Scientists Disprove Evolution

That got your attention, didn’t it?

Scientists haven’t disproved evolution. But I found it interesting that some cosmologists are putting a lot of effort into doing just that, albeit indirectly.

To be fair, in this context, the cosmologists can’t prove a negative. They can’t demonstrate that evolution didn’t happen. They can only show that evolution is infinitely unlikely compared to an alternative explanation.

That potentially better explanation, subject to much dispute, is the idea that your existence and consciousness is far more likely to be a free-floating brain created instantly by random fluctuations of the universe, and imbued with false memories of your past.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15brain.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

I don’t think the free-floating brain theory will ever replace the standard concept of time or evolution. But it’s fascinating that scientists are working on it.

So here is my question of the day for people who accept evolution as a fact: If cosmologists someday reached a consensus that free-floating brains are infinitely more likely than our current notion of reality, would you agree with the following statement:

“The theory of evolution is false.”

Comments

[Wholesale Electronics]

More than likely this will just be an add on to the other more readily accepted theories. Yes, your brain is random fluctuations, but it is evolving, and it was created by god.

[Steffen]

Probability measures always depend on the state space one defines them on. Therefore, I would only agree to the statement “The theory of evolution is false.” if I would agree with their constructed state space. Moreover, in order to have two events whose probability of occurrence differs by a factor of infinity, then one event (evolution) must have a probability of zero. Note, that this does not mean it cannot occur. More likely, they will show, that evolution has a probability of 1 to 10 billion against and their brain story has a probability of 1 to 1 billion against. And actually, how does their theory include the development of plants, fungi, bacteria and viruses whose capacity is rather short. If the random fusion of brains is only about humans then I would disagree on the grounds that our genetic ancestry is too close to mammals to be pointing in any other way...

[Kim]

Late comment here. Your constant anti-evolutionary stance still pains my poor scientific heart! ;)

Question: Have you ever met a biologist? What do you think they do all day? What is so controversial about the contemporary take on Darwin's theories of natural selection? I can't see anything remotely wierd about it.

I haven't followed the link, just posting a knee-jerk reaction.

Please believe me. The idea that living creatures slowly change (or 'evolve') due to the way our replicators（genes) and reproductive systems (naughty bits） work is not a subject that needs people to agree with it. It just is.

Or maybe it isn't. If not, then I have a few bones to pick with all these so-called "biologists” who claim to know about life as well. Their results are obviously OK or we wouldn't have things like medicine and the human genome project, but maybe they're secretly studing voodoo in the basement...

-k. (currently freezing my bum off in Beijing)

[Tenelus]

Mark:

I agree with Hawking's idea of time, because i have no better theory, but he himself admits that the theory still requires a cause and a beginning. Yes, I know that there is no 'before time' because it is inconceivable, but that doesn't excuse the universe from cause and effect, even if that cause and effect doesn't follow the laws of physics as they apply in day to day life.

The reason that scientists (and myself) believe in the theory of evolution is that it is the best explanation of the evidence we have. The theory of god as the 'uncaused cause' is not only the best explanation we have for the evidence we have (i.e. that existence exists), it is the only explanation that anyone has come up with besides denying that existence does exist at all, which, as you said, is a pointless argument.

Please correct me if i am wrong, but i believe that the reason that people want more proof of God is that they don't want to believe in him. God wants us to give things up and change, and give up an hour on Sunday. The belief in God has consequences that we don't want to live with. But if you take God out of the evolution equation, it seems to suggest that living like animals (do what you feel, do it now) is only natural for us.

I believe that man has walked on the moon, but the only proof i have of that is some black and white footage and photographs, which we know could have been faked. Most people don't argue that we did it, because the belief that man waked on the moon has no consequence.

- tenelus

[Ling Ling]

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I like Chinese people. But their government is up to something!
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Go Beijing Olympics, 8-8-08!
I think I just hate their infiltration of the web. It's pissing me off. O.K. time for Ling Ling to drink some coffee. Coffee, yummy! Mmmmmm.....

