Is Evolutionary Theory a Fallacy?

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Don_Mc

As a matter of deductive logic, that is. But science is not a deductive process. Rather, it operates thru induction and abduction.

Agreed. But I think scientific explanation has to make sense to persuade skeptics to accept the truth of a given scientific theory.

Why? Formally, science does not deal in truth. It’s not post hoc explanations. Its power comes from testing hypotheses.

@Don_Mc

…but in that case you will have to simply get used to the fact that around 40% of the public (here in the U.S. at least) rejects your theory.

We are. What is your justification for actively promoting misunderstanding with a book based on obstinate scientific illiteracy?

@Don_Mc

Meanwhile you are doubtless aware that induction and abduction do not have the power to establish absolute truth.

But you clearly are so ignorant about the scientific method that you don’t know it doesn’t formally deal in truth, much less absolute truth. Real scientists attempt to falsify their hypotheses. Pseudoscientists run from this responsibility.

@Don_Mc

Yet you are also doubtless aware that for some reason evolution popularizers like Coyne and Dawkins try to pass off a theory that operates through induction and abduction as absolute truth anyway.

I’m not. Quotes including “absolute truth” would be necessary here.

And once again, theories do not operate, just as they cannot be fallacies. People operate and people issue fallacies. Your rhetorical sleight-of-hand is painfully obvious.

@Don_Mc

Speaking of Dawkins: in The Blind Watchmaker he asserts: “Cumulative selection , by slow and gradual degrees, is the explanation, the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed, for the existence of life’s complex design.”

Has Dawkins contributed anything to evolutionary theory in the last 40 years, or is he famous as a popularizer and infamous as a Culture Warrior?

@Don_Mc

…others that it’s a matter of self-assembly.

Ah, “others.” Remember writing this?

Speak directly to (rather than about) opponents where possible.
A SEROUS [sic] PLEA FOR NATIONAL UNITY, Don McIntosh (PDF)

No, I did no such thing. I noted that your analogy to industrial engineering is absurd because biological structures self-assemble.

@Don_Mc

I’m guessing that at some point someone will tell me that self-assembly occurs by natural selection, lol.

LOL. That makes no sense. Is misrepresenting what other people say and write all you’ve got?

@Don_Mc

So did Dawkins ever officially retract that statement?

I don’t know and don’t really care. It’s obviously an opinion, and anyone who has any familiarity with evolutionary theory knows that he’s big on selection and small on neutral evolution. So why are your two most quoted sources not active scientists?

@Don_Mc

You are correct that I am unqualified, even grossly so, to speak with any kind of authority about science

You’re missing the obvious point several have made, which is that you can learn about science if you try.

Remember:

Apply the principle of charity.
Learn to think critically.
A SEROUS [sic] PLEA FOR NATIONAL UNITY, Don McIntosh (PDF)

@Don_Mc

To have and voice my thoughts about evolutionary theory as it has been drilled into me over the years, though, is something different.

See your writings above. Maybe YOU misunderstood it, and I very seriously doubt that Dawkins was assigned reading in any biology class you’ve taken, but that’s all your hyperpartisan mind sees. You could always follow your own advice to others before pontificating.

@Don_Mc

I don’t think evolutionary theory is strictly about science or the scientific method; it also speaks to matters of philosophy, theology and metaphysics.

I don’t, but then I have a grasp of evolutionary theory. You, despite being corrected here and elsewhere, continue to misrepresent the basics of the scientific method. I’m not pointing out that it is strictly about those things, but it certainly is the foundation of it, while you ignore them.

Again:

Speak directly to (rather than about) opponents where possible.
A SEROUS PLEA FOR NATIONAL UNITY, Don McIntosh

@Don_Mc

In any case, truth is not really a function of scientific credentials or authority, or the current consensus of scientists on a given theory at a given time.

Correct. But you have to understand that science is not about truth. It is really about evidence, which you carefully avoid. You misrepresent science as a completely rhetorical exercise. Is that deliberate or unconscious?

source:
A_Serious_Plea_for_National_Unity.pdf

[AlanFox]

@Roy

Maybe we just need to point out that Dawkins wrote that nearly 40 years ago, in a book you probably haven’t read.

Dawkins himself said his seminal work was The Extended Phenotype (1982)

The Extended Phenotype

Less than 6€ on Kindle

[AlanFox]

@Faizal_Ali

The only disagreement I would have with what you quote Dawkins as saying is that many of those slow and gradual steps are neutral with regard to selection. I doubt Dawkins would have any problem accepting that if asked.

