faul_sname comments on The Wonder of Evolution - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 November 2007 08:49PM

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Comment author: Ghazzali 26 April 2012 06:57:55PM 3 points [-]

If all science must be in theory falsifiable, and evolution is good science, can you give me some parameters or predictions that if they were found to be true would hurt the theory of evolution?

What would scientists need to find in the future that would seriously do damage to the theory?

Comment author: faul_sname 26 April 2012 07:12:31PM 4 points [-]

Any number of things. One example would be traits appearing in advance of conditions that would make them favorable e.g. a deep ocean fish developing legs or a reptile developing wings while it is too heavy for the wings to increase the length of its jumps. Another would be one species adopting traits of another through direct transfer of genes, rather than through separate evolutionary lines e.g. a snake using a variety of venom that was previously only in spiders.

I could probably come up with several hundred examples, if you really needed that many. None of them are particularly likely though: there is a huge weight of evidence behind modern evolutionary theory, which means it is almost certainly true.

Comment author: Ghazzali comment score below threshold [+] (4 children)

Comment author: Hul-Gil 01 May 2012 12:59:35AM * 3 points [-]

I addressed this here, but I missed a few things. For one, I address the extremity of the hypotheticals in the linked post, but I didn't point out, also, that these things seem extreme because we're used to seeing things work out as if evolution were true. These things wouldn't seem extreme if we had been seeing them all along; it's precisely because evolution fits what we do find so well that evolution-falsifying examples seem so extreme. Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian would probably not seem so extreme to a creationist; it's what they'd expect to find (since all species supposedly lived alongside one another, AFAIK).

For two:

We are limited to these two conclusions and nothing else. Therefore any hit on a theory that advocates one, is a support for the other.

I don't think that follows. A hit on a chance-favoring theory could be a "hit" in such a way as to support a different chance-favoring theory, rather than any favoring design.

I think this pushes scientists (even sub-consciously) to view evolution almost as a belief system rather than a science.

Can you point out some ways that scientists view evolution as a belief system rather than science?

Comment author: Ghazzali comment score below threshold [+] (2 children)

Comment author: JoshuaZ 01 May 2012 02:44:14PM 4 points [-]

Some beliefs that are usually incorporated to support evolution are:

-The world is purely physical/material in nature

-There is no such thing as real agency (free will)

There is no real purpose/meaning in the universe

I'd be curious where you can point to these being used as evidence for evolution. You won't see them in any major biology textbook. Note that even if they are used that way that doesn't become a problem with evolution by itself.

. If for example a person does not accept that all of existence is physical in nature, then he is more likely to question the 'evidence' of evolution.

This statement is probably true. But why is it true? It doesn't have anything to do with evolution as an issue and primarily has to do with the fact that most classical religions have creation stories and other aspects which make evolution uncomfortable for them, and people who are religious form a substantial overlap with people who make claims about non-physical or non-material existence. Similar remarks apply to your other bits. These are people who are unhappy with evolution not because of evidence but because it goes against their theological predilections.

Comment author: Ghazzali 17 May 2012 08:16:38PM -1 points [-]

Biology textbooks reflect the belief that "The world is purely physical/material in nature" by not even entertaining the possibility that there could be a super natural cause for anything. Any natural activity is assumed to have a physical/material cause. This is philosophy, so it may not be physically written out that way in the biology textbooks, but everything in the textbooks points to this major world assumption.

Same with the issue of free will. Any act by a species is seen in a way that needs to be explained in chemical/biological/mechanical manner. There is no room for this mysterious/other-worldly notion called free will.

Same with the idea that there is no real purpose or meaning to the universe.

As for this statement:

If for example a person does not accept that all of existence is physical in nature, then he is more likely to question the 'evidence' of evolution.

It is not necessarily true because of specific theological beliefs only. Lets say a person has absolutely no theological beliefs from any religion, but he does not automatically assume that all of existences is physical/mechanical. That person, because of this world view by itself, now all of a sudden has a higher chance of rejecting evolution than someone who only believes in a physical/mechanical world view.

The real debate is on the level of philosophy, not science. That is because ones science is driven by his philosophical interpretations....whether he realizes it or not.

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