[Mark]

Teneleus,

I wasn't clear enough. Space and time can be represented as a tensor (first order, IIRC) although this is just a mathematical representation of what space and time can do under certain stresses. The result of this caluclation leads to black holes or time dilation (which is needed for GPS signal processing else we'd drift all the time).

But if you take solutions of the tensor for the universe as a whole, you get some certain mathematical views. If you multiply the space coordinate by the square root of -1 (i) you get a solution for the universe that describes a four-dimensional sphere. And the earth is a sphere. So asking what happened before time is rather like where is north of the north pole.

But the central issue is that this is a mathematical model of what time really is as far as we can ascertain it. It doesn't mean it IS what time is, but that it acts like it under the circumstances we have applied it to. The truth will be something different.

However, asking whether time really exists or not doesn't help except in an epistomological discussion. If there is no time, then the illusion of separation of events is not the truth. However, if it acts as if it were really there because my only actions within the sphere of the universe made it seem like true, then there's really no reason to deny it a truth.

Like "I think, therefore I am", if my insanity makes a prediction that will come true, then my insanity (my perception of life, existence or time) is as true as it needs to be. It would only be when I leave the conditions where this insanity has any relevance and no longer predicts anything that I can make any progress into finding out this new reality. Which has no more likelyhood of being true than my previous insanity.

Or in other words, when you meet God, how do you know it's Him? Surely you could be imagining Him.

So as a thinking person with a belief in themself, I will act as I see fit and ignore the possibility that god exists or that evolution is false until I enter a state where the perception I have will notice the differences. And when I see them, I will continue to criticise them to find out any deeper truth or new perception that may result later on.

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[Matthew Glenville]

I think people seem to be missing the point.

The original 'Boltzman problem' is that the laws of physics (thermodynamics) say that concentrated structures (e.g. people, planets, etc.) are very unlikely and that over time, everything will turn back into a gas.

This itself isn't a problem - except that our past involves even more complicated structures (right back to the big bang). Therefore the laws of physics say that that it's actually much more likely the whole of existence as we know it popped into being a second ago, rather than billions of years ago.

In which case all of our past - which is our evidence for believing in evolution - is a fiction, and thus no evidence at all.

However - our past is also our evidence for the laws of physics. So if everything did pop into existence a second ago then we have no reason to believe in the laws of physics either (and therefore no reason to believe the the world popped into existence a second ago!).

So there it is: if you believe in the laws of physics (thermodynamics in particular) then it's much more likely that everything 'began' a moment ago - so we don't have any real evidence for evolution. But then we don't have any real evidence for the laws of physics either.

(Nothing to do with floating brains really).

[Tenelus]

Mark, i don't want to finish yet, I'm having fun, but if you're bored with me I'll stop.
The conclusion of the lecture in which Professor Hawking explains the imaginary time theory / fact is as follows:

"The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. "

This is the proof. What has a beginning must have a cause, but as you said, there is no time before time, it's absurd to think of it, so the cause of time must be outside of time.

-tenelus

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[Mark]

Tenelus,

I did read (obviously).

Stephen Hawking had some idea about making space "imaginary". A mathematical trick. And in that case, the universe is a slice along a sphere. "before time" then comes down to a similar question "North of north". It's a silly question because we know there's no "north" from north, everywhere is south.

Your ideas aren't provably wrong and therefore could be right. However, because they aren't provably wrong, there's no need to believe in it.

That's the short of it.

Ta.

[Tenelus]

Mark, Sorry, it may be too late for you to read this... well, actually there is no point apologizing, because you won't read the apology unless it doesn't apply... anyway:

I actually really like your explanation of why time must exist, but we have to think even more outside the square of 'reality' - if time didn't exist, neither would the proof that you proposed i.e., if it's an illusion, so is the fact that things happen progressively... it's all a bit weird, again, because if it's true then the whole proof is also non existent - you can't prove much about the reality while living in the illusion.

