Age of ancient humans reassessed ...
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4269299.stm

Gotta love the fluidity of truth.

Another article from one of my favorite newspapers ...
 

This really isn't a big deal. Early hominins date back at least 4 million years, so whether the first members of what we decide to call Homo sapiens lived 180,000 years ago or 195,000 doesn't matter one bit.

Also, the article, as they all do, mischaracterizes things completely. "Scientists" didn't "believe" that the first homo sapiens lived any amount of time ago, or if they did it was a private feeling. All "scientists" know is the age of the fossils that we have actually found.

The techniques used to accurately date fossils are constantly improving, and yet the age of the earth and the age of most fossils hasn't changed much. These particular specimens are interesting for that reason, but as far as actual knowledge we gain from them, the articles are typically sensationalist.

It should also be noted that one scientific paper doesn't dictate science. One paper, plus a bunch of responses and further studies constitutes science. I haven't looked at the fossils myself, and can't say whether this date will hold up at all.

So glad you made the switch to CougarGuard, Woot.

I also appreciate your contributions, tooblue. I still think you're dead wrong on science issues. :)

That whole "scientific method" crap just doesn't work for you, does it?

Just for the hell of it, I'd like to see woot and Sooner start lecturing TooBlue on artistic technique.

Tooblue isn't lecturing anyone. His POV is well known and he is posting links that he thinks are interesting. This sort of reaction is tantamount to protesters shouting down your favorite politician at a public speech. His point here seems to be that what is known changes. That is true. The conclusions we each may draw from this evidence, however, will likely be different, but so what?

Woot, while your assessment of the articles is accurate from your point of view, it is a bit picky to make a criticism such as this:

In fact, Tooblue's point is that "scientists" who claimed they "know" the age of fossils have in fact really engaged in a form of belief, relying on the accuracy of the methods available to them which can change and then the state of their "knowledge" changes. So for your average schmuck like me, it is just a belief. I think this position is well-supported by his posted links and by the reality of a pursuit for knowledge, even one rigorously based on the scientific method.

That's why I'm trying to educate schmucks like you. :)

But seriously, we do actually "know" a lot. We know that the earth is really, really old, and that life is the result of the natural selection of beneficial mutations in individual organisms. We know that the earth is an oblate spheroid (as opposed to flat or any other shape), and that continents move very slowly through the mechanisms described by plate tectonics. And on and on.

What we don't know is the exact time when humans split from chimps on the evolutionary tree (or more accurately, the evolutionary bush). We have various methods that all independently put it somewhere around 5-7 million years ago, but we don't know. Even if we did find an actual fossil from the first individual of the clade leading to Homo sapiens, there wouldn't be a good way to actually know that we did. We have specimens from that time period, so for all we know we found it already.

Here's the bottom line: When the anti-science crowd emphasizes such obviously trivial facts and uses them to try to discredit all of science, it's dishonest, intellectually bankrupt, and annoying.

Yes, there are scientists that are a little bit too willing to draw strong conclusions. They are in the minority, and do not discredit the mechanisms of science. A proper understanding of what the scientific method is, even in a vacuum, should be enough to conclude that if done right, science is the only way to truly learn anything.

The problem with the scientific method is it can't just decide on what's true and stop looking. It drives you nuts the way it comes up with new and different truths all the time, and it just snow balls.

That sounds like a reason to embrace religion. It finds it's version of the truth and stops looking.

Relax, friend. Check my posts, you will see that no one, not even your buddy Soonercoug, has pitched more on behalf of science and evolution than me. Even so, Tooblue's point in THIS thread is not invalid and it is simply not dishonest nor is it intellectually bankrupt. You may find it annoying (although I find it hard to believe you have been here long enough to for this to be true of Tooblue or me), but to try to shout him down because of what you think he means as opposed to what he says is, I am sure you would agree, not a healthy approach to learning or to dialog.

Besides, in your response you answered several arguments, but none of them had been made by me. For example, you will look in vain to find anywhere, and I mean anywhere in any thread, where I have suggested that evolution is not supported by ample evidence. Moreover, despite what Tooblue may or may not believe, in this thread he doens't say anything about evolution, per se, so why are you so eager to beat this drum? If you want to have a good discussion, it is always useful to actually talk about the same thing, eh?

