[catachresis]

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Originally Posted by Head_case /img/forum/go_quote.gif Popper's view of Darwinism as a non-testable scientific theory, but as a form of pseudo-philosophical and Victorian quasi-metaphysical project occupies a strange place, between non-science and speculative thought: its philosophical foundations are as creaky as the best of non-empirical and soft sciences.

Which--if I may be so bold as to let the schmucklichkeit builders and plumbers back into the philosophical edifice--suggests that Darwinian evolution is *merely* a biological extension of the claim, identified by Mistuh Herbert Butterfield (He dead.) in 1931, as "the Whig Interpretation of History": that history like God's Old-time Protestant Providence is anthropocentric, advancing, and perfecting. Darwin's natural selection simply takes the old Enlightenment claims that rational human nature gradually 'civilizes' (and indeed 'markets') us, and reworks it as an instrumental, utilitarian, and *scientifically* naturalized affirmation of human superiority over biological forebears and competitors. The Neanderthals should have spent less time performing Jacobean revenge tragedies and studied harder at maths.
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But let's be honest Jonathan; does any of this dialogue aim towards dialogue and Truth, or is the Freudian explanation of what is going on here on these pages, sufficient?

I resent that on Freud's behalf, and not at all because you remind me of my father. Freud's always getting a bum rap, but he was the first feller at the University of Vienna to actually listen to the "dancing" being performed impromptu by shell-shocked war vets and 'hysterical' bourgeois womyns. I recall that Catherine Clemente specified that it was the tarantella, but I suspect there was a bit of cha-cha, jitterbug, and hokey-pokey thrown in for variety's sake. 'S no surprise given that he was the only psychiatrist in his graduating class to pay any attention to old wives' tales (cf. Neil Hertz). He made that that first pivotal discovery that his own sainted mother (who, as the saying goes, had never had sex and, consequently, was confident that he was the son of god) could actually be a bit of a fishwife on occasion. Nuthin' could ever be the same after.
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The 'hermeneutic of suspicion' - one of our favourite phenomenologists' methods at decoding and unmasking what is said to us; relies on suspending the faculty of self-critical judgement: if our hearts are closed - what use will our head be in making sense of something else stated by another i.e. at cross-purposes? The hermeneutic of suspicion involves more than just a conceptual tool; it requires a realignment of one's way of seeing problems[. . . .]

Absolute claims to truth eventually provoke skepticism. Skeptical-critical refinements of jejeune claims to Truth that eventually create their own peculiarly absolutist claims to negative Truth spark nihilism. Given enough Pernod at your local brasserie and an adequate supply of tailored black garments at your local outlet of The French Connection, and nihilism creates its own antithesis to joi de vivre. Give it some nice gold-framed spectacles and tenure at UC Irvine and it may become an authentically Derridean "jouissance" of the meaningless self-referential word, which is just a "trace" sur rature and all in your mind--whatever the hell that is, whatever the hell I mean by that, whatever. . . Give it enough black eyeliner, and give it time to discover that only babies take Marilyn Manson seriously, while Scandinavian Death Metal is intense, and let it abandon Twilight for The Vintage Portable Aleister Crowley, and it may compliment your taste in engineers boots at the rave and offer to bite your neck afterwards--but only if you're very, very nice.

 

[Head_case]

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Originally Posted by jonathanjong /img/forum/go_quote.gif I read Stein!

Cool dude alert!

Did you go to a Montessori kindergarten too lol.

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We rejected Ptolemaic astronomy, because Copernicus's explanation of the phenomena was more elegant, less ad hoc. Also, it generated novel hypotheses which turned out to be true.

The premise is correct, but the argument is not.

We don't care for elegance in the age of Enlightenment; Copernicus' findings, were based on observation and calculation: there were grounds for his accounting for the movement of the earth in inferring that the constellations of stars, could not just 'shift' ...unless the earth itself was moving. This was a brilliant example of using observational data: and drawing correct inferences tautly on solely that data. Ptolemy's worldview itself, was predicated not on astronomy itself, but on mythology; hence the incompleteness of sense-data available to Antiquity. A bl**dy great big Gallilean telescope would've been a great help too had it been invented a few hundred centuries before!

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We rejected Newtonian physics, because Einsteinian physics could explain observations that Newtonians failed too. The movement of Mercery's perihelion had been a thorn in Newton's side of a while now, and no attempts to explain the data away (e.g., unobserved planets, like in the Uranus-Neptune incident) had worked.

This is not what Homer Simpson taught me! Newton's theory was sense-data orientated: that is; he shares this much with Charles Darwin, who in his magnus opus, never actually explained 'the Origin of the Species'. The problem with evolutionary theory was not Charles Darwin: it was the way Darwin's natural selection, was annexed to a pseudo-philosophical system and used uncritically without the norms of scientific thinking and limits, to become a grandiose narrative; not just a grand narrative.


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We rejected Creationism, likewise, because evolutionary biology provides a more elegant, parsimonious explanation of biological phenomena.

