physical and genetic similarity, historical artifacts, as well as extensive controlled testing of its predictions, to the point that its acceptance can be put beyond reasonable doubt.

lol @ Science students failing to understand logicians

Mowicz, I like the way you think; you've explained it perfectly. Skepticism is never a bad thing, and I'd like to think I also take my perception of reality with a grain of salt. The human condition has its effect on everything we experience, including our science, so I understand what you mean.

Your's and Mahratta's analogy with mathematical philosophy shows how it's reasonable to doubt almost anything we humans deduce, and I can't argue with that. But with regards to the OP and the presentation promoted in his class, I still completely discount that there is any hard biological science going against the basic tenets of evolutionary theory. Evidence like you mentioned show that we probably still have much to learn, and any scientific theory is modified over time as we gather more information, but I'd still answer the OP the same way: a biology student should accept evolution.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

lol @ Science students failing to understand logicians

I don't think the posts went over Waldo's head, I think he's just saying that you can't use those broad ideas to target only evolution. You could use the same argument for anything, because it applies to all human thought.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

lol @ Science students failing to understand logicians

what have i misunderstood?

Originally Posted by waldo92

just because inferences (or even direct observation, as suggested by mahratta) may not be absolute, does not mean that we can use that as an argument to reject evolution. Just because Goedel proved that a set of axioms can't define all of reality entirely/consistently, doesn't imply that the idea that species change and evolve over time should be rejected, no more so than the idea that 2+2=4 should.

I did mean what I asserted in that post quite precisely, so I'll try and clear it up here.

As an aside, I didn't mention anything about reality, but only of observed reality, since I do have reservations about the transcendental nature of our reasoning that any claim to reality from observation necessarily asserts. I think this restriction manages to show that the problem really is in the logic.

I'll try to use what you are likening to a contradiction to illustrate my point further (the idea that 2+2=4 should get rejected). Mathematics can be split up into a couple of main 'forms', but I'll give only 2:
(i) mathematics as it is personally understood (intuited)
(ii) mathematics as it is communicated

Communication necessitates a 'linguistic' medium, and this is where logic comes in. Goedel's proof shows that this medium may never be transcendental (that is, it cannot describe mathematical reality, if such a thing exists, as it really is).
So when you say '2+2=4', you're actually evoking (at least) 2 distinct ideas - first, the intuitive idea that 2+2=4, founded by natural induction and our basic sensibility, and then the formalism that you actually write.
The formalism has been shown to have shaky foundations, and the intuitive idea is inherently based on shaky reasoning (the point of formalism is to distance us from the shakiness of intuitive inductive reasoning).

I suppose it could be put as 'formalisms can only serve as images of intuited reality'.

Originally Posted by Rudiger

I don't think the posts went over Waldo's head, I think he's just saying that you can't use those broad ideas to target only evolution. You could use the same argument for anything, because it applies to all human thought.

That's not what I was trying to get through, hopefully this helps to clear things up. That argument can be used for any formalized form of human thought. Science is a formalized form of thought - in other words, it's a discipline that attempts to gain an understanding of reality that transcends individual subjectivity ('thought-paradigms' is what I mean by this).

Originally Posted by Mahratta

That's not what I was trying to get through, hopefully this helps to clear things up. That argument can be used for any formalized form of human thought. Science is a formalized form of thought - in other words, it's a discipline that attempts to gain an understanding of reality that transcends individual subjectivity ('thought-paradigms' is what I mean by this).

But by the same logic, any form of communication uses some kind of language, which would inherently contain flaws and by default prevent any sort of discourse that would 'transcend individual subjectivity.'

So even though you were just talking about science, Mahratta, it really does apply to any human idea.

The argument is too broad to be effective for placing doubt on any individual theory; to discuss any topic, we're going to have to allow for these basic assumptions.

Edit: Basic assumptions about the nature of our logic and reasoning: that even though our tools are flawed, they are what we have to work with and can hopefully still be effective at discerning some knowledge about the universe.

Originally Posted by Rudiger

But by the same logic, any form of communication uses some kind of language, which would inherently contain flaws and by default prevent any sort of discourse that would 'transcend individual subjectivity.'

That's not quite 'the same logic'. Firstly, an arbitrary form of communication may be a language, but we've got no guarantee that it will be a formal language. Second (and of more importance), not every form of communication is meant to be perception-independent, while that's taken as given with the sciences.

