Gil will be offline for some hours yet. Do you care to nominate a second adjudicator?
ETA: you might also make the quote the definitions to be used, to make life easier for whoever adjudicates.
[Poof! I appear in a puff of smoke]. Yes, sort-of. In a simple case with (say) 2 alleles, A and a, where A has higher fitness, if we start with A at frequency 0.01, as natural selection raises it to 0.50, the entropy goes up, and so does the fitness. When we continue having the frequency of A increase, entropy goes down as the fitness increases. That is why we look for other measures of information such as functional information.
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Actually, you were still right Dan. You stated ā(Shannon) information is minimizedā which is equivalent of stating that ā(Shannon) entropy is maximizedā.
Genesis was definitely written long after the events it describes, unless Moses had access to earlier documents we know nothing about today. The claim is not that the Bible is reliable because it was always written close to the events it describes (though in the case of the New Testament it definitely was). The claim is that the Bible is divinely inspired. And the Bible is most certainly the only book we humans possess that can actually back up that claim by writing down events hundreds or even thousands of years before they come to pass. Regarding the ābig pictureā evidence for the Bible, I have addressed that as well.
No, āscienceā abandoned it when it was found to be politically expedient.
It is to the great shame of those Christians who abandoned the historic faith and the clear teaching of scripture rather than defending it.
It isnāt hubris to ignore YECs, it is hubris to ignore Godās word and decide you donāt need to regard its clear teaching.
This quote is highly problematical for multiple reasons:
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It is not from the page that Paul cites ā which is the final page of the index in the book.
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It is in fact from two separate pages (multi-page ellipsis!
) in the bookās introduction. -
It is not clear, to me at least, that Gee was talking about all āhistorical hypothesesā, or merely a subset of them, and I would note that Clelend herself presented these as her own words not Geeās:
The most trenchant criticism of historical science, however, comes from an editor of Nature, Henry Gee (1999, p. 5, 8), who explicitly attacked the scientiļ¬c status of all hypotheses about the remote past; in his words, āāthey can never be tested by experiment, and so they are unscientiļ¬c. . . No science can ever be historical.āā
It was Paul himself who inserted Clelandās words into Geeās quote.
Here is the full paragraph from p5:
And from page 8:
I would further note that some philosophers consider that Cleland herself has been unreasonably harsh on historical sciences:
Historical geology: Methodology and metaphysics
ABSTRACT
This chapter engages critically with Carol Clelandās recent work in the philoso- phy of historical science. Much of the practice of historical geology ļ¬ts her description of the methodology of āprototypical historical scienceā quite well. However, there are also important kinds of historical scientiļ¬c research that do not involve what she calls the search for the smoking gun. Moreover, Clelandās claim that prediction is not a major factor in historical natural science depends on taking an overly restrictive view of what counts as a prediction. Finally, Clelandās approach, which emphasizes methodology, is just one possible way of thinking about the difference between historical and nonhistorical science. Rather than focusing on the āhowā of historical science, one can also focus on the āwhatā of historical scienceāon the nature of the processes and events that historical geologists study.
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There is rather more to Henry Geeās quote than you make out, but apart from that I want to ask you a question (again) :
If this is your position on historical hypotheses, do you likewise consider Creation Science and Flood Geology unscientific?
Thank you for your response.
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In the interest of making life easier for the adjudicator, here is a link to Geeās book on Internet Archive. Anyone can register for a free account and borrow the book to read.
The quote comes from page 5 of the introduction. Here is some additional context:
For example, the evolution of Man is said to have been drive by improvements in posture, brain size, and the coordination between hand and eye, which led to technological achievements such as fire, the manufacture of tools, and the use of language. But such scenarios are subjective. They can never be tested by experiment, and so they are unscientific. They rely for their currency not on scientific test, but on assertion and the authority of their presentation.
With respect to definitions, there is this from page 7:
Testability is a central feature of the activity we call science. Some have sought a kind of special dispensation for palaeontology as an āhistoricalā science, that it be admitted to the high table of science even thought palaeontologists cannot, classically, do the kinds of experiments other scientists take for granted.
