In a recent comment, Robert Byers said:<\/p>\n
Yes lines of reasoning as opposed to scientific evidence is a criticism I strongly make!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m not quite sure what is going on in Robert’s way of thinking.\u00a0 I am not sure what he means by “scientific evidence”.\u00a0 Here I want to explore what Robert appears to be arguing.<\/p>\n
Let’s take crossword puzzle solving as an illustration.\u00a0 The puzzle has a grid where one can enter words.\u00a0 And then there are the clues.\u00a0 There is a list of “Across” clues and a list of “Down” clues.<\/p>\n
Without those clues, I would not be able to proceed at all.\u00a0 However, when looking at an individual clue, I can at best guess.\u00a0 The clue is often cryptic and ambiguous, so my guess might be wrong.\u00a0 There is no way that I can use logic to decide a particular word.<\/p>\n
Usually, I look at both “Across” clues and “Down” clues.\u00a0 I try to find words that seem to answer the clues, and yet work for both across and down.<\/p>\n
According to Robert, what I am doing is simply following a line of reasoning.\u00a0 I agree that there is no logic to it.\u00a0 So I guess Robert wants us to give up, and just ask the author of the crossword puzzle.\u00a0 Or perhaps don’t even try crossword puzzles.<\/p>\n
For myself, I happen to think (following my line of reasoning), that if the Across answers and Down answers match up well, that there are no conflicts, that everything fits, then it is very likely that I have the correct solution or something very close to the correct solution.<\/p>\n
When it comes to evolution, we have the clues from morphology (the form of organisms), the clues from behavior (how the organisms act\/react), the clues from geology (the fossils), the clues from DNA.\u00a0 And, most important of all, we see from observing live, that there is descent with modification, that new organisms are similar but a bit different from their parents.\u00a0 The match up is very persuasive.\u00a0 The match up here is a lot stronger than the match up that we see in crossword puzzle solving.<\/p>\n
If we find the match up to be persuasive in crossword solving, why is it not even more persuasive for evolution?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a recent comment, Robert Byers said: Yes lines of reasoning as opposed to scientific evidence is a criticism I strongly make!! I’m not quite sure what is going on in Robert’s way of thinking.\u00a0 I am not sure what … Continue reading