I think idiots are not ignored enough in our current society.
Science is about what can be observed. Theories are only useful as long as they predict right results. Opionions are irrelevant.
...and turn “evolution” into a religion in our quest to replace creationist accounts.
What ridiculous ad hominem.
I asked a genuine question that hasn't been answered and you inferred far more from it than there really was.
That's why I asked. I could well be wrong about that. But he hasn't answered.
When I mentioned the creationism, I mentioned it in the way foldr understood.
But listen: I meant exactly what I said and that should be enough. I don’t have to be a communist to point out failures of markets. A person who believes the invisible hand always knows best should defend their position with logic instead of counterattacking others with adhominems.
And that is actually a weaker example. I don’t have to even have a competing theory to point out that unfalsifiable theories abound in the area of evolution.
I already said to you the common descent theory has AMPLE evidence. From genetic evidence, geology, fossil record, radiometric dating and so on. So clearly I have give you a standard that leaves the other evolutionary theories in the dust. Just because they can all be lumped under the umbrella term “evolution” doesn’t mean they are all one, proven theory!!
Consider the multiverse theory. Is that falsifiable? Is it science?
My point is that no thise things are not actually science. They are simply a preference to claim every result we observe was brought about by processes we already understand. The word “science” is just attached to it because it gives it a nice halo effect.
Neither multiverse theories nor these theories are actually falsifiable in any practical way.
The goal of promoting these theories is actually to have a legitimate-sounding (on the surface) way avoid admitting there may be supernatural causes involving phenomena that we don’t understand and may never understand.
In quantum mechanics, fine tuning of constants, and many other areas, we have possibly reached a limit of what we can actually test or explain using classical reasoning. And we have begun to accept that maybe properly done science has limits.
Beyond this lies faith, of many sorts. Religious faith, or faith in the principle that there are no skyhooks or that everything is made up of stuff we more of less already understand.
You can say that makes me a creationist because once I say we don’t know HOW X CAME ABOUT there is no difference in explanations.
But that’s not true. You can rule out explanations by falsification! For example you can rule out most Greek myths, because they involve falsifiable elements that have been shown to be false (eg apollo with the sun in a chariot going across the sky, or mount olympus being home to zeus). Most religions make falsifiable claims, and that’s how we can actually disprove them. But to the extent a natural theory consistts of UNFALSIFIBLE claims, we have to be honest about them being unfalsifiable, even if the only alternative is a supernatural explanation.
On the one hand you demand pure scientific evidence for evolution to explain EVERYTHING, but on the other you say that the supernatural has been ignored, without giving any scientific evidence whatsoever to back it up.
I apologise for calling you a "creationist", as it seems you took that as a pejorative term.
It seems to me you're suggesting that there is some combination of evolution and the supernatural that can be a perfect model for explaining the world, but you're going to have to give some falsifiable theories on the supernatural for that.
Now you can just fill that gap with a multiverse theory and anthropic principle. You can make up stories all day long about how things could have happened with mere mutation and natural selection. But that's not scientific. All you're doing is doubling down on the idea that the only processes that we need to care about are like the things we've already discovered. Easily explainable, simple things. It's a preference for those kinds of things to fill in the explanatory gap. But either way, you have no good way to test your theories at the moment. You may have faith that ONE DAY these theories or some other natural theory will be proven. But that's not much different than a religious faith. Religious people prefer to believe that such complexity was not brought about by mere "chance" operation of the universe, but was planned. They prefer to see an uncaused, omniscient mind. You prefer to see simpler explanations. Dawkins admits it in his book.
If you want falsifiable theories with predictions, that involve the supernatural, read Lee Spetner's "Not By Chance", which I referenced above.
If you can show falsifiable theories of HOW macroevolution occurred, say the evolution of flight, make predictions, and do experiments than prove them, then by all means I will accept the conclusions. For example: allopatric speciation can explain various ring species which we can actually see today. But most speciation did not seem to follow any sort of physical barriers to restrict gene flow between interfertile populations. So to say wings simply evolved because (insert just-so-story here) is not going to do it for a rigorously scientifically minded person. That's the point. And that point is regardless of what the alternative theories say.
Surely not. We're also interested in how explanatory a theory is, and in whether or not we have strong grounds to think it true.
If what you were saying were correct, it would have been wrong to point out in 1860 that Newton's theory made incorrect predictions regarding the orbit of Mercury.
OP said alternate theories where being suppressed but has yet to name one or provide any evidence of that they're being suppressed. That's why I and others strongly suspect they are a creationist sowing doubt and not interested in any legitimate debate. The playbook of a creationist or climate "skeptic" is to sow doubt and then claim their theory is just as good because "nobody really knows".
If they'd name what dissenting theory is being suppressed I'd give them a lot more benefit of the doubt.
I could say that it is New Kind of Science type explanations which defy simply analytic explanations the same way machine learning is not reducible to explanations involving simple syllogisms.
But let’s give you what you want, because I want to get to the heart of the issue. What if the competing theory was, in fact supernatural, some form of intelligent design or theistic evolution? Go ahead, make your point. Because I am interested in just how much an attitude of anti theism motivates otherwise rational people to refuse to admit that an unfalsifiable theory (like that ALL speciation proceeds by random mutation and natural selection, ie things we understand which we call natural) is falsifiable? And that a fancy sounding just-so story actually passes for science as long as it assumes the above is true?
You just prefer that currently understood processes are involved, instead of saying that it’s stuff beyond your comprehension.
I will directly ask: how is that more rational than theism?
Lamarckism was never suppressed, mendelian genetics proved a better model as the primary driver of evolution. Are you claiming the Lamarckism is being actively suppressed? You're still dancing around the question.
> otherwise rational people to refuse to admit that an unfalsifiable theory (like that ALL speciation proceeds by random mutation and natural selection, ie things we understand which we call natural)
It is falsifiable, if we observed new species popping into existence then the theory would be on shaky grounds to say the least. Even if we could find species that didn't appear to have a common ancestor would be evidence against natural selection.
> I will directly ask: how is that more rational than theism?
It's more rational because it's simpler, it takes know testable laws and uses them to provide an explanation. Theism posits something much more complicated and completely unknown as the explanation where it's not necessary.
And while we're here lets be real, you aren't talking about theism in general but a specific form of mono-theism that you likely grew up with. After naturalism I would find pantheism to be much more rational, if one god can pop into existence then many can.
I cannot comment on Lamarckian evolution.
My main problem of religious theories is that they are only the kind of just-so stories that you so despise. Evolution predicted in-between species and we found them in the fossil record; it predicted traits to be hereditary and later it was found how that worked with DNA, we found all animals share parts of their DNA with all other animals, et cetera. It's one of the strongest scientific theories there is in terms of how much it predicted that was later found to be true.
Some details we don't know exactly (because we can't repeat it, and have to look at ancient fossils even though the vast majority of life never left a fossil and the vast majority of the life that did is still in the earth). And even for those we have are somewhat plausible just-so stories. That aren't evidence, but at least it's a way of showing that the presence of e.g. gays is not incompatible with the theory.
Theist theories _started_ with a just-so story and then added more stories on top.