The Theory of Evolution

[Vangelovski]

Here is something to help the lay scientist. While you may not accept what is posted by people of faith (simply because they are people of faith) you might accept it from the University of Berkeley. These are some of the basic unprovable assumptions and there are many more. Many current theories are a compilation of assumption upon assumption and while they may make interesting hypothesis, they are far from been proven as reality.

Notice that even gravity is an unprovable assumption. Whether some of the theories that form out of these assumptions are reasonable really depends on how observable, measurable and reproducible they are.

http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/basic_assumptions

The process of building scientific knowledge relies on a few basic assumptions that are worth acknowledging. Science operates on the assumptions that:

There are natural causes for things that happen in the world around us. For example, if a ball falls to the ground, science assumes that there must be a natural explanation for why the ball moves downward once released. Right now, scientists can describe gravity in great detail, but exactly what gravity is remains elusive. Still, science assumes that there is an explanation for gravity that relies on natural causes, just as there is for everything in nature.

Evidence from the natural world can be used to learn about those causes. Science assumes that we can learn about gravity and why a ball falls by studying evidence from the natural world. Scientists can perform experiments with other falling objects, observe how gravity affects the orbits of the planets, etc. Evidence from a wide range of experiments and observations helps scientists understand more about the natural causes of gravity.

There is consistency in the causes that operate in the natural world. In other words, the same causes come into play in related situations and these causes are predictable. For example, science assumes that the gravitational forces at work on a falling ball are related to those at work on other falling objects. It is further assumed that the workings of gravity don't change from moment to moment and object to object in unpredictable ways. Hence, what we learn about gravity today by studying falling balls can also be used to understand, for example, modern satellite orbits, the formation of the moon in the distant past, and the movements of the planets and stars in the future, because the same natural cause is at work regardless of when and where things happen.

Here is some more from Indiana University. Notice that science ASSUMES that Natural processes are sufficient for understanding the natural world and that scientific knowledge is necessarily contingent knowledge (and therefore uncertain). It is not absolute knowledge (certain and eternally true).

http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/NOS%20Over.BasicAssump.html

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF SCIENCE

• The world is real. The physical universe exists apart from our sensory experiences.
• Humans can accurately perceive and understand the physical universe.
• Natural processes are sufficient for understanding the natural world.
• Nature operates uniformly throughout the universe in space and time.

BASIC LIMITATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

• Our senses have their own biological limitations. Even technological devices for extending those limitations have their own limits of accuracy and range.

• Our mental processing of sensory data is not always reliable. We are influenced by previous experiences, biases, and degrees of attention, all contingent* on circumstances.

• It’s impossible to know if we have considered all possible alternative explanations.

• Scientific knowledge is necessarily contingent knowledge (and therefore uncertain). It is not absolute knowledge (certain and eternally true). It is dependent on available evidence, circumstances, tools and our analysis.

[Phoenix]

...The speed of light is one of them. It is usually assumed that the speed of light is constant with time. But the idea that the speed of light is constant, while it may be reasonable, is also an unprovable assumption..

Actually, it's not assumed that the speed of light is constant...

I still don't understand your point?

The speed of light has been studied since the 1600's, a base of knowledge has been built, an accumulation of almost 500 years of experiments, that have been tested reviewed and proven within the technologies and understanding of the period.

Since the 1980's science has been fine tuning the data as technology continues to evolve and measure the results to a finely calibrated level, further reducing the tolerances for error.

You're treating the word scientific "assumptions" as wild guess work lacking all credibility and merit.
It's not as if the "assumptions" are so invalid that the idea of the speed of light will be proven incorrect and the idea will be abandoned...

[Vangelovski]

Actually, it's not assumed that the speed of light is constant...

Show me one scientific study that claims that the speed of light has been conclusively demonstrated to be constant.

I think you're reading way too much into what is being said.

Read the article on scientific assumptions. You may even want to read this Wikipedia article on the Philosophy of Science, particularly the section on 'justifying science'. You seem to consider science as an absolute method of discovering truth, something that no scientist would claim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

[Phoenix]

Here is something to help the lay scientist. While you may not accept what is posted by people of faith (simply because they are people of faith) you might accept it from the University of Berkeley. These are some of the basic unprovable assumptions and there are many more. Many current theories are a compilation of assumption upon assumption and while they may make interesting hypothesis, they are far from been proven as reality.