Both premise and argument are unconvincing. Try again perhaps?

What is creationism? It is the same pseudo-philosophical pseudo-scientific hotch potch of a theory niche currently occupied by evolutionary theory. Both are as flawed as each other in their metaphysical and scientific foundations. That is one alternative proposition which I would put to you.

Elegance is irrelevance; parsimonious explanations are irrelevant: Socrates cared for neither, and his position uncovered more Truth than the Sophists whose wholesale of Platonic Fish-->Man theories take the same form as evolutionary theory today.

Try harder on this one please...I would like to see some convincing philosophical postulate for these two suspect 'sciences'.

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Now, it's important to note when we DIDN'T reject Ptolemy, Phlogiston, and Creationism. They had problems for long before Copernicus, Lavoiser, and Darwin came along. As Kuhn and Lakatos point out, there had to be a new, better theory to replace these old, problematic ones. So, empirical problems – "falsifications" – do not kill theories, contra naive-Popperianism, cf. Duhem-Quine thesis. Scientific theories aren't falsifiable in this way.

Yes of course. ..your arguments, for the rejection of all of these earlier theories were completely unconvincing. Yet your explanation, for why we believe in Copernicus, or conflate Copernicus' astronomical observations and calculations, with a theory like evolution, remains problematic. Kuhn and Lakatos views do nothing to shed light on 'what is a scientific theory'. Elegance is insufficient as a scientific criterion; falsifiability too.

I'm still waiting for you to explain how using these philosophers' stones to lean on, can explain the difference between astrology and evolutionary theory.

My contention is, that a lay person can tell the difference between believing in astrology as 'superstitious', versus, believing in taking penicillin: a lay person does not require 'philosophy' to make this distinction. My worry is - if a philosopher is incapable of differentiating between the two, then the principle of beneficience, is severely compromised, by the philosopher's incompetence. Who can he help, if he cannot help himself make such a distinction?

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What about metaphysical theories? Take...the mind-body problem, for example. Traditionally, dualism won because it was more explanatorily powerful than physicalism. But physicalism is catching up, and dualism generates its own set of problems (e.g., the interaction problem). But physicalists might never be able to explain some phenomena (e.g., consciousness). This is just analogous to the "scientific" debates of the past.

Dualism won?! Lol.

Eheh. Homer Simpson rules oookayy!!!

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In conclusion, no, we are not left to believe nothing or anything. We can test out theories – scientific or metaphysical – and we can come to conclusions, if only tentative ones.

This conclusion is emminently agreable, however it does not follow from the preceding arguments.....

Okay. Problem here: we've jumped from Ontology; to Hermeneutics; to speculative thought masquerading as science in the form of evolution, and full house circle back to Cartesian themes and the question of 'not being left to believe nothing or anything'. Both poles signify, the same: believing in anything

That includes, nihilistic philosophies.

This kind of philosophy is inadequate; does it not leave you 'blown by the wind'? Testing out a theory, still falls under the sexy pretention of being a concubine serving at the Temple of Scientific Reductionism. Human dignity, requires that it reclaims what analytical philosophy is indifferent to: tentative conclusions, based on following speculative thought, may be the very reason, why philosophers get slated so much by the lay population.

If philosophy is to be a true love of thinking; then it needs to encourage precisely that: the love of thinking, and exploration of reflection within the individual; through the individual directed towards others, and with others. Suspending thought and taking up servitude to the empirical method, isn't good enough.

Cheers!

 

[Head_case]

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Originally Posted by nealric /img/forum/go_quote.gif Science does not arrive at the age of the earth based on evolution (or life at all). Estimates are based on geology and cosmology.

This is precisely where circular thinking comes in:

Geology and cosmology, need a reference point, where carbon dating is inadequate for 'extrapolative' timescales.

Cross-referencing 'supposed' time of evolution of monster 'x' with radioactive decay from 'Pre-Jurassic' soil where monster 'x' was found', can only be sensible web of deductions and inferences if you have a reference point: time.

You cannot know how long it takes for a long distance runner to arrive in New York, if you do not know where he set off from. You can guess: however it is naive empiricism, to assume that radioactive dating beyond carbon-dating, is completely without presuppositions. This goes beyond naivety.

 

[nealric]

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Geology and cosmology, need a reference point, where carbon dating is inadequate for 'extrapolative' timescales.

Sure, but those reference points need not rely on biology.

One cosmological reference point is the big bang. We have estimates of the speed of expansion based on observation (red shift, etc.). You merely reverse the expansion of the universe until you arrive at a singularity. You can then arrive at an extremely rough estimate of the age of the earth by working out how long it would take for a rocky planet to emerge post-big bang. Alternatively, you can use light. We know the speed of light. We can figure that the universe must be older than the time it would take for the light from farthest observable point to reach us. This is akin to asking how far it takes a runner to reach New York, not knowing the origin, but knowing the runner has been running at least 2 hours.

Carbon dating is also not the only way to arrive at geologic estimates. There are other radioactive tracers (ones not linked to biology).

