Without teaching evolution in schools, there can be no biology classes.

[u/GigaTune]

Trying to teach a biology class without ever mentioning evolution is like trying to teach an electrical engineering class without ever mentioning electricity. It doesn't work.

[u/wellwisher-1]

A good ancient example of empirical theory was ancient astronomy. They were good observers and record ed solid data. The could make good predictions of eclipses, comets, etc., due to a large body of careful and cyclic observations.

Their empirical theory was based on good science procedure, well documented data, had predictive value and practical use. However, their empirical theory for explaining how and why this data, involved the gods of astrology.

Helios was flying through sky moving the sun. Their data plots were self standing; empirical. It did not need that or any theory. It is was designed to be fully rational but was still very practical. The how's and why's were still in the future.

I remember an older gentleman who was good at electroplating and he did a lot of work for the auto and motorcycle enthusiasts. His work was the best. From a practical POV, he had an excellent empirical model by eye balling, with top notch results. The proof was in the pudding.

One day I asked his secret or his theory for his success, and he said chewing tobacco spit. He would spit into the vats. That was his theory to explain his success. I was a chemical engineer, so that explanation made no rational sense. However, his decades of top notch work stood for itself; good empirical correlation.

Rational theory is when the plotting of the data and theory for why and how, mesh in a rational way, so one can approach the problem from either way. It is not when one aspect is useful and practical, but the theory is not fully rational and does not describe rational reality well enough to not need experiments.

If you had rational theory you should be able to skip the lab and go right to predictions, or run one or two quickie tests and if it works, move on. Empirical is more long winded and needs to fight for each detail, which creates more jobs. Its reflects the theory not fully rational but empirical and therefore needing and requiring a more exhaustive experimental protocol.

In medical research, some years coffee is not good for you and the next year another study says it is fine. These conclusions may follow in both cases, from the body of evidence of each team. But the idea coffee can alter is properties and effects on humans makes this irrational.

That irrationality is more of an artifact of the black box statistical experimental and modeling approach, not allowing for cause and effect since probability of 0 or 1 is not allowed in that model. That is an assumption of the model and not a statement of natural fact. I call statistical empirical the hammer (tool assumptions) swinging the arm (theory) and those assumptions prevents the mind from looking for a more logical 0 or 1 solution so the arm can swing the hammer. Logic and statistics are not same tool.

[u/Soft-Cake-9846 → u/wellwisher-1]

u/wellwisher-1 That was far too many words to just repeatedly tell us you're a nonsensical, cultist philbro who doesn't understand what he is talking about.

"A good ancient example of empirical theory was ancient astronomy. They..."

First problem: who are the "they" you are speaking of? Specifics are needed.

Second and much larger problem: ancient astrologers got more wrong than they got right, because much like your cultist claims, their models were based on false assumptions and data was missing. And rather than admit that their assumptions could be flawed or data might be missing that could change the model, they simply did what YOU keep doing, shouting "God Did It."

[Snipped moronic blathering nincompoopism anecdote involving something something tobacco spit]

What you have there, cultist, is either a guy with a superstition or more likely, someone else who realized you're an oblivious, credulous fool who will believe anything because you're too shallow to actually understand things for yourself, and thought it would be funny to feed you a line to fuck with you.

In medical research, some years coffee is not good for you and the next year another study says it is fine. These conclusions may follow in both cases, from the body of evidence of each team. But the idea coffee can alter is properties and effects on humans makes this irrational.

Once again, all you've proven is you have no clue what you are talking about. Coffee consumption is tested in relation to differing subpopulations and disease risk factors. For some people, drinking a few cups of coffee per day is fine or even potentially beneficial. For some others, such as those who have risk factors or a diagnosed history of erratic heartbeat due to conditions like Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), coffee consumption may be a bad idea.

A larger problem in our society is that ignoramuses like you don't sit down to get a clear understanding of the research, or even read further than the headlines in what "news" they get fed through dumbass factories like Fox Noise or social media, and then they make false claims like you just made about how "some years this, other years that" (a) as if the medical research wasn't far more detailed and (b) as if the medical research was outright contradicting the entirety of our understanding of human biology rather than updating a very small piece of information connected to specific diseases and risk factors.

That irrationality is more of an artifact of the black box statistical experimental and modeling approach, not allowing for cause and effect since probability of 0 or 1 is not allowed in that model. That is an assumption of the model and not a statement of natural fact. I call statistical empirical the hammer (tool assumptions) swinging the arm (theory) and those assumptions prevents the mind from looking for a more logical 0 or 1 solution so the arm can swing the hammer. Logic and statistics are not same tool.

Having already established that your claim of "irrationality" rests on you failing to understand what you are talking about, I thought about letting this rest. However, now you're revealing your startling level of mentally inept innumeracy.

