Talk:Rejection of evolution by religious groups/Archive 2

message: I am posting this alert so that everyone has fair warning.  I am in the process of organizing a Wikipedia-wide discussion of what, in my opinion, is the repeated dysfunctional behavior of several Wikipedia editors on the Creation vs. evolution debate page and Creation according to Genesis page.  This is a systems problem, in my opinion--specifically a systems control problem, and does not reflect on whether or not any editor in the History file has acted in good faith, bad faith, or in no faith at all.  8)) I am only using this particular History file as a case-in-point to illustrate the problem and discuss changes to Wikipedia policy to deal with this systems control problem.  ---Rednblu | Talk 10:43, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fair warning announcement 

message: i would like to alter this page in such a way as to make the maximum number of people happy ... Mr. DuncHarris ... i noticed that you put a "Totally Disputed" tag on -- i was wondering what facts in the text you disputed, or what comments you found to be pov, so that i can make the appropriate changes?  Ungtss 14:45, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  totally disputed tag 

message: what do you want out of that last section?  you contributed to it, discussed it, developed it, and now you are unilaterally insisting that it be removed.  present a solution other than insisting on vandalizing the page.  Ungtss 05:00, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I am insisting it be moved to Wikiquote. It has no structure, no connecting prose, no narrative. It is solely a (excessively large) collection of quotes. Which is the purpose of wikiquote not wikipedia. I have no problem contributing to wikiquote, which is why I discussed it and contributed to it. I remember always pointing out that it does not belong in wikipedia though. CheeseDreams 08:34, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: i am willing to add structure, connecting prose, and narrative, but given the course of events thusfar, i fear you will simply revert it.  are you willing to work together on solving the problem in a mutually agreeable fashion?  Ungtss 14:34, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: as the tag states - if you can edit it so that it becomes an encyclopedia article, then do so, and THEN remove the tag, not before, (a) the purpose of the tag is to point out the lack of such a state, (b) and to list it in the corresponding category so that editors who like converting quotes into articles might attempt to do so, and (c) to state the consequence of the changes not happening. CheeseDreams 19:45, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  look, cheese. 

message: I was reading through the summaries and noticed the "F=ma is false" one and since it was sumerised there was no proof of why it is false, could anyone tell me the evidence and how it relates to creation vs evolutionism? Gelsamel 203.41.14.140 00:50, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: well ... it's not exactly false ... mr. cheesedreams did not accurately summarize that discussion, or the other ones for that matter.  essentially, f=ma is true in most cases, but not in all -- especially when you get close to the speed of light, the rules change -- also, according to path integral formulation, f=ma is the result of averages ... and nothing fundamental itself.  it related to creation vs. evolution on the topic of fasifiability -- which is one of the fronts the creation v. evolution battle is fought on, because both sides say the other is not scientific because it is not falsifiable -- the f=ma discussion was an attempt to understand exactly what falsifibility is, by using f=ma as an analogy.  falsifiability is a means of improving and refining a theory -- by saying, "well, does f=ma under THESE conditions?  what about THESE conditions?" -- the goal is to find places where the current theory does not hold true ... to improve the theory by taking those cases into account.  does that help?  Ungtss 05:50, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well it was obvious it isn't correct when nearing the speed of light, once hitting about 90% it starts to go way out of wack, but yes, thank you for the disambiguation Gelsamel 203.41.14.140 02:40, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: From what I understand from that it seems like Falsifibility is an evolutionistic attack on creationism, evolutionists can just make up a reason for why it doesn't work in a situation because evolution is so flexible in its random-ness. If someone ads onto evolution to help it in one of those situations then it will be saved, with creation, you can't just /add on/ stuff in fact (this just be my stupidness) but I can't even think of a situation where it has to falsify, please tell me if there is one... >.< Gelsamel 03:11, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: Mr. Account is right.  falsifiability is a funny concept -- in a lot of ways it's just a weapon people use to attack other people's ideas.  but the idea is this: you know how good a theory is by the number of ways it can be falsified, or proven wrong.  if you can't prove a theory wrong, then it's just pseudoscience -- not empirical, but just proof by assertion.  evolutionists say that creationism is not falsifiable, because no matter what evidence comes around, creationists can just say, "well God did THAT" -- and there's no way to prove it wrong, and therefore no way to develop or refine the theory in any way.  Creationists say the same thing about evolution -- that evolution has been defined in such a way that it cannot be disproven -- especially the idea of punctuated equilibrium allows evolutionists to purport macroevolution without any firsthand evidence of it, or any transitional fossils that show it happened.  both sides say that because the other theory cannot be DISPROVEN by any experiment or observation, it is not empirical science.  does that help?  Ungtss 13:57, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: creationist claim CC2000 "There are no transitional fossils"; there are.  Claim CA211 "Evolution can't be falsified". Punctuated equilibrium could be falsified by observations of newly collected fossils not fitting in with the theory.  In such case we'd move onto a new model and there would be a paradigm shift.  The emergence of punctuated equilibrium during the 1980s was one such example of a paradigm shift, i.e. the old gradualist ideas were falsified.  Creationism can't be falsified because of the invisible gardener problem  Dunc|☺ 15:45, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: creationists disagree with the above, and that's why the debate goes unresolved:).  the transitional fossils pointed to by evolutionists are consistent with both creation and evolution, because creation acknowledges microevolution.  however, the presence of common ancestors between genera and phyla in the fossil record is consistent with evolution but not consistent with creation -- thereby making creation falsifiable in that respect (showing the common ancestor of dogs and cats would falsify the creationist belief that they were created separately) ... and yet ... according to the cited page, "common ancestors are not required -- lineage could not be verified even if they were found" -- and in fact, they haven't been:).  that's the falsification problem:).  and the reason it doesn't go anywhere is because the tool of falsification is so versatile it can be used (or misused) to serve whatever purpose we like:).  Ungtss 16:19, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text:  as a sidenote, mr harris, what sort of a fossil could be found to falsify punctuated equilibrium?  Ungtss 17:47, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Archaeopteryx. CheeseDreams 18:57, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: not true.  punctuated equilibrium could lead to the archaeopteryx and then lead on to the next species.  creationism is also consistent with the archaeoptery, because the Creator could have made it independently of both birds and reptiles.  sorry bud:).  Ungtss 21:42, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: But archaeopteryx is evidence supporting gradualism against stop-start. Also, what about coelocanth? CheeseDreams 23:56, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: How do archaeopteryx and the coelocanth support gradualism against stop-start?  Philip J. Rayment 00:44, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Because archaeopteryx and the coelocanth are in-betweens for "birds vs. reptiles" and "amphibians vs. fish".CheeseDreams 19:33, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: you just don't get it.  punctuated equilibrium doesn't say there are NO GO-BETWEENS.  it says that there are FEWER go betweens than gradualism predicts -- for instance, where are the go betweens between the reptile and the archaeopterix, or between the archaeopterix and the bird.  think, man, think.  Ungtss 20:37, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summaries 

