Changes

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|isbn=978-0-89051-597-6

|isbn=978-0-89051-597-6

|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gvyHquVubDoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hedtke+The+secrets+of+the+sixth+edition&source=bl&ots=VQBk7unu95&sig=3-pYZsIj2vzBHgcIbYEpexlVc9s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FsOGUO2kCIKJ4gS-tYCoBg&redir_esc=y}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|cf.''"But were I to make such a claim I would observe, as Richard Dawkins does, that to the extent that simultaneous and parallel changes are required to form a complex organ, to that extent does the hypothesis of random variation and natural selection become implausible. It is one thing to find a single needle in a haystack, quite another to find a dozen needles in a dozen haystacks at precisely the same time. Surely the [[burden of proof]] in such matters is not mine. I am not obliged to defend such mathematical trivialities as the proposition that as independent events are multiplied in number, their joint probability of occurrence plummets."'' (David Berlinski)<ref>{{cite web|title=A Scientific Scandal? David Berlinski & Critics|author=David Berlinski|publisher=Center for Science and Culture(originally: Commentary)|date=July 8, 2003|accessdate=May 15,2013|url=http://www.discovery.org/a/1509}}</ref>|group=note}} Effectively, the logic of possibility [[Fog displacement|replaces one unknown mystery with another]].<ref name="DeniableDarwin"/>{{#tag:ref|For example, the assumably unknown causes of homosexual behaviour are replaced by insisting that such behaviour is result of operation of so called '' 'evolutionary enigma' ''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development|author=William R. Rice, Urban Friberg and Sergey Gavrilets |publisher=The Quarterly Review of Biology|date=December 2012|page=343-368|acessdate=03.03.2013|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/668167.pdf?acceptTC=true|quote=This paper argues that sexually antagonistic selection can also be involved in epigenetic effects and explain the enigmatic high prevalence of several fitness-reducing human characters. ... Homosexuality is frequently considered to be an unusual phenotype because it represents an evolutionary enigma —a trait that is expected to reduce Darwinian fitness, yet it persists at substantial frequency across many different (possibly all) human populations.}}</ref> Cf. [[explanation in science]].|group=note}}  

|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=gvyHquVubDoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hedtke+The+secrets+of+the+sixth+edition&source=bl&ots=VQBk7unu95&sig=3-pYZsIj2vzBHgcIbYEpexlVc9s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FsOGUO2kCIKJ4gS-tYCoBg&redir_esc=y}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|cf.''"But were I to make such a claim I would observe, as Richard Dawkins does, that to the extent that simultaneous and parallel changes are required to form a complex organ, to that extent does the hypothesis of random variation and natural selection become implausible. It is one thing to find a single needle in a haystack, quite another to find a dozen needles in a dozen haystacks at precisely the same time. Surely the [[burden of proof]] in such matters is not mine. I am not obliged to defend such mathematical trivialities as the proposition that as independent events are multiplied in number, their joint probability of occurrence plummets."'' (David Berlinski)<ref>{{cite web|title=A Scientific Scandal? David Berlinski & Critics|author=David Berlinski|publisher=Center for Science and Culture(originally: Commentary)|date=July 8, 2003|accessdate=May 15, 2013|url=http://www.discovery.org/a/1509}}</ref>|group=note}} Effectively, the logic of possibility [[Fog displacement|replaces one unknown mystery with another]].<ref name="DeniableDarwin"/>{{#tag:ref|For example, the assumably unknown causes of homosexual behaviour are replaced by insisting that such behaviour is result of operation of so called '' 'evolutionary enigma' ''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development|author=William R. Rice, Urban Friberg and Sergey Gavrilets |publisher=The Quarterly Review of Biology|date=December 2012|pages=343–368|acessdate=03.03.2013|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/668167.pdf?acceptTC=true|quote=This paper argues that sexually antagonistic selection can also be involved in epigenetic effects and explain the enigmatic high prevalence of several fitness-reducing human characters. ... Homosexuality is frequently considered to be an unusual phenotype because it represents an evolutionary enigma —a trait that is expected to reduce Darwinian fitness, yet it persists at substantial frequency across many different (possibly all) human populations.}}</ref> Cf. [[explanation in science]].|group=note}}  

