Re: Sense Within Evolutiomary Theory
- From: "g" <gillawton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:19:08 -0400 (EDT)
"John Edser" <edser@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dh7vrt$23nf$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
> "Perplexed in Peoria" jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:-
>
>> > 1. I implied that you use terminology that no one else uses. YOU
>> > WANT ME TO DOCUMENT THAT????
>
>> > JE:-
>> > Yes.
>
> JE:-
> The reason I demanded that that you document these terms is because every
> single one of them are absolutely required to make _empirical_ sense of
> some
> related term commonly employed within Neo Darwinism. I have NOT invented
> new
> terms I have more correctly defined existing terms so that they make
> *EMPIRICAL* sense.
>
> Here are brief explanations for each case. I am happy to expand on any one
> of them.
>
>
>> OFA - Organism Fitness Altruism
>> OFM - Organism Fitness Mutualism
>
> JE:-
> Hamilton's superficial term "altruism" remains hopelessly ambiguous unless
> ALL the terms OFA, OFS, OFM are strictly defined.
>
>
>> TDF - Total Darwinian Fitness
>
> JE:-
> Unless a fitness maximand is at least implicitly employed nothing in
> evolutionary theory can make EMPIRICAL sense. I have argued that TDF was
> always implicit within Darwinism . It remains the only empirically based
> maximand provided by evolutionary theory that can be refuted. . The term
> "maximand" was introduced by NAS and not myself. He/she proposed inclusive
> fitness as a fitness maximand. I simply pointed out that such a
> proposition
> remains non refutable.
>
>
>> Absolute Fitness Assumption
>> Which is 'absolute'? The fitness or the assumption. I still don't
>> know.
>
> JE:-
> The phrase only has one meaning: a fitness assumption that is absolute.
> Because a fitness assumption is only an absolute assumption and not an
> absolute dictate it remains entirely contestable, e.g. creationism is
> based
> on just a non contestable absolute dictate but evolution by natural
> selection is based on a contestable absolute assumption.
>
>> maximand proposition
>> Saw this one for the first time today.
>
> JE:-
> Please refer to any dictionary definition of the term "maximand" if after
> all this time you still remain confused. A maximand proposition within
> evolutionary theory simply means what it says: A PROPOSED FITNESS MAXIMAND
>
>> refutation vs nonverification
>> Popper talks about it, but John has added his own twists.
>
> JE:-
> Popper differentiated between refutation and non verification because the
> difference is so basic. A non verification is just an unrealized
> predictive
> observation whereas refutation is an entirely excluded observation of
> something. Popper deleted verification from his epistemology but I do not.
>
>
>> RELATIVELY OPPOSED EMPIRICAL proposition
>
> JE:-
> Means exactly what it says. Please refer to any dictionary.
> It appears to me you would prefer not to know the difference between
> contesting absolute propositions and contesting relative propositions.
>
>
>> RELATIVELY OPPOSED FITNESS EVENTS
>
> JE:-
> Again, means exactly what was stated. Examples are OFA and OFS.
>
>> Selective event
>
> JE:-
> Again it means exactly what was actually stated: just a single act of
> selection within one population.
>
>> sub selective event
>
> JE:-
> Again it means exactly what was written: just a sub part of one selective
> event, e.g. surviving longer but not necessarily reproducing more because
> you survived longer.
>
>
>> Enron accountants
>
> JE:-
> Please read the news! Enron accountants fraudulently wrote up debits as
> credits. NAS attempted to do the same within his/her fitness accounting
> for
> Hamilton's Rule.
>
>> just, absurd
>
> JE:-
> Contradictory.
>
>> The comma placement is Edser's innovation
> JE:-
> I have no idea what you are referring to.
>
>> Fitness Elements
>
> JE:-
> It means exactly what was stated. Each fitness element represents one unit
> of fitness (no matter how you define fitness). Of course fitness has to be
> entirely an objective concept to allow fitness elements or units.
>
>
>> NeoDarwinism
>> Other people use the term, but they mean something different than John.
>
> JE:-
> Neo Darwinism remains EMPIRICALLY meaningless without the terms I refered
> to.
>
>> Absolute Assumption of Nature
>
> JE:-
> What it says: any proposed constant or maximand assumption that can be
> measured in nature.
>
>> I suspect that John may object that all of the words in these phrases
>> may be found in a dictionary and that they are in common use. I defy
>> anyone armed with a dictionary to look at the following quote and
>> come to the conclusion that the "absolute assumption" of Darwin
>> is the same thing as John's definition of TDF.
>
> JE:-
> I have already explained about 50 times (and counting) that TDF
> represents:
>
> 1) A refutable maximand assumption.
> 2) Was always just implied within Darwinism.
>
>
>> Darwin's theory, like any other valid testable theory of nature is
>> based
>> on a
>> refutable absolute assumption. An absolute assumption is NOT just a
>> dictated
>> absolute, it is a CONTESTABLE absolute assumption.
>
> JE:-
> Simple English. Please refer to any dictionary if you do not understand
> any
> of the words I have used.
