Anyone looking to avoid politics and/or general bitterness should stop reading at this point.
Sarah Palin is RIGHT about “Crony Capitalism.” Well… okay, that might be going a little too far. EDIT: Whoever on Sarah Palin’s not-a-campaign staff got the memo requesting something that could be seen as a swipe at both Obama and the current GOP frontrunners, came up with “Crony Capitalism” and taught her to sound it out phonetically is RIGHT about “Crony Capitalism.”
If a given industry is directly contributing to making my water less-drinkable and my air less-breathable, it is difficult for me to care how many people it employs. I’m as sensitive to the plight of the jobless and potentially-jobless as I can be, but the fact is that, however burdensome it may be for the good men and women of the Sludge Dumpers Local 140 to retrain in some other field, said retraining is at least largely possible. Me “retraining” my lungs to breath soot and smog? Significanly LESS than possible.
The reason so-called “conservatives” consistently have a fighting-edge over so-called “liberals” in American politics is that the emotional “default mode” of modern conservatives is HATE, while the default mode for modern liberals is FEAR. And while these are both negative emotions, hate is at least an emboldening emotion, while fear tends to produce cowardice. (This particular nugget courtesy John Lukacs)
President Obama’s fatal flaw is NOT that he is willing to compromise, but that he views “compromise” or “the middle” as GOALS in and of themselves as opposed to something you temporarily settle for on the road to wearing your enemy down.
I do not object to people and things that stand in the way of social/intellectual progress – they are, after all, only adhering to their basic nature. My objection is to the all-too-frequent unwillingness of social/intellectual progress to simply shove past them.
It is perfectly reasonable for anti-abortion crusaders to promote their agenda via the calculus that a given fetus has the potential to become the next Einstein, Ghandi or Mother Theresa… providing, of course, that they allow for the equally-valid calculus that it could just as easily be the next Hitler, Stalin or Osama bin Laden. Likewise, laws requiring women seeking abortions to view an ultrasound first should ONLY per permissable if said viewing is followed by forced-listening to an audio track of a roomful of screaming brats – you know, “both sides” and all that…
Suggesting that the world would be much better off with a significantly smaller human population and significantly-reduced human population-growth is NOT some horrible statement in support of “population control” or “Eugenics.” It doesn’t become that UNTIL you start talking about how to accomplish it by sinister and/or unethical force – prior to that, it is merely a statement of fact obvious to anyone who has to commute to work.
Given that, in retrospect, he was amenable to enivormental and social-justice causes, a supporter of a social safety-net, globally-minded and a domestic-policy pragmatist in addition to being a ruthless political street-fighter willing to grind his opponents’ bones into powder to accomplish his ends… I would gladly vote for Richard Nixon’s cyborg-retrofitted head a’la Futurama were he/it running today.
The notion that both political “sides” in America are equally “bad” is a fallacy that does nothing to help anyone. The problem with Democrats is that they spend too much money and lack mangerial fortitude. The problem with Republicans is that they want to burn down the planet to make their Invisible Friend happy – these are NOT comparable flaws.
“Evolution” versus “Intelligent Design/Creationism” is not a “difference of opinion” – it is an argument between a proven-fact and a debunked-myth.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
But that “something” whose truth is certain is a clearly defined individual proposition. For example, in the theory of evolution, “genes are passed down from parent(s) to children” is a fact, “when genetic material gets copied, mutations occur approximately 1% of the time” is a fact, “genetic mutations which hinder reproduction in an environment which an individual finds themself will result in that genetic material eventually dying out” is a fact. But something like “in an arsenic rich environment, a specific species of bacteria can substitute phosphorous with arsenic in its physiology” is a hypothesis, and not a fact. Nevertheless, all of these propositions, among many others, together, form the theory of evolution. If you are “certain [the theory of evolution] is true”, then you are certain it's predictions are true, and it ceases to be scientific because you don't test certainties, you test uncertainties, and when there are no tests to be done, there's no science to be done.
