Barry seems to have noticed TSZ again, and so I will take this opportunity of inviting him over here, where he can post freely, and will not be banned unless he posts porn or malware or outs someone, which I expect he can manage not to do.
And he responds to my post, Lawyers and Scientists. He does so in two parts, so I will devote two posts to them. Here is my response to his first part. Barry writes:
PART 1
First Liddle writes that I have
. . . confused the assumption of common descent with the conclusion of common descent, and thus detected circular reasoning where there is none.
Where did I do such a thing? Boiling that paragraph down I made the following claims:
- Common descent is not necessarily false.
- But Cladistics does not establish common descent one way or the other.
- Instead, cladograms are constructed ASSUMING common descent.
- It is circular reasoning to conclude that a technique establishes that which it assumes in the first place.
- Therefore, anyone who says that cladistics establishes the fact of common descent has used faulty reasoning and is mistaken.
- There are in fact people who make that mistake.
To establish beyond doubt point 6, Glen Davidson kindly jumps into Liddle’s own combox with this:
Barry: “This is not to say that common descent is necessarily false; only cladistics does not establish the matter one way or the other.”
Glen: “Of course it does. What a ridiculously ignorant dweeb.”
All six assertions seem to me to be on solid ground. Not only are they true, they are not even controversial. But for Liddle’s charge to be correct, at least one of the points I made must be false. OK Liddle, which of the six totally non-controversial points I have made do you disagree with? If the answer is “none,” then the only gracious thing to do is to withdraw your claim.
The short answer is that I disagree with 2-6, for the reasons I gave in my first post: the answer lies in null hypothesis testing. Far from “assuming a tree”, both linear correlations and tree distributions are tested by FITTING a slope/tree, and testing whether the best fit is a better fit than would be expected under the NULL of no linear relationship/no underlying tree structure. If, having fitted the slope/tree, the fit is no better than would be expected under the null of no linear relationship/no underlying nested hierarchy, then you RETAIN THE NULL. If it is better, i.e. if a fit as good as that observed is UNLIKELY under the null, you reject the null and consider your hypothesis (linear fit; common descent pattern) supported. Of course there could reasons other than common descent that could explain the tree – but the tree can be established as an OBSERVATION to be EXPLAINED. Which Linnaeus did before Darwin. And it was that clear tree that Darwin sought to explain by, firstly, Common Descent, and, secondly, by a mechanism that would explain adaptive change-over-time.
If Barry cannot understand that testing a NULL HYPOTHESIS is the OPPOSITE of assuming that your model is true, then perhaps he could shoot an email to the former owner of his site.
It is of course true that null hypothesis testing is counter-intuitive and doesn’t do what many of its practitioners think it does, but it’s still an excellent workhorse, and what’s more, is the beating heart of ID’s very own eleP(T|H)ant.
[My response to the second part will have to wait – I have some null hypotheses to test first….]
ETA: Looks like this response deals with Pt II at as well.
You already know what my alternative is. It involves platonic forms and a 4 dimensional grid.
My suggestion that we don’t worry ourselves so much on the hypothetical origin of species and instead look at their relative morphology and relationships to other species and the universe as a whole.
that is just me
peace
He does not. This discussion with him is too superficial and in generalities. You will have to go much more in-depth and explain what it is you actually do, why you do that, and then point out in simple, elaborate step by step fashion how the “tree is probably a warranted rational conclusion”.
What are all the key inferences, why are they made, why does the conclusion follow? You are talking with someone who knows nothing of the subject, so words like “bootstrap”, “nodes”, “branch length”, etc etc is just esoteric technobabble to him.
Premise 1) I can conceive of distinct species
Premise 2) God is smarter than me
Conclusion) God can conceive of distinct species.
this concludes the demonstration
peace
But what’s that an alternative to? It can’t be an alternative to phylogenetic analysis as phylogenetic analysis actually generates new information! Whereas you have been unable to generate a single data point from your “scheme” at all.
So if your scheme is an alternative to phylogenetic analysis then please analyse something and demonstrate that your alternative is actually useful!
Or make up an excuse why you can’t and continue to think as you are, it’s really up to you.
And you are 5 years old.
fifth,
This sort of thing is why people despair of having an intelligent conversation with you.
Science can’t “prove” negatives because it can’t “prove” anything, but it certainly gives us reasons to reject certain claims.
Scientifically literate people believe that n-rays don’t exist. They do so on scientific grounds, and they are justified in their rejection.
Do you disagree?
I agree with that. However, inductionism seems to be deeply ingrained in western culture.
The sad thing is, you are serious.
Ingrained in western culture does not equal “true” as I’m sure you would agree.
Lots of what we think are obvious self-evident truths are nothing but cultural castles of sand.
peace
The patterns are in the data.
If you are looking for imposition, then you are looking in the wrong place.
The world comes to us without data. What we impose, are our methods of getting useful data. And that implicitly imposes some structure on the data. If we use structured methods of getting data, then the data will reflect that structuring.
Now that is an interesting comment!!!
Have I told you that you and I could have some fun conversations on the front porch with a beverage?
peace
If you want your alternative to be used, then you must provide a compelling reason for people to swap over to it.
What’s the compelling reason?
The idea of ultimate truth is also ingrained in western Culture, though perhaps not as strongly ingrained as inductionism.
I suggest you apply that idea to your own “self-evident truths” about religion and revelation.
Yes, you have mentioned that. And I somewhat agree, except that I think your religious zeal might get in the way.
I really don’t care if my alternative is used. It’s no skin off my nose either way.
To each his own
What I’m bugged about is when people act as if their approach is the only possible one without providing a compelling reason for doing so.
What is the compelling reason?
peace
Ingrained in western culture does not equal true but it does not equal “not true” either 😉
It’s possible but I expect that we could learn to negotiate the pitfalls of colliding mutually exclusive worldviews with a little patience and mutual understanding.
happy Thanksgiving
peace
yes
peace
Are you afraid to say why? If not, then do tell.
Because science can’t prove a negative.
I thought we already covered that.
peace
fifth,
We already covered that. I wrote:
Now you are in the ridiculous position of saying that we are not scientifically justified in rejecting the existence of n-rays.
Let’s say that I wanted to understand the timing and patterns of genetic variation associated with the recent Ebola outbreak. I could use phylogenies to date the outbreak and examine patterns of nucleotide or amino acid substitution along branches of those phylogenies to learn about how the virus is evolving (as Gire and colleagues did here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4431643/).
How would utilizing “platonic forms and a 4 dimensional grid” improve upon this method?
All we are justified in saying scientifically is that n-rays have not been empirically demonstrated to exist. That is a far cry from saying emphatically that they don’t exist.
Your apparent scientism keeps you from seeing this obvious fact.
For you “has not been empirically demonstrated to exist” is equivalent to “does not exist”.
They are not remotely the same thing
peace
fifth,
As usual, you are confusing certainty with absolute certainty and demonstration with proof.
I am a bit jealous. Elizabeth has been reinstated at UD but I haven’t. 🙁 Maybe I should just create a new persona like Joe did. But then I’d be compromising my moral standards. Does that matter as far as UD is concerned? Such ethical questions. I need another glass of wine.
That does leave you with the better excuse for not posting at UD.
True, but the emotional angst is hard to bare . . . or do I mean bear?
Alan, I noticed that you didn’t respond to my comments on nested hierarchies. Does that mean you now agree with me? Or is it that you just don’t have any rebuttal?
You don’t have anything of substance to add so why even bother posting at UD?
This is an open forum for discussion of a wide range of issues. Everyone who wishes to can comment here, provided they are happy to abide by the not-very-onerous rules.
Non-sequitur