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?

That depends on how you define 'system'. Is 'system' the entire biological existence of earth? In that case, yes evolution would be a mathematical certainty eventually. But is system a specific species? In that case evolution would only occurr within those species.

He goes on to tell you exactly what systems: any with random heritable changes that can selectively help or hinder reproduction. This would mean both all life on earth that fits within that definition, and any particular species also under that umbrella.

It seems to me like you're trying to make a distinction between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" here, but I may be misreading you. If you are, however, notice that thomblake's process makes no distinction between them; to suppose one but not the other could occur, you'd need a specific mechanism or reason.

Also, time is another factor. Your explanation logically does not necessitate that evolution has already happened, only that it will eventually happen.

No, it necessitates that it is happening and has happened in any such system. The process, that is. You're correct if you're just saying that the process may not have resulted in any differentiation at any given time.

I feel like you're trying to say we should care about "memetic life" as well as... other life. But the parallel you draw seems flawed: an individual of any race and sex is still recognizably conscious, and an individual. Do we care about non-sentient life, memetic or otherwise? Should we care?

I would like to see the scientific community come up with more specific parameters as to what would be considered: A. minor damage to the theory, B. major hit on the theory, and C. evidence that would make the theory most likely untenable. We do this for almost every other science, except evolution.

I think we do this for evolution as much as any other part of science. In any, the judgment of the severity of a "hit" is possible if you understand the relevant concepts. An understanding of the concepts lets one see what separates minor issues from fossil rabbits in the Precambrian; what's a detail, and what's central to the theory - some things would necessitate a modification, and some would cast the entire theory into question. Think of what it took to overturn any other well-established theory in history, or what it would take to overturn relativistic physics.

More generally, if you have a whole bunch of evidence that points to one conclusion, it should take something fairly extreme to substantially sway you away from belief in that conclusion and make you re-evaluate all the accumulated evidence. (And there's a lot of evidence for evolution.)

I'm aware this is from 2008, but I just can't let this stand in case one day an undecided visitor wanders past and reads GenericThinker's comment. (I also can't resist pointing out that his handle is rather appropriate.)

1.) Belief in God doesn't necessarily drive people to behave in a more moral way. Consider Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, for example.

2.) The question of God's existence is not unanswerable. The evidence for or against God is no more open to interpretation than any other evidence. If God affects the material universe, we can observe the effect(s); if God doesn't affect the material universe, the question is moot. I believe Mr. Yudkowsky has also written about the fallacious "non-overlapping magisteria" idea.

3.) God's existence may or may not make "the issues of evolution" (what are these?) easier to explain, but it brings up many, many more questions... like how an omnipotent, omniscient being might come about - a much more surprising phenomenon than mere humans, surely.

4.) No one is "bashing God."

We're bashing theists.

I enjoyed Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom quite a bit! I'm glad Kevin7 posted this link.

However, the insanity portrayed as being beneficial and desirable in The Metamorphosis is too egregious to ignore - even if the rest of the story had made good on its promise of providing an interesting look at a posthuman world. (It doesn't. We don't even get to see anything of it.) At first, I thought "oh, great; more cached-thought SF"... but it was worse than that. I forced myself to finish it just so I could be sure the following is accurate.

Worse than the already-irritating "death gives meaning to life!" reasoning replete in the work, we find either actual insanity or just a blithe disregard for self-contradiction:

• Technology is bad, because one day the universe will die. (What's the connection? No fucking clue.)
• We should live like cavemen, because technology (and knowledge itself - no reading!) will lead to murder (but certain arbitrary tools are okay); but death is fine when it's a bear or disease that kills you.
• Reality isn't "really real" if it's created or controlled by an AI, even if it's indistinguishable from... uh... other reality.
• And, of course, we save the most obvious conclusion for last (sorta-spoiler warning): despite item #2, it's okay to murder billions of happy immortals because you're unhappy that life is safe and everyone is free at last.

Merits as a story? Well, at first, it's even a little exciting, as we are treated to a glimpse of a post-Singularity world (the only glimpse we get, as it turns out), and then some backstory on how the AI was created. That's cool; but after that, it's not worth reading, in this reader's humble opinion. It's very formulaic, the characters (all ~three of them) have no personality (unless you count angst), and any technical or imaginative details that might be interesting are... well, either not there at all, or waved away with the magic Correlation Effect Plot Device. (It's first used to explain one thing, then turns out to do, quite literally, everything.)

I would like to contrast this to John Wright's The Golden Age trilogy. That work is replete with interesting ideas and details about how a Far Future society might look and work; no magic one-size-fits-all Plotonium (to coin a term; I'm sure TVTropes already has one, though) here. In Metamorphosis, we aren't really given any glimpse at society, but what we do see is essentially Now Except With Magic Powers. In The Golden Age, it is immediately obvious we aren't in Kansas any more. Metamorphosis explores one idea - AI - and that, poorly; The Golden Age includes nanotech, simulation, self-modification, the problem of willpower (see: Werewolf Contracts), posthumans, post-posthumans, post-/trans-human art, and more. Check it out if you have transhumanist leanings... or just enjoy science fiction, come to that.

Ergo, whatever environmental influences shape personality come from outside the home, not inside.

How far apart were the different homes - in the same neighborhood? School district? I also wonder how different the parenting styles considered were; at the same economic level in the same town, for example, divisions in "style" might be minor compared to people elsewhere, of different means.

It doesn't seem plausible, but you assert the books have mountains of evidence and I am not curious enough to check myself, so I ultimately withhold judgment.

The beauty of politics is that there is just enough uncertainty to make every position appear plausible to some portion of the public, even in those rare cases where there is definitive "proof" (however defined) that one particular position is correct. [emphasis added]

Well, that doesn't sound very beautiful.

I'm thinking of moral reasoning as the kind of reasoning you're morally responsible for: if you reason rightly, you ought to be praised and proud, and if you reason wrongly, you ought to be blamed and ashamed. That sort of thing.

Can't that apply to hypotheticals? If you come to the wrong conclusion you're a horrible person, sort of thing.

I would probably call "moral reasoning" something along the lines of "reasoning about morals". Even using your above definition, I think reasoning about morals using hypotheticals can result in a judgment, about what sort of action would be appropriate in the situation.

That's true. They could be wrong in different ways (or "different directions", in our example), which could be important for some purposes. But as you say, that depends on said purposes; I'm still uncertain as to the fallacy that dspeyer refers to. If our only purpose is determining some belief's level of correctness, absent other considerations (like in which way it's incorrect), isn't the one dimension of the "shades of grey" model sufficient?

Although -- come to think of it, I could be misunderstanding his criticism. I took it to mean he had an issue with the original post, but he could just be providing an example of how the shades-of-grey model could be used fallaciously, rather than saying it is fallacious, as I initially interpreted.