This is a two-part composite reply to all the replies received up to Friday
afternoon (my time)! In order to put them in strict chronological order, I
took them of the archives on the Web and had to reconstruct the "On
[date] [name] line. I also have redone the initials prefixes to each
paragraph, e.g. changed "Susan wrote" to "SB>" to make it clearer.
Because I had to manually insert some of the ">>"s there may be some
slight problems there also.
Unless Susan or Chris or other respondents come up with anything new,
this may be may last post on this thread.
Although I do not particularly enjoy being called a liar, I am pleased that it
shows the evolutionists are having to resort to such ad hominem tactics
rather than just debate the issues. This tells me what Gould's `hatchet job'
review of "Darwin on Trial" told Phil Johnson, that they have no arguments
on the merits:
"Gould's review of Darwin on Trial...in the July 1992 issue of Scientific
American...was an undisguised hatchet job, aimed at giving the impression
that my skepticism about Darwinism must be due to an ignorance of basic
facts of biology. Far from being discouraged by this treatment, I was
elated. Most books are no longer news a year after publication; mine was
apparently still enough of a menace to merit an all-out attack by America's
most prominent Darwinist. Moreover, Gould on paper turned out to be
much less formidable than the Gould many of my colleagues anticipated.
Everyone who was following the controversy assumed that Gould was the
most formidable adversary I would encounter and many were waiting to
see if he would come up with a devastating response. That he could do no
better than a hit-and-run attack was an implicit admission that he had no
answer on the merits. As a biochemist friend wrote me in congratulation,
`Judging by the howls of pain from the back pages of Scientific American, I
think you must have struck a vital spot.' And so I had." (Johnson P.E.,
"Darwin on Trial", 1993, p161)
On Tue, 23 Nov 1999 22:59:11 EST MikeBGene@aol.com wrote:
[...]
SB>The original version reads "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
>offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection
>does not require it--selection can operate rapidly."...
MG>Showing that trying to pin down natural selection is like trying
>to nail jello to the wall. Rapid change, gradual change, no change -
>it's all expected from natural selection.
Good point. Part of the confusion is caused by evolutionists using
words vaguely so it is hard to work out what they mean.
I remember reading somewhere Dawkins saying that stasis is just
`slow evolution'. I guess on that basis instantaneous creation is just
`fast evolution'!
[...]
On Tue, 23 Nov 1999 23:32:45 -0800 Chris Cogan (ccogan@sfo.com) wrote:
[...]
>>SJ>"...The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
>>>offers no support for gradual change...Yet the unnecessary link that
>>>Darwin forged became a central tenet of the synthetic theory." (Gould S.J., "The
>>>Return of the Hopeful Monster", in "The Panda's Thumb", 1990, p156)
>SB>... I know the
>>chances are extremely slim that Stephen actually reads all the books he
>>quotes. He picks up quotes here and there on the web and there are
>>creationist books that are almost nothing but quotes. Creationists love to
>>quote evolutionists out of context in order to make it seem that even
>>evolutionists doubt evolution. That is, of course, not true. Deliberately
>>creating such a false impression is considered lying in scientific circles
>>and it's probably considered lying in most Christian circles. I was
>>shocked when I first found out about the lies. I assumed (why?) that the most
>>conservative Christians (the ones most likely to be creationists) would be
>>the ones most careful about scrupulous truthfulness. This has proved not
>>to be true.
I have answered these points more fully in my previous post. Here
is
a brief summary:
1) I never have claimed to read *from cover to cover* all the books
from which I quote. But I do claim to have read *at least the page*
of the book from which I quote;
2) I scan almost all of my quotes from books and journals. Most of
these I own but some I have scanned from library books or
photocopies of library journals. I am only aware of one web quote
site at UCSB. I would be interested in the addresses of these other
sites!
3) I take great care not to take quotes out of context and in 4-5
years on this Reflector, out of thousands of quotes, I have rarely
been accused of quoting out of context;
4) I don't lie. And I would be interested in the details and references
to Susan's research above about "conservative Christians" being
the least truthful. I would be particularly interested in the definition
of "conservative" and the criteria for "truthfulness".
