Everything is founded an a prior assumption. If you believe in God, then everything must be filtered through the sieve of God's prior intent. If you don't believe in God, then everything must be filtered by the non-existence of any prior intent. If you're agnostic, then you just read the data and accept the reasonable conclusion until some better data or more reasonable conclusion is demonstrated. Agnostically speaking, the data shows ignorant chance, because that's all that's been found so far. Seems to me that you're on a limb, calling it an assumption, because you're implying the assumption from your personal belief that the data is flawed or insufficient, because it doesn't show evidence of God. From one foot away, your computer screen conveys a lot of info. From 1,000 miles away, the screen conveys nothing. But, if you don't have the ability to get closer than 1,000 miles away, then, relative to the observer, and for all practical purposes, neither the screen nor the information conveyed by it, exists. The question is: how close does science need to get before a conclusion can be stated for all practical purposes? You appear to be arguing that science must rule out every alternative possibility, concerning the theory of evolution, or it has no practical purpose and isn't scientific. That's pretty silly.
Agnosticism is not founded on an assumption, it is founded on not assuming a known, where a known is unavailable. That's what science is intended to do, start with what is known and proceed, not start with assumptions, then erect an assumptive theory of assumption on that foundation of assumption, then claim that knowledge is produced... Seriously, you have a theory that life came from non life, that intelligence came from ignorance, and that is all the product of knowledge? Please... For practical purposes in biology, no assumptions are necessary at all. If you want to differentiate between theoretical biology from real biology, in the same way physics differentiates from theoretical physics, fine. Just don't go teaching people that they are ancestors of ignorant chance, when that is not known...
Actually, no. You have six numbers on a dice. Throw it a thousand times, how many times do you expect to see 1's? A sane person would say about 167. In reality, you could go as high as 200 or low as 130. If you see 400 1's, you should start to suspect that the dice is doctored. OTOH, if you start to scream that the dice is doctored when you see 160 1's, what do you think other people will think of you? (hint: crazy.) Now let's talk about DNA. In very simplified language, if two mutant forms, let's label them A and B, are energetically the same, i.e., it takes the same energy for DNA to change to either form A or B, then by random statistics, the probabilities for mutation A and mutation B should be the same. If the two forms differ a little in energy, then the mutation rates would also differ a little, and the difference can be accurately predicted by statistics. If the difference is large in energy, then the mutation rates would also differ by a large amount, again predicable by statistics. What do we actually see in real life? We see exactly that. For mutations that are close in energy, they appear with nearly the same frequencies. For those that are very different in energy, the mutation frequencies are also different, with the correct proportions predicted by statistics. This is as good a confirmation of a scientific theory as you can get. Like I said repeatedly in this thread, if a single mutation is found not to obey the statistics, it would be such a big deal, the entire world would be talking about it, and the work will be destined for a Nobel Prize. The evidence for ID, it seems from your argument, lies within such deviations from statistics. Unfortunately for you, such evidence has not yet been uncovered.
You know all the variables that could possible influence biological organisms and the changes they make? Lol... Since when was biology declared a complete science... You don't know why, so you conclude ignorant chance... Too funny... The exact polar opposite of superstition... And you are just as dogmatic about it as they are...
You use as much data as available to verify your theory. You check to see if the predictions made by theory agree with the data. If they don't agree, you try to find out what is wrong with the theory (or sometimes, the data can be wrong too). In no way ignorant chance is a conclusion. Just like in physics, Newton's laws are not conclusions. Anyone treating them as conclusions have been cast aside by the advancing science. If ID is to be treated as a viable scientific theory, it has to go through the same scrutiny. It needs to make precise, verifiable predictions and then be compared with the actual data. I am not an expert on ID so I don't know whether such predictions have been made and verified. If what you claim represents accurately the ID theory, that mutations are not random, then it is a verifiable prediction. That prediction does not agree with all the data available today. Your claim that because we don't have a "complete" set of data so we cannot say anything is nonsense. All scientific verifications are done with the data available today. When new data come and uncover new phenomena, we will modify our theory accordingly and make progress. To say that unless we have "complete" data or your claim cannot be verified betrays your complete ignorance of science.
