Eternity

[Stranger]

Oh please...!  Could you (Blue) and Stranger please stop lecturing and telling me what to do.

I will write what I please (within board rules) and you are welcome to offer your opinion on that subject. Leave it at that.

So you're trying to tell us what to do because you don't like being told what to do... Humm.

Not that I've tried to tell you what to do, and I don't think blue has either as far as I can see. Pointing out your numerous logical blunders and your misuse and misrepresentation of science is not telling you what to do, it's correcting misinformation.

Logical mistakes are logical mistakes. A fallacy is basically getting your logical sums wrong. Misinformation about science is also clear cut (e.g. natural selection is simply not a metaphor and anybody who says it is, is simply wrong).

[Stranger]

I sympathise with Siram.
Whenever their arguments fail to convince they just resort to ridicule or an "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude instead of further engaging with genuine reasoning.

Wow just wow! What barefaced hypocrisy!

This is from the person who uses every possible distraction and avoidance tactic to squirm out of every attempt to engage him with actual reasoning. This is the person who just endlessly repeats the same old, tired, script that has been addressed time and time again without ever stopping to answer genuine questions or engage with counterarguments.

This is the person who makes up gibberish phrases, that he then pretends answers questions but utterly refuses to elaborate on when people point out that the phrase doesn't actually mean anything unless he does explain it further.

I'm stunned at just how blatantly dishonest this is. Talk about bearing false witness!

[Aruntraveller]

I sympathise with Siram.
Whenever their arguments fail to convince they just resort to ridicule or an "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude instead of further engaging with genuine reasoning.

As a definition of irony I'm not sure I could have come up with a better one Alan. Well done.

[Sriram]

So you're trying to tell us what to do because you don't like being told what to do... Humm.

Not that I've tried to tell you what to do, and I don't think blue has either as far as I can see. Pointing out your numerous logical blunders and your misuse and misrepresentation of science is not telling you what to do, it's correcting misinformation.

Logical mistakes are logical mistakes. A fallacy is basically getting your logical sums wrong. Misinformation about science is also clear cut (e.g. natural selection is simply not a metaphor and anybody who says it is, is simply wrong).

Natural Selection is a metaphor and many eminent scientists agree with that (I have linked articles earlier).  And no amount of you insisting otherwise is going to change that!

Shows how 'logical fallacies' need not be fallacies depending on ones perception. Its all about attitudes and perceptions.   Things are not as black and white as you seem to think.

[Outrider]

Natural Selection is a metaphor and many eminent scientists agree with that (I have linked articles earlier).  And no amount of you insisting otherwise is going to change that!

Yes, it's  a metaphor, because - and this is important - there isn't actually an intelligence selecting anything, but it's a process that has an output akin to something selecting and so it's phrased as though there is. It's a metaphor specifically BECAUSE nothing is actually doing any selecting.

O.

[Stranger]

Natural Selection is a metaphor and many eminent scientists agree with that (I have linked articles earlier).

The only link I recall was about the naming of it being metaphorical (which it is), not the, very real, process. You are simply wrong about this. Every textbook on the subject will explain exactly how natural selection works in the real world, as a very real and significant process. I have done so myself on this forum and you ignored it (as you always do when you have no answers).

Shows how 'logical fallacies' need not be fallacies depending on ones perception.

Fallacies have been identified since the dawn of philosophy until today, as obvious and clear mistakes in reasoning. Using a fallacy doesn't invalidate your conclusion, but it does mean that you have failed to back it up. Logic is a formal subject in its own right, ignoring it is foolish.

[Stranger]

Yes, it's  a metaphor, because - and this is important - there isn't actually an intelligence selecting anything, but it's a process that has an output akin to something selecting and so it's phrased as though there is. It's a metaphor specifically BECAUSE nothing is actually doing any selecting.

Natural selection is a very real filtering process on variations. The only metaphorical aspect is calling it 'selection' as that implies some sort of deliberate choice. Sriram keeps on trying to dismiss the whole process by labelling it a metaphor, which is just plain wrong.

[Sriram]

https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/natural-selection-the-evolution-of-a-mirage/

***********

Only time will tell whether the idea of evolution itself, which natural selection was meant to support, will endure now that so many scientists are “coming out” to express doubts about natural selection as traditionally glossed. As Michael Ruse recently pointed out, natural selection cannot actually select and is better understood as a score-recording statistic than as a “true cause”:

Natural selection reveals itself as not just a metaphor but a mixed one: Nature being dumb but nevertheless capable of discrimination. It is a poetic concept rather than a scientific one, appealing more to emotional and aesthetic sensibilities than to reason. Denuded of the “cover” provided by natural selection as the motive factor to explain evolution, the broader subject of evolution itself once again becomes as enigmatic to us as it was to our Victorian forbears. Now as in 1858 evolution remains the “mystery of mysteries.”

************

[Stranger]

https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/natural-selection-the-evolution-of-a-mirage/
...