Of course, all these methodologies rely on some form of extrapolation (as does any argument for macro evolution). Extrapolation always requires certain presuppositions. I don't think any scientist would argue with that. At the same time, it's not like the presuppositions were just drawn from thin air. Individually, any one of these methodologies and extrapolations could be regarded as pretty suspect, but you have a wide variety of methodologies, relying on different presuppositions, that all indicate (for example) that the earth is clearly much older than a few thousand years.

In the end, with regards to science, I think a pragmatic epistemology must be relied upon. If the descriptions of the universe supplied to us by science work in the context they were designed to work in, then we can form at least a reasonably skeptical belief in the truth of those descriptions within the scientific context. If Newton says F=MA, and we can use that mathematical description to build a rocket that orbits the earth, it doesn't matter that Newton hasn't really told the whole picture. Newton's laws are true in that context. If we are building a rocket to go to the next galaxy traveling near the speed of light, then Newton's physics begin to fail at the task assigned.

Science taken outside of its context is of little value. If a child asks why the sky is blue, and you explain light wavelengths to her, she wont' feel like you have answered her question completely because her question wasn't asked within the scientific context. She really wants to know about her emotional experience when she sees the sky. The scientific explanation won't really be the right one because, like the Newtonian explanation for the rocket going to the next galaxy, it fails to describe the situation the child seeks to understand.

 

[catachresis]

If the reader finds himself in the same easy disposition, let him follow me in my future speculations. If not, let him follow his inclination, and wait the returns of application and good humour. The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of one, who feeling in himself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm'd with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.

Nor is it only proper we shou'd in general indulge our inclination in the most elaborate philosophical researches, notwithstanding our sceptical principles, but also that we shou'd yield to that propensity, which inclines us to be positive and certain in particular points, according to the light, in which we survey them in any particular instant. 'Tis easier to forbear all examination and enquiry, than to check ourselves in so natural a propensity, and guard against that assurance, which always arises from an exact and full survey of an object. On such an occasion we are apt not only to forget our scepticism, but even our modesty too; and make use of such terms as these, 'tis evident, 'tis certain, 'tis undeniable; which a due deference to the public ought, perhaps, to prevent. I may have fallen into this fault after the example of others; but I here enter a caveat against any objections, which may be offer'd on that head; and declare that such expressions were extorted from me by the present view of the object, and imply no dogmatical spirit, nor conceited idea of my own judgment, which are sentiments that I am sensible can become no body, and a sceptic still less than any other.
-- David Hume, Book I: Of the Understanding. A Treatise of Human Nature. 273-4: sect. 7.

**Sigh, I could just about work myself up to act that urbanely and decently, but I fear that I couldn't maintain such modesty and equanimity. As to forsaking the glittery lights of inexorable conviction--forgeddabouditt.**

 

[nealric]

The above passage is why Hume is one of my favorites

 

[wink]

Problems with dating methods.
Carbon dating:
Carbon dating relies on the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12.
The ratio is approximately 1 carbon 14 atoms to 1 trillion carbon 12 atoms.
Carbon 14 has a half life of 5.75 thousand years.
Carbond dating relies on the presupposition that when the fossil was alive it's carbon 14 level was the same as it's surroundings as it interacted with those surroundings e.g. eating, breathing.
Carbon dating also depends on the ratio to have been the same from when it died to the present.
Carbon dating then presupposes that once the fossil had died there was no longer any interchange between it and it's surroundings.

If the level of the ratio of carbon has doubled (that is, the ammount of carbon 14 in the sample from the fossil) then the fossil is 5.75 thousand years old.
If the ratio is four times the norm, then the fossil is 11.5 thousand years old. etc.
After 50 million years all the carbon 14 would be gone, and yet dinosaurs from the triassic period (250 - 208 million years BC) are being dated by this method.
That's a lot of supposing.

The problems are:
1 there is no way to tell if the carbon ratio when the fossil died was the same as it is when the fossil was carbon dated.
2 there is no valid reason to suppose that when the fossil died that it did not interact with it's surroundings. Petrified wood, where the cellulose is replaced by minerals shows that being dead does not stop the leaching process of the fossil with it's surroundings.
3. there is no valid reason to suppose that when the fossil died that it's carbon ratio was the same as it's surroundings. A living shell was once dated at thousands of years old.

Conclusion: Carbon dating is guesswork and not true science.


Radioactive dating.
This relies on the half life of uraniumium 235. that is how long it takes half the uranium to turn to lead. approximately 700 million years.

A geologist takes a sample of rock from a geological layer and has it analysed.
The sample yields a ratio of uranium to lead.
The only valid measurement here is if you assume that the sample contained only uranium and no lead, then the maximum age of the rock would be how long it took the uranium to reduce to the level at the time of testing.
50 percent of each = 700 million years. 25 percent U235, 75% Pb = 1.4 billion years etc.
Another piece of rock a few metres away in the same strata could yield a totally different ratio.
When the rock came out of the earth, there was not a homogenious (racemic) distribution of U235 in the magma (molten rock). Rather it is like a chocolate marble cake.
Therefore redioactive dating is also a fallacious method, and your guess is as good as the geologist's.