[[Darwin]] was criticised for using this method in [[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection|The Origin of Species]] for there in it is assumed that ''the mere possibility of imagining'' a series of steps of transition from one condition of organs to another is to be accepted as a reason for believing that such transition has taken place.<ref>{{cite book|title=Darwin and the Darwinian revolution|author=Gertrude Himmelfarb|publisher=Peter Smith|year=1967|page=273,274,334|url=http://books.google.no/books?ei=StgxUcXSEMSK4AS9qoBg&id=C0OTeANFU88C&dq=himmelfarb+Darwin+and+the+darwinian+revolution&q=transitions#search_anchor}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|cf.''"Today it is simply unscientific to claim that the fantastically reduced entropy of the human brain, of the dolphin's sound lens, and of the eye of a fossilised trilobite simply "happened", for experimental experience has shown that such miracles just do not "happen"."''<ref>{{cite book |title=The natural sciences know nothing of evolution|author=Wilder Smith|publisher=Word for Today|year=2003|page=146|isbn=978-1931713504|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Qbr7AQAACAAJ&dq=The+natural+sciences+know+nothing+of+evolution&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bJozUcalHemL4ATj-4CoAQ&redir_esc=y}}</ref>|group=note}}  

[[Darwin]] was criticised for using this method in [[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection|The Origin of Species]] for there in it is assumed that ''the mere possibility of imagining'' a series of steps of transition from one condition of organs to another is to be accepted as a reason for believing that such transition has taken place.<ref>{{cite book|title=Darwin and the Darwinian revolution|author=Gertrude Himmelfarb|publisher=Peter Smith|year=1967|page=273,274,334|url=http://books.google.no/books?ei=StgxUcXSEMSK4AS9qoBg&id=C0OTeANFU88C&dq=himmelfarb+Darwin+and+the+darwinian+revolution&q=transitions#search_anchor}}</ref>{{#tag:ref|cf.''"Today it is simply unscientific to claim that the fantastically reduced entropy of the human brain, of the dolphin's sound lens, and of the eye of a fossilised trilobite simply "happened", for experimental experience has shown that such miracles just do not "happen"."''<ref>{{cite book |title=The natural sciences know nothing of evolution|author=Wilder Smith|publisher=Word for Today|year=2003|page=146|isbn=978-1931713504|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Qbr7AQAACAAJ&dq=The+natural+sciences+know+nothing+of+evolution&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bJozUcalHemL4ATj-4CoAQ&redir_esc=y}}</ref>|group=note}}  

Adopting the logic of possibility is an unscientific way of avoiding criticism of a [[hypothesis]] and attempt to free it from the [[burden of proof]] because a critic could reply to conjecture and imagination only with conjecture of his or her own, what would pointlessly lead nowhere.<ref name="Hedtke"/>{{#tag:ref|cf.''"As my colleague, the physical chemist Peter Atkins, puts it, we must be equally agnostic about the theory that there is a teapot in orbit around the planet Pluto. We can’t disprove it. But that doesn’t mean the theory that there is a teapot is on level terms with the theory that there isn’t"'' Bertrand Russell (1958), quoted in Ars Disputandi<ref>{{cite web |title=Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence, and the Atheist’s Teapot|author=Brian Garvey|publisher=Ars Disputandi|year=2010|volume=10|issn=1566–5399|acessdate=03.03.2013|url=http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000339/article.pdf}}</ref>|group=note}} The logic of possibility is native to [[postmodern science]] and [[scientism]], respectively; and it violates the borderline, until recently respected with dignity by great scientists, between what is known and what is not.<ref name="DeniableDarwin"/> The counterfactual reasoning inherent to logic of possibility should not be confused with [[Gedanken experiment|Gedanken (thought) experiment]], an legitimate device of the imagination used, inter alia by brilliant practitioners like, for example, [[Galileo]], [[Descartes]], [[Newton]], [[Leibniz]], and [[James Maxwell|Maxwell]]{{#tag:ref|For example, [[Maxwell’s intelligent agent]], referred to by secular scientists as '[[Maxwell's demon]]', was a [[Gedankenexperiment]] to help us to understand the dissipation of energy in [[nature]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Information and Information Flow: An Introduction|author=Manuel Eugen Bremer, Daniel Cohnitz|publisher=Ontos Verlag|year=2004|page=17|isbn=978-3937202471|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=NSsUhHlysrcC&pg=PA17&dq=Maxwell's+thought+experiment+dramatized+the+fact&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7G4zUe3JMOmk4ATJsIHQDw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Maxwell's%20thought%20experiment%20dramatized%20the%20fact&f=false|quote= This thought experiment was intended by Maxwell to dramatize the fact that the second law is a statistical principle and that it is not certain that the entropy in any case increases.}}</ref>|group=note}}, to investigate the nature of things without making factual claims about what had allegedly happened in their unobservable [[Historical science|history]].     