Dawkins came late to (perhaps grudgingly) acknowledging a rôle for genetic drift. I’m not convinced he was convinced and I’m not sure I am, either.

I don’t usually bother commenting in pre-moderated threads but I’ll leave these up.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@AlanFox

Dawkins himself said his seminal work was The Extended Phenotype

Less than 6€ on Kindle

I’ve got the pulp version.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@Don_Mc

As a matter of deductive logic, that is. But science is not a deductive process. Rather, it operates thru induction and abduction.

Agreed. But I think scientific explanation has to make sense to persuade skeptics to accept the truth of a given scientific theory. I am trying to explain why evolutionary theory (as widely depicted anyway) doesn’t make sense to me and lots of other people.

I seriously doubt that it is that science works on abductive and inductive reasoning that explains why some people have difficulty understanding evolution. I think it’s almost entirely the product of a particular type of religious upbringing, possibly combined with how certain science popularizers also make evolution out to be somehow intrinsically anti-religious in nature.

@Don_Mc

Meanwhile you are doubtless aware that induction and abduction do not have the power to establish absolute truth.

“Absolute truth” is not necessary to be able to say with good confidence that something is true.

@Don_Mc

Yet you are also doubtless aware that for some reason evolution popularizers like Coyne and Dawkins try to pass off a theory that operates through induction and abduction as absolute truth anyway.

I have never seen any of them claim that evolution is “absolute truth”, or the fact of evolution has been established with some sort of absolute certainty. I have on many occasions read statements or heard them clearly say that science is ultimately tentative, based on evidence, and subject to potential falsification if better evidence is found.

In any case, the science of evolutionary biology is not dependent on the statements by any particular evolutionary biologist. Anyone in any field of science can be wrong, unclear, inarticulate, or phrase something poorly.

You do not show that the science of evolutionary biology has some sort of foundational logical problem by finding a couple of examples of people making simplified statements about it in literature intended for the general public. At best all you are showing is the well-known problem that when complex topics are dumbed down for a lay audience you will invariably lose details along the way that could be important in certain arenas of discours.

If you wish to actually show that the basis of the field has issues, you should be dealing with the best case you can find, written in the primary literature(intended to be consumed by qualified professionals) instead of obsessing over a couple of public statements by famous atheist biologists.

@Don_Mc

Speaking of Dawkins: in The Blind Watchmaker he asserts: “Cumulative selection , by slow and gradual degrees, is the explanation, the only workable explanation that has ever been proposed, for the existence of life’s complex design.”

In that same book Dawkins also mentions variation (and mutation as a source of it) many times. So perhaps the overall message needs to be understood holistically, instead of being summarized by single, overly simplified statement.

@Don_Mc

But you have suggested that the complex design of biological systems is a consequence of numerous mechanisms, not just selection

So does Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker. The book is longer than that one sentence.

@Don_Mc

others that it’s a matter of self-assembly. I’m guessing that at some point someone will tell me that self-assembly occurs by natural selection, lol.

Actually self-assembly often occurs by itself under the right conditions. It’s in the word self. Self-assembly.

But let’s not confuse evolution with assembly (self or otherwise). Self-assembly occurs among cells or among molecules, whereas evolution is a transgenerational process by which changes occur in a population of individuals, and over generations rise in frequency. Evolution explains why descendants are different from their ancestors, it doesn’t (and isn’t proposed to) explain why there exists electromagnetic forces that enable molecules to attract each other and stick together in a particular way.

@Don_Mc

So did Dawkins ever officially retract that statement?

I don’t think it’s Dawkins position that evolution is only, entirely, and exclusively the process of natural selection. Because he clearly states there’s more to it in that very same book, despite him merely summarizing it like that in the single sentence out of the entire book you quote there.

And it’s not that there isn’t anything worthy criticizing Dawkins views on evolution for (like him often ignoring, downplaying, or even being unaware of work that shows the role of genetic drift and constructive neutral processes).

If you want to learn more about what other processes are known to contribute to evolution (including the evolution of complexity) besides just natural selection, this video will give a nice overview of the sorts of topics you will need to dive more into to get a more complete picture of what modern evolutionary biology has to say about what contributes to the evolution of complexity:

The Evolution of Genomic Complexity

[Don_Mc (Don McIntosh)]

I’m not sure what you mean by “absolute truth”, and I doubt you do either.

I mean by that more like a dogma, the kind of belief embraced by a community of believers that causes the believers to become hostile, insulting and condescending – rather than peaceful – when someone openly expresses doubts about it.