Also, dating of the different strata Precambrian, triassic, Ordovician, etc is circular reasoning. How old is the rock stratum determined? by the fossils it contains. How old are the fossils? that's determined by the strata they are found in.
A modern bat was once found in the pre-cambrian layer where only trilobites etc were supposed to be. What happened? It was put in the too hard basket and lies forgotten.
There are approximately 30 thousand fossils of modern man discovered throughout the fossil layers, but because they are recognised as modern man, and it is not known how they got is those layers without any signs of the layers being disturbed, they remain anomalies and curios. Don't expect them to disturb the status quo.

 

[Head_case]

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Originally Posted by nealric /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sure, but those reference points need not rely on biology.

Absolutely Neal. And thank God! Can you imagine the disorder that would be reified, when palaentology relies on biology for a time frame 'narrative' of evolution; when geography relies on paelaentology which relies on speculative thought, to produce 'coherence' at face value?

My objection which you have not dealt with still stands: the onus remains, for an evolutionist, to prove not only intrinsic validity within his theory, but also, to demonstrate this his theory is inter-disciplinary and valid, without deriding such sciences or disciplines, to the level of 'speculative thought'.

Take for example:

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One cosmological reference point is the big bang. We have estimates of the speed of expansion based on observation (red shift, etc.).

Let's look at this:

1. You describe sense-data on an empirical basis (red shift etc)
2. You describe a process which belongs to speculative thought: namely extrapolation back into unobservable historical time.
3. You interpenetrate 1+2 to produce an argument.

My inference from your statement above, is that it holds scientific (empirical) components and speculative components which form the metaphysical basis for your assertion:

In 2: you apply the principles of 'extrapolation' to current observed sense-data. Now whether this process can be justified, forms the crux, on which your statement is sound, or unsound.

In 1: The sense-data empirical findings are of no objection. My view of red shift phenomena are concordant with yours. However it is the 'inference' that you derive, and the theoretical projection: extrapolation - back into unobservable time - which is contentious:

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[Speculative thought: what if: ]You merely reverse the expansion of the universe until you arrive at a singularity. [Speculative thought: what if]You can then arrive at an extremely rough estimate of the age of the earth ['science, predicated on false presuppositions from above]by working out how long it would take for a rocky planet to emerge post-big bang.

The challenge with your argument, is that it weaves in and out of speculative thought, yet claiming to be scientific. Let's be honest if we're looking at these statements philosophically: they are not the remit of science: these kinds of speculations about 'the age' or 'the origin' of the world: belong to a philosophical discipline: not a scientific one. I would venture, that you have inadvertently overvalued the function of empirical science, in trying to use it to explain the universe and everything, without realising how the philosophical form of your argument, returns to being speculative and specious thought, however is caked around it with sense-data and observations, which are supposed to buttress the argument using 'inference' as a tool.

Scientists do use inference; they can use it very well too:

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1).Alternatively, you can use light. We know the speed of light. We can figure that the universe must be older than the time it would take for the light from farthest observable point to reach us . 2). This is akin to asking how far it takes a runner to reach New York, not knowing the origin, but knowing the runner has been running at least 2 hours.

1). This kind of statement is rich and pregnant with valid inferences which can be drawn. I have no problem with this, and am on the same Schrodingers' Wavelength as you are on this matter.

2). 'Reasoning-by-analogy' or comparing with a non-identical situation: this kind of reasoning is limited. The inferences which you draw from this kind of reasoning-by-analogy, are different from the inferences (valid) which other scientists draw from point 1). which both you and I subscribe to.

Here, your overarching presupposition, is a uniformitarian theory. You presuppose (with no evidence, that this uniformitarian theory is de facto, a datum in this argument. That is - you assume that the runner, did not stop to take a jacuzzi bath for an hour; you assume that he runs 2 hours straight and did not stop in Starbucks for a drink. Or that he did not hitch a lift from his girlfriend and speeded up.

These 'punctuations' in your theory of uniformitarianism, may break down uniformitarianism, and force a revision of the presupposition, that uniformitarianism actually took place. You may have to start implying, a kind of 'punctuated equilibria', in which the runner, who might be a short-distance runner only, has to do the A->B run in short sharp bursts. Then when there is evidence that the Law of Identity does not apply, that he is actually in a many person Relay Team, and that many other runners have been completing the run. The possibilities, demand that justification, for assuming the simplistic assumption, that things are uniform as a precondition, is met out, before making appropriate scientific observations. Equally, the inappropriate projection of speculative thought into the marathon runners actions need to be guarded against: if he can run from A to B, a distance of 25 miles in 2 hours one week, and cut his time down by 1 minute each week in practice, then, based on the theoretical presuppositions of uniformitarianism and extrapolation, in just over 1 year, he can run from A to B in 1 hour, right?

