@Noflaps said in #50:
> But we use our ability to describe something with mathematics (often more approximately than we realize) in order to comfort ourselves with a notion that it is in any case a naive waste of time to contemplate, or even really notice, our profound unknowing. Note Katzenschinken's response to me: "So what?"
That's not my take on not knowing. My take is: Stick to the facts. You can hypothesize but you have to base it on supporting facts. If you don't have those then make sure to get them before sticking your head out of the window and yelling some incoherent mumbojumbo into the landscape.
> I think I'm being accused, sub silento, of favoring a "God o' the Gaps."
Well, at least you were talking of some sort of "Consciousness", spelled with a capital C. One could indeed be led to believe you were thinking of some god entity. As you didn't mention a god I didn't use the term "God of the Gaps" and instead asked for clarification. Which you unfortunately did not provide.
> A somewhat condescending way of describing people who are unwilling to believe that a current scientific "theory" is necessarily the last word really needed, and who push God or spirituality or even doubt itself as a pacifier for the weak-minded or uneducated.
The God-of-the-Gaps argument does not apply to people who just doubt a scientific theory. You are misrepresenting that term. It is specifically used by people who fill the unknowns with God or even reject scientific theories that they don't understand and replace it with the machinations of the invisible man. Something which I indeed consider intellectual laziness at least.
> A "theorem" in mathematics is irrefutable so long as (or to the extent that) the axioms at its foundation are -- and logic itself is -- correct.
Agreed.
> But other sciences -- say biology -- do not truly or always share this near certainty with mathematics. The "theories" supported by "evidence" are created inductively -- and induction does NOT carry with it the virtual certainty that deduction (the pillar of mathematics) does.
Again, I agree. That's the reason why in the natural sciences (even in physics) you never claim to have reached the final truth.
However, this should not deter from the fact that a theory - as much as we don't consider it to be the ultimate truth - can stand on very firm ground and has a very solid body of evidence for it. Evolution has that. And to attack it you need more than "I don't believe that 7 million years of evolution are enough to separate us from the chimp" or "To me there seems a secret Consciousness guiding our evolution".
> By the way, my use of the word "magic" was merely a rhetorical device -- to get across a point.
If that was the case it certainly was not helpful to talk of an undefined 'Consciousness' that applies, erm, conscious guidance (which you could call magic) on which mutations take place within two populations of Sahelanthropus tchadensis (or whatever the last common ancestor between humans and chimps was), one leading to Homo sapiens, the other leading to Pan troglodytes.
> Furthermore, 7 million years, or 10 million, is NOT convincingly long enough to evolve by wise or impulsive procreation the astonishing complexity of body and brain.
First: Body and brain didn't start 7 or 10 million years ago at zero.
Second: For drastical changes in the body appearance within short time just take the example of dogs. A German Shepherd looks different enough to wolves but take Chihuahuas, Great Danes, Poodles, Pugs... All done within 30,000 years of evolution, even if most of it was done not by natural but artificial (human-lead) selection.
I have to repeat myself: As long as you don't provide a bit more this just sounds like an argument from personal incredulity.
> And, I must point out, some highly significant "evolution" has taken place in a much shorter time than that. Homo Sapiens appeared and supplanted Homo Erectus in a much shorter time.
The differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are not that big anymore. And from the earliest Homo erectus to us we still have about 2 million years of time.
> But we use our ability to describe something with mathematics (often more approximately than we realize) in order to comfort ourselves with a notion that it is in any case a naive waste of time to contemplate, or even really notice, our profound unknowing. Note Katzenschinken's response to me: "So what?"
That's not my take on not knowing. My take is: Stick to the facts. You can hypothesize but you have to base it on supporting facts. If you don't have those then make sure to get them before sticking your head out of the window and yelling some incoherent mumbojumbo into the landscape.
> I think I'm being accused, sub silento, of favoring a "God o' the Gaps."
Well, at least you were talking of some sort of "Consciousness", spelled with a capital C. One could indeed be led to believe you were thinking of some god entity. As you didn't mention a god I didn't use the term "God of the Gaps" and instead asked for clarification. Which you unfortunately did not provide.
> A somewhat condescending way of describing people who are unwilling to believe that a current scientific "theory" is necessarily the last word really needed, and who push God or spirituality or even doubt itself as a pacifier for the weak-minded or uneducated.
The God-of-the-Gaps argument does not apply to people who just doubt a scientific theory. You are misrepresenting that term. It is specifically used by people who fill the unknowns with God or even reject scientific theories that they don't understand and replace it with the machinations of the invisible man. Something which I indeed consider intellectual laziness at least.
> A "theorem" in mathematics is irrefutable so long as (or to the extent that) the axioms at its foundation are -- and logic itself is -- correct.
Agreed.
> But other sciences -- say biology -- do not truly or always share this near certainty with mathematics. The "theories" supported by "evidence" are created inductively -- and induction does NOT carry with it the virtual certainty that deduction (the pillar of mathematics) does.
Again, I agree. That's the reason why in the natural sciences (even in physics) you never claim to have reached the final truth.
However, this should not deter from the fact that a theory - as much as we don't consider it to be the ultimate truth - can stand on very firm ground and has a very solid body of evidence for it. Evolution has that. And to attack it you need more than "I don't believe that 7 million years of evolution are enough to separate us from the chimp" or "To me there seems a secret Consciousness guiding our evolution".
> By the way, my use of the word "magic" was merely a rhetorical device -- to get across a point.
If that was the case it certainly was not helpful to talk of an undefined 'Consciousness' that applies, erm, conscious guidance (which you could call magic) on which mutations take place within two populations of Sahelanthropus tchadensis (or whatever the last common ancestor between humans and chimps was), one leading to Homo sapiens, the other leading to Pan troglodytes.
> Furthermore, 7 million years, or 10 million, is NOT convincingly long enough to evolve by wise or impulsive procreation the astonishing complexity of body and brain.
First: Body and brain didn't start 7 or 10 million years ago at zero.
Second: For drastical changes in the body appearance within short time just take the example of dogs. A German Shepherd looks different enough to wolves but take Chihuahuas, Great Danes, Poodles, Pugs... All done within 30,000 years of evolution, even if most of it was done not by natural but artificial (human-lead) selection.
I have to repeat myself: As long as you don't provide a bit more this just sounds like an argument from personal incredulity.
> And, I must point out, some highly significant "evolution" has taken place in a much shorter time than that. Homo Sapiens appeared and supplanted Homo Erectus in a much shorter time.
The differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are not that big anymore. And from the earliest Homo erectus to us we still have about 2 million years of time.