I'd go so far as to say calling evolution a “fact” is at least as erroneous, if not more so, than calling it “just a theory (a guess)”. Both demonstrate extreme ignorance on how science is done, and both prevent you from actually doing any science on the theory of evolution.
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Alright. Didn't mean to disappear, just had to work a lot the last few days.
@ Matt
Ok, my train of thought is basically that if the current expansion of the universe isn't actually explained by the Big Bang… why bother with it? I mean, given the possibility that the Big Bang started the expansion but something else is causing it to accelerate, or that there was no Big Bang and that something else caused the expansion in the first place… which one does Occam's Razor support?
@ Capt. Phileas J. Werewolf
The problem is that when most people talk about “evolution”, they're not talking a theory… they're talking about a thousand or so loosely connected theories (more commonly known in the scientific field as the “evolution model”). The idea that genes change over time and the more beneficial ones are more likely to survive? Yea, I don't have much issue with that. But, using that theory to explain how all life on Earth got here I think is a bit more problematic than most proponents say it is.
The thing is that evolution isn't the best way of explaining how self replicating proteins evolved into living organisms. Firstly because proteins can't self replicate on their own. And secondly because proteins don't “evolve”. They're too stable to change like that (which is a good thing considering it's what we're made). It's the instability of DNA that allows for evolution. But, I realize that probably wasn't your point.
Still “no”, though, as there just isn't any evidence that shows that's possible. It seems about as likely to me that self replicating molecules could evolve into cells as it is that self replicating molecules could evolve into cars.
I would put myself into the category of “we really don't have enough information right now and scientists are wasting to much time just trying to confirm their previous assumptions”. I mean, if Earth were seeded with something as complex as, say, bacteria, than yea sure… we may have evolved from that. Anything before the Cambrian explosion I'm going to see as some what problematic, though (yes, I know that scientists are fairly certain there was some of life around before that, but the direct evidence showing exactly what was around is lacking to say the least).
@ the last several posts
I tend to think of a “theory” as our best guess with the information currently available. It's hardly “just a guess”, but it's hardly certain either.
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This article, once again, reminds me why I love you, Bob. Yeah, I might disagree with some of you movie critiques or your general misanthropy… But damn, when you're right, you're fucking right.
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@ssmit
“But how will you support your wonderful safety net without a base of young, working people to pay for all those old, nonworking people. There is more than one reason so many European countries are going bankrupt. Just something to think about.”
If automation keeps progressing the production capacity will far exceed the number of people needed to maintain the machines. And no matter what anyone tells you the IT and engineering jobs needed to maintain and design the machines will not replace the manual labor jobs that have been eliminated.
Computers are even partly designing new computers these days. The job of optimizing and layout (where they turn the unoptimized design into an actual physically optimized chip layout and from that make a mask used to burn the actual chips) used to be done by a team of engineers, now they just feed it into a computer program and it spits out the mask used to burn the chips an hour later. And it's much, much better at it than the people it replaced.
So yeah, there's a Skynet future coming where computers design newer faster computers. About the best outcome we can hope for is that humanity merges with their technology rather than being simply replaced by it.
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“If you are “certain [the theory of evolution] is true”, then you are certain it's predictions are true, and it ceases to be scientific because you don't test certainties, you test uncertainties”
Hence my “As far as the current knowledge allows us”: one of the most frequently used creationists' lies is to pretend that a few uncertainties about evolutions = still uncertainties while the huge holes in the “God micromanaged everything related to life” = mer incertainties, therefore evolution is not more valid than creationist fiction: this is this unacceptable fallacy that is at the core of the “Evolution is just a theory” schtick.
The fact (heh) remains that on a scale between “Truth without error” and “Unbelievable fable”, evolution is much closer to the former while creatonism is entirely the later
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@ Nixou
“The fact (heh) remains that on a scale between “Truth without error” and “Unbelievable fable”, evolution is much closer to the former while creatonism is entirely the later”
The problem is that there is no such scale. “Truth without error” and “unbelievable fable” are not only not opposites, they can actually over-lap quite often. Just look into quantum entanglement some time. The real difference between “scientific” and “unscientific” is how you treat it. If you treat something like it's an absolute truth, beyond debate and new discovery, it ceases to be scientific. That's the biggest reason I've become so cynical of the scientific community and “followers of science” in general over the last few years.
