He quoted it, specifically from Niels Bohr. “No theory should fit all the facts because some of the facts are wrong.” In this case, population genetics theory doesn’t fit the alleged fact of an old earth, but that fact it turns out is wrong.
Apologetics, not science, right?
Sorry, what lecture? And who was he quoting?* So, in essence, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own lyin’ eyes?” It should be the other way around. If the data don’t fit the theory, you should question the theory. The data don’t fit a young biome. So much for GE.
*Oh, that llecture. And I see he wasn’t quoting anyone and he didn’t say that. Whatever were you thinking.
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I agree that population genetics theory doesn’t fit the alleged fact of an old earth, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the fact of an old earth is wrong; for the other possibility is that population genetics theory is wrong.
This is math we’re talking about. Be specific. What aspect of the theory are you suggesting is wrong? This is one area where I happen to be siding with the published literature on the model. I agree with Lynch that it is well-established.
What, in your mind, is “population genetics theory”? I always viewed population genetics as a field of study.
Much of population genetics is math which, unlike science, can be literally proven. However, any models which is based on such math would have to meet further conditions to precisely reflect nature.
There can be no phenomena whatsoever which is not captured and integrated into the model.
Every ratio and parameter input must be perfect.
The algorithm must be perfect.
It must track dynamics and gradients in the environment, from subtle to massive.
Each of these is difficult or impossible to achieve in the absolute; that’s not some hand wave. We can never be assured that no mechanism has escaped, and simplifications are often knowingly made for the sake of computability. Our data inputs can only best reflect current understanding. And for sure, the dynamics of response to environmental context will eventually fail, as it has been well demonstrated that ecologies are formally chaotic, and can unpredictably lurch between loci.
That does not mean that population genetics models are impossible, not rigorous, or of no value, far from it. Understood as approximations in defined domains, they can lay invaluable groundwork for identifying directions of research, evaluating the balance of probabilities such as applied to forensics, and just further the understanding of well, genetics in populations. But anyone’s claim of unlimited precision and predictive power over empirical observation is invalid and suggests an agenda beyond revealing nature.
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You have overlooked the third option, which is in fact the correct one: You are wrong.
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And not just wrong, flat earth wrong.
Isaac Asimov’s The Relativity of Wrong.
When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
This is particularly applicable to @UncensoredPilgrims, because his motivation is the defense of a bronze age middle eastern cosmology whereby the Earth was flat and covered by a firm dome, with an age corresponding roughly with the history of the surrounding civilizations. Both are assumed in the Old Testament, but he has dispensed with the spatial and committed to the temporal even though they are of unitary heritage.
All this is drastically anachronistic, and compels wholesale blocking of the evidence which displaced such belief over the course of several millennia. Protecting against the unrelenting dissonance from the constant accumulation of knowledge in biology, geology, astronomy, and physics is the task of YEC apologetics, and requires a high degree of willful blindness.
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