Notice that even gravity is an unprovable assumption. Whether some of the theories that form out of these assumptions are reasonable really depends on how observable, measurable and reproducible they are.

http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/basic_assumptions

Here is some more from Indiana University. Notice that science ASSUMES that Natural processes are sufficient for understanding the natural world and that scientific knowledge is necessarily contingent knowledge (and therefore uncertain). It is not absolute knowledge (certain and eternally true).

http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/NOS%...sicAssump.html

What's your point Vangelovski?

So now we're back to wondering why apples fall off trees'...?

[Phoenix]

Show me one scientific study that claims that the speed of light has been conclusively demonstrated to be constant.

I think you're reading way too much into what is being said.

Read the article on scientific assumptions. You may even want to read this Wikipedia article on the Philosophy of Science, particularly the section on 'justifying science'. You seem to consider science as an absolute method of discovering truth, something that no scientist would claim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

What on Earth are you talking about man?

You're the one looking to prise open the cracks in an effort to protect your faith.

[spitfire]

Thank you Spitfire, this is what i've been speaking about this entire time. Give me this observation of macro-evolutionary transition, and for experimentation we know that's not possible. You've ignored this the entire time and now you state it, you are very dynamic and flexible in your beliefs wouldn't you say? Do you honestly expect me to be waiting for something of relevance though? I assume you're all insecure now, why don't you resort to speaking about a God now for reasons unknown and how science doesn't believe in faith again instead of answering the question.

But like I said earlier, I won't bother with you anymore you're here for egoistical reasons; evident from your looping and avoidance, as opposed to rational discussion.

No that's not what you 've been saying. In fact you are confused.

Scientific evidence of micro-evolution exists and therefore it supports the theory of evolution. Tested, proved and substantiate what macro-evolution is.

You are just unable to grasp the idea because you don't have enough understanding of how evolution works.

[Vangelovski]

What's your point Vangelovski?

So now we're back to wondering why apples fall off trees'...?

If you have not understood my point, I don't understand why you have tried to deny the assumptions of science?

Apples off trees? I don't know. Maybe you should be. Was Berkeley and Indiana not a good enough resource for you?

[spitfire]

Even in the scientific context, a theory is not something that has been conclusively proven. I would not even give evolution the title of 'theory', rather I would call it a 'hypothesis' which is yet to provide any solid uncontested evidence that is not open to other possibilities.

Of course not. A hypothesis does not require observation and experiment.

To show you how confused you are...

Show me one scientific study that claims that the speed of light has been conclusively demonstrated to be constant.

Are you aware of the cern experiments? They are done very close to the speed of light. That's because you can't reach the exact speed of light because matter would collapse.

So there you go. You just showed that you are not aware of science altogether.

[Vangelovski]

What on Earth are you talking about man?

You're the one looking to prise open the cracks in an effort to protect your faith.

You stated that the speed of light is not assumed. So I asked you the following:

Show me one scientific study that claims that the speed of light has been conclusively demonstrated to be constant.

I simply noted that science is full of unprovable assumptions. You did not like that statement and judging from your comments did not believe it. I provided you with the basic assumptions of Science from the Universities of Berkeley and Indiana. You then preceded to claim that I have no point.

I gave you further information about scientific assumptions and the Philosophy of Science which is basic stuff for someone claiming to understand and defend science (what you have been doing).

You may even want to read this Wikipedia article on the Philosophy of Science, particularly the section on 'justifying science'. You seem to consider science as an absolute method of discovering truth, something that no scientist would claim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

You then ask what on earth I'm talking about. I think the better question is what on earth are you talking about?

Do you accept that science is based on a number of basic assumptions and that many scientific theories are further based on many more assumptions? Scientists certainly do and they put their assumptions up front when presenting new theories. I know that might not sit well with your naturalist views and beliefs as fact of what are actually just hypothesis and theories based on unprovable assumptions. That is my point.