Adopting the logic of possibility is an unscientific way of avoiding criticism of a [[hypothesis]] and attempt to free it from the [[burden of proof]] because a critic could reply to conjecture and imagination only with conjecture of his or her own, what would pointlessly lead nowhere.<ref name="Hedtke"/>{{#tag:ref|cf.''"As my colleague, the physical chemist Peter Atkins, puts it, we must be equally agnostic about the theory that there is a teapot in orbit around the planet Pluto. We can’t disprove it. But that doesn’t mean the theory that there is a teapot is on level terms with the theory that there isn’t"'' Bertrand Russell (1958), quoted in Ars Disputandi<ref>{{cite web |title=Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence, and the Atheist’s Teapot|author=Brian Garvey|publisher=Ars Disputandi|year=2010|volume=10|issn=1566-5399|acessdate=03.03.2013|url=http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000339/article.pdf}}</ref>|group=note}} The logic of possibility is native to [[postmodern science]] and [[scientism]], respectively; and it violates the borderline, until recently respected with dignity by great scientists, between what is known and what is not.<ref name="DeniableDarwin"/> The counterfactual reasoning inherent to logic of possibility should not be confused with [[Gedanken experiment|Gedanken (thought) experiment]], an legitimate device of the imagination used, inter alia by brilliant practitioners like, for example, [[Galileo]], [[Descartes]], [[Newton]], [[Leibniz]], and [[James Maxwell|Maxwell]]{{#tag:ref|For example, [[Maxwell’s intelligent agent]], referred to by secular scientists as '[[Maxwell's demon]]', was a [[Gedankenexperiment]] to help us to understand the dissipation of energy in [[nature]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Information and Information Flow: An Introduction|author=Manuel Eugen Bremer, Daniel Cohnitz|publisher=Ontos Verlag|year=2004|page=17|isbn=978-3937202471|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=NSsUhHlysrcC&pg=PA17&dq=Maxwell's+thought+experiment+dramatized+the+fact&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7G4zUe3JMOmk4ATJsIHQDw&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Maxwell's%20thought%20experiment%20dramatized%20the%20fact&f=false|quote= This thought experiment was intended by Maxwell to dramatize the fact that the second law is a statistical principle and that it is not certain that the entropy in any case increases.}}</ref>|group=note}}, to investigate the nature of things without making factual claims about what had allegedly happened in their unobservable [[Historical science|history]].     

