We aren't really saying anything different here, I just misspoke with the word "disproven" instead of "unproven."  Bottom line, I don't feel as if the burden of proof is on me to "disprove" an unproven theory.  The burden of proof is on them to prove their unproven theory.  That's what I was trying to say.

EDIT: Yeah, I thought you took me out of context, and when I went back and looked, sure enough you did.  Next time, why don't you provide the full quote, so that people see what I'm responding to, using their own word "disproven?"  Why did you attack me for my use of that word, and not the guy I was responding to who used it?  I used the word because that's the word HE used.  The full quote:

I've met quite a few folks in my life that are prone to making bare assertions, but you do it every other word out of your mouth.

No theory can ever be definitively proven.  At least not sufficiently to sway dogmatic belief.  We rely upon the theories that work, until they don't.  They may then still 'work' for most things, for instance gravity, but they may not explain certain things.  New theories are then needed to explain those certain things.  Rinse, repeat - asymptotically, never quite reaching the x-axis.

The 'job' is not proof.  There is no 'burden.'  There is only insatiable curiosity.

Not really, no. You brought them up, we simply asked you to provide links to what they actually said not your interpretive paraphrasing of what they said. Under the rules you've decided we should follow, their work is entirely irrelevant anyway. Nothing *they* say can be in any way included in the arguments *you* are trying to make.

That's the handicap you decided should apply to us, so you need to follow it as well.

I want another Mumbles post, this is so...

Boring.

I suggest sarcasm.  Throw in some patronization or maybe a little rhythm and your pedantic posts wont be so dull.

You just lost. Kindly remove the forfeited section of anatomy, and you being you I'm afraid we may need photographic evidence. Pics, post-haste!

I simply assume the points I argue are common knowledge (or at least common sense) as well, but you don't accept that.

I consider myself fairly familiar with Darwin's work, and Gould's work is standard biology fare now. Darwin's been dead more than 100 years, and there has been a lot of new work in biology since then - at the time he had no way of knowing the mechanism of heredity, so it's no shock later science adjusted parts of his work. The main difference between Darwin and Gould is the relative rate of evolution. Darwin's model was pretty much a continuous process, while Gould advanced a theory of long periods of relative stability followed by (relatively) abrupt changes before settling into a new relatively stable configuration. Much of that was based on a larger population of fossil records, few of which showing "transition" specimens, along with evidence that global climate and environment followed much the same pattern of punctuated stability. If the greenies are right, we may be introducing our own bit of punctuation into that stability, so maybe we'll (and by we I mean humanity in general, us as individuals not so much) get to see some punctuated evolution.

As to the gaps, they are entirely mathematic, especially if we assume punctuated equilibrium. How many individual plants and animals (ignoring the other kingdoms, as they generally don't leave macroscopic fossils) have lived in the last half billion years? Whatever number that is, it's got a whole lot of zeroes in it, right? How many became fossils for us to find and study?

How many discrete individuals do we have a fossil of? A million? Hell, I'll be generous and assume 50 million, which is probably absurdly high but not high enough to throw off my point. Even if I assume we have 50 million individual fossils to study, that's one fossil every 10 years over the last half billion years. How much could you learn about population drift if I gave you one specimen to examine every ten years, especially if I don't give you a specimen of the same species each time?

Frankly, the odds against the fossil record showing as much evidence of evolution as we've found are mind-boggling. Hell, that makes better evidence of intelligent design than the *lack* of evidence does, because we don't have much chance of finding much more than we have now unless someone is spoonfeeding it to us.

No, the handicap is that you decided that only you can use anyone else's work. You haven't argued jack shit, you just keep pointing to Darwin and Gould and saying "these guys said something that sounds vaguely close to my opinion, so my opinion MUST be right!"

Not sure I'd call it an axiom, and either way it's not built-in.

I didn't just arbitraily up and decide to declare some "truth" to myself one day (design).  Evolution simply doesn't make any sense to me.  I've studied it as much as any person can.  I've pulled it apart, examined it, thought about it, carefully considered all arguments for it, etc.  To me, it makes no sense.  And nobody can offer me good explanations for many questions I posit (one of which is in this post, but I have many others).  There's no "built-in axiom."

