[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[John 6IX Breezy]

In my opinion, when evolution stays within the realm of counting allele frequencies in a population over time it remains fairly accurate and falsifiable.

However, when it attempts to recreate histories and phylogenies, it becomes fairly pseudoscientific. In many cases, particularly when it comes to speculating about the adaptation for something, the very existence of a possible explanation is treated as if it were the evidence itself as long as it is consistent with the theory. Adaptive stories tend to have a cherry picking element to them.

[The Grand Nudger]

How pseudoscientific is a paternity test?

[John 6IX Breezy]

How pseudoscientific is a paternity test?

I don't know how such tests are done. Assuming it's by comparing the DNA of the child with the father, its not pseudoscientific. However, if paternity tests are done without the DNA of the father for comparison, and you guess who the father is just from the DNA of the child, that sounds problematic.

The latter resembles evolution more. Reconstructing ancestral lineages by mostly looking at contemporary ones, and the occasional fossil.

[The Grand Nudger]

Do we really need to know who someone’s parents were to assume that they had them, and that their dna is derived from them?

If you give me human dna, is it safe to assume a human parent?

Is shared dna indicative of shared lineage?

In short, I’m asking you whether there’s anything unscientific (or even different) about evolutionary biology, compared to what you do accept of biology.....or if you simply use that as a way of communicating your preference for a literal reading of some portion of a myth.

[John 6IX Breezy]

In short, I’m asking you whether there’s anything unscientific (or even different) about evolutionary biology, compared to what you do accept of biology.....or if you simply use that as a way of communicating your preference for a literal reading of some portion of a myth.

I think scientists can be unscientific at times. Phylogenies are classified as hypotheses, for example. The moment someone treats them as verified observations, as you seem to have done by comparing them to paternity tests, it becomes unscientific. Trait adaptations are often unverifiable hypotheses; the moment such hypotheses are treated as verified just because they are consistent with the theory, it becomes unscientific.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, scientists can be unscientific. They’re human beings.

We were discussing whether evolutionary biology was unscientific. Or different, even, from what parts of biology you do accept.

Is a hypothesis, both consistent with theory and consistent with observations....but unverifiable due to lack of a time machine....

......unscientific....?

In what way, specifically? Additionally, how does that tie in with literal and non literal interpretations in your beliefs?

[John 6IX Breezy]

We were discussing whether evolutionary biology was unscientific. Or different, even, from what parts of biology you do accept.

Is a hypothesis, both consistent with theory and consistent with observations....but unverifiable due to lack of a time machine....

......unscientific....?

In what way, specifically? Additionally, how does that tie in with literal and non literal interpretations in your beliefs?

You're discussing whether evolutionary biology is unscientific. I'm discussing Acrobat's question of how to choose between competing explanations for things such as sacrifice, and whether choosing anything at all is cherry picking; my answer is that you can't choose between such explanations and often "cherry picking" is what's done.

Verifiability is the soul of a hypothesis, not consistency. If a hypothesis requires a time machine to test it, and instead you lean on how consistant it is with theory, that's unscientific.

[EgoDeath]

Because it’s fairly implausible that the writer/s of the story intended it to be literal. If he did, it probably would have started off with how he miraculously acquired knowledge of beginnings of creation.

But how do you know this? What makes you think that it would of started of with the author of Genesis talking about how they gained the knowledge? The OT was written in a completely different time, in a different context, no? What makes you think it would be treated the same way as the gospels? How do you discern this?

The virgin birth is only two of the gospels accounts, and Matthew ties it to prophecy in Isaiah, that he might have misinterpreted as indicating the messiah would be born of a virgin.

Judging that he tied it to a prophecy of the messiah, it does appear that he expected his readers to take it literally, as a fulfillment of the prophecy.

Meaning, what? How do you know that "tying it to prophecy" somehow makes it literal? How do you know there isn't a bigger metaphor in there somewhere? See, you're not really explaining anything. You're just talking out of your ass and hoping it will make me go away.

[The Grand Nudger]

You’ve placed a limit of presentism in science, and ruled out explanations consistent with well evidenced theories. Unfortunately, that rules science out as unscientific....but at least it gives us insight into your beliefs.

This, however, is novel to you. If this is how you make choices (say, genesis or evolutionary biology) then sure.....you’re just cherry picking. Others might exclusively refer to only those explanations consistent with theory and whatever evidence presentism can offer. In which case they’re not doing anything at all like imagining that science is unscientific, declaring all options equal.

[John 6IX Breezy]

The only limits I've placed on science are those of verification and falsification, not presentism (whatever that may be).