>SB>In the Gould quote above there are two sets of elipses indicating that
>>material has been trimmed... The
>>second set of elipses hides something very interesting though.
If I wanted to hide something I wouldn't insert ellipses. I would
have just cut out the text and joined it without ellipses, like Glenn
often does.
>SJ>"The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for
>gradual change...Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central
>tenet of the synthetic theory."
>SB>The original version reads "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
>>offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection
>>does not require it--selection can operate rapidly."
>>
>>As you can see the portion left out was brief, but it refutes what Stephen
>>was saying. The missing verbage changes the meaning of the paragraph and
>>reveals that Gould does *not* agree that variation and selection are
>>controversial.
As pointed out previously, the words I left out: ", and the principle of
natural selection does not require it--selection can operate rapidly"
says *nothing* about "variation" and Chris' words which I was
addressing say nothing about "selection". Susan is clutching at
straws.
>SJ>"These tales, in the "just-so story" tradition of evolutionary natural
>>>history, do not prove anything. But the weight of these, and many similar cases,
>>>wore down my faith in gradualism long ago. More inventive minds may yet
>>>save it, but concepts salvaged only by facile speculation do not appeal
>>>much to me." Gould S.J., "The Return of the Hopeful Monster", in "The
>>>Panda's Thumb", 1990, p158)
>SB>the above paragraph on p. 190 of *The Panda's Thumb* is a discussion of
>>*gradualism* not variation and natural selection and is a lead-in to the
>>material on p. 191.
This is page 158 in my book. Gould S.J., "The Return of the
Hopeful Monster", in "The Panda's Thumb", Penguin: London,
1990, reprint.
[...]
>SB>If the evidence for ID is so vast and so well-founded in empirical science,
>>why lie? Why quote evolutionists in such a way that they seem to be saying
>>something they are *not* saying? What's the point?
Susan has not established her original premise: that I "quote
evolutionists in such a way that they seem to be saying something
they are *not* saying". The words that I cut out, which Susan added
back in, made no difference to the point I was making to Chris. And
neither Chris nor Susan has shown that they did.
>SB>I think the point is obvious. ID is propaganda, just as the quotes Stephen
>>picks up here and there (I *don't* believe he's read all those books) are
>>propaganda. Truth-value is secondary as long as doubt seems to be cast on
>>evolution and Christian mythology seems to be science.
See my previous post. I don't claim that I have from cover to cover
"read all those books". But I do claim I have read at least the page,
and adjacent pages, on which the quote occurs.
I do own an estimated more that 900 Creation/Evolution books and
I am slowly building up a web page listing them. I also subscribe to
New Scientist, Discover, and Scientific American.
CC>There's a moral here: If you want to read Stephen's posts, by all means do
>so. Just remember that any evolutionist he quotes is probably being quoted
>out of context or misquoted and is almost certainly being misrepresented.
Which only goes to show that a committed evolutionist like Chris
does not need to even look at my quotes in order to know in
advance that they are probably are "out of context", or "misquoted"
and "misrepresented"!
Because to a committed evolutionist like Chris, Evolution simply
*cannot* be wrong, then the fault *must* be with the critic for daring
to present evidence against evolution from evolutionists' writings!
CC>>Further, keep in mind that, even when he does not misrepresent the quotes in
>the very process of quoting them, he *then* misrepresents what they say in
>his own comments about them.
No actual evidence is presented by Chris because none is needed
by him. His mind is made up, and he doesn't want to be confused
by facts! Because Evolution and evolutionists *cannot* be wrong,
the critic simply *must* be misrepresenting what they say!
CC>This is most remarkable, since all the reader
>has to do is re-read the quoted passage to see that Stephen is simply lying
>or willfully stupid.