message: I think it should why put forward one side of the arguement and disregard the other. You dont teach the negative sides to euthenasia but not the positive you dont enter a debate and have both teams argue the positive, creationism shouldn't be separate and it should be taught as a biology subject and both evolution and creationism shouldn't be portrayed as truth but rather as opposing concepts. Gelsamel 203.41.14.140 01:00, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should Creationism Be taught in schools? 

message: A number of subtle misconceptions about falsifiability seems to be present in this discussion. The older comments on this page apparently define “falsifiable” as “falsified,” while the more recent ones seem to define “unfalsifiable” as “false” and “falsifiable” as “true.”
Falsifiable doesn’t mean falsified, nor does it mean false—or true, for that matter. In short, a hypothesis is falsifiable when it makes predictions that can be tested by experiments.
A falsifiable hypothesis can be falsified if the results of those experiments are inconsistent with said predictions. An unfalsifiable assertion cannot be falsified but it doesn’t mean it is false—it only means that it is irrelevant from the scientific point of view since it doesn’t make any testable predictions and thus the answer to the question whether it is true or false has no measurable consequences, but that very irrelevance is independent from the fact whether it really is true or false, whatever that means.
I am not sure if writing another article about creationism, this time explaining the debate solely in the context of falsificationism, would help decrease the confusion, especially when that falsifiability can be determined by simply enumerating the predictions and outlining the experiments which could potentially falsify the assertion.
In any case, unfalsifiable or falsifiable, a priori or a posteriori,
these attributes are all orthogonal to the question of the assertion being true, or even sound, as a perfectly falsifiable and unfalsified hypothesis can still be an inelegant ad hoc hypothesis violating the principles of Occam's razor.
Furthermore, a falsifiable hypothesis after numerous experiments can only be demonstrated to be very likely to be true but only to the extend of inductive reasoning. It cannot be proved—only disproved or not-disproved-yet—which means that proving the falsifiability of an assertion, or indeed even successful results of experiments, does not prove the assertion itself, thought of course it is an essential condition for the assertion to be considered a hypothesis and later possibly a theory.
I don’t think that falsifiability of creation is a subject for an autonomous encyclopedic article—even if it is an interesting subject for an essay—but if anyone writes such an article, feel free to use any of my comments on this subject, if you think anything I have written might be useful in such an article—they are released under the GFDL, after all. See also the comments in Talk:Pseudoscience#Misconceptions. Rafał Pocztarski 16:45, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: thank you very much for articulating falsifiability.  that is exactly what i'm after.  predictions brought by both theories, and experiments that could prove them wrong.  i think the issue of falsifiability is that unfalsifiabile assertions are considered "unscientific" (like freudian psychology) -- but not necessarily false: basically, within the realm of subjective human interpretation and religion.  in the context of creation and evolution, both sides of this debate continue to call the other unfalsifiable, and unscientific.  perhaps you're right about not needing a new page ... but i think we definitely need a new section in this page to address the subject, since the discussion seems to revolve around a number of misconceptions about falsifiability.  thanks again for the very clear and concise description of falsifiability -- i'd appreciate your oversight in getting the new section to work.  Ungtss 17:07, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: False, falsified and falsifiable