==Adopting the Logic of possibility in the Evolutionary thought==

==Adopting the Logic of possibility in the Evolutionary thought==

Following [[Darwin]], the adherents of [[Theory of evolution]] also often encompass the logic of possibility in their asserts implying that things virtually construct themselves, the typical example is the book ''Climbing Mount Improbable'' by [[Richard Dawkins]]. Dawkins was criticised by Berlinski that<ref name="DeniableDarwin">{{cite book

Following [[Darwin]], the adherents of [[Theory of evolution]] also often encompass the logic of possibility in their asserts implying that things virtually construct themselves, the typical example is the book ''Climbing Mount Improbable'' by [[Richard Dawkins]]. Dawkins was criticised by Berlinski that:<ref name="DeniableDarwin">{{cite book

|author=David Berlinski

|author=David Berlinski

|title=The Deniable Darwin

|title=The Deniable Darwin

|url=http://www.davidberlinski.org/deniable-darwin/about.php

|url=http://www.davidberlinski.org/deniable-darwin/about.php

|quote=...examples of Darwinian ''"just-so"'' stories and fuzzy logic are both instructive and amusing (quoted John Wiester). ...In reaching this conclusion he has replaced one mystery with another. ...Until recently, the great physicists have … attempted with dignity to respect the distinction between what is known and what is not.  ...The patch does only what they have told it to do. ...  

|quote=...examples of Darwinian ''"just-so"'' stories and fuzzy logic are both instructive and amusing (quoted John Wiester). ...In reaching this conclusion he has replaced one mystery with another. ...Until recently, the great physicists have … attempted with dignity to respect the distinction between what is known and what is not.  ...The patch does only what they have told it to do. ...  

}}</ref>: <blockquote>''"It is one thing, however, to appeal to a path up Mount Improbable, quite another to demonstrate its existence. Dawkins persuades himself that because such a path might exist, further argument is unnecessary."''{{#tag:ref|cf.[[Ipse dixit]]|group=note}}</blockquote> Impediments are simply directed to disappear by adopting language terms like:  

}}</ref> <blockquote>''"It is one thing, however, to appeal to a path up Mount Improbable, quite another to demonstrate its existence. Dawkins persuades himself that because such a path might exist, further argument is unnecessary."''{{#tag:ref|cf.[[Ipse dixit]]|group=note}}</blockquote> Impediments are simply directed to disappear by adopting language terms like:  

*''"There is no difficulty" ''             

*''"There is no difficulty" ''             

*''"there is definite tendency in the right direction"''

*''"there is definite tendency in the right direction"''

*''"I am sure to be in error in many parts; but my general view, I conclude, must have some truth in it"''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin, C. R. to Gray, Asa 24 Dec [1859]|publisher=the University of Cambridge Darwin Correspondence Project|accessdate=17-Mar-2013|url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2599}}</ref>

*''"I am sure to be in error in many parts; but my general view, I conclude, must have some truth in it"''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin, C. R. to Gray, Asa 24 Dec [1859]|publisher=the University of Cambridge Darwin Correspondence Project|accessdate=17-Mar-2013|url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2599}}</ref>

*''"For the life of me I cannot see any difficulty in Natural selection producing the most exquisite structure, if such structure can be arrived at by gradation;"''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, Charles 15 Apr [1860]|publisher=the University of Cambridge Darwin Correspondence Project|accessdate=17-Mar-2013|url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2761}}</ref>

*''"For the life of me I cannot see any difficulty in Natural selection producing the most exquisite structure, if such structure can be arrived at by gradation;"''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin, C. R. to Lyell, Charles 15 Apr [1860]|publisher=the University of Cambridge Darwin Correspondence Project|accessdate=17-Mar-2013|url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2761}}</ref>

*''"there is no difficulty in supposing that such links formerly existed"''<ref>{{cite web|title=Not by chance! Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution|author=Lee Spetner|publisher=Judaica Press|year=1998|pages=84|isbn=978-1880-582244|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=29BGPwAACAAJ&dq=Spetner+not+by+chance&hl=en&sa=X&ei=G81xUa2dNdCQ4gTAhYFQ&redir_esc=y|quote=[Darwin 1872, pp. 182 ff.] From "there is no difficulty in supposing", he went on to lead the reader into agreeing that it ''probably'' happened, and finally he assumes the reader goes along with him in agreeing that it did indeed happen that way.}}</ref>