Subjects regarding which you also seem grossly unqualified to speak. But don’t let that stop you…

BOOM. Yes, good one.

I’m a little more qualified there, but again I have nothing like a professional’s level of expertise. Part of the problem here, I think, is that for some years I was a pastor and evangelist, so I tend to speak what I believe to be the truth without a lot of overly tentative qualifications. I know it can be annoying, as my family has sometimes had to remind me.

Anyway, no, I’m not going to let it stop me (except maybe here at Peaceful Science). Again that’s because truth is never a function of academic credentials and attainments. Otherwise we’d have to maintain that Socrates was a less skilled critical thinker than some kid who had finished a B.A. in philosophy last year but now works in food service and has forgotten most of what he learned. Or that anyone here lacking a Ph.D. has no place to question what Behe says about biochemistry or what Dembski says about philosophy or mathematics. Or that Darwin’s observations aboard the Beagle were scientifically useless because he was a med school dropout. Etc. That’s all nonsense.

It’s great to be free, though. I say we should all dare to express an independent idea once in a while – even if that means we can’t subject it to peer review first.

[Don_Mc (Don McIntosh)]

Here I will disagree. The science needs to produce useful results, and then people who may not understand the details will begin to be persuaded. We still don’t know why the force of gravity behaves as it does, but we can describe its effects and make useful predictions using Newton’s equations (and technically, Newton was wrong). Few understand the time dilation effects of gravity, but we enjoy the benefits of GPS navigation without any need for understanding or persuasion.

These are good points and I agree with surprisingly much of what you say (not to mention how you say it). I don’t believe there is always a necessary connection between theoretical and applied science, though. It’s not like ancient civilizations had to wait for the development of Newtonian dynamics to design their chariots, or for Mendel’s laws of inheritance (or Darwin’s insights on selection for that matter) to selectively breed their animals or crops.

You CAN have it both ways, but it requires reconciliation of faith and knowledge of science. How you do that is up to you, or for that matter IF you can do that, it’s certainly not my business.

That’s just it, though. In a sense I already have it both ways, first because I don’t believe creationism is scientific – which is why I think creationists should abandon the push to influence science curricula. Reconciliation for me, then, simply means understanding there are limits to how much science can reliably explain. A brief review of the history of science should be enough to recognize that fact.

The way I see it, God “speaking” the world into existence or “breathing” life into human beings, for example, are not scientific mechanisms even in principle and were never meant to be seen as such by the biblical writers. Likewise, I don’t believe God creating the world is falsifiable even in principle, and again was never meant to be thought of as such. But that doesn’t make evolution a sound scientific explanation by default. There are things I am convinced science can’t touch.

Sorry about the insults.

Thanks for that. It comes with the territory, I guess. I used to debate at Talk Origins in my younger, more brash and confrontational days and it didn’t bother me too much. But I’m older now and I forgot how thick with emotion the issue can be. It’s one reason I honestly wouldn’t mind if my book turns out to be another “worst-seller” like the others.

That noted, I am taking a break from the forum to recover from the peaceful smackdowns, reflect on all this, and then start revising my manuscript in light of the many useful comments here. Not sure if will muster the resolve to return. I personally think you should work to make the forum more peaceful still, and to encourage participants to focus a little more on the arguments and less on the people making them. It should be no mystery why there are not more creationists, ID-ists, evo skeptics, etc. participating. Adieu!

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Don_Mc

I personally think you should work to make the forum more peaceful still, and to encourage participants to focus a little more on the arguments and less on the people making them. It should be no mystery why there are not more creationists, ID-ists, evo skeptics, etc. participating.

You have a seed of idea about the difficulty of understanding evolution, and there has been general agreement about rhetorical difficulties explaining science to the lay public. The difficulty as I see it, is you are approaching the problem with the fixed conclusion that ToE is incomplete, and possibly wrong. I think you should allow for the possibility that in making your case for a FoC, you may also discover better ways of explaining ToE (parts of it, at least) to those who doubt.

I think I can take this one step further - In order to establish a FoC - that the logic supporting evolution is faulty - you will first need to identify what the correct logic should be. Wrong or right, you should looks for ways to break the problem into simpler pieces, and don’t worry if some of those piece differ from your expectations. If science is operating as it should, then some of those pieces will be correct.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Don_Mc

I mean by that more like a dogma, the kind of belief embraced by a community of believers that causes the believers to become hostile, insulting and condescending – rather than peaceful – when someone openly expresses doubts about it.

