Wonderful! You just denied the justification for entire science. Science never has complete data nor complete theory. Whenever something is declared "complete," it becomes a dogma and no longer a science. I guess that's the real difference between ID and science.
Your statement about what a hypothesis is, is flat wrong: -------------- n. pl. hy·poth·e·ses (-sz) A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation. Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption. Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hypothesis (American Heritage Dictionary) Also: hypothesis <statistics> A supposition that appears to explain a group of phenomena and is advanced as a basis for further investigation, a proposition that is subject to proof or to an experimental or statistical test. (11 Jan 1998) Source: http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?query=hypothesis&action=Search+OMD and: sup·po·si·tion (sp-zshn) Pronunciation Key n. The act of supposing. Something supposed; an assumption. suppo·sition·al adj. suppo·sition·al·ly adv. ------------- Anyway, I realize that you are absolutely determined to win this argument, so it's pointless for us to continue to argue it. But, you are clearly proceeding from your own incorrect assumption about what science actually is, and this destroys the logical merit of your argument. It doesn't destroy the public policy merit, though.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/P...See_Rapid_Shift_In_Natural_Selection_999.html Pressured By Predators, Lizards See Rapid Shift In Natural Selection Eastern collard lizard. by Staff Writers Boston MA (SPX) Nov 17, 2006 Countering the widespread view of evolution as a process played out over the course of eons, evolutionary biologists have shown that natural selection can turn on a dime -- within months -- as a population's needs change. In a study of island lizards exposed to a new predator, the scientists found that natural selection dramatically changed direction over a very short time, within a single generation, favoring first longer and then shorter hind legs. The findings, by Jonathan B. Losos of Harvard University and colleagues, are detailed this week in the journal Science. Losos did much of the work before joining Harvard earlier this year from Washington University in St. Louis. "Because of its epochal scope, evolutionary biology is often caricatured as incompatible with controlled experimentation," says Losos, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and curator in herpetology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. "Recent work has shown, however, that evolutionary biology can be studied on short time scales and that predictions about it can be tested experimentally. We predicted, and then demonstrated, a reversal in the direction of natural selection acting on limb length in a population of lizards." Losos and colleagues studied populations of the lizard Anolis sagrei on minuscule islands, or cays, in the Bahamas. They introduced to six of these cays a larger, predatory lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) commonly found on nearby islands and known as a natural colonizer of small cays. The scientists kept six other control cays predator-free and exhaustively counted, marked, and measured lizards on all 12 isles. Anolis sagrei spends much of its time on the ground, but previous research has shown that when a terrestrial predator is introduced, these lizards take to trees and shrubs, becoming increasingly arboreal over time. Losos and his colleagues hypothesized that immediately following a predator's arrival, longer-legged -- and hence faster-running -- Anolis lizards would be favored to elude capture. However, as the lizards grew ever more arboreal in habitat, the scientists projected that natural selection would begin to favor shorter limbs, which are better suited to navigating narrow branches and twigs. Their hypothesis was borne out. Six months after the introduction of the predator, Losos found that the Anolis population had dropped by half or more on the islands with the predators, and in comparison to the lizards on the predator-free islands, long legs were more strongly favored: Survivors had longer legs relative to non-survivors. After another six months, during which time the Anolis lizards grew increasingly arboreal, selective pressures were exactly the opposite: Survivors were now characterized by having shorter legs on the experimental islands as compared to the control islands. The behavioral shift from the ground to higher perches apparently caused this remarkable reversal, Losos says, adding that behavioral flexibility may often drive extremely rapid shifts in evolution. "Evolutionary biology is by its nature an historical science, but the combination of microevolutionary experimentation and macroevolutionary historical analysis can provide a rich understanding about the genesis of biological diversity," the researchers write. Losos's Science co-authors are Thomas W. Schoener and David A. Spiller of the University of California, Davis, and R. Brian Langerhans, a graduate student in Harvard's Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, formerly of Washington University. Their work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and National Geographic Society.
thats because zizzz has no argument whatsoever, doesn't understand what scientific theories are about, nor randomness etc... he is simply biased towards ID from the start... just playing semantics because thats all he understands... and not even well... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1262629&highlight=observances#post1262629 nite all!
Naaah...God changed the lizards so they could survive, silly man! It's obvious. This change has the Creator's mark written all over it. I'm sure you'll find it, right there in the research report. It will say something like: "We set up a time-lapse camera to watch the lizard population, and late one night, a small man who looked remarkably like the late comedian George Burns suddenly appeared and he waived his cigar and the lizard's legs were all shorter!" Thus, ID was proven true.
I see you have lowered yourself to sarcasm, a sure sign of losing an argument. Thanks for the confirmation, you can now fully bond with the others who degrade into ad hominem, etc.
An assumption built on an assumption, to prove an assumption...with no way to verify the initial assumption. That is the edifice...
Your intellectual dishonesty is staggering. Whenever you're proven wrong, you just morph your arguments and start all over again. Your continued use of the word random was shot to pieces, and so now it's no longer 'random, ignorant chance'. It's simply 'ignorant chance'. This is understandable, because you have shown that you don't understand the latest theory regarding randomness. Z, you have tried to make the case for ID in three threads now and in each one, you have been stomped on. Every post you make is shot to pieces, revealing assertion and assumption. Don't you think it's time to just admit you're not up to making this argument and move on to your next trolling effort? btw.... thanks for dropping the ridiculous 'Teleologist' vanity.
Science does not require proof of any underlying, unprovable assumptions. If it did, no science could possibly exist, because ultimately, existence must be assumed. Science merely requires proof of the stated hypothesis. That's what you're misunderstanding. So, if the hypothesis is that random mutation is responsible for a target species change over time, and the experiment shows that random mutation and change occurred, then the hypothesis is proven and that's all that's required. The scientist does not have to explain why matter is mostly empty space, in order to hypothesize that a bridge built according to Newton's laws will support the weight of certain objects moving across it, even though the bridge is mostly empty space. The scientist needs only to build the bridge according to the stated laws, and then move the certain objects across. The hypothesis is thus proven and the scientific method satisfied. The fact that the bridge being mostly empty space may suggest that the power of a creator is necessary to hold matter together is just an unprovable assumption, which is entirely unnecessary to prove up the hypothesis. As for the George Burns teleplay, that was just for fun. I meant no offense.
I don't know about you guys but my ancestors were mindless apes. I know because I can still see the genetic link in my own offspring!