It is instructive to note that the critic of Evolution cannot be simply
mistaken. No, to the committed evolutionist, to deny Evolution is
like denying a law of physics. Such a person simply *must* be
"lying or willfully stupid" (or worse)!
CC>I will elaborate on this in my post in response to the
>post
I will look forward to Chris response.
CC>in which he has the gall to accuse me of an ad hominem argument for
>calling him on his systematic misrepresentation the views of his opponents.
An "ad hominem argument" is one that is directed at the *person*,
rather than *what* he is saying:
"ad hominem ...to the man; personal. An argument ad hominem a.
appeals to a person's prejudices or special interests instead of to
his intellect, or b. relies on personal attack." (Delbridge A., et al.,
eds., "The Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary", 1991, p11).
Having just called me a liar or "stupid", now Chris is outraged that I
said in an earlier post that he was using an ad hominem argument!
When Chris accused me of "systematic misrepresentation the
views of his opponents" I take it as an ad hominem attempt to
discredit me as a *person*, so that no one needs to take seriously
my arguments against Chris' views.
Evolutionists use ad hominem arguments so frequently, that maybe
its so automatic they don't even realise they are doing it?
[...]
On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 00:00:15 -0800 Cliff Lundberg wrote:
>>SJ>"The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual
>>change...Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central tenet
>>of the synthetic theory."
>
>SB>The original version reads "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
>>offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection
>>does not require it--selection can operate rapidly."
>>
>>As you can see the portion left out was brief, but it refutes what Stephen
>>was saying. The missing verbage changes the meaning of the paragraph and
>>reveals that Gould does *not* agree that variation and selection are
>>controversial.
CL>I don't see how the meaning is changed. SJ says "unnecessary" and the
>quoted text says "does not require".
Gould says *both* "unnecessary" and "does not require". Here is the full
paragraph:
"Many evolutionists view strict continuity between micro- and macro-
evolution as an essential ingredient of Darwinism and a necessary corollary
of natural selection. Yet, as I argue in essay 17, Thomas Henry Huxley
divided the two issues of natural selection and gradualism and warned
Darwin that his strict and unwarranted adherence to gradualism might
undermine his entire system. The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection
DOES NOT REQUIRE IT - selection can operate rapidly. Yet the
UNNECESSARY link that Darwin forged became a central tenet of the
synthetic theory." (Gould S.J., "The Return of the Hopeful Monster", in
"The Panda's Thumb", Penguin, 1990, p156. My emphasis)
>SB>I think the point is obvious. ID is propaganda, just as the quotes Stephen
>>picks up here and there (I *don't* believe he's read all those books) are
>>propaganda. Truth-value is secondary as long as doubt seems to be cast on
>>evolution and Christian mythology seems to be science.
CL>If truth-value were primary to you, you wouldn't speculate about whether
>he's reading books or just magically finding the quotes he uses.
Good point! This is a version of the Genetic Fallacy, which is a type
of ad hominem argument that tries to discredit evidence on the
basis of its source:
"To argue that proposals are bad or assertions false because they
are proposed or asserted by radicals (of the right or left) is to argue
fallaciously and to be guilty of committing an argumentum ad
hominem (abusive). This kind of argument is sometimes said to
commit the Genetic Fallacy, because it attacks the source or
genesis of the opposing position rather than that position itself. The
way in which this irrelevant argument may sometimes persuade is
through the psychological process of transference. Where an
attitude of disapproval toward a person can be evoked, it may
possibly tend to overflow the strictly emotional field and become
disagreement with what that person says. But this connection is
only psychological, not logical." (Copi I.M., Introduction to Logic",
1986, p92)
[...]
On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 07:30:24 +0000 mortongr@flash.net wrote:
[...]
CC>I will elaborate on this in my post in response to the
>>post in which he has the gall to accuse me of an ad hominem argument for
>>calling him on his systematic misrepresentation the views of his opponents.
GM>You misunderstand Stephen. He believes that anyone who disagrees with him
>is engaging in ad hominem.
