Yes, I have trouble imagining that you’re serious too, but I’m willing to assume it for the sake of argument. Speaking of arguments, do you intend to make one?
It can explain some of them. And of course there are no immense physical differences, no more than between two species of mice. You just notice those differences more.
So go the facts. But I’m sure your little quote from nowhere proves something or other.
Every biologist and biochemist I know accepts non-Darwinian neutral theory. It seems that this quote mine refers to people who don’t exist.
Pierre-Paul Grasse died nearly 40 years ago, and that quote is from 1977 - facts that Edgar neglected to mention.
I don’t think I’m willing to engage in any more with you, though. I don’t find this sophistry useful.
I think this is taught quite stringently in statistics and science. It is why scientific methodologies and the conclusions of science are tentative. It’s why we painstakingly perform multiple independent corroboratory experiments for a single mutation and publish manuscripts with 150 page supplements in Cell to show we are considering many logically tractable possibilities.
Other humans look at our data and say, “Yeah, but you didn’t consider X” or “Your model assumes Y, therefore this data point is invalid.” So we go and test X or use method Z. Or some other group tests X and reports the findings. It’s obviously not a perfect system and it clearly has failures. But, it is always corrected by more science and never by other modes of knowledge.
Scientific methods produce scientific evidence for scientific questions. It is the most reliable system of obtaining knowledge about the shared phenomena that all humans are bound to. Testable and falsifiable claims made within the realm of that shared phenomena are necessarily privy to scientific methodologies. I don’t find a compelling reason to shield ideological perspectives from investigation by resorting to anecdotal knowledge when claims about that shared reality are being made.
I additionally don’t find any issues with personally held beliefs that are front and center, “I am not making a claim about our shared reality, I am making a claim about my internal knowledge.” The tension comes when those internal knowledge claims attempt to supersede the external workings of our reality.
Edgar, you haven’t read GAE and you’ve missed out on several great interviews, and threads at Peaceful Science. The answer to your question is the thesis of GAE. I’m amazed that you could hang out here and somehow miss it.
68 posts were split to a new topic: Is it “Deceptive” to say the GAE is “Consistent With” Evolution?
I am late to this discussion and am unlikely to catch up at this point. What I really wanted to note is the importance of agreeing to a sample space first, and then we can make statements about independence. We should generally avoid making statements like P(H) != P(H|E) and then seeking out a sample space such that it is true (that’s cheating!).
Except, within an agreed frame where P(H) = P(H|E) should be true, we might find contradictory evidence. Strong evidence might be cause to adjust our frame. This is a mirror to the scientific method and Bayesian learning models. Without going back to read everything, I’m guessing this might be part of the discussion already. 
@John_Harshman :
Well, then, I hope go on to have a good day. I did find our conversation helpful, even though it was frustrating at times. I also think that your probing posts do add to the discussion in general, at least for the first few rounds, because it weeds out claims that don’t have at least that level of depth. I’m sure I’ll see you around!
@chris_doesdna2018 :
I’m absolutely agreed on your points about the virtues of science. I do, however, wonder about how many scientists have actually internalized their training, and can apply their evidence-evaluation skills in a more general setting. I find it to be a rare skill.
I also agree that science is best for “testable and falsifiable claims”, but depending on how much of a stickler you want to be, this may account for a fairly small portion of our shared reality. History, for example, cannot be A/B tested, and there’s a good reason that scientists don’t rule the world. But this is the beginning of a long discussion - one which is perhaps best saved for another thread.
@Dan_Eastwood :
Thanks for checking in! And yes, we did discuss the sample space in multiple ways, and I think it actually did get resolved pretty cleanly!
@chris_doesdna2018 , @swamidass :
I would not discount the importance of the general sentiment around Adam and Eve in the GAE discussion. Here’s what I mean:
If I thought I had a very strong piece of evidence for some hypothesis H, but then later discovered that this evidence was actually negligible, I can describe this situation in two ways: I can either say “there is negligible evidence for H, so I will not have any strong opinions about it”, or say “oh snap! I was totally wrong about H! I have to make a dramatic shift in my thinking!” Both are technically correct, but the second way is much more accurate in terms of what I should do.
