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From: David Smallberg
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: How about the future?
Message-ID: <1323@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 22-Sep-84 19:16:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.1323
Posted: Sat Sep 22 19:16:03 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 05:17:42 EDT
Organization: UCLA CS Dept.
Lines: 26
...
Why do we care about the past? So that we can predict the future. Isn't
that a major goal of science?
OK, evolutionists and creation scientists, forget the argument about origins
for a minute and look to the future:
Post some things your science predicts. To be helpful, they
should be verifiable in the near future. To be especially
helpful, post something that your model predicts which is
different from what others predict, and can be tested soon.
(After all, if there are no differences in the models' predictions
for the next few thousand years, then for all practical purposes, it
doesn't really matter which one we accept.)
As an example, evolution predicts that if we look at previously unanalyzed
biochemicals which perform similar functions in different critters [I'll
bet you wanted me to say "species" or "kind"], we should find that the degree
of similarity in their molecular structures is for the most part directly
related to the previously deduced degree of relatedness of the critters.
This would be a consequence of an evolutionary theory, but only a coincidence
in a creation science model. If observed, this would be a point in favor of
that evolutionary model, since coincidence has no predictive power.
-- David Smallberg, das@ucla-cs.ARPA, {ihnp4,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!das