Doug Hayworth wrote:
> P.S. What is your intellectual (or rather apologetic) goal in holding out
> against common ancestry, especially for that of humans with primates and
> other mammals (which is very recent)?
And you wrote:
> P.S.S. What is your intellectual (or rather apologetic) goal in holding out
> for common ancestry, especially for that of humans with primates
> and other mammals? ;-) Your motives, whatever they may be, are
> no more relevant than mine. Let's stick to the evidence.
> Best,
> Paul Nelson
This is just the point. I don't have an intellectual "goal" one way or the
other. I am compelled to my present understanding by the weight of manifold
evidence from 150 years of intense investigation of the observable
properties and behavior of the physical universe, including the nature of
inheritance, production of variation by mutation, and ecological
interactions. If, over time, the Doolittle stuff becomes more and more
substantiated, then that will become incorporated into a more expanded and
refined understanding on my part about the nature of early evolutionary
history.
You, on the other hand, *appear* to have an a priori commitment to disprove
evolution, including the animal ancestry of humans, by searching high and
low for a few lines of evidence which you can interpret to that end by way
of considerable convolution.
Yes, we can try to stick to the evidence, but our basic philosophy of
approach to that evidence differs so immensely that we are left without
common ground to work from. This was my point in the original post. For
me, acceptance of common ancestry is a yardstick for measuring the extent
of our common ground. If you do not accept (what I believe to be) the
overwhelming evidence for common ancestry (in the form of a continuity of
descent - whether it be unitary, reticulate, mosaic, or otherwise - and
going at least "way back" in time) then my conclusion is that you have
either not looked at the evidence or you have interpreted the evidence so
completely differently that there is no hope to talk about the evidence in
a meaningful way.
There are more important matters in my life than continuing along this thread.
Cheers,
Doug
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