greekredemption

Is there not an argument to be had that the libertarian account of 'liberty' is too narrow or is otherwise not comprehensive enough?

Soooo... even if we accept the highly specious idea that a malformed skull is not human, it still contains DNA? What's the problem?

How about: P1: all observed stuff in the universe partakes in the principle of cause and effectP2: humans are stuff in the universeC: humans partake in cause and effect ----------------- P1: humans partake in cause and effectP2: free will definitionally exists outside of cause and effectC: humans cannot have free will Begging the question. This assumes there are in fact choices to be made. The determinist position suggests that there is not; only one route exists, all others are essentially illusory.

So instead of answering the question, I should read your mind? All I can do as a layman is address your objections, which I have done. If you need to educate yourself on evolution, there are plenty of places online to do that much better than I could.

I didn't say that. You asked how evolution would be falsified. I provided you with one example. Sure. Random mutation and non-random selection. So... I don't understand your point here. I... wait, what? The Starchild Skull is a deformed human skull. I don't understand where the alien shite comes from.

For a start, you're asking the wrong question. I think David Hume's thoughts on miracles are adequate enough to deal with this UFO stuff: That there are countless other explanations for 'lights in the sky', both more probable and easily evidenced, suggests that concluding 'UFOs' is somewhere near the bottom of the list. It's also curious how all these apparent sightings of UFOs are very grainy and don't actually show anything that couldn't be more easily and simply explained by, I don't know. lamps reflecting in a window, refraction, helicopters, etc, etc. And we're not seriously discussing the starchild skull, are we? Good god.

It's worth bearing in mind that for most social contract theories, the agreement is between people, not between people and state.

Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life, and doesn't seek to. It only explains the diversity of life. You're talking about abiogenesis, for which there isn't really a strong explanation.

"Just because a theory explains an observation, doesn't mean that theory is correct." You're quite right, it doesn't mean it's correct. It does however mean the theory is the best available explanation. Evolution explains observations and has made predictions which have been borne out by subsequent investigation (e.g. by genetics, which tied up rather well with the existing evolutionary framework). I don't know how else that can be written that will help you understand the nature of a theory. I also think you need to explain this extra-terrestrials hypothesis, because at this point I'm not sure how it explains any observation which may impact evolution, let alone how it may replace evolution. Well it would play rather well for creationists, who don't even recognise that there is such a thing as geological layers. So if those gosh darn evolushonists found a rabbit in a layer of rock older than the food rabbits eat, it'd seem to vindicate their point of view, don't you think? And for the theory of evolution it would indeed pose a problem. Of course, if ONE rabbit - or what seems to be a rabbit - was found in the precambrian, against the weight of the rest of the evidence supporting evolution it'd probably not matter. But if it came as one of several animals implicitly predicted by evolutionary theory not to exist before a given time, then, well, evolution would have to be re-thought. So, yes, it is a good example of falsification. If scientists started finding rabbits, camels, bats or even humans in the precambrian, evolution would to some extent be thrown into doubt.

I wasn't giving you evidence for evolution, I was dealing with your objections to it... from what I can see, none of my points begs any question. And anyway, yes, one of the predictions of evolution is that all species are necessarily transitional. This does seem to explain apparent morphological similarities between species and fossils throughout natural history... and is backed up by genetic investigation AND lab experiments where we've observed this perpetual (albeit punctuated) transitioning. But I don't think you need me to give you evidence for evolution; there is a wealth of information on these here Internets, and, being honest, I'm only a layman. The problem is that evolution a) describes very well the diversity of life on Earth and b) makes testable and useful predictions. As things stand right now, the reason the theory of evolution hasn't been "disproved" is that the theory explains the facts very, very well indeed. Your point about the self-interest of scientists is well-understood, but it can and does apply to any field of study, so it seems unfair to single out evolution in this way (or indeed to use it as evidence that evolution is a big scam). This is the classic answer.

It assumes there is indeed a childhood origin of infidelity. Which there may not be. In hindsight my answer gave only the ultimate cause for infidelity. I suppose what the OP wants is a more proximate cause (of which there are no doubt many and varied reasons).

I think the question itself is begging the question. And it doesn't seem as if the question is itself an ought.

Indeed! edit: And to build on the criticism of defining species by production of fertile offspring, it should be pointed out that this is the exception rather than the rule. In the majority of cases a animal groups can indeed be defined in that way. An interesting article on Grizzly and Polar bears: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/05/pizzly_bears.html Again, this is a problem for taxonomy, NOT evolution.