What I cannot do is the following: “well, there’s negligible evidence for H, so I’m not going to strongly update my beliefs about it”. This is a severe error, one that mixes evidence and attitudes in exactly the wrong way. So, in this way, the discovery that a piece of evidence is negligible can itself act as strong evidence.
Here’s how this applies to Adam and Eve, and GAE: if you’re some old, pious grandma who was ignorant of science and just wanted to read and believe what the Bible says, GAE shouldn’t affect you much. It’s a negligible piece of evidence for a hypothesis that you already thought was true.
But, on the other hand, if you’re an atheistic biologist whose beliefs and career were largely based on the idea that Adam and Eve are fundamentally incompatible with evolution, then GAE should absolutely demolish your thought system. What you thought was a strong piece of evidence has turned out to be completely negligible, and you need to have that crisis of faith, that “oh snap” moment.
I don’t know enough about individuals or organizations to name names, but both the general attitude I see in any field connected to evolution, and @swamidass’s specific experiences and examples, indicate that there are a lot of people who are making the very mistake that I described above. They need to have that “oh snap” moment, but they’re instead saying “negligible evidence, so no change to my beliefs”.
Which geneticist disagrees with what I said?
I take your point, but I find it interesting that Gen 2:7 says God “formed man” before the man was given the breath of life. It’s hard to imagine where an evolutionary ancestor of “man” could be squeezed into that process, but as you suggest, it may be unreasonable to read that verse too literally or scientifically.
Really? I am aware of mice that get around on four legs, but which mice get around on two legs?
I obviously wasn’t referring primarily to the “physical differences”, but the intellectual differences - which you seem determined to ignore. The fact that humans share 98% of their DNA with chimps is regularly featured in common-ancestor propaganda, but it does little to explain the immense intellectual differences between the two species.
Said immense differences are evidence against a process of biological evolution, imo.
Poor red herring/non-sequitur. Are you also aware that chimpanzees can also walk bipedally, and that humans can also mobilise down on 4 limbs?
It wasn’t that obvious, and of course you just claimed that the physical differences were immense too. It seems to me that the intellectual differences are not that immense either, though I will agree that they’re probably larger than those between two species of mice. It just goes to show that a small difference in quantity can make a large difference in outcome, especially if you have language so that knowledge can be passed down and built upon.
True, but it also does little to prevent explanation. It doesn’t take that many differences in a genome to produce big differences in phenotype, including mental abilities. Are you contending that the differences between humans and chimps are other than genetic? If so, what makes us smart?
Your opinion is worthless without some kind of rational argument, which you have not provided.
Several of us here are geneticists.
So why are you talking about “our knowledge of genetics” when you obviously have virtually no knowledge of genetics?
The stated order is one of the (many) reasons to read a less-than-literalistic account. Gen 1 and Gen 2 do not line up, so they can’t both be right if read literally.
Agreed…which is why no one (I know of) tries to do that.
By “our” I mean “mankind”. You still haven’t answered my question: Which geneticist disagrees with my comment that our knowledge of genetics has a very long way to go before it can explain the differences between humans and other organisms?
The vast majority of geneticists, I am sure, would been in total agreement that we have a good handle on explaining the vast majority of genetic differences between humans and chimps, and also has made large strides in recent years to understanding how these genetic differences give rise to our phenotypic differences.
They would also agree we do not understand everything, because no scientific field purports to understand everything. They would also agree that they see very clear genetic evidence for common descent.
But you don’t seem interested in acquiring even a bit of that knowledge. Why? Are you afraid that it will contradict what you wish to be true?
What a coincidence! You still haven’t answered mine:
Wow. That denial of reality is beyond absurd - it’s downright BIZARRE. No, wait … come to think of it, a chimp painted the Mona Lisa, Beethoven and Shakespeare were actually chimps, and some of the scientists who designed the Large Hadron Collider were chimps!
I would suggest someone who thinks the intellectual differences between humans and non-humans are not immense is hardly qualified to determine if an argument is “rational” or not.