In other words, this argument only applies to formalized systems - systems that are intended to be perception-independent. Of course, it only needs to apply to formalized systems, since in most systems we're content to be 'fuzzy' about things.

The argument is too broad to be effective for placing doubt on any individual theory; to discuss any topic, we're going to have to allow for these basic assumptions.

So, you can see that the argument hits precisely what it needs to hit - formalized systems. To clarify what I mean by 'formalized' relative to 'formal', think of the formalized as a complex of formal and empirical, for example. It's not so broad as to include any sort of discourse, because not every sort of discourse is meant to be contradiction-free.

Edit: If I may sum it up, my short answer to the OP's question is 'yes', and my long answer is 'no'.

Originally Posted by Mahratta

That's not quite 'the same logic'. Firstly, an arbitrary form of communication may be a language, but we've got no guarantee that it will be a formal language. Second (and of more importance), not every form of communication is meant to be perception-independent, while that's taken as given with the sciences.

In other words, this argument only applies to formalized systems - systems that are intended to be perception-independent. Of course, it only needs to apply to formalized systems, since in most systems we're content to be 'fuzzy' about things.

The lack of formality would only cloud things further, adding to the problem, and whether the communication is meant to perception-independent doesn't matter, because as you've said, it won't be either way. The logic really does apply to everything. The only reason I emphasize this point is that it shows how truly broad the argument is.

Regardless, you're talking about the fallacies of all scientific thought, not specifically evolution.

Originally Posted by Rudiger

The lack of formality would only cloud things further, adding to the problem, and whether the communication is meant to perception-independent doesn't matter, because as you've said, it won't be either way.

I don't think you're addressing my point. Of course it doesn't matter 'to the argument', so to speak. Scientific thought holds an air of authority on reality - more than, say, literature, music, metaphysics, etc. So there's only really "a point" in applying these methods to science (and similar 'explanatory disciplines').

Second, you're assuming that Goedel's methods, which are the crux of this argument, can be applied to an arbitrary language - something I never said was the case, and indeed something I doubt can be the case given our present paradigm in cognitive science and artificial intelligence.

The logic really does apply to everything. The only reason I emphasize this point is that it shows how truly broad the argument is.

Regardless, you're talking about the fallacies of all scientific thought, not specifically evolution.

My point is that its broadness can't possibly have an adverse impact on the argument - in order for something to be true of all scientific thought, it has to be true of any arbitrary example. Unless we find a medium of expression for scientific thought that does not rely on a first-order logic while maintaining social standards of 'rigour', we'll always have to keep falling back on metaphysical speculations on intuition.

If Darwins theory of Evolution was correct, shouldn't cats be able to operate can-openers by now?

Originally Posted by waldo92

just because inferences (or even direct observation, as suggested by mahratta) may not be absolute, does not mean that we can use that as an argument to reject evolution. Just because Goedel proved that a set of axioms can't define all of reality entirely/consistently, doesn't imply that the idea that species change and evolve over time should be rejected, no more so than the idea that 2+2=4 should.

I do think you've missed some of my point...so I'll demonstrate. If we have the wrong set of axioms, or assumptions, then we can mathematically show 3 + 1 = 5:

"Correct" Axiom (ie. Our base assumption):

-_-$--

Rule of Inference (ie. "observable phenomena"):

If x is a theorem, then so is -x-

Result:

-_-$-- is a theorem
--_-$--- is a theorem
---_-$---- is a theorem
... etc.

Now if we interpret the symbol _ to be the conventional + sign, and as the conventional equal sign...and a series of n hyphens to be the number n, then our system reduces to:

1+1=2
2+1=3
3+1=4
... etc.

Now if we 'made the wrong guess' and assumed our axiom was actually -_-$---...then after 2 applications of our rule, we'd have ---_-$-----, or 3+1=5...which is close, but can be improved upon.

The only reason we know this is wrong is by interpreting the results...but what happens when intuition fails? (Like if we're looking at microscopic, or otherwise immeasurable things) Can we be certain that our interpretation is correct?

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In and of itself, it's not a reason to reject evolution or any specific theory for that matter...but it's something to consider as a scientist. There's always that slight bit of doubt (ironically, this doubt can in many ways be compared to a "lapse of faith" in the religious).