>
>>snip rhetoric<
>
> Regards,
>
> John Edser
> Independent Researcher
>
> edser@xxxxxxxxxx
John,
Biological evolution, as a reality, is so abundantly in evidence throughout
the world -- so unanimously supported by a convergence of all data deriving
from manifold formal scientific disciplines --that no empirically based case
can be offered against it. Where any arguments are thrown up against it,
those arguments are metaphysical -- empirically untestable -- and are
founded on nothing more than assertions of dogma, and that dogma
inconsistent as the decuples of the one and disciples of the other.
Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence that evolution has occurred and
is still occurring, however, enormous gaps remain in that evidence, to the
extent that there is not consensus as to just exactly what has occurred,
when it occurred, how it occurred or why it occurred.
In short, the picture of biological evolution as a real and present dynamic
is abundantly clear, but the details of that dynamic remain shrouded in
mystery. Scientists continue to find hard data which answers some of the
what's, when's, where's, how's and whys... but have been unable to close
many of the gaps between facts and relationships in the evidence, so far.
Some professional scientists and academicians and, also, some self-styled
interpreters-of-reality to the ignorant majority, pretend to have figured
out much of what cannot yet be confirmed by the existing evidence. Some of
the foregoing pose themselves as "spokespersons" for a veritable inner
sanctum of "knowers" of a priori truths to which they insist all future
evidence must conform, in order to be valid. Rather than saying, "I don't
know," some of those would pose themselves as authorities over things not
yet evidenced, and judges of who is as wise as themselves (those who concur
with them) and who is less wise (and would have the audacity to reach other
conclusions or hold their opinions in reserve).
Just as, a few centuries ago, mathematicians tended to be cliquish and
secretive and vain in their esoteric guardianship of the principles they
shared only among themselves -- and just as professional alchemists and
magicians once strove to conceal among themselves the tricks of their
trade -- some modern day bio-evolutionists use a special language that
(although they deny it) serves to disguise the lines between the things they
know and the things they pretend to know.
Words that suggest one thing to the uninitiated are alleged by
self-appointed inner circle of bio-evolution "knowers," to be understood
among themselves. And if any uninitiated outsider should dare to ask too
many
questions aimed at pinning down just what IS the precise ontology of one or
more of these words, he is branded as too unintelligent to grasp what is a
simple and obvious meaning to all initiates.
If the good ol' boy insiders (including self-appointed guardians of the keys
to their "club") argue among themselves -- citing ideas of, and quoting,
people who invented words and used them in statements which rationalized
information available during lives lived in the past, even up to a century
or more ago -- they condone that from one another. If someone from outside
"the club" should ask too many questions about any of the insider clichés or
buzz words -- not having memorized and conformed to their use -- not only
is that
person perceived by the clique to be ignorant but, also, audacious,
disrespectful, intrusive and brazen.
"Good science," I submit to you, John, is not possible where terms are
ambiguous, hazy, misleading, imprecise, or loyal to former rationales that
have been refuted by subsequent evidence.
Where there is to be any empirical testing possible, as to the validity of a
term, or a cliché containing a term, an exhaustive ontology (set of
subsumptive relations, ruling in what is meant by it, and ruling out what is
to be excluded from it) is essential to delimit what it is that would be
tested. Thereafter, and ONLY thereafter, can the general definitive
statement, and/or any subsumptive statement, be unambiguously tested.
It appears that you, John, have recognized the problem with such terms as
natural selection, survival of the fittest, altruism... and many others have
taken on different meanings for different people, and that much emotional
baggage has been loaded onto them, such that asking questions at pinning
down a clear, unambiguous statement, and an exhaustive set of subsumptive
relations with regard to any of these... results in your being told it is
YOU who are confused or YOU who don't 'get it.'
One of the most frustrating things about trying to think with scientific
rigor is that the effort brings you into
conflict with people who, instead of working with you to clarify, go postal,
as it were, and try to throw you off the track of pinning down what some
people DO NOT WANT to be pinned down. If you were allowed to pin down a
person who is defending his very claim to credibility and his very status as
an "authority" on a subject, you would strip him of some of the aura that
surrounds him.
Fortunately we live in a world today in which mathematicians are eager and
willing to share their secrets. Even some magicians (although the inner
core resent it and deem their profession betrayed by it) reveal how their
smoke and mirrors and attention diversion techniques work.
As much as I love science and biologists -- especially those who do the
labor of gathering and documenting and organizing and observing and
experimenting with evidence, and get very little thanks for it -- I believe
that those who have nothing to gain from obfuscative language and worn-out
clichés will not be defensive about being pinned down on the terminology and
syntax the stand upon in making assertions about anything (including
bio-evolutionary assumptions and gaps filled by assumptions, between the
parts of their evidence.
Ever notice that if a wife asks an unfaithful husband where he has been he
will heap shame and blame and
resentment on her.
Could it not be true of science that its unfaithful -- those who under badge
of academic authority, or assertions of understanding of things not in
evidence -- most vehemently attack those who would ask their cooperation in
stripping away any veils that might hide deception.
g
.
- References:
- Sense Within Evolutiomary Theory
- From: John Edser
- Sense Within Evolutiomary Theory
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