Yet this is not what we observe. We observe limitations: human ones. A runner does not function like this, and the application of such a uniformitarian fantasy, is a falsehood. We know that biological limits (empirical) determine that this. What you are describing, is empirically scientific behaviour (gathering sense-data), being interpenetrated by speculative thought. This is not proper science. I'll refer back to Alexander Fleming's blind trials of the penicillin fungus again.
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Of course, all these methodologies rely on some form of extrapolation (as does any argument for macro evolution). Extrapolation always requires certain presuppositions.

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I don't think any scientist would argue with that. At the same time, it's not like the presuppositions were just drawn from thin air. Individually, any one of these methodologies and extrapolations could be regarded as pretty suspect, but you have a wide variety of methodologies, relying on different presuppositions, that all indicate (for example) that the earth is clearly much older than a few thousand years.

Where did that last statement come from? Is there any empirical evidence to suggest this is so? In some respect, you are in a similar camp to Jonathan; whose methodologies and readings of Popper and Quine et al, cannot show him any distinction between Astrology as a valid enterprise, and Evolution, as a valid enterprise. In the here and now - all of your carbon dating activity; radioactive isotope dating, and reliance on the presuppositions of modern evolutionary theory - are of no value, if the only insight you can draw, is that the earth was not born yesterday. There is no truth value in this kind of systematised worldview of speculative evolution, without deriding our forms of epistemology, which arise as aborted children from such a theory.


Extrapolation and speculative thought, is not a scientific discipline: any scientist who avails of these tools, needs to use them wisely, and justifiably if their version of empirical truth is to hold any water. If 'methodology' is fraught with metaphysical confusion and a failure to recognise the limitations of their presuppositions for scientists, yet their evangelical fervour in worshipping at the temple of Scientific Reductionism approaches militant fundamentalist fervour - then the average Joe needs a corrective: Dawkins' falsehoods trading as 'scientia' per se, is not empirical science at all: blinding the masses who subscribe innocently to plausible tenets of empiricism, which are falsely extrapolated to 'evolutionary theory', as if evolutionary theory was as valid as the Copernician Revolution: the former is not a scientific activity. Copernicus would turn in his grave. The earth would turn in its grave too. At the rate of 10,000km/h.

In the end, with regards to science, I think a pragmatic epistemology must be relied upon [reductionism at work]. If the descriptions of the universe supplied to us by science work in the context they were designed to work in, then we can form at least a reasonably skeptical belief in the truth of those descriptions within the scientific context.[Occam's Razor needs to separate the wheat from the chaff here: at what point, does obfuscation; prevarication and the imputing of various conditions and contingent thought, to deal with problems which arise with a theory, become so stuffed and confounded, that its philosophical premises, outweigh the fragile sense-data on which it is supposed to be founded?].
If Newton says F=MA, and we can use that mathematical description to build a rocket that orbits the earth, it doesn't matter that Newton hasn't really told the whole picture.[Absolutely: Newton's sense-data gathering, before his formulation, and then the use of his formulation to explain other phenomena and epi-phenomena which are externally replicable is a test of the conditional validity of his laws i.e. on earth. [All of what you have said here, is emminently reasonable, and fits in with my grasp of empirical science]

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Newton's laws are true in that context. If we are building a rocket to go to the next galaxy traveling near the speed of light, then Newton's physics begin to fail at the task assigned.

Lol...thanks .... at last! Here you recognise the inappropriate and limits of speculative thought: extrapolation cannot extend beyond a limit.

This is a parallel situation with the observations of Natural Selection. We cannot reasonable, and justifiably, extrapolate its findings into a Grand Narrative, which at best is mistaken in its presuppositions; at worse, is a falsehood.

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Science taken outside of its context is of little value. If a child asks why the sky is blue, and you explain light wavelengths to her, she wont' feel like you have answered her question completely because her question wasn't asked within the scientific context.

This is different problem of a different order: one of language and communication. The child's zone of proximal development is not that of an adult; Piaget's gross characterisation of the 4 childhood stages of cognitive development need to be considered. Educators of science in Pedagogy however, are skilled in presenting science appropriate to the developmental level of a child, to children: this is not 'taking science out of its context'. It is use of a different form of explanatory power, aimed at 'engagement' of the young mind.

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She really wants to know about her emotional experience when she sees the sky.

Well this is a projection: Freudian, Kleinian or whichever (psycho)-analytical discipline you might follow. Children may be more genuine than adults; this is a characteristic of being 'child-like' in not dissimulating feelings from thoughts; and engaging in 'knowing' through emotions as well as 'knowing' through thoughts. Children point; children point to the sky: they want to know about the Signified, and they grasp Signifiers, weaving sense in the dialogue with adults and deciphering ciphers in the sky.

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The scientific explanation won't really be the right one because, like the Newtonian explanation for the rocket going to the next galaxy, it fails to describe the situation the child seeks to understand.

Again, this kind of 'reasoning-by-analogy' - bears nothing in common with the examples of the failure of evolutionary theory to find solid philosophical tenets on which to weave its web around sense-data. It's a nice analogy which I like, if only because it is an 'interactional' model - of the problems around communication; and making 'sense' from both directions; from orator to auditor; adult to child; teacher to pupil and so on.