Your theory doesn't answer the question of the origin of life either.

Holes in one theory aren't proof of another theory.  They are just proof of the wrongness (or, perhaps "unprovenness") of the theory with the holes.

No I don't.  You have to prove your theory.  If it has holes, then it is unproven.  Period.  This is science.  It may not be how the modern day "scientific establishment" practices science, but it is science nonetheless.

LOL.  I honestly don't even know where to begin with this mess of a paragraph.  You are basically positing a "scientific" theory that you can't prove, and you are saying that since nobody can currently prove that a mathematical model proving your theory correct won't materialize in the future, we have to assume it is correct.  What are you smoking?  Who taught you that this somehow constitutes the "scientific method?"

Correct!  Finally, someone here knows what I thought should be "common knowledge" among evolutionists.  Just to be clear (I am rewording what you said), I believe you stated that Gould based his theory on his belief that the Darwinian model of evolution was NOT reflected in the fossil record (i.e. few or no "transition" specimens as you stated, thus no "tree of life").  Can we agree on that?  Note that I am NOT asking you to disagree with evolution, or agree with design or creationism or anything else.  I just want to know whether we agree that some prominent evolutionists don't believe that the fossil record shows a Darwinian "tree of life?"

I am not going on solid record with what I'm about to say, because it is hard for me to believe this number, and perhaps my memory fails me.  But if my memory is correct, I believe the latest figures which aren't disputed by anyone is that there are on the order of a BILLION fossils now collected.  Yeah, I know, an unbelievably huge number, but again, if I'm remembering correctly, that's the figure.  Stephen J. Gould, some people at the Museum of Natural history, and others, say (or in Gould's case, said) that this is the fossil record, and they believe it is reflective of reality.  They believe there either aren't any transitional forms, or that there are so few (and airtight cases can't be made for those), that a new theory of evolution was warranted.  Thus punctuated equilibrium.

Somehow, in your zest to just berrate and attack me any way you can, you have completely misunderstood what I was saying.  People claimed that evolution was proven in the fossil record, thus "case closed."  I just tried to say that there are plenty of hardcore, prominent evolutionists who disagree with that.  When I stated that, I was shouted down, and asked to produce sources.  I refused to provide such sources for reasons already stated.

I never said, or implied, that "these guys said something that sounds vaguely close to my opinion, so my opinion MUST be right!"  Fuck my opinion, and fuck whether it is right or not.  My point was simply to say to the apparently surprised evolutionists here that there isn't a consensus even among hardcore prominent evolutionists that the fossil record provides an airtight case for evolution.  Apparently that was news to some.  Now, if I heard you correctly (I probably didn't), you agree with that?

If you can quit with the "bickering syndrome," I believe you and I can "get somewhere," and perhaps already have.

Axiom is clearly a metaphor. You're asserting that the only way to create complex, intelligent life is to design it. That line of thinking leads to the problem I've pointed. If you prefer, we can call it "The Law of Design", which states, "Complex beings can only come about if designed by an intelligence".

So evolution doesn't make sense to you, but design does? Even though there is no observed evidence for design? Even though requiring complex things to be designed by complex things poses a logical problem without some kind of eternal complex thing (of which there is also no evidence)?

It was not a statement regarding the origin of life. It was a statement explaining how there is a fault with the 'design' line of thinking. Again, just because it may not be clear how life started by natural causes, that does not mean that it can't start by natural causes.

Yes, so holes in the predictions of evolution certainly do not constitute proof of design. However, holes appear in a theory for any number of reasons, the largest being incomplete data. The fossil record is very incomplete data, so you can expect something evolution to have larger holes that will take longer to fill in. For the record, all theories in physics have holes too, the origin of the universe is one (caveat - quantum physics allows for universes to form from time to time from nothing).