What that leaves us with, then, is the second option - that time is an illusion to us, and that God is real. I should apologize for using the work illusion, i couldn't really think of a better one, but i will explain what i mean - If God is real and beyond our time and space, which i believe he is, we are part of his creation, and time is part of his creation, it isn't as real as the reality of God, but i shouldn't have said it was an illusion, that's misleading, sorry. But i hope you can see my point? In a world of time there must have been a beginning, and what has a beginning must have a cause, and if there is nothing beyond time, and nothing before the beginning then there can't have been anything, but if there is something that is beyond time, it wouldn't need a cause, because cause is a time thing, but it could cause time to exist. It's not that God existed 'forever', but that the concept of forever means nothing for God. Sorry i can't explain it properly, but philosophers have been trying for quite some time and still can't either. Any thoughts?

[Steven McDaniel]

Steve from Ohio says: "..I am quite amazed at the ignorance of the pro-evolution crowd.
Remember that for hundreds of years it was a "proven scientific fact" that spontaneous generation fully explained the origins of life.
Then came Darwin who believed characteristics passed from parent to offspring by the environment. This was called "Acquired Characteristics" and was undebatably considered truth. You remember the old experiments where they would cut off the tails of mice for several generations believing that eventually the mice would be born without tails."

[Actually they don't remember it, unless they were eye witnesses - because to relate such incidents in school would risk denigrating the theory of evolution and so violate the separation of Church and state..Steve from Oklahoma]

"Then the science of genetics came along and totally disproved yet another "proven scientific fact". Now you believe that we evolved through random genetic mutations. We are still looking for an example of even one positive genetic mutations, but you believe that countless billions and billions of them have taken place.
The more we learn about the complexity of DNA the more it looks like your latest "proven scientific fact" will fall by the wayside..."

*************

Hi, Steve! Dear Lord that all was so worthy of repetition!!! ***What he said***!! And actually there have been quite a few of the posts from non christians (ie, people not like us neanderthal, superstitious, Fundamentalist, totally non-scientific firebrands) daring, just like Scott*, to question the established paradigm because of patently valid scientific and logical issues with it. This indicates the theory of evolution is in far more trouble than its condescending sonorous adherents would like us to believe.

*Well, OK, just like Scott does, or is it doesn't, dare?? I haven't figured him out!! Still he lets the monkeys on both sides of the argument lead the dancing, which is far more than America's schools do...

[Steve from Ohio]

I am quite amazed at the ignorance of the pro-evolution crowd.

Remember that for hundreds of years it was a "proven scientific fact" that spontaneous generation fully explained the origins of life.
Then came Darwin who believed characteristics passed from parent to offspring by the environment. This was called "Acquired Characteristics" and was undebatably considered truth. You remember the old experiments where they would cut off the tails of mice for several generations believing that eventually the mice would be born without tails.

Then the science of genetics came along and totally disproved yet another "proven scientific fact". Now you believe that we evolved through random genetic mutations. We are still looking for an example of even one positive genetic mutations, but you believe that countless billions and billions of them have taken place.
The more we learn about the complexity of DNA the more it looks like your latest "proven scientific fact" will fall by the wayside.

The whole floating brain theory is actually a rehash of a Zen Buddhism teaching. One branch of Buddhism teaches that all reality is false and that we may very well be a frog sitting on lily pad imagining all of this.

I wish my stupid frog would have imagined me a hell of a lot richer and better looking.

Maybe a "Frogbert" character could help guide Dilbert and crew through their reality.

[Azi]

Hey scott. Did you see this "Open Challenge To Skep-Dick Scott Adams" on youtube?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6tKRzsB-NMI&feature=related#

[Mark]

"As I said, the same way that if I fall off the surfboard I'm never going to be landing on Mars and with the silver surfer's shiny new body.

Posted by: Steven McDaniel"

A) You never said that
B) It doesn't answer the question

If you fall off your surfboard, you have a one-in-a-million chance of breaking your neck.

With enough people falling off sufrboards, we will see someone die.