There is no level of certainty behind the evolution model, nor can there ever be for it to be scientific. In nearly every field, scientists realize that a discovery could be made tomorrow that throws out the last few decades of theories. Evolution is no different.
Creationism generally isn't scientific because most of it's proponents treat it like absolute truth. Evolution can't fall into that same trap.
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@Narf
You are factually incorrect about a number of things, including what you think words mean in the scientific community. Let's start at the beginning.
The Big Bang Theory is a retro-predictive theory regarding initial states and the origins. It explains more or less the state of the universe up until the recent acceleration (which began maybe a billion years ago so far as current evidence tells us). The addition of the dark energy hypothesis doesn't contradict the Big Bang Theory, and is added to the theory to explain the current expansion. Currently, there are many questions left unanswered (Eg what causes dark energy), but nothing about it contradicts the theory, and unless we find the cause contradicts the theory, it is still more or less conceptually and empirically valid and sound, respectively.
Now regarding evolution, you're using words, and attributing them to “the scientific community”, but the way you're using them does not cohere with how the actual scientific community. For example, your treatment of “The Theory of Evolution” and “The Evolution Model”. A model and a theory are certainly related, but not in the way you claim it is. Theories are descriptive and explanatory. Models are just descriptive. Therefore, models are (or can be) a subset of theories, but theories are not subsets of models. For example, The Standard Model is an integral part in any theory explaining Quantum Electrodynamics. Your error was claiming that “the evolutionary model” is “[made up of] about a thousand loosely connected theories”. This is factually incorrect, and conceptually contradictory.
You go on to describe The Theory of Evolution pitfall of failing to describe the evolution of proteins. The theory of evolution doesn't talk about this at all. The theory of evolution describes and explains how species (read: life) changes over time. It doesn't describe or explain how proteins (read: non-life) cause life to emerge. This is a relevant topic in biology, and people working in abiogenesis are working on developing a theory to describe and explain these processes, but it is not a part of the theory of evolution. Evolution deals with what happens after the first organisms came to be, not how the first organisms came to be.
Finally, you're still wrong in saying a theory is a “guess”. It's not only not “just a guess”, it's not a “guess” at all. It's an collection of explanations and descriptions. Some rooted in observable fact, some rooted in assumptions. The Theory of Evolution, for example, assumes that at one point there wasn't life, and at some future point there was. Complaining that evolution doesn't explain that is akin to complaining that The Theory of Special Relativity doesn't explain why the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames. Special Relativity describes the consequences of that assumption, and it's confirmed predictions give weight to the truth of that assumption. It's important to note that the assumptions themselves do not constitute “guesses” either. There are not only observable reasons to assume that the speed of light is constant and independent of inertial reference frames (or that at one point there was no life, and at another point in the future there was), but they also cohere with the outcomes of several other theories (results in Electromagnetism tell us that c is constant and independent of inertial reference frames, and geology tells us that there was a time when there was no life on earth, while cosmology tells us there was a time when it was impossible for molecules to form).
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This may seem like a semantic argument regarding definitions, but in truth it is not, as you go on to use these false equivocations to describe and critique the attitude of the scientific community. Just like the scientists (and everyone doing anything), you are using assumptions to build your argument, but your assumptions are factually incorrect, so it doesn't matter that your cynical attitude may be a valid consequent of these assumptions, as they are false.
