Inference and its role in NS (General)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Thursday, January 27, 2011, 23:30 (4858 days ago) @ dhw

Dhw
> MATT: As far as natural selection is concerned, it does not matter whether or not we know exactly how the bacteria did what it did.
> 
> DAVID: New genetics, same species. Microevolution, and it doesn't prove macroevolution.
> 
> MATT: In the Dawkins view, your question gets pushed all the way back to abiogenesis...
> 
> The crux of the matter is why we're having this discussion at all, and my reason (David's as well, I presume) is the issue of chance v. design, and hence the existence or non-existence of a designer. Do we believe that chance could assemble the ingredients for life (abiogenesis) and for the mechanisms of adaptation and innovation (micro and macro evolution) without which evolution could not take place? How these mechanisms function "doesn't matter" for NS, and it "doesn't matter" if you are only concerned with why evolution happens. It does matter if you are arguing for or against design. David has posted article after article, emphasizing the complexities and the still unsolved mysteries which for him reinforce the design argument. That is why the attempt to synonymize evolution and natural selection ... i.e. to exclude the huge questions raised by these mechanisms ... is not acceptable to anyone who takes evolution and the design issue seriously.
>-Dawkins doesn't take it seriously? No, again the real issue is normative epistemology. You disagree to what valid evidence is. That's it in a nutshell.
Science is not about finding 'truth' it is about models that work--and however incomplete it may be, name an explanation that works better? There's none on the table...

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"