Reflectorites
On Fri, 28 Jul 2000 00:58:38 -0500, Chris Cogan wrote:
[...]
>CC>Is this actually *true*? I doubt it. That is, I doubt that evolution is
>taught, except in the most superficial way (i.e., at about the level of
>Stephen Jones' understanding of it).
[...]
Chris has in the past has set himself up as an arbiter of other people'
intelligence, rationality, and even morals. Here he sets himself up as a judge
of my knowledge of evolution.
I have recently received my mark (92% = High Distinction) in my first unit
of my Biology degree: "Origins & the Evolution of Life". The university is
a major training centre for science teachers and professional biologists in
Western Australia, and this is the major unit on evolution in the degree. For
those future science teachers and biologists, it probably is the most about
evolution itself that they will ever learn. So I now have objective evidence
of what level my knowledge of evolution currently is.
But AFAIK I have never seen Chris state what his qualifications are that
enables him to be the judge of others' knowledge of evolution.
It is not as though it is obvious what Chris' knowledge of evolution is. On
the contrary, in the time that Chris has been on the Reflector, I have not
seen much evidence of same in his posts. Chris rarely, if ever, quotes from
evolution books or journals. In fact Chris rarely, if ever, actually debates
evolution in any *detail*, preferring to debate it at a general philosophical
level, when he debates it at all.
So what exactly *are* Chris' qualifications in evolution for him to be
setting himself up as an arbiter on other people's knowledge of evolution?
Steve
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"Another possible model assumes that a population develops in a relatively
isolated part of the available area, undergoes a demographic explosion, and
invades the rest of the area, mixing with the local inhabitants or supplanting
them. This may have happened repeatedly, at different times and places...
People who like to think that man originated at a single place (the garden
of Eden") would find their viewpoint expressed by [this] the second
model... It seems more plausible to assume, however, that the
concentration of finds in East Africa is the result of the area's having
conditions favorable to early human life or to preservation of fossil
specimens, rather than evidence of the location of Eden. In any case, the
statistically very small sample of fossil specimens makes it impossible to
choose between these models at the present time." (Cavalli-Sforza L.L. &
Bodmer W.F., "The Genetics of human Populations," [1971], Dover:
Mineola NY, 1999, reprint, p.694-695).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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