Wednesday - fun - circular logic
Good morning dear reader,
It is right for a person who is promoting an idea to attempt to demonstrate that logic is on their side. How can one resist logic?
I learned in school that some of the "methods" of "proving" an idea or activity was ok, right, wrong, etc, are:
- bandwagon appeal or appeal to popularity (everyone is doing it)
- sweeping generalization
- ad hominem (personal attack)
I remember learning about a half-dozen in school. You can see lots more at this great site.
A statement one hears from time to time is "Common junk DNA proves a common ancestor", the implication being that if a common ancestor exists then evolution happened. This, of course, is circular logic (cum hoc at a minimum). All that is truly necessary is to ask in your mind "If evolution did not happen then what does common junk DNA prove?" One might require several hundred repetitions of the question to really see the point - but the point is profound. Now don't make a second mistake and conclude that the failure of this statement to hold up proves that evolution did not happen.
This post, of course, is an opportunity to provide a more interesting proof that the statement does not hold up. I will tell a tale which you can comment on as to it's logical validity. My great-great-granddaughter, Megan, had just graduated. Her major was restoration of extinct species. She got a job with a company which restored water animals. Her first assignment was to restore three animals that had, in the past 45 years, disappeared. The animals were a particular whale, dolphin, and sea anemone. Computers by now were very powerful (estimates are 2^30 or 1,000,000,000 times faster). Our knowledge of DNA was complete. Synthesis of DNA was an everyday event. In her youth, instead of an ant farm she had a ecology synthesis toy where she could create a complete ecology of bugs and plants.
As I mentioned, DNA is, in Megan's day, completely understood. Modern computers can project a 3-D image from the DNA. The computers can also identify exactly what position in the food-chain a particular subject will take. DNA is so well understood that all the junk DNA is identified (by species and in general). When Megan got her job she was licensed to do this work and she was issued a license number. As a step of the process of restoration, the license number is encoded into the general junk DNA. Now, for the species of whale, dolphin, and anemone that Megan restored "Common junk DNA proves that Megan restored the animals." I will let you take it from there.
Love, G'pa Bob
It is right for a person who is promoting an idea to attempt to demonstrate that logic is on their side. How can one resist logic?
I learned in school that some of the "methods" of "proving" an idea or activity was ok, right, wrong, etc, are:
- bandwagon appeal or appeal to popularity (everyone is doing it)
- sweeping generalization
- ad hominem (personal attack)
I remember learning about a half-dozen in school. You can see lots more at this great site.
A statement one hears from time to time is "Common junk DNA proves a common ancestor", the implication being that if a common ancestor exists then evolution happened. This, of course, is circular logic (cum hoc at a minimum). All that is truly necessary is to ask in your mind "If evolution did not happen then what does common junk DNA prove?" One might require several hundred repetitions of the question to really see the point - but the point is profound. Now don't make a second mistake and conclude that the failure of this statement to hold up proves that evolution did not happen.
This post, of course, is an opportunity to provide a more interesting proof that the statement does not hold up. I will tell a tale which you can comment on as to it's logical validity. My great-great-granddaughter, Megan, had just graduated. Her major was restoration of extinct species. She got a job with a company which restored water animals. Her first assignment was to restore three animals that had, in the past 45 years, disappeared. The animals were a particular whale, dolphin, and sea anemone. Computers by now were very powerful (estimates are 2^30 or 1,000,000,000 times faster). Our knowledge of DNA was complete. Synthesis of DNA was an everyday event. In her youth, instead of an ant farm she had a ecology synthesis toy where she could create a complete ecology of bugs and plants.
As I mentioned, DNA is, in Megan's day, completely understood. Modern computers can project a 3-D image from the DNA. The computers can also identify exactly what position in the food-chain a particular subject will take. DNA is so well understood that all the junk DNA is identified (by species and in general). When Megan got her job she was licensed to do this work and she was issued a license number. As a step of the process of restoration, the license number is encoded into the general junk DNA. Now, for the species of whale, dolphin, and anemone that Megan restored "Common junk DNA proves that Megan restored the animals." I will let you take it from there.
Love, G'pa Bob
posted by G'pa Bob | 2:09 AM
1 Comments:
quite cryptic until i had read the whole post, and then gone back and re-read it.
would have been easier to follow you into story-land with future tenses or a major off-set: new paragraph at "My great-...", or "Suppose my great-...." you made it so real that i didn't even catch that your great-great-granddaughter could not have been born yet.
so after i re-read, it followed and flowed correctly. and it suddenly only took one repetition of the "If evolution did not happen..." question to catch your drift.
interesting to consider a signature or license from a Creator.
i often wonder at some of the knowledge we gain in the scientific side of life. it makes me wonder if God was just placing non-random clues to keep the scientific side of life busy while the social side finally progressed and brought about His prophecies.
ARM
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