This in itself is an ad hominem! *Any* argument which tried to
discredit the person, in order to be able to ignore what they say, is
by definition, an "ad hominem".
The reason why there is an element of truth in what Glenn says is
because evolutionists in general, and Glenn in particular, use the
ad hominem argument a lot!
This is obvious in this very thread which Susan titled "Why lie?",
and evolutionists like Glenn and Chris all jumped on the
bandwagon, without even finding out if I hadn't just made a mistake.
In fact I hadn't even made a mistake, let alone lied.
[...]
On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:28:02 EST Bertvan@aol.com wrote:
[...]
CC>...This is most remarkable, since all the reader
>has to do is re-read the quoted passage to see that Stephen is simply lying
>or willfully stupid.....
[...]
>BV>How often have I heard the claim that anyone who criticizes any part of neo
>Darwinism is "lying or willfully stupid". It 's rather like Dawkin's claim
>that critics are immoral or insane (and something else I've forgotten).
It was "ignorant, stupid or insane...or wicked". (New York Times,
April 9, 1989). Since only 10% of the public believe in "evolution" as
Dawkins defines it, that presumably means that 90% of the public
are either "ignorant, stupid or insane...or wicked" and only 10% are
educated, wise, sane and good!
The important thing is to realise that committed evolutionists like
Dawkins (and Chris) are being perfectly sincere in believing that
anti-evolutionists are ignorant, stupid, insane, or wicked. Like the
Soviet Union communists who thought that people who didn't
believe in Marxism must be crazy and needed psychiatric
treatment, so committed evolutionists like Dawkins (and Chris)
cannot even imagine that anyone could have a legitimate, rational
criticism of Evolution, so they assume that the critic must be "lying
or ...stupid" (or worse).
>BV>I'm
>grateful to Steven for doing all that reading. He often he posts the entire
>article on the board. I do hope that resorting to such arguments as these
>means that the end of "random mutation and natural selection as an
>explanation of macro evolution" is in sight. Perhaps the real scientists are
>moving on and looking for other explanations, while the "defenders" of the
>theory are left holding the bag.
[...]
On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 09:55:23 -0600 Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
>>>SJ>>"The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual
>>>change...Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central tenet
>>>of the synthetic theory."
>
>>SB>The original version reads "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
>>>offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection
>>>does not require it--selection can operate rapidly."
>>>
>>>As you can see the portion left out was brief, but it refutes what Stephen
>>>was saying. The missing verbage changes the meaning of the paragraph and
>>>reveals that Gould does *not* agree that variation and selection are
>>>controversial.
>
>CL>I don't see how the meaning is changed. SJ says "" and the
>>quoted text says "does not require".
SB>That's Gould saying "unnecessary." He's saying that strict gradualism is
>not necessary to evolutionary theory. What Stephen said was that increase
>in variation was controversial and then posted a portion of a discussion of
>the rate of evolution (an entirely different discussion) as support for his
>assertion, and quote had been altered to make it seem to support his
>argument better.
Susan's problem is she misunderstood what I was saying and
therefore interprets me altering Gould's quote when I cut out words
which were not relevant to the specific point I was making.
I did not say that "increase in variation was controversial" but that
Chris's claim that "Complexity increases by variations..." (in the
Neo-Darwinian sense) was "controversial" with punctuationists like
Gould who argue that variations (ie. micromutations) do not
accumulate to give rise to major structural changes, but these
happen by sudden, large changes (ie. macromutations).
>SB>I think the point is obvious. ID is propaganda, just as the quotes Stephen
>>picks up here and there (I *don't* believe he's read all those books) are
>>propaganda. Truth-value is secondary as long as doubt seems to be cast on
>>evolution and Christian mythology seems to be science.
>CL>If truth-value were primary to you, you wouldn't speculate about whether
>>he's reading books or just magically finding the quotes he uses.
SB>No magic involved. Lists of creationist out-of-context quotes are all over
>the web. He has links to some of them from his own website.
