Scott Defends Inferences.

I had a feeling that Scott would have a thing or two to offer about my evolution comments. Over at Monkey Trials, Scott's blog, he gives a good long look at some points, and kindly reduces the matter to some questions for me to answer, which I will, of course:

"Well and good. Then, my questions for Stan are these:

Where is the inferential reference mountain for a young Earth?

Where is the inferential reference mountain for millions of separate acts of creation?

Where is the inferential reference mountain to account for the (presumably false) appearance of common descent?

Where is the inferential reference mountain for a non-evolutionary explanation for homologous structures, vestigial organs, common biochemistry, common embryological features, the fossil record, the origin of sex, neoteny, Hox genes, pseudogenes, mutualisms, ecological niche occupation, the origin of the eukaryotic cell, adaptive radiations, haplodiploidy in social insects?"

My thanks to Scott for simplifying this so that I don't really need to address the entire post. Now Scott knows that I am not a YEC, nor an ID enthusiast; I am for intellectual integrity and the use of the principles of logic and rationality, and I can spell out precisely what that means. So Scott also will probably expect my answer, which is: If you choose inferential wars, bolstered by the simplicity of Parsimony, then ID has it hands-down. ID is not a stack of loose inferences, it is one inference, and it is therefore parsimonious.

But Scott knows that is not my position. My position has always been that ID is not science.... precisely because it is an unprovable inference, no matter how persuasive it might seem. And that also is the position on ID taken by evolution enthusiasts. The kink comes here: the statement also applies to evolution itself because evolution is as inference-driven as ID.

Now this is painful to evolution enthusiasts, but it is the logical outcome of an objective look at both viewpoints.

I asked the following question over at Scott's place a short while back (unfortunately I didn't return to see if it was answered): How many inferences does it take to produce a fact? And now I add: How many inferences does it take to produce TRUTH?

What I am trying to address here is the use of the words "fact" and "truth" where they cannot be justified. Science does not produce either. And Scott is the first to admit that information generated by science is "contingent". We've been through all that before. But the evolution enthusiasts can't quit declaring that evolution is both fact and truth. They are wrong.

So now to answer Scott's questions: Scott, the inferential mountains to which you refer do not produce either fact nor truth; they produce a presumed liklihood which is contingent on competing theories not conforming more closely, theories which you rightly say do not exist, except for my theory of graduated abiogenesis, of course. That is the point, not whether a competing theory exists at the moment. (Of course my theory includes abiogenesis, and is therefore more complete, robust, parsimonious and justifiable than evolution, but oh well).

And as for the parable, it seems simpler to declare that biology is too deep for anyone but biologists so just shut up and go home. Well, my position there is that an intelligent application of logical discernment is applicable to all disciplines and that evolution is not immune due to its perceived excessive complexities, which are declared inaccessible to non-insiders. (In fact doesn't this sound cult-like to you? It does to me).

So I respectfully await hard, empirical evidence of evolution, and I am in the process of evaluating Science magazine's 15 evidences for such hardness. Otherwise, I see no reason to accept inferences as Truth, as Coyne insists that it is, or as fact, as you frequently aver.

Hope this answers your questions.