I will try! There are many things wrong with this paragraph. Firstly: All species are necessarily transitional. Secondly: Where the concept of the transitional fossil may be useful - in that it would also add to the fossil record and provide more exact information on dates, features, etc - is when we can show that a class of animal we see today derived from a class of animal we have identified in the past. Obviously this is not exact, but it doesn't really provide any problems for evolution per se, only for our taxonomic identification. For instance, Coelacanth has features both of tetrapods and primitive fish. This is interesting. It gives a reference around which other discoveries can be based. But in itself it is not crucial. Thirdly: An order can have extant species and yet can still contribute to an understanding of the fossil record. It matters not that two species of Coelacanth still roam the earth today; what's interesting is that a species with an age of ~360 million years has been discovered and yet the extant species are not majorly different. That's interesting! Fourthly: I can't really comment on the neanderthal thing because I don't know the history of it, but in terms of saying 'Evolutionary scientists have proven not to be credible', I'll paste what I said earlier in this thread: What's next Another great example is that of ring species: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species This seems to defy traditional definitions of species. However... I don't think this is really a problem for evolution. As with the idea of the transitional fossil, the idea of a species only makes sense in a snapshot of time, and even then it doesn't tally with how evolution actually works (i.e. it is to a larger or lesser extent a continuous process and therefore not necessarily discrete, which defies exact categorisation). The simplest answer is to say that taxonomy is created by humans to make it slightly easier to understand the relationships between discovered species fossils. The fact it gets fuzzy around the edges is a problem for taxonomy, not evolution. Two things: 1) features don't necessarily evolve singularly. This is the same problem as I described earlier with taxonomy. We tend to think of 'the eye' and 'the brain' as discrete entities, but in evolutionary terms this is not necessarily so. In fact, consider how even in two quite closely related species - humans and dogs - their brains are geared more towards certain senses (dogs with smell, humans with eyesight). This suggests the whole system develops together rather than modularly. 2) "If a feature gives an evolutionary neutral advantage, the feature will go away over several generations because mutations that degrade outnumber the mutations that improve." Could you expand on this?

Can confirm this is official UK policy.

Perhaps it's because infidelity, particularly in men, confers an evolutionary advantage.

Can you talk more about these 'agreed upon norms' and elaborate on what exactly an 'implicit contract' is?

How so? Perhaps we ought to define 'harm'.

Yes but suppose you started a chain which resulted in harm, albeit unintentional. Are you responsible?

This sounds like the problem of induction to me.

Nowhere did I accept your refutation. My point still stands that a performative contradiction does not necessarily mean that the original claim is untrue. And I'm not playing 'the god card', I'm merely attempting to demonstrate that your apparent performative contradiction regarding free will does not tally with the observed facts of the universe, which ergo means that performative contradictions alone cannot show a thing to be an untruth. On the one hand you say that if a person says 'There is no free will' they are demonstrating it and therefore it is real. On the other hand, I'm showing that free will cannot exist within the universe barring some specific mechanism which allows it to exist outside the laws of reality as we know it. I gave a syllogism further up the thread to show this. The contradiction is not a performative one, but rather a clash between reality and perception. And I submit that perception - in this context, believing something is so - does not override reality.

Well, quite. It is an uncomfortable case of cognitive dissonance. I think it was Christopher Hitchens who said, "I have free will because I have no other choice." It's a nice summary of the apparent contradiction between reality and perception. However, the proponent of free will has all her work ahead of her. Demonstrating that the human brain exists outside of the universe is quite a task.

...right, but that still does not mean the thing "that...they claim to reject" actually exists. Believing something to be so does not necessarily lead to that thing being so. This is a very basic point, and I'm surprised at the weight being given to apparent performative contradictions; this account of free will seems to me to lack rigour.

Yet this simply is not true. The act of arguing against a free will position - that is to say, having any kind of position - does not necessitate the existence of free will. It may well be that this or any other discussion was causally determined to occur. Indeed, this seems a more likely scenario given the paucity of evidence that the human brain is capable of existing outside of the universe, which is effectively what a free will argument claims.

A performative contradiction doesn't necessarily make the original claim untrue. The inclusion of the 'superficial' is merely to say all may not be as it appears. If there is a contradiction, perhaps there is an unresolved question beyond appearances. Perhaps we are using the wrong definitions, or perhaps perception and reality do not immediately reconcile. Perhaps we can use more formal logic on free will, or, indeed, determinism. P1: all observed stuff in the universe partakes in the principle of cause and effectP2: humans are stuff in the universeC: humans partake in cause and effect P1: humans partake in cause and effectP2: free will definitionally exists outside of cause and effect C: humans cannot have free willOf course this all comes with the important caveat that randomness may be built in to the universe. Any thoughts? You assume first that the response is the result of free will. You have not yet established this, therefore you cannot conclude that it establishes free Will on the basis that it establishes free will. As CptArcher says, it's begging the question.