You seem to think “certainty” and “uncertainty” are binary relationships. This, again, is simply not true. You can be more certain about a series of propositions then you can another. This is why we use statistics in scientific investigation. If an experiment shows a 95% success rate of some hypothesis, and a 25% success rate for a competing hypothesis, we go with the 95% hypothesis. If it turns out that we later find out that we erred 95% of the time, and that 75% failure rate can be also accounted for, we revise our hypothesis. Evolution will do this. When we find a golden retriever fossil from the Cambrian explosion, we will revise out theories. Shit we've done it very recently (on a timescale of months) regarding the history of human evolution (see: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/211641/20110910/fossils-evolution-human-ancestry-missing-link-south-africa-gamechanger.htm). Now, due to this discovery, we're working on a way to revise the theory to understand it. If it turns out that a key element of evolutionary theory contradicts what we've found, it will be revised. This is the STRENGTH of science, that uncertainty breeds the ability to rethink our theories, their assumptions, etc… when we have reason to do so.
@Nixou
I think we're more or less on the same page. I would just be more careful in the future when describing terms like “theories” lest they be taken advantage of by the likes of anti-scientific scum.
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@ Matt
A lot of stuff there. I'll try to respond to most of it.
I guess my question would have to be then: Why is the Big Bang a theory worth revising? What observable/testable evidence exists today that the Big Bang is the most reasonable explanation for? Something that isn't just as easily explained away as probably having been caused by dark energy or some other naturally occurring phenomena, or any theory that would give the universe a set beginning.
I may have used the wrong terms, but I don't think we necessarily disagree here so perhaps you can clear me up. The idea that I was trying to get across was that there is a distinct difference between the theory that life evolves over time, and the thousands of theories trying to explain how life on Earth evolved to what it is today. And that, unfortunately, most people see the 2 as interchangeable when they really aren't.
“You go on to describe The Theory of Evolution pitfall of failing to describe the evolution of proteins.”
Actually I didn't. You should read the post I was replying to. Werewolf suggested that evolution would be the best explanation for how proto-life became life, and that was the claim I was refuting. My initial arguments over abiogenesis were less against evolution as they were to show how the ideas behind intelligent design could be applied in a scientific way.
I think our problem is that “guess” simply isn't a well defined scientific term. According to Dictionary.com a “guess” is: “to arrive at or commit oneself to an opinion about (something) without having sufficient evidence to support the opinion fully“, and that's the understanding of the term I have. Merriam Webster says “to form an opinion of from little or no evidence“, so I suppose it's an issue of what definition of you're using. But, when I posted it I was using the former.
“Certain” is the same sort of issue. I was using the common definition (Dictionary.com: “known or proved to be true, incapable of failing”), not the scientific definition.
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@narf
Almost everything about Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation points to TBBT being the best explanation at the moment. No other theory of cosmological origins explains CMBR as well as TBBT does (except perhaps, in time, the revised cyclic theory). Everything from the fact that it exists, to the heat and matter distribution is explained with TBBT. It is, perhaps, the most overwhelmingly successful prediction made by modern physics. But more than that, it's worth revising because up until a few nanoseconds after the initial conditions, everything coheres with our other physical science theories (Quantum Electrodynamics, Thermodynamics, etc…). Coherence is HUGE in science, especially physics (mainly because we are so damned good at physics).
As for evolution, my point is that the theory that explains that life evolves also explains how it evolves. That's what the Theory of Evolution is. If it just explained that life evolved, then it wouldn't be a scientific theory (as it would offer no explanation, and integral part of all scientific theories). The issue here, I think, may be the application of the ToE to species, and how to interpret the facts and observations we have about species now and in the past within the evolutionary framework (I think this is what you mean by the thousand or so other theories of evolution). If you oppose this kind of interpretation (using theories to interpret facts), then you have an issue with all of science. But that's what theories are for. Without theories to interpret facts, we're left with absolutely nothing but useless information. Try it in another field. Explain the fact that a candle burns without referencing atomic theory or thermodynamics. You can't do it. That's precisely how the “live evolves” theory of evolution and “how specific species evolves” thousands of theories of evolution are intrinsically linked. They, put simply, are the same thing. One's results are interpreted within the framework of the others.
As for your next bit, yeah you're probably right, the ToE doesn't explain proteins evolving. Sorry for the confusion. My fault. It would seem that werewolf made the error I was accusing you of making.