Evolution News is an intelligent design (creationist) propaganda site from the Discovery Institute Center for Science & Culture.

Added: And the esteemed author, Neil Thomas, is qualified in.... wait for it..... classics and European languages. Humm, so this is one of those "eminent scientists" of which you spoke, eh?

[Alan Burns]

Wow just wow! What barefaced hypocrisy!

This is from the person who uses every possible distraction and avoidance tactic to squirm out of every attempt to engage him with actual reasoning. This is the person who just endlessly repeats the same old, tired, script that has been addressed time and time again without ever stopping to answer genuine questions or engage with counterarguments.

This is the person who makes up gibberish phrases, that he then pretends answers questions but utterly refuses to elaborate on when people point out that the phrase doesn't actually mean anything unless he does explain it further.

I'm stunned at just how blatantly dishonest this is. Talk about bearing false witness!

And where was your actual reasoning in this reply to my earlier post?

Drivel.

There is no explanation in religion either.

It's doubtful such an 'event' has ever happened. It doesn't really make much sense.

Drivel.

Drivel (non sequitur).

Appalling ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation?

[Stranger]

Natural selection reveals itself as not just a metaphor but a mixed one: Nature being dumb but nevertheless capable of discrimination. It is a poetic concept rather than a scientific one, appealing more to emotional and aesthetic sensibilities than to reason.

And in this quote is just dumb idiocy. The guy clearly has no grasp whatsoever of the science. It's not even a difficult concept to understand. You'd really have to be very, very dim, or kept yourself in deliberate ignorance and employed blind faith to reach this conclusion.

Do you need me to explain how natural selection works yet again?

[Stranger]

And where was your actual reasoning in this reply to my earlier post?

Where was there any in the post I was replying to? What do you expect when you come out with a series of rather silly and totally unargued assertions? If you want to try to defend them and add some reasoning to them, go right ahead.

The fact remains, however, that your track record for engaging with serious objections to your claims is utterly appalling. Mindless repetition is your stock-in-trade.

[Outrider]

Only time will tell whether the idea of evolution itself, which natural selection was meant to support, will endure now that so many scientists are “coming out” to express doubts about natural selection as traditionally glossed.

Whilst there are some scientists 'coming out', when they do so they aren't practising science. In the main they are making faith expressions, and when they do attempt something in the scientific vein it is thoroughly discredited and falls over at the peer review stage.

Natural selection reveals itself as not just a metaphor but a mixed one: Nature being dumb but nevertheless capable of discrimination. It is a poetic concept rather than a scientific one, appealing more to emotional and aesthetic sensibilities than to reason. Denuded of the “cover” provided by natural selection as the motive factor to explain evolution, the broader subject of evolution itself once again becomes as enigmatic to us as it was to our Victorian forbears. Now as in 1858 evolution remains the “mystery of mysteries.”

Success - in breeding, whether directly or by dint of better survival rates - leads to increased relative frequency, which over time leads to differing stable populations upon which variation can once again play. It's a blind but effective measure, and nothing in this statement calls it into question.

O.

[Alan Burns]

And in this quote is just dumb idiocy. The guy clearly has no grasp whatsoever of the science. It's not even a difficult concept to understand. You'd really have to be very, very dim, or kept yourself in deliberate ignorance and employed blind faith to reach this conclusion.

Do you need me to explain how natural selection works yet again?

You appear to put your faith in what can be achieved by apparently unguided, purposeless random forces of nature.

I put my faith in the unimaginable creative power which emanates from the source of all existence.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Oh please...!    Could you (Blue) and Stranger please stop lecturing and telling me what to do.

No-one has done either of those things (though a lecture in basic logic would likely do you a lot of good).

I will write what I please (within board rules) and you are welcome to offer your opinion on that subject. Leave it at that.

You can indeed write as you please, but you cannot complain when “what you please” consists of errors in reasoning that are then explained to you.

That you routinely ignore the explanations you’re given seems to give you licence to repeat your mistakes in the next discussion you decide to begin. This not a good approach.   

[Stranger]

You appear to put your faith in what can be achieved by apparently unguided, purposeless random forces of nature.

I don't really do faith in the way you do. And since all I did was point out that somebody didn't understand something simple, I really don't see how you get there from that. Natural selection is so bleedin' obvious it would require an explanation if it didn't happen.

It's the overwhelming evidence that convinces me that evolution happened and that it doesn't require a magic sky fairy to help it along.

I put my faith in the unimaginable creative power which emanates from the source of all existence.

...without the slightest shred of evidence. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I sympathise with Siram.
Whenever their arguments fail to convince they just resort to ridicule or an "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude instead of further engaging with genuine reasoning.

Absolutely not true (and deeply hypocritical by the way). What “they” actually do is set out the arguments that correct the various mistakes he makes – which is a very different matter.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Natural Selection is a metaphor and many eminent scientists agree with that (I have linked articles earlier).  And no amount of you insisting otherwise is going to change that!