The scientific method is based on making a hypothesis and then trying to prove it. Ignorant chance is not proved, it remains an assumption. Every hypothesis is an assumption. You start with a known, then reason toward unknown. You don't start with an unknown and uknowable, then reason to a known. That's why it is circular. You are using the assumption as some foundation to make the argument true. It is circular. So if, as you suggest, science should start without assumptions, then you will have to state a new scientific method, because you are casting out the old one in favor of ____ (whatever your new definition of science is). Science should start with what we actually know, then reason forward. We know the observations, we guess at causes we can't observe. However, the guesses are speculative, until such time that we can rule out the unknowns, or provide testing to rule out what we don't know. That is why, in my opinion, people are afraid of real science, which is agnostic, as it will leave the question unanswered, i.e. the origin of man. We simply do not know, so people have beliefs, which is fine. If your belief is ignorant chance, fine. If you belief is ID, fine. Just don't teach that one is true, and the other false, when you have no way to test the theory to verify it to be true. Evolution appears to be such a theory, if you accept what science has thus far obtained from the data. If you think that science hasn't obtained sufficient data, that would be a public policy decision. But it wouldn't be science. Appears.... Seems like.... Could be.... We think.... Light years from "we actually know." Teach what we know, not what some people think and believe in public schools... Maybe what you want is for the definition of science to include public policy decisions about assumptions. But that would be sort of like the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages. But, then I suppose that science has always operated within the control of public policy, so nothing's really changed. When it comes to origin of mankind and life itself, teach what we know...which is we don't know. Keep the dogmatic belief systems out of the equation when it comes to educating children in public schools. Feel free to teach at college level, where the mind of a student is sufficiently developed to think critically...at least some have that developed. Not in primary public school systems. Just spreading dogma is all that it is. This must be your way of saying, that my argument is frivolous. Your argument is not frivolous any more than the ID arguments. Neither belong in public schools indoctrination children into belief systems they really don't understand. I'm not certain why you see the need to insult me, but if that's your dance, you just go right on ahead. I don't mean to be insulting you. I find the pushing of ignorant chance on children funded by public money insulting. As demonstrated above, biology, as a science operates completely on assumptions which are confirmed by experiments conducted within reason. No experiment can reasonably confirm God, so that would be out of the bounds of reasonable science. Ignorant chance is not confirmed at all. Agreement of a bunch of scientists is not scientific conformation. Please understand that science is not what scientists think or believe, okay? But, not out of the bounds of public policy -- which seems to be your preference. I favor teaching children how to think, not indoctrinating them into what to think by groups with an agenda that is really not about science, but more about a personal belief system. That's not up to me to decide. It's up to the politicians, frankly. It is up to the voters actually. Well, it's known within the bounds of reasonable scientific investigation thus far conducted. It is not a known at all. It is an assumption based on incomplete knowledge. Then it becomes a dogma. As far as what public policy is, you can influence the results by demanding that your legislators only allow certain things be taught, and if judges rule against you, then you can ask the legislators to remove the judges until you get the result your after. Thanks, I know the system. The problem is that Christians are pushing ID, not going after the nature of the real problem, which is pushing scientific dogma on children. If the public understood what is really happening, then they could do the right thing, which is remove both ID and non ID from classrooms in public schools. Eventually, you can get the result you want, regardless of what science finds or misses. So, maybe it's not silly, if that's what you want to achieve. Seems to be pretty much in line with what Republicans have been generally advocating for several decades now. No, republicans are advocating teaching ID. I am opposed to teaching ID and non-ID, but if we have to teach non-ID, then we should teach ID to provide balance. I thought you were a democrat. My mistake. Yes, your mistake. I am registered independent.
yup... starting from the bottom of the oceans near active fault lines more precisely... i mean thats what the non-IS ignorant guys are saying
You use as much data as available to verify your theory. You check to see if the predictions made by theory agree with the data. If they don't agree, you try to find out what is wrong with the theory (or sometimes, the data can be wrong too). Incomplete data results in incomplete theory. In no way ignorant chance is a conclusion. Just like in physics, Newton's laws are not conclusions. Anyone treating them as conclusions have been cast aside by the advancing science. It is both a conclusion of the no-IDers and an assumption that leads to that conclusion, hence circular. If ID is to be treated as a viable scientific theory, it has to go through the same scrutiny. It needs to make precise, verifiable predictions and then be compared with the actual data. I am not an expert on ID so I don't know whether such predictions have been made and verified. If what you claim represents accurately the ID theory, that mutations are not random, then it is a verifiable prediction. That prediction does not agree with all the data available today. ID is ID. Non-ID is being taught as fact. Kids actually go around thinking they descended from apes. That is dogma at work. Your claim that because we don't have a "complete" set of data so we cannot say anything is nonsense. All scientific verifications are done with the data available today. When new data come and uncover new phenomena, we will modify our theory accordingly and make progress. To say that unless we have "complete" data or your claim cannot be verified betrays your complete ignorance of science. Incomplete data produced incomplete results, without complete verification. We see an assumption of ignorant chance being used as the fulcrum to explain a theory of ignorant chance. It is just plain circular.
from an ape or from a banana, same difference, they have crossed somewhere DNA-wise... but as for ID, thats not a scientific theory, therefore not an issue for public school system, and "non-ID" means nothing... except to a bible-thumper of course but we don't care about them perhaps we shld teach kids IS for balance, what do u think?