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> Like evolution? It's important to hear that a God created everything, and directs the Universe? If it makes people realize that the strongest critique agains

> Like evolution? It's important to hear that a God created everything, and directs the Universe? If it makes people realize that the strongest critique against creationism is its lack of falsifiability, then yes. At some point they might realize that evolution has the same defect which might lead to a much more interesting discussion on the subject of falsifiability as a requirement for scientific theories.

DanBC 13y ago
So, there are two users. One believes in a god and believes that god created everything and drives the universe forward. That user is polite and calm, but mentions his god in many posts. The other has the same beliefs, but angrily rejects the science and provides links to idiotic blog posts to "support" his position that the scientists are wrong. The first hasn't been banned, the second has. At least, that's how I read the submission.
dragonwriter 13y ago
Evolution doesn't lack falsifiability. Evolutionary theories provide falsifiable predictions of future observations -- which (while many have resisted falsification) are, in fact, sometimes falsified, which is why the theories in the field, while much of the broad outline is similar, have evolved over the whole time that the field has existed.
- stefantalpalaru 13y ago
  How would one prove that arbitrary mutations don't lead to a consistent decrease of entropy given enough time?
  - reginaldjcooper 13y ago
    Random changes causing a net decrease of entropy over time? That's a new one.
    - stefantalpalaru 13y ago
      It's not new. It's how evolution is supposed to work: a simple organism gets some random changes and becomes more complex. What is the journey from an unicellular ancestor to modern humans if not a decrease in entropy?
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > It's how evolution is supposed to work: a simple organism gets some random changes and becomes more complex. Er, no, that's not how evolution is supposed to work. There is nothing in evolutionary theory that indicates a necessary preference for increasing complexity. If (and this is a premise outside the scope of evolution) life starts with the something very close to the simplest form which can be "alive", it is unsurprising and consistent with evolution for evolution to produce some forms which are much more complex, and for the average complexity to increase over time -- especially if its not constrained by an upper bound on viable complexity. But you, for instance, start with a bag of zeroes, periodically randomly add or subtract 1 to each number in your bag and then throw out any that are less than zero, over time the highest number and the average number in your bag is going to increase -- the change process isn't biased, but the selection process is.
        stefantalpalaru 13y ago
        The existence of a fitness function does not explain the increase in complexity. The most successful life forms on this planet are the unicellular ones. Why would the selection process favor anything else?
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > The existence of a fitness function does not explain the increase in complexity. That would be an interesting rebuttal if I calimed that the existence of a fitness function explained the increase in complexity. Since that's not what I said, it's just a non-sequitur. What I said was that if you start with a collection of items all uniformly near one boundary and then vary the collection randomly rejecting things that fall outside of the boundary, both the maximum and mean distance from the boundary will increase over time, until and unless that behavior is constrained by a boundary on the other end. (In the case of life, I'm talking about a strong, "outside of this you don't have anything that counts as life" boundary, not a fitness function in the evolutionary sense, which addresses the relative reproductive success among viable life forms.)

DanBC 13y ago

So, there are two users. One believes in a god and believes that god created everything and drives the universe forward. That user is polite and calm, but mentions his god in many posts. The other has the same beliefs, but angrily rejects the science and provides links to idiotic blog posts to "support" his position that the scientists are wrong. The first hasn't been banned, the second has. At least, that's how I read the submission.

dragonwriter 13y ago

Evolution doesn't lack falsifiability. Evolutionary theories provide falsifiable predictions of future observations -- which (while many have resisted falsification) are, in fact, sometimes falsified, which is why the theories in the field, while much of the broad outline is similar, have evolved over the whole time that the field has existed.

stefantalpalaru 13y ago
How would one prove that arbitrary mutations don't lead to a consistent decrease of entropy given enough time?
- reginaldjcooper 13y ago
  Random changes causing a net decrease of entropy over time? That's a new one.
  - stefantalpalaru 13y ago
    It's not new. It's how evolution is supposed to work: a simple organism gets some random changes and becomes more complex. What is the journey from an unicellular ancestor to modern humans if not a decrease in entropy?
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > It's how evolution is supposed to work: a simple organism gets some random changes and becomes more complex. Er, no, that's not how evolution is supposed to work. There is nothing in evolutionary theory that indicates a necessary preference for increasing complexity. If (and this is a premise outside the scope of evolution) life starts with the something very close to the simplest form which can be "alive", it is unsurprising and consistent with evolution for evolution to produce some forms which are much more complex, and for the average complexity to increase over time -- especially if its not constrained by an upper bound on viable complexity. But you, for instance, start with a bag of zeroes, periodically randomly add or subtract 1 to each number in your bag and then throw out any that are less than zero, over time the highest number and the average number in your bag is going to increase -- the change process isn't biased, but the selection process is.
      - stefantalpalaru 13y ago
        The existence of a fitness function does not explain the increase in complexity. The most successful life forms on this planet are the unicellular ones. Why would the selection process favor anything else?
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > The existence of a fitness function does not explain the increase in complexity. That would be an interesting rebuttal if I calimed that the existence of a fitness function explained the increase in complexity. Since that's not what I said, it's just a non-sequitur. What I said was that if you start with a collection of items all uniformly near one boundary and then vary the collection randomly rejecting things that fall outside of the boundary, both the maximum and mean distance from the boundary will increase over time, until and unless that behavior is constrained by a boundary on the other end. (In the case of life, I'm talking about a strong, "outside of this you don't have anything that counts as life" boundary, not a fitness function in the evolutionary sense, which addresses the relative reproductive success among viable life forms.)