The “metaphor” part concerns the implied “selector”, but the process itself “selects” with no such input needed.   

Shows how 'logical fallacies' need not be fallacies depending on ones perception. Its all about attitudes and perceptions.   Things are not as black and white as you seem to think.

Wrong again. Logical fallacies are logical fallacies no matter what your “attitudes and perceptions”. Someone who argues that increased ice cream consumption causes more burglaries (because burglary rates correlate to ice cream sales) is committing a logical fallacy regardless of his attitudes and perceptions. 

And often here the person committing the logical fallacies is you.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

https://evolutionnews.org/2023/03/natural-selection-the-evolution-of-a-mirage/

You’re quoting idiocy from a creationist website:

“Evolution News & Science Today publishes work by scientists associated with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture as well as independent scholars and writers.”

Did you know that?

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You appear to put your faith in what can be achieved by apparently unguided, purposeless random forces of nature.

No, any “faith” here is just a reasonable degree of confidence based on overwhelming evidence. 

I put my faith in the unimaginable creative power which emanates from the source of all existence.

Yes, and that’s called “blind” faith because there’s no evidence at all to justify it.

[torridon]

Natural Selection is a metaphor and many eminent scientists agree with that (I have linked articles earlier).  And no amount of you insisting otherwise is going to change that!

Shows how 'logical fallacies' need not be fallacies depending on ones perception. Its all about attitudes and perceptions.   Things are not as black and white as you seem to think.

Concentrate now : "Natural Selection" is a metaphor; whereas, Natural Selection is a phenomenon of nature.  Geddit ? 

The phrase "Natural Selection" is a metaphorical turn of language that is used in common parlance to describe a phenomenon of nature.  It doesn't mean that the phenomenon itself is a metaphor, that would make no sense.  A metaphor is a linguistic construct, not a phenomenon of nature.  This is really basic entry level linguistics.

[torridon]

You appear to put your faith in what can be achieved by apparently unguided, purposeless random forces of nature.

Yes, it is called 'following the evidence' and it is this paradigm that has given us the modern world

I put my faith in the unimaginable creative power which emanates from the source of all existence.

For which there is no evidence; absent which leaves us nothing more than anthropocentric fantasies.

[Sriram]

Natural Selection is a metaphor because there is no actual selection going on.  It took you guys a long time (many years) to admit to that!     Shows how stubborn memes are.

Darwin thought of  Natural Selection as similar to artificial selection, the way a farmer selects for traits in his crops while cross breeding them. He (being an agnostic) probably had the idea of some superior intelligence doing the selection.

Talking of 'filtering' is nonsense because this automatically implies a set requirement (a sieve of sorts) based on which the Natural Selection takes place.

There is actually no set process at all that can be called Natural Selection. It is just chance which depends on local environmental conditions.  A species could survive very well in one corner of the forest and get eliminated at the other corner depending on the conditions. It is pure chance and talking about it as though it is a well understood process is incorrect and dishonest. Seen along with random variations...the entire process of evolution is just chance.

Evolution is fact happens through active adaptations of organisms to environments through an internal communication within them, that causes phenotypes to change suitably. Now....you guys obviously don't like that idea because it implies some sort of an inner response and intelligence that is anathema to you.

[Maeght]

Natural Selection is a metaphor because there is no actual selection going on.  It took you guys a long time (many years) to admit to that!     Shows how stubborn memes are.

Darwin thought of  Natural Selection as similar to artificial selection, the way a farmer selects for traits in his crops while cross breeding them. He (being an agnostic) probably had the idea of some superior intelligence doing the selection.

Talking of 'filtering' is nonsense because this automatically implies a set requirement (a sieve of sorts) based on which the Natural Selection takes place.

There is actually no set process at all that can be called Natural Selection. It is just chance which depends on local environmental conditions.  A species could survive very well in one corner of the forest and get eliminated at the other corner depending on the conditions. It is pure chance and talking about it as though it is a well understood process is incorrect and dishonest. Seen along with random variations...the entire process of evolution is just chance.

Evolution is fact happens through active adaptations of organisms to environments through an internal communication within them, that causes phenotypes to change suitably. Now....you guys obviously don't like that idea because it implies some sort of an inner response and intelligence that is anathema to you.

I've never seen any indication of this. Do you have any evidence for this?

[Outrider]

You appear to put your faith in what can be achieved by apparently unguided, purposeless random forces of nature.

No, I accept the observable fact that evolution happens. I accept from the evidence presented that variation happens in species. I accept from the evidence presented that the environment exerts pressure on species, and those variations result in differential survival rates. I accept, from the evidence available, that over time that will result in divergence of subspecies into separate species. This isn't 'faith', it's a conclusion from evidence.

I put my faith in the unimaginable creative power which emanates from the source of all existence.

For which you have zero evidence, you merely have a phenomenon and an assertion. That's what makes it a faith claim rather than a scientific one.

O.