That’s not even a definition of “truth” of any form. Never mind “absolute truth.”

It also seems to me that your definition would apply to the “belief” that the earth is not flat.

@Don_Mc

Part of the problem here, I think, is that for some years I was a pastor and evangelist,

Gosh, what a surprise.

@Don_Mc

so I tend to speak what I believe to be the truth without a lot of overly tentative qualifications.

No, that’s not the main problem here at all. The problem is that you insist on making assertions, regarding topics about which you admit to having little knowledge, that are utterly wrong, and that you are dismissive and condescending towards those who are experts in the field when they attempt to correct you.

[John_Harshman]

@Rumraket

I have never seen any of them claim that evolution is “absolute truth”, or the fact of evolution has been established with some sort of absolute certainty. I have on many occasions read statements or heard them clearly say that science is ultimately tentative, based on evidence, and subject to potential falsification if better evidence is found.

The legal term “beyond a reasonable doubt” seems appropriate here, which we might interpret statistically, as science often does, as P<<0.001. Or S.J. Gould’s formulation that a fact is a hypothesis “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." In this sense, much of evolutionary biology is a fact, among them many things that Don rejects, such as the common descent of humans and other monkeys.

@Don_Mc

I mean by that more like a dogma, the kind of belief embraced by a community of believers that causes the believers to become hostile, insulting and condescending – rather than peaceful – when someone openly expresses doubts about it.

How would you react to a flat-earther? The analogy you:flat-earther::biologist:creationist is highly useful to consider. Would you consider that hostile, insulting, or condescending? I assure you that it isn’t. It’s an invitation to consider things from another point of view.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

Nice to meet you and glad you are here.

@Don_Mc

Presently I am working on a book with the above as the central argument. But if the argument is a failure I would rather know sooner than later.

Wise aspiration.

[Nesslig20]

@Rumraket

Hello Don, welcome to the forum!

@Don_Mc

For example, biologists at UC San Diego have stated (though it’s been a few years now): “Based on research conducted in hundreds of laboratories over several decades, we can outline how the components within the modular bacterial flagellum evolved from several different sources unrelated to an organelle of motility.” Their conclusion? “Natural selection thus accounts for the development of flagellum-driven bacterial motility.” – Tim Wong et al., “Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum,” Microbe, 2, 7, 2007, p. 339.

In other words, if natural selection accounts for the parts, it accounts for the whole.

I would agree with you that the article referenced does a poor job of describing a model of the gradual evolutionary history of the entire flagellum from simpler systems. I’m not even sure the article could be said to put forward an argument.

I would also suspect that neutral processes (like constructive neutral evolution) was involved as well. Evolution isn’t just ‘natural selection’, many (grey-haired) evolutionary biologist tend to overlook this. They may acknowledge that there are other mechanisms, but they mostly put the focus on this one mechanism.

[John_Harshman]

And…he’s gone. Twice.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Don_Mc

Again that’s because truth is never a function of academic credentials and attainments. Otherwise we’d have to maintain that Socrates was a less skilled critical thinker than some kid who had finished a B.A. in philosophy last year but now works in food service and has forgotten most of what he learned.

In my opinion, running a philosophy school whose pupils started several major philosophical movements is a greater academic attainment than flipping burgers at McDonalds. But that’s just my opinion; you are free to hold a contradictory one.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Don_Mc

Part of the problem here, I think, is that for some years I was a pastor and evangelist, so I tend to speak what I believe to be the truth without a lot of overly tentative qualifications.

I’m flabbergasted that your would offer such an excuse, particularly so soon after it was patiently explained to you that science doesn’t deal in truth.

I would describe the pastors of every church I’ve belonged to as less likely to do behave as you do, not more, and to not make excuses.

So that leads to a more interesting question: what do you tend to do when you learn that a claim you can’t support, or “without a lot of overly tentative qualifications,” is simply false?

Like this one:

@Don_Mc

…evolution popularizers like Coyne and Dawkins try to pass off a theory that operates through induction and abduction as absolute truth anyway.

Do you have any support at all for this characterization?

Obviously, anything short of an absolute statement won’t support it, because that’s what “absolute” means.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Mercer

Do you have any support at all for this characterization?

You should recall his definition of “absolute truth”. It does not entail that something even be true at all.

[Argon]

Bumpity bump. Keeping thread alive in case Don is still working through a deep read on philosophy of science and evolutionary theory. Writing for a scholarly journal, it’s important to get ones’ references in order to ensure one is taking the current state of contemporary research and understanding into account to support the novelty & robustness of any thesis presented.