[Vangelovski]

Are you aware of the cern experiments? They are done very close to the speed of light. That's because you can't reach the exact speed of light because matter would collapse.

So there you go. You just showed that you are not aware of science altogether.

The speed of light is a fact but if it was ever reached matter would collapse...please, tell me more.

[spitfire]

I'll give you a couple of examples. The speed of light is one of them. It is usually assumed that the speed of light is constant with time. But the idea that the speed of light is constant, while it may be reasonable, is also an unprovable assumption.

That's because you don't understand that time and space are relevant.

It is not an assumption. If we see a supernova now, this means that the supernova exploded sometime in the past. Because the light of the explosion took time in order to reach us.

Again, you are neglecting fundamental laws. You are very confused indeed.

[spitfire]

The speed of light is a fact but if it was ever reached matter would collapse...please, tell me more.

What do you want to learn my child?

How matter collapses? All you have to do is take the next spacecraft to a black hole. There you'll see for yourself that not even light can go through.

We 've been over this concept of light speed. It's fundamental and proven throughout the universe.

[Phoenix]

If you have not understood my point, I don't understand why you have tried to deny the assumptions of science?

Apples off trees? I don't know. Maybe you should be. Was Berkeley and Indiana not a good enough resource for you?

Vangelovski,

Newton's laws of motion have existed since an apple fell on his head 300 years ago, those laws have played an integral role in the understanding of gravity and gravitational forces.
So how much don't we know about gravity...do we only have 90% of the picture, more or less...and the rest is 'assumption'

I'm guessing the scientific community has a pretty good handle on the workings of gravity, assumptions and all...
The recent Rosetta mission depended quite heavily on a deep understanding of gravity considering gravity was used to perfect effect in propelling the craft in its rendezvous with the comet...I'm also guessing a sound knowledge of the speed of light and the use of atomic clocks, all with their scientific 'imperfections' and 'assumptions' were an integral part of the success of the mission.

But then again it could've all occurred on a Hollywood film set for all the 'assumptions' involved...

[Vangelovski]

So how much don't we know about gravity...do we only have 90% of the picture, more or less...and the rest is 'assumption'

I'm guessing the scientific community has a pretty good handle on the workings of gravity, assumptions and all...

I'm guessing they have a very good handle on gravity, but I'm also guessing that you don't. You should ask Berkeley as they might be able to help you with the exact percentages of what we know and don't know about gravity.

http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/basic_assumptions

Right now, scientists can describe gravity in great detail, but exactly what gravity is remains elusive.

Still missing the bigger picture on scientific assumptions...

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS OF SCIENCE

• Natural processes are sufficient for understanding the natural world.

BASIC LIMITATIONS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

• Scientific knowledge is necessarily contingent knowledge (and therefore uncertain). It is not absolute knowledge (certain and eternally true). It is dependent on available evidence, circumstances, tools and our analysis.

http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/NOS%20Over.BasicAssump.html

Science (or scientists today) presupposes that there is a natural explanation for everything. Anything that does not fit into naturalistic philosophy is automatically discounted regardless of the evidence to support it. But this in itself is an unprovable assumption and goes against what science is mean't to be - a tool to determine facts and perhaps truth.

However, scientific knowledge is necessarily contingent and therefore uncertain. There is no way of knowing, absolutely, whether scientific knowledge is absolutely true/correct. This in itself is also unprovable.

Here's that bit about justifying science from Wikipedia (Philosophy of Science). Before you try to make out that science is somehow omnipotent, you should get a handle on was is basically science 101. This is stuff one would have learned in high school...but then again not all schools are constant...I mean equal in Australia.

Justifying science

Main article: Problem of induction


Although it is often taken for granted, it is not at all clear how one can infer the validity of a general statement from a number of specific instances or infer the truth of a theory from a series of successful tests.[11] For example, a chicken observes that each morning the farmer comes and gives it food, for hundreds of days in a row. The chicken may therefore use inductive reasoning to infer that the farmer will bring food every morning. However, one morning, the farmer comes and kills the chicken. How is scientific reasoning more trustworthy than the chicken's reasoning?