As for guess… the issue with dictionary definitions is they often omit connotation. The word “guess”, when referenced to the word “theory”, has an extreme negative connotation. Precisely because “sufficient evidence” is relative. This is especially true in the Evolution/ID “debate”. IDers will refuse to admit that the ToE meets a sufficient evidence criterion that ID does not even come close to meeting. Ie they are implicitly falsely equivocating. This is such a common occurrence that the connotation of the word “guess” has become negative. Moreover, you seem to also be of the opinion that the ToE does not meet a sufficient evidence criteria. But this is a result of your concern about applying the “thousand or so theories” to the one ToE, I think. To which I refer you to my previous argument, and add that the “thousand or so theories” aren't merely guesses, but interpretations of the results in the ToE. So, saying any theory is a “guess” is a at best a misunderstanding of the word theory, or at worst a huge category error.
As for certainty, any scientist would be a fool to use the word “certain” in the context that you described, and when they do I would gather they are using it merely for pragmatic purposes. Repeated 95% success rates account for their use of “certainty”, if they were to ever use such a term. Quite honestly though, this is more an issue of rhetoric when debating anti-scientific scum. And in my humble opinion, it is playing right into their hand, despite the fact that lawyers and what passes for modern-day theologians should not be the ones setting the terms of debate, that's for the scientists and philosophers to do.
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@ Matt
Researching CMBR results in far to many websites that just quote Wikipedia word for word. Anyway…
CMBR wasn't exactly a “overwhelmingly successful prediction“. The original prediction estimated a temperature of 50° K. Later predictions put it between 5° and 45°. It's observed at 2.7° K, a not insubstantial difference.
Even taking the modern interpretation of CMBR at it's word, it doesn't actually point to a Big Bang like singularity event, but to a point when the universe was substantially smaller and more dense than it is today about 400k years after the Big Bang supposedly happened.
There's also some interesting evidence that CMBR really doesn't fit the models all that well at all. Up to and including the possibility that it may in fact be a localized phenomena.
The one thing I did constantly find in my research, though, was that there are in fact an ever growing amount of scientists who are just as skeptical as I am. So, I guess I'm happy about that.
Ok, I don't oppose the idea of using theories to interpret facts… I oppose the idea that the theory and the interpretation are synonymous. That if I accept the theory I must therefor accept the interpretations, or that if I disagree with an interpretation I must be rejecting the theory. For instance, if I were to say that, oh… I don't believe that modern organisms evolved from prokaryotes, I'm not rejecting ToE as a whole. Just that one interpretation.
This is the problem I, and other proponents of Intelligent Design, have when we poke holes in “evolution”. I'm not repudiating Evolution as a whole, just certain interpretations made with it. One would assume this would be a pretty obvious idea with-in the scientific community… that one could be skeptical of a specific interpretation without rejecting the whole theory. Yet it always seem to be them who keep pushing Evolution and Intelligent Design as an “either/or” choice. They're not, and I've never said they were.
I've debated a many of people who've used “certainty” in just that context. There are a shockingly large amount of people out there who see things like the Big Bang or abiogenesis as absolute certainties beyond question. Now, you could say these people simply don't understand how science actually works.. and you'd be right. But, they easily out number the proponents of the same ideas who do. Shit, just look at the comments for any random YouTube video about creationism or ID.
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@narf
But you see, the fact that CMBR exists at all is the astronomical support of TBBT. And notice how things like the incorrect temperature did not contradict the theory at all, but rather once they found the results and studied them, were able to be interpreted within the framework of TBBT. CMBR is exactly what one would expect to find as a result of a rapid inflationary period following a period of extreme density.
I've never heard of the lack of gravitational lensing phenomenon before. I'll have to look into that and see what's happened since then.