Then according to you no theory is proven. This is a misrepresentation. Theories are proven to the extent they can be verified experimentally in a lab or by observation. Beyond that, they are incomplete. As I said, all theories are incomplete, but they do make useful predictions. If they didn't, they would not be given the term 'theory'. Theories are not laws of nature, they are our best models for laws of nature. Anywhere there are holes in the supporting evidence, the theories are unproven. Such is the nature of theories.

Aside from that, I get the impression you don't like how the scientific establishment currently works. What do you think needs to change?

I dunno how to help you there...  You certainly didn't interpret it correctly, and it's certainly clear to me still even without the context I had that you left out in your quote.

I'm actually not really as interested in evolution as I am in your definition of science and naturalism. I saw that you said naturalism and science are separate. I replied saying they are not: Science models the natural world, naturalism states that all effects have natural causes - that there is no supernatural. Naturalism is the basis for the scientific method. ID people always try to argue this point, it's nothing new.

I told you that if you had a true supernatural event, the scientific method in effect won't be able to model it: It won't be able to come up with a hypothesis that it can test experimentally. If you think it can, then I ask, what information does the tag 'supernatural' add then? How would you know for sure that the cause was supernatural in nature, and not ultimately natural?

Look, I seriously believe that there are no bad words, only bad intentions. But your abuse of the venerable English f-word is really pissing off this particular reader who's theoretically on your side.

If you can't ignore the basically good advice to ignore the sort of argument that you're in with Agent Who Doesn't Mention Kharma Despite Its Site Username, then the least you could do is avoid flame-typing iand try to stick to civil discourse.

Most particularly, if you're at all interested in real discussion with real Semitic monotheists, using a term like "GODFUCKING" is spectacularly stupid. All three Semitic traditions are dominated by sex-averse thinkers. Sex is complicated. Both secular and religious authorities tend to want a simple public face, so sex is a real problem for them on account of our species being as much like our raunchy bonobo cousins as we're like thuggish chimpanzees. 'The enemy' gets especially addle-brained when we use sexual language to decorate discussions about other subjects, so it is best avoided if you seriously want to engage in a dialog.

Correct.  Evolution doesn't make sense to me, because it simply doesn't make sense.  But design obviously makes sense to me, because it is a known cause (the only known cause) for complex machines.  You can witness design every day.  No one disputes that machines come about through design.  So we have a known cause (the only known cause) which I can see every day and witness first hand with my own two eyes.  And we have a theory that doesn't make sense.  Given that, dedicing what to believe for me is a fairly easy decision to make.

Then I say there is no observed evidence for evolution.

I will say for the 50th time that your theory also has the same "logical problems."  And if you keep restating the above, I will keep restating what I just said.  We can keep doing this dance ad nauseum I guess, if that's what you really want.

LOL - clever subversive rhetoric.  "Natural causes?"  As if you people have a monopoly on "natural causes?" LOL.  When did I say that I believed in "unnatural" causes?  Automobiles don't seem to be derived from unnatural causes, neither do computers nor space shuttles.  I have no reason to believe that we were either.

I can also continue to play the same game that you are playing, and we can continue to do the dance, until you admit that your theory is no better in this aspect.  Your sentence modified - "Just because the nature of the designer or designers isn't clear doesn't mean that we weren't designed and built."

Well sorry, but I don't mix faith with science.  Until your holes are filled in, complete data acquired, etc. I will not accept your theory "on faith" like the evolutionists want.

No I don't like how it works.  No establishment of anything tends to work well.  Establishments end up simply trying to promote and protect themselves and their vested interests.  The scientific establishment is no different than any other establishment in this respect.  It is evil.  Science is no longer taught critically.  The scientific establishment certainly doesn't practice it critically or objectively.  I could go on and on here, but enough has been said already, and this subject could fill a library on its own.

I appreciate your interest here, but I think I've said enough on this. We can just agree to disagree that the two are the same.

I'd just go with spectacularly stupid regardless.  It's missing the "damnit" that makes it a sensible usage.  Then again, considering how hard it is to use fuck in a way that doesn't work, perhaps I should be praising his talent instead.