This is simply false. I have no links to other "quotes" sites on "the
web", and in fact I only know of one. That one, which is at UCSB is
off a links to Access Research Network, which is on my web page.
The quote page itself if not on my web page and last time I looked
it was fairly limited and I don't use it. I try to base my quotes on
hard copy (ie. books or, journals that I own, or from the library). I
always try to get or at least check the original source), to minimise
copyists' errors.
SB>Do you really think he's read all those books?
See above. I don't claim that I have from cover to cover "read all
those books". But I do claim I have read at least the page, and
almost always at least the adjacent pages, on which the quote
occurs.
[...]
On Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:00:59 -0600 Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
>>CC>There's a moral here: If you want to read Stephen's posts, by all means do
>>>so. Just remember that any evolutionist he quotes is probably being quoted
>>>out of context or misquoted and is almost certainly being misrepresented.
>>>Further, keep in mind that, even when he does not misrepresent the quotes in
>>>the very process of quoting them, he *then* misrepresents what they say in
>>>his own comments about them. This is most remarkable, since all the reader
>>>has to do is re-read the quoted passage to see that Stephen is simply lying
>>>or willfully stupid. I will elaborate on this in my post in response to the
>>>post in which he has the gall to accuse me of an ad hominem argument for
>>>calling him on his systematic misrepresentation the views of his opponents.
>BV>How often have I heard the claim that anyone who criticizes any part of neo
>>Darwinism is "lying or willfully stupid".
SB>Ready my "Why Lie?" post. I just exposed one of Stephen's falsehoods.
>(Actually he probably picked up that edited quote from a creationist
>website, believing as I once did, that creationists would never stoop to
>lying or dishonesty to make their case.)
Susan contradicts herself. First she claimed I personally cut out the
words and therefore "lied". Now she claims I "probably picked up
that edited quote from a creationist website"! This shows it doesn't
really matter to Susan what happened. To her creationists are all
liars by definition, because they don't believe in the Truth, ie,
evolution!
But in fact I own Gould's book "The Panda's Thumb" as well as I
have a photocopy from a library of Gould's original 1977 Natural
History article. Here is the same quote from the article which was
reprinted in The Panda's Thumb:
"Orthodox neo-Darwinians extrapolate these even and continuous
changes to the most profound structural transitions in the history of
life: by a long series of insensibly graded intermediate steps, birds
are linked to reptiles, fish with jaws to their jawless ancestors.
Macroevolution (major structural transition) is nothing more than
microevolution (flies in bottles) extended. If black moths can
displace white ones in a century, then reptiles can become birds in
a few million years by the smooth and sequential summation of
countless changes. Change of gene frequencies in local
populations is an adequate model for all evolutionary processes-or
so the current orthodoxy states.
Many evolutionists view strict continuity between micro- and
macroevolution as an essential ingredient of Darwinism and a
necessary corollary of natural selection. Still, as I argued last
month. Thomas Henry Huxley divided the two issues of natural
selection and gradualism and warned Darwin that his strict and
unwarranted adherence to gradualism might undermine his entire
system . The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no
support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection
does not require it-selection can operate rapidly. Yet the
unnecessary link that Darwin forged became central tenet of the
synthetic theory.
(Gould S.J., "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History, Vol.
86, No. 6, June-July 1977, p23)
It is quite clear that Gould is arguing that microevolution: the
accumulation by natural selection of small variations (as Darwin
thought and Neo-Darwinians think) can cause major structural
transitions (macroevolution). That was the sole point I was making
to Chris, and the natural selection part I cut out was irrelevant to
that particular argument I was making to Chris.
[continued with part 2/2]
Steve
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"The definition widely adopted in recent decades-"Evolution is the change
of gene frequencies in populations"-refers only to the transformational
component. It tells us nothing about the multiplication of species nor, more
broadly, about the origin of organic diversity. A broader definition is
needed which would include both transformation and diversification."
(Mayr E., "The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and
Inheritance", Belknap Press: Cambridge MA, 1982, p400)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
--------------------------------------------------------------------