 

[evilking]

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Originally Posted by wink /img/forum/go_quote.gif Problems with dating methods. Carbon dating: Carbon dating relies on the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12. The ratio is approximately 1 carbon 14 atoms to 1 trillion carbon 12 atoms. Carbon 14 has a half life of 5.75 thousand years. Carbond dating relies on the presupposition that when the fossil was alive it's carbon 14 level was the same as it's surroundings as it interacted with those surroundings e.g. eating, breathing. Carbon dating also depends on the ratio to have been the same from when it died to the present. Carbon dating then presupposes that once the fossil had died there was no longer any interchange between it and it's surroundings. If the level of the ratio of carbon has doubled (that is, the ammount of carbon 14 in the sample from the fossil) then the fossil is 5.75 thousand years old. If the ratio is four times the norm, then the fossil is 11.5 thousand years old. etc. After 50 million years all the carbon 14 would be gone, and yet dinosaurs from the triassic period (250 - 208 million years BC) are being dated by this method. That's a lot of supposing. The problems are: 1 there is no way to tell if the carbon ratio when the fossil died was the same as it is when the fossil was carbon dated. 2 there is no valid reason to suppose that when the fossil died that it did not interact with it's surroundings. Petrified wood, where the cellulose is replaced by minerals shows that being dead does not stop the leaching process of the fossil with it's surroundings. 3. there is no valid reason to suppose that when the fossil died that it's carbon ratio was the same as it's surroundings. A living shell was once dated at thousands of years old. Conclusion: Carbon dating is guesswork and not true science. Radioactive dating. This relies on the half life of uraniumium 235. that is how long it takes half the uranium to turn to lead. approximately 700 million years. A geologist takes a sample of rock from a geological layer and has it analysed. The sample yields a ratio of uranium to lead. The only valid measurement here is if you assume that the sample contained only uranium and no lead, then the maximum age of the rock would be how long it took the uranium to reduce to the level at the time of testing. 50 percent of each = 700 million years. 25 percent U235, 75% Pb = 1.4 billion years etc. Another piece of rock a few metres away in the same strata could yield a totally different ratio. When the rock came out of the earth, there was not a homogenious (racemic) distribution of U235 in the magma (molten rock). Rather it is like a chocolate marble cake. Therefore redioactive dating is also a fallacious method, and your guess is as good as the geologist's.

Sigh.

This is why the current estimate for the age of the earth comes not from terrestrial samples, but from meteorites. In the 50 years since this was calculated (I know you probably haven't had time to catch up on such recent work) ALL other non-terrestrial data has supported this theory. Yes, all of it. This includes the age of lunar samples and the age of the sun.

Of course if you have a contradicting theory about stellar evolution or cosmochronology or any of the basic physics that make up most dating methods, I'd love to hear it.



EK

 

[Head_case]

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Originally Posted by catachresis /img/forum/go_quote.gif If The conduct of a man, who studies philosophy in this careless manner, is more truly sceptical than that of one, who feeling in himself an inclination to it, is yet so over-whelm'd with doubts and scruples, as totally to reject it. A true sceptic will be diffident of his philosophical doubts, as well as of his philosophical conviction; and will never refuse any innocent satisfaction, which offers itself, upon account of either of them.

Lol....I think scepticism sticks a sharp knife and twists it elegantly!

Hume has a way with words: I don't understand Scottish, but I dig the accent

 

[Head_case]

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Originally Posted by catachresis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Darwinian evolution is *merely* a biological extension of the claim, identified by Mistuh Herbert Butterfield (He dead.) in 1931, as "the Whig Interpretation of History":

Yes; this is little known, or at least, Darwinians try to bury this association. Amongst others in the Victorian homestead of High Elms, Darwin's theory was a rehash of other then contemporary ideas: what is chilling when researching his theory's genesis, is that the natural selection, applied to a framework of christian theorizing which Darwinian Theory shares and overlaps with; which also preceded Darwinian Theory, saw Darwinian Theory trumph, as any model interpreted on a christian context, was less sexy for the mechanical and increasingly restless Victorian population who wanted a revolution No.2 after the Copernician No.1 revolution, which secular theorists latched onto, as a 'Weapon of Choice' in 'the displacement of Man'. Hmmmm.. You use a *word* in your quote which I recognise from CS Lewis (whom I don't read much, but I love the irony of this word!). Nonetheless, evolutionary theory's most ardent loudmouths were the best advertising sales guys who could raise MacDonalds five: Julian Huxley and other excellent orators skilled in sophistry were indeed charming and persuasive. Well that is, at least compared to the likes of bungling Wilberforce and his backward theological crew. This force of persuasion, has historically been utilised, as characterising, the 'narrative' of the discovering scientific truth. It is indeed correct to reassert the aphorism attributed to Nietzsche here; this was the spirit of the age and historical politics of the evolutionary theory controversey, however does little to illuminate the mind, with respect to the truth-validity inherent in its framework...


