"Stephen E. Jones" writes
in message <200004261214.UAA04507@muzak.iinet.net.au>:
<snip>
> Quite frankly I am not as inclined to take a message all
> that seriously when I encounter an "out-of-context" quote allegation
> or other ad hominem. If Tedd wants me to take him seriously, then he
> will need to learn to repay the courtesy.
Just for the record, I don't consider anything I've said ad
hominem. What I've tried to get across to you is that it is
highly unlikely that any evolutionist you quote would agree that
your use was fair and presented accurate context, precisely
because you use quotes in an attempt to expose fundamental flaws
in evolution and fundamental reasons why intelligent design,
ala conservative Christianity, should be reconsidered. Second,
your quotes don't have enough context to easily understand what
is being claimed and I'm not going to go look up a quote just
because that's the only way you want to argue. Third, quotes
do not take into account changing views over time or new
discoveries and thus may misrepresent the current views of any
given scientist.
The alternative to quote mining is to specifically address
evidence and arguments. Quotes are great for preaching to your
choir, Pastor Jones, but they do not persuade those not a part
of your congregation.
> TH>No, if there is a good supply of imperfectly replicating molecules,
> >natural selection can act on them to produce levels of complexity
> >logically limited only by time and energy supply. I would
> >argue that complexity is a prediction of the laws of physics
> >and Darwinism is merely one combination of those.
>
> I rest my case! That is not even a prediction even of life.
Almost unlimited complexity is not a prediction for life? How
do you figure that?
> It agrees with my quote from Popper saying that Darwinism would
> not be refuted even if we found *no* species on another planet:
I'm not sure what Popper's argument is, but if you want to defend
it in detail, please do so. On the face of it (which might not
be fair to Popper) it has some obvious flaws. The claim
of variety would be easily falsified if we found only the same
life forms over time and over a variety of conditions. Your
quote assumes wrongly that the hypothetical bacteria we observe on
Mars can not have any fossil record and that nothing can be
known about their history. However, if we observe three species
that persist in stasis over geologic time intervals despite
changing conditions (on Earth, we've been able to reliabile infer
each item seperately), Darwinism is certainly falsifed.
> I've deleted the rest of Tedd's post because: a) it ignored my main point:
>
> "Despite its biological importance, positive selection is seldom
> observed at work in nature. A few well-known, and constantly
> cited examples are industrial melanism in moths (Kettlewell,
> 1955, 1956, 1958), DDT resistance in insects and antibiotic
> resistance in bacteria." (Kimura M., "The Neutral Theory of
> Molecular Evolution," 1990, p.118)
>
> Even if "industrial melanism in moths...DDT resistance in insects and
> antibiotic resistance in bacteria" were granted to be examples of "positive
> selection" (which they aren't),
Oh, but they are! Or at least, your criticism of them is misguided.
> if that's the *best* examples that Neo- Darwinists can come up
> with, then it shows how weak is the evidential base of their
> theory;
I'm not so sure. The question is what evidence you expect for
Darwinism that can not be extrapolated from what we observe now:
the evolution of new genetic information, new functions, new
species. You apparently want to see macroevolution happening
before your very eyes, but such an event would more likely
falsify evolution than confirm it.
As I have argued in other threads, why do you not use the same
request to geologists to highlight how "weak the evidential base
is" for their theories for the formation of the Grand Canyon or
Yosemite Valley? You have not observed glaciers carving out
valleys from scratch, nor rivers cutting thousands feet into
the ground. Therefore, erosion theories are weak?
> Since this is the 5th iteration of this thread, this is my last
> post on it. Tedd has ignored my main points, and tried to steer
> the thread into side-issues, which I resist.
No, no, I've stayed on track with specific evidence, and attempted
to keep you on track as well.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 26 2000 - 18:59:12 EDT