And from page 8:
But we already know that Deep Time does not support statements based on connected narrative, so to claim that palaeontology can be seen as an historical science is meaningless: if the dictates of Deep Time are followed, no science can ever be historical.
On pages 6 and 7, he outlines (presumably to be elaborated later in the book, Iāve only read the introduction so far) what is testable in palaeontology via cladistics.
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You seem to be mistaken as to what an experiment is, and while you speak of repeatability in terms of historical science and operational science (whatever that is supposed to be), what you are not discussing is observation, the common ground of science.
In your world, when Galileo turned his telescope on the moons of Jupiter for one of the most pivotal discoveries in history, that does not count because it was an observation and not an experiment - Galileo did not manipulate the solar system, or have a control planet. He just used a new tool at his disposal to extend the power of observation which challenged the leading paradigm of his day. And those moons? They can be viewed repeatedly, Iāve done it with my backyard telescope. If you do the same thing again and again and again, that is repetition Paul, even if you insist it somehow isnāt.
On the other end of the scale, when Robert Hook first used a microscope to discover cells in cork, and Leeuwenhoek further found them in other tissues, there was no experiment beyond just using a microscope for observation.
It is common to reference instruments which will observe, but not manipulate, as experiments. See what is out there. Spectrometers on the James Webb and gravitational wave detectors are experiments, gathering data, but not playing with test tubes like your childhood 50 experiments chemistry kit. Whether manipulated, and with controls, or not, scientific data are observational outcomes however obtained, and are not constrained by your arbitrary and naive definitions. Science has, and will continue, to extend as the reach of instruments continues to improve observation.
And such observations can be predicted from our understanding of the past. The CMB was predicted by the Big Bang Theory, was found as predicted, and that finding is not only repeatable, but is an unavoidable and ever present feature of the sky night and day. Repeat that observation as often as you care.
Often, predictions arise from what YEC would call historical science, which are confirmed by observation by the techniques falling under what they call operational science. When it was noted that humans carry one fewer chromosomes that other great apes, it was hypothesized that a fusion event joined two. This has been confirmed and studied in detail using the tools of operational science. It is all of a cloth. Feel free to repeat those studies as often as you need. The discovery of Tikaalik happened directly as a result of prediction from knowledge of both geological and evolutionary past.
Predictions can also arise from the consilience of science. Despite your belief otherwise, the carbon atoms in your body were are forged in the heat of stellar interiors. The nuclear process by this could happen was for some time unknown, but Hoyle insisted there had to be a way, because we are indeed here and our global understanding of the past demands stellar nucleosynthesis. Eventually, the synthesis path was discovered by Fowler at Caltech. Repeatable as often as is necessary. It is not just our knowledge of the present which illuminates the past, understanding the past also explains the present.
Speaking of nucleosynthesis, the refusal to acknowledge scientific understanding of process can make YEC ridiculous. Not long ago, YEC denied that fusion was the driver for the sunās radiation, preferring active gravitational contraction, because apart from fusion, the solar radiance could not be sustained for evolutionary time frames. They seized on dubious solar radius measurements and a measured deficit of solar neutrinos to argue their case, while actual scientists assumed that the sun was ancient, and so set about developing more comprehensive neutrino observatories. Of course, as the sun is old and fusion is real, the predicted missing neutrinos were indeed discovered, again validating deep time. Accepting reality has heuristic value, and denying reality means creationists never discover anything or solve any problems.
The progress of science has been driven by the practitioners of science. If it were up to the navel gazers of theologians and philosophers, we would still be treating your fever by letting your blood. And where does YEC fit in all this? Observational science is not neutral, and is devastating the the creationist program. Creation science will never, ever, have equivalence to scientific rigor, and the balance will never, ever, be tipped by the dogma holding you in thrall.
There is unity in science just as there is in the natural world, with experimentation, validation, and observation all playing vital roles. Your divide and conquer rhetorical devices have no bearing on reality. So give your historical vs operational distinction a break. Think observation.
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