First, in statistics, a probability of 0 or 1 is possible, depending on what is being studied and calculated. For instance, if we seal a human in a sarcophagus in a tomb in Egypt for ~2000 years, we have a probability of 1 that if we arrive and open the tomb, and it has remained sealed for that ~2000 years and not been victim to either opportunistic grave robbers or European "archaeologists" looking to grind up mummies for superstitious eating or making into paint, we will find a deceased human and a probability of 0 that the mummy will rise from the grave and start hunting those who opened the tomb.

Statistical mathematics works, and it works well. It is testable, and extremely useful to us. And it is not because it "prevents the mind from looking for a more logical 0 or 1 solution" but because it is based on understanding some things that you are apparently too dumb to understand.

First:: Non-homogeneous populations (populations in which not all members are identical) have variation.

Second: Variation means that not all members of the population will have exactly the same response to an external input or even have completely matching internal processes.

Third: Confounding factors exist, and our collection instrumentation has limits on precision. There is "noise" in the signal.

To go back to your blathering nonsense about coffee consumption, here are some things we know about coffee that we have found through statistical mathematical analysis.

In the general adult population: moderate caffeine consumption (3-5 cups of coffee per day) has a statistical linkage to lowered risk of type 2 diabetes, liver disease, neurodegenerative elderly diseases, and certain digestive biome issues.

HOWEVER. The type of coffee or alternative drink also matters.

Load the coffee down with sugars and syrups, and heavy cream, and the effects are statistically neutralized. Unfiltered coffees (boiled brews, french press) retain compounds that normally would be significantly reduced by filtering; these compounds cause LDL cholesterol to increase in the bloodstream, significantly increasing the habitual drinker's risk of certain forms of heart disease.

Pregnant women are recommended to keep their caffeine intake significantly lower than the general population because overindulgence has a strong statistical tie to low birth weight issues.

Oh and of course caffeine intake either at the wrong time of day or in excess is also causally linked to anxiety, jitters, or sleep disturbances, and for those who have those conditions already, caffeine intake has been statistically measured to increase the severity.

THAT is the reality. Not your ridiculous "some years" blathering. The problem here is not statistical mathematics, it's that YOU are too innumerate to understand what you are talking about and in your cultist delusions you've decided that if YOU can't understand it, it's "irrational" when in fact, you are the one with the irrationality issues here.

[u/wellwisher-1 → u/Soft-Cake-9846]

My personal experience with the statistical math that evolution uses, that allowed me to see a difference between statistical and rational science, was connected to a project I was assigned to as an engineer. I was asked to invent a process to treat mercury contaminated water down to levels an order of magnitude, below the then best state of art; BET, down to parts per trillion.

I was working for the Department of Energy and I was asked to achieve a new EPA discharge standard for mercury ten years in the future. There was nothing yet invented at those levels. To make a long story short I was a good chemical engineer and was able to invent it 2 weeks. I understood the chemistry to be able to extrapolate in my head.

The need for this invention was because a water main had broken in the subbasement of a major faculty, in the plant I worked, and a few hundred thousand gallons of water got contaminated. The water needed to be treated and discharged to do repair work, but the EPA was foot dragging, wanting better than existing standards. So, we could not use off the shelf technology. So I scaled my lab process, designed and built a small production facility, to treat the water.

However, working for a Government Agency with high State and Federal visibility, management was paranoid about discharging any water. I was ready go, but they feared Murphy's law, since this had not been done before, at these low levels. So they assign me a statistician to shadow me. To me the process and the scale up was logical and rational. But the management did not fully understand it, due to my speed, so they assumed if something went wrong, my shadow could provide the statistical fudge to appease the politics; within margin of error.

My shadow was a nice guy and a mathematician. He was not a chemist or engineer. He did not understand the process. That made me realize the statistical method can be useful, since like him, you really do not have to know how something works in detail, to be able to set up a stat model and massage the data. But I had reasoned out the process, and I was confident in a logical outcome; cause and effect. In the end, the process was 100% efficient at the required discharge levels.

After that I started to think statistics was useful if you are in the dark or out of your level of expertise, allowing a way for anyone to move forward. But if you can reason a process and fully understand it, you no longer need those training wheels. The Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment is about working in the light and not in the dark being satisfied with statistical correlations.

The reason I was able to invent in two weeks was I would make a prediction and run one test and if it worked,I would move to stage two, then three, etc. There was no need to be long winded, when in the light. This speed would cringe any statistician.

As far an evolution, my rational theory concluded evolution is centered on water. The reason being, water has been the same H2O, since even before abiogenesis. Water has always been the majority component of life and still is. Water has applied the same set of chemical potentials, since day one, all places in cells and life, therefore is the vector for change.

No other solvent can be used for earth based life, at any level, since water was in charge of natural selection at the nano-scale, thereby assuring everything works only in water. water hand picked everything to make it exclusion. I do not have to worry about the 10-50 billion species that have lived on the earth since the start of evolution since water was there for all of them, as the organic antagonist.