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that history like God's Old-time Protestant Providence is anthropocentric, advancing, and perfecting. Darwin's natural selection simply takes the old Enlightenment claims that rational human nature gradually 'civilizes' (and indeed 'markets') us, and reworks it as an instrumental, utilitarian, and *scientifically* naturalized affirmation of human superiority over biological forebears and competitors. The Neanderthals should have spent less time performing Jacobean revenge tragedies and studied harder at maths.

Lol! What a fun quote! The problem tho' is the end-product....of which most of us are. We are victims - happy victims - of being reworked into an instrumental and utilitarian reduction of Man to mere biological man. Look how proud the pragmatists are on these pages are! They proclaim their satisfaction with their method and puritanical thought with ...ardour and conviction, yet without the modesty of Hume...

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I resent that on Freud's behalf, and not at all because you remind me of my father. Freud's always getting a bum rap, but he was the first feller at the University of Vienna to actually listen to the "dancing" being performed impromptu by shell-shocked war vets and 'hysterical' bourgeois womyns.

Lol! It's not possible to take offence on behalf of the dead! Well, at least not for me. I don't have those sort of connections

You're right: Freudian psychoanalysis did something in terms of offering the human condition a place and some *kind* of dignity, not found in its time. I think of the barbaric behavioural torture of military soldiers which happened in World War I after shell-shock: somehow, the human dimension of psychoanalysis was infinitely preferable to the electric shock treatment of 240 Volts through the teeth to get a shell-shocked soldier to talk.

Nonetheless, I won't forgive Freud easily; when it comes to Free Will and Determination, Will has a lot of things to answer for. I can't remember what exactly at the moment..they're all buried in my subconscious...

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Absolute claims to truth eventually provoke skepticism. Skeptical-critical refinements of jejeune claims to Truth that eventually create their own peculiarly absolutist claims to negative Truth spark nihilism.

I'm not sure...scientific reductionists can see this far. Until the world enters into a world of desolation and emptiness when the enterprise of scientific overdependency becomes tired and old and bored like Jimmy Hoffa Jokes, then the evangelical fervour for their claims to Truth will continue. Isn't this the destiny of the post-modern world? Emptiness everywhere; emptiness all around; when ideological falsehoods become exposed for the empty and facile systems of thought, which they in essence are, yet whose phenomena, create the modern enterprise we know in this world.

 

[evilking]

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Originally Posted by Head_case /img/forum/go_quote.gif Let's look at this: 1. You describe sense-data on an empirical basis (red shift etc) 2. You describe a process which belongs to speculative thought: namely extrapolation back into unobservable historical time. 3. You interpenetrate 1+2 to produce an argument. In 2: you apply the principles of 'extrapolation' to current observed sense-data. Now whether this process can be justified, forms the crux, on which your statement is sound, or unsound. In 1: The sense-data empirical findings are of no objection. My view of red shift phenomena are concordant with yours. However it is the 'inference' that you derive, and the theoretical projection: extrapolation - back into unobservable time - which is contentious: The challenge with your argument, is that it weaves in and out of speculative thought, yet claiming to be scientific. Let's be honest if we're looking at these statements philosophically: they are not the remit of science: these kinds of speculations about 'the age' or 'the origin' of the world: belong to a philosophical discipline: not a scientific one. I would venture, that you have inadvertently overvalued the function of empirical science, in trying to use it to explain the universe and everything, without realising how the philosophical form of your argument, returns to being speculative and specious thought, however is caked around it with sense-data and observations, which are supposed to buttress the argument using 'inference' as a tool. Scientists do use inference; they can use it very well too: 1). This kind of statement is rich and pregnant with valid inferences which can be drawn. I have no problem with this, and am on the same Schrodingers' Wavelength as you are on this matter. 2). 'Reasoning-by-analogy' or comparing with a non-identical situation: this kind of reasoning is limited. The inferences which you draw from this kind of reasoning-by-analogy, are different from the inferences (valid) which other scientists draw from point 1). which both you and I subscribe to. Here, your overarching presupposition, is a uniformitarian theory. You presuppose (with no evidence, that this uniformitarian theory is de facto, a datum in this argument. That is - you assume that the runner, did not stop to take a jacuzzi bath for an hour; you assume that he runs 2 hours straight and did not stop in Starbucks for a drink. Or that he did not hitch a lift from his girlfriend and speeded up. These 'punctuations' in your theory of uniformitarianism, may break down uniformitarianism, and force a revision of the presupposition, that uniformitarianism actually took place. You may have to start implying, a kind of 'punctuated equilibria', in which the runner, who might be a short-distance runner only, has to do the A->B run in short sharp bursts. Then when there is evidence that the Law of Identity does not apply, that he is actually in a many person Relay Team, and that many other runners have been completing the run. The possibilities, demand that justification, for assuming the simplistic assumption, that things are uniform as a precondition, is met out, before making appropriate scientific observations. Equally, the inappropriate projection of speculative thought into the marathon runners actions need to be guarded against: if he can run from A to B, a distance of 25 miles in 2 hours one week, and cut his time down by 1 minute each week in practice, then, based on the theoretical presuppositions of uniformitarianism and extrapolation, in just over 1 year, he can run from A to B in 1 hour, right? Yet this is not what we observe. We observe limitations: human ones. A runner does not function like this, and the application of such a uniformitarian fantasy, is a falsehood. We know that biological limits (empirical) determine that this. What you are describing, is empirically scientific behaviour (gathering sense-data), being interpenetrated by speculative thought. This is not proper science. Extrapolation and speculative thought, is not a scientific discipline: any scientist who avails of these tools, needs to use them wisely, and justifiably if their version of empirical truth is to hold any water. If 'methodology' is fraught with metaphysical confusion and a failure to recognise the limitations of their presuppositions for scientists, yet their evangelical fervour in worshipping at the temple of Scientific Reductionism approaches militant fundamentalist fervour - then the average Joe needs a corrective: Dawkins' falsehoods trading as 'scientia' per se, is not empirical science at all: blinding the masses who subscribe innocently to plausible tenets of empiricism, which are falsely extrapolated to 'evolutionary theory', as if evolutionary theory was as valid as the Copernician Revolution: the former is not a scientific activity. Copernicus would turn in his grave. The earth would turn in its grave too. At the rate of 10,000km/h.

