Mad Dawg: "To claim there is a number and then say the sum of our knowledge of that number is comprised of the null set effectively negates the existence of that number."
If you are saying that the probability does not exists, you are rejecting the entire bayesian framework. I know an entire department who will be out of work at my university!. If you are saying it exist, but the fact i do not assign a value to it - in principle i can, but it would be subjective - somewhat negates my argument. Well, if you reread what i said i am only talking about processes which increases or decreases the probability, that does not depend on actually knowing its value. (and just to be really obnoxious: i used the halting probability for an n-bit program specifically because it is an uncomputeable number so good luck finding a value for that!)
Let me see if I understand you here:
Ø The probability of evolution being true is <1.
Ø The probability of creationism being true is >0.
Ø YET, you state you do not admit that evolution is partially false and creationism is partially true.
It is allmost correct but you are missing the essense: If i flip a coin but do not look at it, i will assign a probability of 1/2 to it being tails and 1/2 to it being heads. That does not mean it is partially heads, right? I am sorry if i am being anal because perhaps we are just using different words for the same things, but we are talking about math so it matters that we are exact. Regarding your fourth statement: I will say that the probability that creation is true is not 0, so i am not excluding that possibility. Do you assign a probability of 0 to evolution being true?
"If a rabbit were found next to a T-Rex, would you then assign a possibility of zero to evolution?".Strictly speaking: no. but i would reject evolution as we know it as framework for understanding how has changed on this planet. I would most likely believe some alien entity had had a hand in evolution, and i would very seriously consider if that entity was God.
"Do you understand that the lack of rabbits proves nothing?"That is exactly the point i showed with the calculation, so yes, i think understand that! Do you understand the points i was trying to make, and if yes, why are you restating them as questions to me?
"Do you realize that all the DNA in the world tells us exactly nothing of the DNA of animals that exist only as fossils?" Assuming evolution it does. Which can be turned into predictions about dna of current animals. Which can be observed. which i prooved for you increase the probability of evolution being true.
"What is this talk of genetic proof when you claim there are only probabilities?"Im sorry if i said proof, that was a mistake. I mean something that raise the probability very very much. Its very poor language on my part :-(.
"The scientific method requires that something be observable, measurable, and reproducible.
o Everyone agrees that there is at least a small degree of change in organisms. This does not prove horses evolved from dogs. Such a large degree of change has never been observed.
o Probability applies to historical events.
o Historical events cannot be tested."
Again, you do not understand me at all! the observations need to be reproducible, yes! but if we follow through your line of reasoning, we cannot say ANYTHING about the evolution of the universe since it is all history! You are advancing an argument per definition where you want to define science such that evolution is not science, and then claim victory.
I am talking about basic probability theory, the probability that evolution is true given evidence. You can make a definition of science that exclude evolution, geology and a large part of cosmology, but that does not change the point that certain observations, depending on how likely they are given the different theories, will increase or decrease the probability of evolution being true. Thats my point. Thats what YOU wrote was a misapplication of bayesian probability. Please point out where i am wrong.
Ummm… earlier you stated that evolution does not require the extinction of earlier life forms, are you now saying it does? How can we have organisms with similar traits today it the superior ones “drive(n) the other into extinction”? Sounds like an ad hoc explanation for what is seen in nature.
These are standard creationist arguments and i wont address them here, i will just note i said no such thing, all i am saying is that in an evolutionary process most species will go extinct and those who hang around will experience a lot of genetic drift.
Mitochondrial Eve deals only with humans – nothing else. Other species would have their own Mitochondrial Eve’s.
Well, read about the mitochondrial eve, i started a thread where i explained it to some details earlier. The same argument can be used on an inter-species level. You are just plain wrong, at least assuming evolution is true (and before you hit me on circular logic: i was calculatin P(O|E), so i specifically assumed evolution to be true there).
You really make this too easy. Because you arbitrarily assigned values to the variables in the equation, all that needs to be done is to assign different, equally arbitrary, values. It would also help you to understand what they say about common design.
Now do i... In the bayesian paradigme priors are subjective (unless we are talking very easy cases where symmetry arguments can be used), how we combine probabilities to affect the outcome is not. That being said, please write out in standard notation how you will do inference based on observations in a different way than i proposed. You claim its easy, i am not saying it cannot be done, i am just saing i cant really think of a way and i would like to be proved wrong.
And by the way. I doubt common design has anything to say about a pure math topic.
You would do well to actually read up on what creationists say about c 14 rather than trying to argue against a caricature of their arguments.
Yah it was a caricature. My point is that the creationists explanations rarely has any predictive power, but the evolutionists often have. For example, given all the theories on how C14 dating is wrong, can you think of one single nontrivial prediction that give rise to about the world?
Its not so bad your grand-grand-grand mom was a monkey. They have a much more healthy relationship to being naked than we do.
