Thoughts on evolution & reification. (Footnote: Time to axe creationism)

[Random_Australian]

(Just for those who have forgotten, reification is treating a word or concept like it wqas a real thing, for example, 'intelligence' as per IQ score - what you are measuring in an IQ test is not someones intelligence but their ability to take the test)

Here is the summary:

- Evolution is just natural selection + genes pass from parent to offspring + genes influence growth
- The rest, when considering it from a proof/disproof standpoint, is reification.

In other words, while the other predictions (those that underpin all sorts of psych and bio) are very useful, all we need to prove evolution exists is to observe those three. (Which we can).

In other words, evolution must occur if those three occur (because it is those three).
(Also, the rest is just predicted from those three)

So creationists can STFU, basically.

But first I need to make it watertight - anyone got anything that contradicts what I have said?

(Of course, the age of the earth battle still needs to be won, that next, but I think I can get it too)

I repeat: Any objections/comments/bits not properly stated (I suspect there will be a few)

[Dead_Parrot]

1. I'd suggest...

...poking around www.evcforum.net - the evolution vs creationism forum. It'll give you a glimse into the minds of creationists :scared: and has a good search facility for any points you want to nail down.

:)

[Random_Australian]

4. I know alllllllllllllllll about creationists.

Thanks for the new site though! Most helpful.

[oscar111]

2. Proof.. moths changed color, London as soot made black more

survival oriented. As industrialization happened.

also, bugs of many sorts evolve to adapt to anti-bug drugs inside of us.

Is that what you are looking for?

[Random_Australian]

3. No, I know that the three happen, what I am looking for is arguments

against evolution bieng solely those three. (With the rest of stuff as just extra prediction)

[EST]

5. Your underlying assumption,

that "creationism" proponents are amenable to logic, is a fundamental (pardon the wordplay) weakness.
No amount of logic and factual argument will sway the proud owner of those emotionally derived assumptions.

One way, short of instant enlightenment, to get an intellectual foot in the mental door of your intended target is an old salesman technique called mirroring.

Accomplished practitioners can be effective even on the phone, but beginners need to be physically with the subject.
By the way, this method even works on dogs!

Start out by watching TV, strangely. Turn the volume off and lipread, watching for emotional cues in the actors. A good exercise is to get a movie that you have not memorized and follow the plot, as best you can, with no sound. You can turn the sound up, later, to check yourself.

The idea is to start learning to read people: when to press and when to back off. The only way to succeed with anyone is to make sure they have the sense that they, themselves, made the decision to start agreeing with you.
This is not an ego-booster for you, since the objective is to win enthusiastic agreement, not just overpower and win. Practice, practice practice.

Next, when you are in conversation or even just being with the object of your attention, watch what they are doing and copy it, leaning when they lean, squat when they do, talk like they talk, all as a mirror. Your object may not know why, but they will recognize you as friendly and interested and they will like you, feeling that the two of you are simpatico: mutual close friends in a dangerous world.
Mirror their emotions, getting excited when they do, all the little things they do so when you, eventually, take a different direction from theirs, they will unconsciously feel strong internal pressure to continue in the relationship. Remember, transformational spaces they will go through have to be their ideas, although you are invisibly guiding.

These are only a few steps but they are essential. There is more to learn but this will get you started and as you gain confidence and experience, prepare to be astounded.

Those well versed in the art can walk up to a total stranger and be in relationship with that person inside of two sentences. A good salesman can have his object begging for whatever he's selling and absolutely clear it was their plan all along.
There are more things to learn, later, but even a medium mastery of mirroring is a good time investment and will surprise you with your powerfulness is dealing with others.
Always hold in your mind that everyone loves to buy but they hate to be sold. Leave your ego in the closet.

[Random_Australian]

7. I work more by social psych, but the targets for this are the undecided

people, not the creationists themselves, but those to who they preach.

[godless and proud]

11. Smash them

You have far more patience than I.<p>My strategy is to verbally smash creationists and IDers, striking fear of ridicule into any who approach that fence of the great war. All strategies are welcome, but you are not dealing with titanic intellects. Just dice them up as a good example to others.

[Random_Australian]

13. And I want to make it so others can do that with ease.

heh heh heh.

I want creationism and ID out of science.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Once militarism became the fare of the day.... these moths

started showing up on Amurka's shores...

[Igel]

8. Here's some hair splitting.

I disagree with your presentation.

--natural selection
--inheritance of biologically-mandated traits (or some such phrase)
('gene' isn't necessary, and wouldn't hold for much of early life; moreover, the definition is as a unit that determines morphology, so I'll just label that as tautological and unnecessary, and scrap it).

You say 'just', but it's not clear you realize that this is the *crucial* bit of the theory. IDers will agree with the rest that you wrote: necessary, and superficially sufficient ... but not really sufficient. You want 'necessary, and sufficient'. Period. That 'period' is Occam's Razor:

--nothing else

All the serious disputes with creationists in the last 100 years, whether young-earther or old-earther, and among old-earthers whether ex nihilo creation of genera/species or intelligent design, depend on that last bit.

Creationists want various kinds of exceptions to 'nothing else'. Evolutionists require that it be absolute. Many young- and old-earth creationists will accept that these three principles hold ... after life was created. IDers won't even go that far. So 'nothing else' should be taken as 'that's all there's ever been,' i.e., not temporally restricted. Some will even argue that the three principles hold, except for H. sapiens.

Ancillary, and not part of the theory, is how long the process has been going on.

[Random_Australian]

9. "just" simply refered to the limit, that it was solely contained in those

three.

Actually defining evolution as those three takes a lot of wind out of the sails of the opponents when arguing. It is very difficult to argue that those three do not exist. That can be used as ammo, then definition of hypothesis as it is can be used to kill ID, I am busy plotting and scheming!

[Jim__]

10. I think most IDers will concede your 3 points about evolution.

Then go on to label that micro-evolution, which they accept. I think most IDers will even concede that macro-evolution happens; but will then argue that evolution can't account for some of the things that are required for the survival of the modern cell - e.g. Behe's claims about irreducible complexity.

I think your argument is correct. And, I think your argument is irrefutable. Therefore, most IDers/creationists concede that evolution is real. Then they claim that it can't account for all the things we see in the biological world.

[Random_Australian]

12. That is part one. That claim is one of two claims, the next I am working

on needs to be made watertight, then I will use that, and get the IDers. This was for the creationists, not the ID'ers. The one I am working on (about the definition of hypothesis) is for the ID'ers. :evilgrin:

I may need help proving a lemma, though.

[godless and proud]

14. IDers and Coulter

CrIDers lie about their true intentions. They are trying to use ID as a way to wedge their god back into Public Schools. ID is not science at all, it is just a way to put their religion into the minds of children without being subject to the courts. For that reason alone they should be exposed and forced back to their pews.

They are as superficial as that bag of bones nutcase Ann Coulter and her hateful mob. The fundie and IDers think she will help them. That is why I spend much of my time shredding her hateful essence on RW websites, right under their dreadful noses; they are as dumb as we thought they were.

We can't give the IDers any break or let them appear to have any reasonability, ever! If we do, we will lose control of the schools and bigotry will return.