What are talking about? Are you really suggesting that the properties of light (the subject of the runner analogy) and it's movements cannot be predicted or extrapolated? Light has been studied to death in excruiating detail, and it's been determined that it's properties are the same wherever you are in the universe. So everything we know about light (yes, I said know about light) that has allowed mankind to get to where it is today, the incredible things we can do, ALL that is perfectly valid, except when calculating the age of the universe? Poor science? Where is the poor science? Tell me something, ANYTHING to suggest otherwise.


This is the problem I have with philosophy. There's no substance. It's just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Endless debate about not much. Existential questions. The meaning of life. Yadda yadda yadda. Philosophers debating about a scientific discovery, waiting for the next one so they can debate about that. What are you all doing?


If you really want to know the age of the universe, go find out! All the information you need is just sitting out there. Where? Everywhere! From the tiniest sub atomic particles detectable only with large machines, to galaxies and supermassive black holes (also detectable only with large machines). I can't see how you can possible expect to answer these questions about the universe with only the data contained in your own mind. Unless you don't really want an answer, just the debate itself.



EK

 

[Head_case]

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This is the problem I have with philosophy. There's no substance. It's just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Endless debate about not much. Existential questions. The meaning of life. Yadda yadda yadda. Philosophers debating about a scientific discovery, waiting for the next one so they can debate about that. What are you all doing?

Lol! Homer Simpson come home!!!

 

[nealric]

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Where did that last statement come from? Is there any empirical evidence to suggest this is so? In some respect, you are in a similar camp to Jonathan; whose methodologies and readings of Popper and Quine et al, cannot show him any distinction between Astrology as a valid enterprise, and Evolution, as a valid enterprise

But this is precisely where a pragmatic scientific epistemology succeeds. We accept that Evolution has some utility because it has observable predictive value. We can posit that bacteria will evolve antibiotic resistance based on the theory of natural selection. We can test that hypothesis, and find that the theory does accurately predict what happens. By contrast, Astology could not do better than random chance in making the same prediction (except insofar as the astrologer implicity relies on the scientific theories).

Back to the runner apology. You are right, we don't know that the runner didn't get a ride in a car. But we didn't suppose otherwise without justification. In all human observations, we have never seen light traveling beyond the speed we have established for it. Based on other observations (those testing relativity, for example), we have concluded that in fact light cannot get a "ride in a car" to go faster. Does this create absolute certainty? Of course not (Hume pretty much demolished certainty of cause based on empirical observation), but it does create a system with useful predictive value for human pursuits.

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I can't see how you can possible expect to answer these questions about the universe with only the data contained in your own mind. Unless you don't really want an answer, just the debate itself.

I don't think any philosopher post Hume has ever seriously contended that you could do such a thing. There really aren't any radical rationalists left out there (except perhaps some of the Ayn Rand crazies). The philosophic project (with relation to epistemology) is not to conjure knowledge from the ether, but to evaluate claims to knowledge. Notice that our debate in this thread really wasn't about the age of the universe or evolution, but the problems (or lack thereof) of the scientific methodologies.

 

[Prog Rock Man]

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Originally Posted by Judge Buff /img/forum/go_quote.gif By GAWD, when you want pragmatism, ask a Scot! (That's assuming that you are, of course, Scottish...)

There is a heavy streak of Yorkshireman in there as well. The conclusion of the philosophy of religion part of the course was;

it is more likely that a God exists than does not exist, possibly,

believe is down to the individual,

even if there is no God, belief in a higher deity is often a good thing to help cope with life's trials,

it is easier to rationalise many Gods than just one God. It better explains why, if the world has a God it is all mucked up, inconsistent and full of evil.