Get a graph paper. Spot in centre. Two dice. 1 dice is how many cm you move, and the other dice is how many degrees you turn from your current heading (straight north to begin with).

You're only going to be moving 3.5cm a time, so will it be necessary to get a graph paper 1m on a side to contain your drawing? 1m is a lot longer than 3.5cm, so you shouldn't should you? You'll just be mooching around the centre because you're able to move backwards and forwards equally. Yes?

Or not?

[andrew]

..i think this is actually very funnny in a way..

these cosmologists may be realizing that the theory of evolution, which they held so dearly, does not satisfy their desire to believe in something sure. so they turn to this instead..

[Akym]

Interesting thought. What I wonder is what a brain floating in space has to gain from imagining a guy sitting behind a computer desk for 8 hours. I suppose that if you can exist without nourishment or other forms of energy supply, you'd be thinking about sex all day, wouldn't you (or at least the cosmological brain equivalent)?

[TC]

I love the "spot the falacy" game. I guess this one was an example of "begging the question", wasn't it?

[Steven McDaniel]

Mark "["...We've observed evolution in labs...." Lupus

Observing a fruit fly develop different shaped genitalia over generations in a laboratory indicates the evolutionists' assertion that we all developed from a primal goo....

Posted by: Steven McDaniel ]

No, it proves that a process of evolution is happening.

Now, please explain why it only makes small differences and NEVER leads eventually to a large difference.

I'll wait..."

As I said, the same way that if I fall off the surfboard I'm never going to be landing on Mars and with the silver surfer's shiny new body. But Mark, you and I have been over this before, including your previous reference to differences in photosensitive mechanism being virtual proof against design (a ludicrous assumption - my Chevy doesn't have a Dodge's 'Hemi' engine, but they were, I would venture to say, both 'designed'). However, I do know you could argue the hind leg off a donkey and then call it evolution. I admire your persistence. You are a valiant protagonist for the evolutionary cause. My next answer will be from Mars. Don't hold your breath waiting for it...

[David Martin]

Since in all likelihood no one person is AT THIS MOMENT independently discovering the theory of evolution, wouldn't the theory, along with all the research supporting it, be a part of the false memories, and as such wouldn't it be true in our imaginary world even if the free-floating brain theory was proven?

[Mark]

["...We've observed evolution in labs...." Lupus

Observing a fruit fly develop different shaped genitalia over generations in a laboratory indicates the evolutionists' assertion that we all developed from a primal goo....

Posted by: Steven McDaniel ]

No, it proves that a process of evolution is happening.

Now, please explain why it only makes small differences and NEVER leads eventually to a large difference.

I'll wait.

[Steven McDaniel]

"...We've observed evolution in labs...." Lupus

Observing a fruit fly develop different shaped genitalia over generations in a laboratory indicates the evolutionists' assertion that we all developed from a primal goo which is our ancestor into the billions of species we see on Earth today to the same extent as you seeing me falling off a surfboard on the Californian coast means I am the Silver Surfer and just travelled to Mars yesterday. Of course, the evolutionists gave the fruit flies change in sexual architecture a sonorous sounding name - 'speciation'. If you'll pardon the pun it is just 'specious.' Actually the least disingenuous post I've ever seen on this Website is that from Eric: "I have too much invested in the concept of evolution. Cognitive dissonance will prevent me from stating it's false." Evolution will continue to be totally disproven in spite of the huge numbers of fanatical adherents it has.

[Conor]

I would think that the vast majority of educated persons would concede that evolution may absolutely one day be considered scientifically unsound. We no longer think the earth is flat, or that sickness is caused by an imbalance of the humors.

I actually hope that our scientific paradigm shifts so drastically that we're forced to at least rethink, if not outright discard, the foundational underpinnings of Western scientific thought.

I don't see it happening in this lifetime, though.

[Jen, writer MembershipMillionaire.com]

Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Okay, if the day comes that Science has indeed confirmed that our consciousness is merely a free-floating element, I might just end up not exerting any effort to excel at all. I will literally become a free-floating being.