I think Mormonism keeps looking. That's why we have revelation.

I agree with this. I was just trying to have some fun with SU knowing how he feels about religion in general.

Most of my comments were directed at him, not you. Also, I would prefer that you not use the phrase "shout him down," as it implies I'm trying to censor him or something. I obviously enjoy debating. I don't think I was beating any drum. I was using evolution as an example of something that we absolutely know, and the topic of the article as a piece of trivia that doesn't affect much.

Quite honestly, as I thought I made pretty clear in the first post, it looked to me like you were indeed trying to shout him down. If you weren't, then I am glad to hear it. However, just as I will take you at your word as to what you meant, as opposed to rely on what it seemed to me like you meant, I am sure you will do the same for Tooblue or others.

Most of us like a good debate here, so you will fit in fine, I am sure.

The problem, however, is when people use the inevitable tendency of scientific knowledge to change as a rationalization for failure of religious fundamentalism to find any support in empricism or reason, or worse, as tooblue seems to do, as a basis for arguing that there is no such thing as objectively verifiable truth. Is it really so hard to appreciate that endless testing and reassesment of received truths is part and parcel of empiricism? Can the same thing be said of religion? On the contrary. Is it so hard to appreciate that incremental accumulation of objectively verifiable truth is (perhaps paradoxically) as well part and parcel of empricism, and what saves us from ignorance? I wish I understood better what tooblue's point was. He keeps stating the obvious but conclusions he draws from such unsurprising developments in scientific fields seem bizarre, if I get them, and I'm not sure I do.

At least with science there is a method. Perhaps what the scientists should do is pray about the age of the earth, and then when they get a peaceful feeling they can declare that they've had a spiritual witness and that they can then unequivocally state the true age of the earth.

You missed my sarcasm. I explained byself better in my reply to creekster. But I'll put it even more directly. Science isn't ashamed of changing its conclusions. It's what science is all about, what science does, for crying out loud. But it doesn't mean science is all bullshit, as tooblue seems to believe. Science would cease to be science if it ever announced it had all the answers, and definitively so. It would have become religion.

That's good stuff. I often wonder if that really is what they'd prefer.

And you missed my sarcasm. Next time, I'll use the little winking smiley.

So does is this only a problem for religious fundamentalists or was that just to help me realize you meant me, tooblue and other believers? Also, you are doing the same thing woot and NS are doing; accusing Tooblue of something he hasn't said. While he may very well mean what you say, he certainly didn't' say it here. I can't speak for Tooblue, but I can say that this thread smacks of the sort of gang mentality that so many here complain about enduring on CB. Let the guy speak, disagree if you want, but can we do so based on what he says as opposed to what you think he means?

Look, empiricism has many answers, ultimately it might have all the answers, but not yet. Faith exists and, IMO, it is independent from empirical probing. The lack of empirical proof is not an insurmountable problem for me, or many others, even though we don't ignore the truths that we find are well supported as result of empirical truth. At the same time, assuming the inviolability of certain scientific precepts as the basis for criticism of religious belief, even of a fundamentalist strain, is no wiser in some instances than the problem you describe. This may be tooblue's point.

I'd hate to accuse him of trolling, but it really does seem like he cast 4 or 5 hooks (science articles) at the same time, and then took off. I'd love to hear his actual views on these matters.

Very amusing, but what is your point? DO you think the scientists that 'knew' the age of the fossils weren't incorrect? You deflect from the point without answering it.

He'll be back and is usually happy to defend himself. HE certainly doesn't need me to do it. I don't think he is trolling. I just think you guys need to relax a little when dealing with him and this topic. You are among friends here, no need to bite.

'They' who?

Honestly, "knowledge" isn't really a concept that I find in journals or the class room. If you'd prefer to consider scientific theory as "working assumptions," I don't have a problem with that.