Any argument in favor of induction must avoid the problem of the criterion, in which any justification must in turn be justified, resulting in an infinite regress. The regress argument has been used to justify one way out of the infinite regress, foundationalism. Foundationalism claims that there are some basic statements that do not require justification. Both induction and falsification are forms of foundationalism in that they rely on basic statements that derive directly from immediate sensory experience.


Another approach is to acknowledge that induction cannot achieve certainty, but observing more instances of a general statement can at least make the general statement more probable. So the chicken would be right to conclude from all those mornings that it is likely the farmer will come with food again the next morning, even if it cannot be certain. However, there remain difficult questions about what precise probability any given evidence justifies putting on the general statement. One way out of these particular difficulties is to declare that all beliefs about scientific theories are subjective, or personal, and correct reasoning is merely about how evidence should change one's subjective beliefs over time.[11]


Some argue that what scientists do is not inductive reasoning at all but rather abductive reasoning, or inference to the best explanation. In this account, science is not about generalizing specific instances but rather about hypothesizing explanations for what is observed. As discussed in the previous section, it is not always clear what is meant by the "best explanation." Ockham's razor, which counsels choosing the simplest available explanation, thus plays an important role in some versions of this approach. To return to the example of the chicken, would it be simpler to suppose that the farmer cares about it and will continue taking care of it indefinitely or that the farmer is fattening it up for slaughter?



Philosophers have tried to make this heuristic principle more precise in terms of theoretical parsimony or other measures. Yet, although various measures of simplicity have been brought forward as potential candidates, it is generally accepted that there is no such thing as a theory-independent measure of simplicity. In other words, there appear to be as many different measures of simplicity as there are theories themselves, and the task of choosing between measures of simplicity appears to be every bit as problematic as the job of choosing between theories.[12]

[Philosopher]

How matter collapses? All you have to do is take the next spacecraft to a black hole. There you'll see for yourself that not even light can go through.

We 've been over this concept of light speed. It's fundamental and proven throughout the universe.

Black holes are good examples with the uncertainties of science. New research suggests black holes do not exist and that in fact it is mathematically impossible for them to form or exist.

By merging two seemingly conflicting theories, Laura Mersini-Houghton, a physics professor at UNC-Chapel Hill in the College of Arts and Sciences, has proven, mathematically, that black holes can never come into being in the first place. The work not only forces scientists to reimagine the fabric of space-time, but also rethink the origins of the universe.

Elsewhere in the article we read:

For decades, black holes were thought to form when a massive star collapses under its own gravity to a single point in space – imagine the Earth being squished into a ball the size of a peanut – called a singularity. So the story went, an invisible membrane known as the event horizon surrounds the singularity and crossing this horizon means that you could never cross back. It's the point where a black hole's gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape it.

The reason black holes are so bizarre is that it pits two fundamental theories of the universe against each other. Einstein's theory of gravity predicts the formation of black holes but a fundamental law of quantum theory states that no information from the universe can ever disappear. Efforts to combine these two theories lead to mathematical nonsense, and became known as the information loss paradox.

In 1974, Stephen Hawking used quantum mechanics to show that black holes emit radiation. Since then, scientists have detected fingerprints in the cosmos that are consistent with this radiation, identifying an ever-increasing list of the universe's black holes.

But now Mersini-Houghton describes an entirely new scenario. She and Hawking both agree that as a star collapses under its own gravity, it produces Hawking radiation. However, in her new work, Mersini-Houghton shows that by giving off this radiation, the star also sheds mass. So much so that as it shrinks it no longer has the density to become a black hole.

Before a black hole can form, the dying star swells one last time and then explodes. A singularity never forms and neither does an event horizon. The take home message of her work is clear: there is no such thing as a black hole.

http://phys.org/news/2014-09-black-holes.html

Apparently, Stephen Hawking also doubts of their existence. In 2004, he stated:

Speaking last week on BBC's Newsnight Professor Hawking said: 'I've been thinking about this problem for the last 30 years, and I think now I have the answer to it. A black hole only appears to form but later opens up and releases information about what fell inside. So we can be sure of the past and predict the future'.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/jul/21/spaceexploration.highereducation

So there we have it.