But, as I think I said in my first comment for this post (if I'm wrong it doesn't matter, because I'm saying it now), this problem (and others mentioned in your link to the open letter to new scientist) are all good for TBBT. The fact that there are problems means that there's more science to be done! If it turns out that TBBT is falsified as a result of investigations into these problems, that's GOOD! That means that scientists are going to have to continue doing science instead of retiring. As it stands now, however, TBBT is still the best explanation we have. It's not perfect, but (and I'm sure we'll both agree on this) neither is any scientific theory at all! It's like what Stephen Hawking said about the Higgs Boson, and forgive my paraphrasing I couldn't be bothered to look up the exact quote, if the LHC finds it great, that means we're on the right track… but if we don't find it, that'll be far more interesting because we'll have to find out why the track we're on works so well in some cases and fails so miserably in others. As I mentioned earlier, the cyclic model seems to be coming back (slowly), and if it pans out, if it can explain what TBBT hasn't been able to (Eg the new cyclic model explains the recent acceleration of the growth of the universe in a more rigorous way than dark energy seems to in TBBT), that's great! I still wouldn't regard TBBT as a placeholder though, because, so far as any other previous theory is concerned, it is still the best explanation we've got. If we find a better one, that's all the more reason to celebrate. But we really don't have a whole lot of contradictory observations to reject TBBT, as there are potential discoveries that will support it [what dark matter is (they're working on it and they've got a few leads, moreover there are non-BBT related observations that suggest it's out there), what dark energy is (yeah we really don't know shit about it right now but some more very theoretical stuff may account for it)].
As for your first point about evolution, I agree. And, you know what, so do the people doing the science. Those that don't, if I may be so bold, are bad scientists. A theory is bad if it only admits one interpretation of facts, as it is far too rigid and the purpose of a theory is to be general. But the relevant issue is why you reject these interpretations. Quite frankly, the why that most IDers offer is not scientific.
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Now onto the greater issue… the holes in evolution. The problem is that the IDers don't actually poke holes in evolution. They bring up things like the eye, and even quote mine Darwin himself regarding this one, and say it cannot be interpreted in an evolutionary context. It can be, and has been, and we've even found plenty of evidence to suggest that the evolutionary interpretation is correct. This is what the IDers do, and it shows they don't do their research and don't actually know what they are talking about. Moreover, this tactic is what gives rise to the “either/or” choice. The design proponents think that the holes in the ToE point to design. Read guys like Behe and they say things like “Bacteria Flagellum demonstrate an irreducibly complex system that can't have evolved and can only have been designed” (not an actual quote… although it very well could be). This is the sort of thing I was alluding to before about the pro-evolution crowd fighting on their opponent's terms. Which brings me too…
You being absolutely right, people on “my side” do use certainty in that context. And they are wrong. But these aren't scientists, and when they are they are likely motivated by the pettiness of their ego. You'll far more often see in the proper scientific community (not undergraduate scientific enthusiasts who have never devised an experiment without their professor's guidance) doing things like making bets about whose theory will pan out, and living up to those bets when they turn out to be wrong. There are lots of stories like this in the physics community (Hawking betting Leonard Susskind a playboy subscription that information is destroyed in black holes, for example).
The fact that you bring up the number of people that use these terms unscientifically really just tells me why you assumed I thought that way as well, and I think you know it doesn't actually hold any weight with me that other people are idiots when talking about science (afterall, I pretty well repeated the same point in three different comments to three different people in this very thread). Likewise, I made assumptions about what you meant while I now know them to be an error (what you were referring to when you were talking about ID… c'mon just like the evolution proponents who are “certain” of abiogenesis, “Intelligent Design” is a pretty weighted term that most people claiming it to be scientific have absolutely no idea what science even is).
Anyways I've enjoyed this exchange and I think we've more or less reached a point where we have a pretty good understanding of the other's point of view, and it seems like if it continues we'll just be talking about how other people are bad at understanding the best rhetorical methods to employ in a scientific discussion. The only real things I disagree with you about is why we should continue with The Big Bang and whether or not your use of ID is a relevant scientific concept (the former which we've probably reached a philosophical impasse, and the latter of which hasn't really been at all the subject of our discussion). So… good show sir! I look forward to arguing with you next time Bob posts his opinions in a three line paragraph that deserve a lifetime of books and research to properly defend.
For everyone else: this is how you have a fuckin' discussion on the internet!
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