How reliable is science? (The limitations of science)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, April 15, 2012, 01:23 (4604 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
edited by unknown, Sunday, April 15, 2012, 02:22

Not all opponents of evolution are basing their opposition on ID. Some simply see that there are fundamental flaws in evolution. 
> -Citations?-> Also, there IS a testable claim made by ID, actually. Evolution is not sufficient to explain innovation(versus adaptation). That is testable. Ironically, that is the same way to falsify Evolution. It is falsifiable. All evolutionist would have to do is prove a single repeatable experiment that shows a completely new innovation as a natural process. ... Again, this would have to show a completely NEW function, not a new way of doing something that it was doing previously. When the question of a SINGLE example of this was posed to Dawkins, he couldn't answer it. 
> 
>-What's the experiment that I can go run tomorrow, that will allow me to reject or accept the claim in red?-As for the "completely new" feature, I already posted one from a paper in 1982 in which a bacteria evolved a way to metabolize lactose after its capability to do so was deliberately destroyed. Every generation from the knockout was recorded and it was demonstrated that the new ability to metabolize lactose came from 
1. Random frame shift mutations
2. A gene with a different structure than the original, knocked out version. 
 -> > Who's getting buried where? 
> 
> A while back I posted a link to a South American Archaeologist.. I will see if I can find it again and re-link it. 
> -I think I answered this in a separate location. I'll be posting something soon about anthropology because it came up in Pinker's book. -> >That's what the process of replication is for. 
> 
> Which according to an article recently linked by David is something that has NOT been happening as often as it should. 
> -What is the basis for determining the "as often as it should" quip? In my mind, it is irrelevant if it takes 100 years. It's like math. It happens when it happens, there is no way to predict a "often" rate. -...
> 
> This is where you and I differ. You are satisfied to sit back and watch the process unfold over centuries while countless peoples lives are detrimentally affected. I am not. I hold the people who make false claims, and those that cling to them doggedly in spite of contrary evidence responsible for the damage that they cause, and you do not. To you, it is all part of the process.
> 
> -No. Where you and I differ, is that I recognize that humans will do things at a speed no faster than what humans will allow. Science isn't about individuals, its about the whole. It is inconsequential that some scientist gets their feelings and/or career hurt in their lifetime because their ideas were too early. It is inconsequential because you are trying to hold scientists to a standard of perfection higher than what is achievable by a human being. Humans WILL defend a paradigm they spent their whole lives building. Scientists are ultimately engineers, ultimately human. (If you read Kuhn, you'd understand where I'm coming from.) Science is about building models that are general, and span generations. You simply cannot take a view of these processes in the scope of single lifetimes. The story of physics, for example, starts with Aristotle, and is governed at present by thinkers such as Stephen Hawking. In that process, the blood of Copernicus was shed [and the] career of Galileo was terminated. -Even in my own science, Alan Turing committed suicide because of Gay persecution in the UK. In that case, it had nothing to do with his science.-> 
> > For your question marked in yellow: It's how I expect humans to operate. If her ideas stand on their own merits however, there is no choice but to accept those ideas. Like Mendel, it might not be until after she's dead, but *someone* will either come up with a similar idea or find hers and then cause a revolution. 
> > 
> > You need to respect that in my mind you're asking humans to be "all rational, all the time." 
> 
> Not all humans and not all the time. I expect those whose profession is built solidly upon the foundations of rational thought, reason, and evidence, to live up to the requirements of the task that they set for themselves. If they can not, then they shouldn't have taken the job.
> -By that [logic], no scientist, doctor, computer programmer, or police officer should ever engage in their profession. Because of course, we're error prone, and because we might cause an error, we should never act.-[EDITED]-I understand that I think you want me to recognize that there is a human cost, and I fully recognize this. In a perfect world, no one should have to die because of the failings of someone else. -But I also fully recognize, that it isn't possible to expect a human being to act more than human. Because of that, a human cost will always be paid. Unless we find a way to make scientists act like Vulcans from Star Trek, but I sincerely do not see that as an option.

--
\"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.\"