Steve Clark wrote:
>>It may not be working well in evolutionary theory, which seems at a
>>dead end in regard to the origin of metazoan complexity, the Cambrian
>>explosion, and of course the original abiogenesis.
>
>Why do you say this?
Because I'd like to know about these things, and I haven't read
any satisfying explanations.
>You may be right about differing degrees of conservatism. All my
>experience and the examples I gave were in the area of medical research.
I was responding to the cited examples of phrenology and cold fusion;
your medical examples must have been in an earlier post.
>I am not sure what your point about PE was, but isn't the response to PE and
>example of scientific conservatism?
My point was that PE was a pretty lame bit of science, and that it happens
to be a conservative idea within Darwinian thought. No macroevolution,
no new mechanisms.
Now that I think about it, I don't see any point in discussing conservatism
in the abstract; the biological arguments are the interesting things to me.
I take them on their merits, whether they're conservative or not is irrelevant.
--Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ cliff@cab.com
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