Facts vs assumptions/conclusions/opinions from above:
Facts:
- the nature of science is willingness to learn {I said I think. That clearly makes my statement an intended opinion, not an intended fact}
- the earth is "very old" - true, but not qualitative, thus useless in scientific inquiry {Which definition of qualitative are you using?:
Analysis \A*nal"y*sis\, n.; pl. Analyses. [Gr. ?, fr. ? to unloose, to dissolve, to resolve into its elements; ? up + ? to loose. See Loose.] 1. A resolution of anything, whether an object of the senses or of the intellect, into its constituent or original elements; an examination of the component parts of a subject, each separately, as the words which compose a sentence, the tones of a tune, or the simple propositions which enter into an argument. It is opposed to synthesis.
2. (Chem.) The separation of a compound substance, by chemical processes, into its constituents, with a view to ascertain either (a) what elements it contains, or (b) how much of each element is present. The former is called qualitative, and the latter quantitative analysis.
3. (Logic) The tracing of things to their source, and the resolving of knowledge into its original principles.
4. (Math.) The resolving of problems by reducing the conditions that are in them to equations.
5. (a) A syllabus, or table of the principal heads of a discourse, disposed in their natural order. (b) A brief, methodical illustration of the principles of a science. In this sense it is nearly synonymous with synopsis.
6. (Nat. Hist.) The process of ascertaining the name of a species, or its place in a system of classification, by means of an analytical table or key.
- there are life forms in rocks (What do you mean by qualitatively?
- earlier = simpler - while I don't dispute this, I do dispute that you "observed" this.
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- I said the earth was very old. That is plenty good enough to make the point I was making. I think perhaps you are being a bit pedantic or rigid in your dismissal here.}
Assumptions/conclusions/opinions
- "no person of scientific bent ever gives us their skepticism" - I can direct you to reams of incidents where "pro-evolutionists" (I use this to denote dogmatism, not scientific position) have done so, and admited to doing so (and likewise plentiful examples of the same from their opponents - also dogmatic)
- evolution is a fact (this statement is simply too broad to be taken at face value and ignores much of the past two pages) {I can too, this is not news to me. It would not be true of a person of true scientific bent though in my opinion which was my implication}
- creationism is a reactive disease - <roll> speaking of dogmatism... {Certainly dogmatic and based on lots of historical support. Thew attempt to interpret data is a normal function of the mind. A conclusion can be not only dogmatic, it can be true. Either agree or disagree, but stating the obvious, that everything is more or less dogmatic, doesn?t say much.}
- ...rocks of billions of years old - this dating is questioned and is determined by inference, i.e. NOT "observed" and NOT a "self-evident fact" {The exact dating is questioned. The very old part is not, not that is by people who do inference as a way of life. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the mind of people who live on ducks as a source of protein say it?s a duck. They could be in the Matrix. Your point has an abstraction about it that implies a kind of idealized reasoning removed from pedestrian world. If you want to carry that kind of thinking very far we should quickly say we are incapable of knowing anything. Not a problem for me. I will continue to stupidly assume I know what I?m doing.}
- all life has "mothers and fathers" - not all life reproduces sexually, this is fallacious {I clearly limited my argument to sexually reproducing organisms. Check back and you?ll see.}
- b/c modern life has fathers/mothers (which is incorrect){which was correct for the specific case I used}, all previous life had fathers/mothers (also fallacious){no true because we are talking sexually reproducing life}
- there is no doubt that life evolved - again, too vague to be usefull here (micro does not = macro, macro isn't supported by fossil record, punctuated equilibirum is still somewhat shaky){I don?t get what you are saying here. Nothing is vague to me here. The deeper the rocks, the older the rocks the simpler the forms, the more branches lead back to trunks.}
- ...is totally unambiguous - this is incorrect. {It?s as obvious as the day is long.}
Besides the simple truth that the premises you use in your chain of reasoning are incorrect (which is enough to disallow the chain), {I showed that you are wrong about this} the fact remains that the chain of reasoning is itself flawed. Think of it this way, you are arguing for an uncountable number of genetic/morphological changes of countless eons, yet your rationale for why this must be true is based on your assumption that because all life has mothers/fathers now, all previous life did also? You are saying that b/c it has always been the same, it has always changed? {That is correct. Since the appearance of sexually reproducing organisms, all of them have been produced by a mother and a father. That has not changed. It could change. Something else might evolve, but it is true for sexually reproducing organisms. The change so far has only affected the morphology of sexual organs, if you will, but not the reproductive strategy itself.}
No, I'm afraid not. The existence of asexual reproduction is enough to topple this argument,{asexual reproduction was never a part of my argument and has nothing to do with it} and, furthermore, your model requires that the original foundation of the first microbe was not just one simple, working form of life created from non-living matter, not just 2 living organisms created from non-living matter. not just 2 organisms from non-living matter at the same time, but 2 organisms, formed from non-living matter, at the same time, in immediate proximity that were close enough to indentical to reproduce together. {No this is not correct. I have stated that there are sexually reproducing organisms and that therefore they had fathers and mothers all the way back to their origins. I have said that the older the organism, the deeper into the fossil record it occurs the less complex it is. The inescapable inference is that the fathers and mothers of all complex living things had fathers and mothers deep in the past that, looked and were, nothing like how they are today. There are sexually reproducing organisms and have been deep into the past. They clearly evolved by this line of reasoning. How sexually reproducing organisms got here is of no relevance to my argument as that occurred prior to the chain of events of relevance.
Observed laws of probability, limited though they are, ALREADY state that occurrences with a probability infinitesimally smaller than that of the first microbe forming randomly never happen in nature, but your proposition here has diminished the scale of likelihood remarkably. {I already debunked this argument but it is itself fallacious. You could run the universe over again a quadrillion times and you would never get a human. But we are here. You are just impossible.
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