*''"there is no difficulty in supposing that such links formerly existed"''<ref>{{cite book|title=Not by chance! Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution|author=Lee Spetner|publisher=Judaica Press|year=1998|pages=84|isbn=978-1880-582244|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=29BGPwAACAAJ&dq=Spetner+not+by+chance&hl=en&sa=X&ei=G81xUa2dNdCQ4gTAhYFQ&redir_esc=y|quote=[Darwin 1872, pp. 182 ff.] From "there is no difficulty in supposing", he went on to lead the reader into agreeing that it ''probably'' happened, and finally he assumes the reader goes along with him in agreeing that it did indeed happen that way.}}</ref>

:Darwin stated this in the first edition of ''"On The Origin of Species"'', but then omitted this story in other editions (emphasis Conservapedia):  

:Darwin stated this in the first edition of ''"On The Origin of Species"'', but then omitted this story in other editions (emphasis Conservapedia):  

*''"In North America the black bear was seen . . . swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, '''I can see no difficulty''' in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."''<ref name="Darwin's whale">{{cite web |author=John L. Gittleman (Associate Professor of Zoology|title=Darwin Saw the Whale in the Black Bear |publisher=NYTimes.com/University of Tennessee Knoxville |date=May 16, 1994 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/16/opinion/l-darwin-saw-the-whale-in-the-black-bear-097454.html |accessdate=November 25, 2013}}</ref>

*''"In North America the black bear was seen . . . swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, '''I can see no difficulty''' in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."''<ref name="Darwin's whale">{{cite web |author=John L. Gittleman (Associate Professor of Zoology|title=Darwin Saw the Whale in the Black Bear |publisher=NYTimes.com/University of Tennessee Knoxville |date=May 16, 1994 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/16/opinion/l-darwin-saw-the-whale-in-the-black-bear-097454.html |accessdate=November 25, 2013}}</ref>

===Darwin Saw the Whale in the Black Bear===

===Darwin Saw the Whale in the Black Bear===

In the first edition of his book ''[[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection]]'', Darwin claimed that he "can see no difficulty" in race of [[bear]]s enlarging their mouths by eating insects while swiming in the water thus gradually changing into [[whale]]s:     

In the first edition of his book ''[[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection]]'', Darwin claimed that he "can see no difficulty" in race of [[bear]]s enlarging their mouths by eating insects while swiming in the water thus gradually changing into [[whale]]s:     

<em>"In North America the black bear was seen . . . swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."</em><ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin Saw the Whale in the Black Bear |author=John L. Gittleman |publisher=The New York Times Company |date=16 May 1994 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/16/opinion/l-darwin-saw-the-whale-in-the-black-bear-097454.html |accessdate=27 November 2015 |quote=...Darwin omitted this story in other editions, but regretted his revision."I still maintain that there is no special difficulty in a bear's mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits" ("More Letters of Charles Darwin," 1903, page 162). JOHN L. GITTLEMAN Associate Professor of Zoology, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tenn., May 3, 1994}}</ref>

''"In North America the black bear was seen . . . swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin Saw the Whale in the Black Bear |author=John L. Gittleman |publisher=The New York Times Company |date=16 May 1994 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/16/opinion/l-darwin-saw-the-whale-in-the-black-bear-097454.html |accessdate=27 November 2015 |quote=...Darwin omitted this story in other editions, but regretted his revision."I still maintain that there is no special difficulty in a bear's mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits" ("More Letters of Charles Darwin," 1903, page 162). JOHN L. GITTLEMAN Associate Professor of Zoology, University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tenn., May 3, 1994}}</ref>

   

   

== Notes ==

== Notes ==

{{Reflist}}  

{{Reflist}}  

== See Also ==

== See also ==

*[[Epistemology]]

*[[Epistemology]]

*[[Evolution of the gaps]]

*[[Evolution of the gaps]]

[[Category:Logical Fallacies]]

[[Category:Logical Fallacies]]

[[Category:Methodology of Science]]

[[Category:Methodology of Science]]

[[Category: Pseudoscience]]

[[Category:Pseudoscience]]

[[Category:Rhetoric]]

[[Category:Rhetoric]]