The problems arrive when religionists abuse this uncertainty by insisting that since science isn't a concrete discipline (similar to every other discipline in the world excepting perhaps mathematics), that religion is just as valid a method of discovering truth, or even that religion should be taught in science class, which is one of the major causes of the large backlash going on right now.

That's one of the reasons why I hate creationism and intelligent design so much. They're utterly vacuous, and yet they occasionally cause certain rational thinkers to want to be more sure of things than they actually are in order to counter the absolute surety of the religious. That's a problem. I haven't seen it creep into any of the actual literature, doubt it will, and assume it would be shot down with extreme prejudice if it is ever found, but in the public sphere, I see all sorts of instances of it.

Case in point: Al Gore is a laughing stock. He exaggerates constantly. This has turned a vast number of people off of the concept of global warming entirely, and I fear that his influence has been a net negative as far as science awareness goes. This is a shame. Not that creationism had anything to do with any of that, I just fear that similar situations could develop due to this religious influence.

The anti-science, pro-religion crowd, of course.

Gore is an idiot. HE may have been counterproductive. But you are asking too much for the average schmuck like me to be able to figure this out for all topics.

Why do you hate creationists? I find it hard to understand that. I suppose if you want to make sure this sort of bad thinking doesn't leak into policy, I can understand that, but I think we face more problems from simple pork barrel politics (when it comes to skewing policy in non-scientific directions) than we do from creationists.

Btw, 'working assumption' is OK for me. You are the one that first said scientists 'know' something. Look at your first post.

This is a little exasperating. The thread starts with Tooblue's posts, which we sort of discussed, but you and NS keep dragging it out there to some other larger issue, which I certainly do not see myself as being part of. DO you think I am defending this "anti-science pro-religion" POV?

If I'm coming off as mean-spirited, I apologize. That's not my intent. I'm mostly just being a smart-ass. I like TooBlue. I don't agree with him all the time, but I like him.

Oh I'm not denying that we do, in fact, "know" lots of things. I just find that these conversations tend to inevitably turn into foofy existential debates about the possibility of "knowing" anything. Such debates certainly have merit, but I don't find them particularly stimulating. I just allow people to think of all of science as plastic in these situations, since it's easier than trying to delineate the amount of confidence we have in various bits of information. There are certain things that we know 99%, and there are other things that we are willing to temporarily accept as a foundation for further work, as doing so is necessary for progress. If these foundational bits are adjusted, then the work in which they are employed will also be adjusted. I gave several examples of each earlier in this thread.

I keep getting the feeling you are talking to someone other than me, like I walked into a lecture you are giving to a class of which I am not a member. Like I said, working assumption is OK for me.

Oh well. NIce to have another hard science type around, as there are already too many stinkin' lawyers.

I apologize if I seem that way. I do tend to think one step ahead since I have so much experience with these conversations and they tend to take similar tracks. I'll try to be more patient in the future. :)

I assume that is a joke. I certainly didn't feel like you were too far ahead of me. Far from it. I felt like you were tracting and you were giving me your door approach while fully ignoring what I was saying. IS that a little clearer? IOW, despite your obvious affection for the scientific method, you dispalyed a rather surprising unwillingness to use those principles in this discussion. But then, maybe that's why you used the smiley face.

I don't disagree, but I do think it is interesting that much of what we now believe to be true from science was not, in fact, widely accepted for years and sometimes decades after it had been discovery. There are myriad examples of this. It seems to be human nature to not want to give up up what is "known."

My point is only that while we often fault the church leaders of not adapting swiftly enough to on the blacks and the priesthood issue and other issues, the reality is that many scientific disciplines have also been remarkably slow to incorporate new things though I think that is less true lately. Just an observation about human nature, not trying to compare apples to apples.

But that is not a critique on the scientific method. On the contrary. It's a comment about human nature. The scientific method is what saves us from descent into dogma that you describe. Yes, a certain class of humans, perhaps the majority, prefer a psychic security they receive from dogma. It's not surprising that scientists, being human, would from time to time fall into this trap.

Maybe the links were a part of an ...
 

emperical fact gathering study?

I simply find articles fascinating ... as fascinating as:

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/...hic/atlas.html