>Richard Wein wrote:
>
> >It's an unfortunate fact that there is no rigorous definition of the
> >scientific method available.
Cliff
>It would be unfortunate if there were rigorous definition of how scientists
>must proceed. Breakthroughs occur through luck and the willingness to
>think new things.
>
> >Many philosophers of science have struggled with this issue, but with
> >limited success.
>
>A theologian is not a failure because he doesn't define or prove anything;
>like the philosopher of science, his calling is to ruminate about general
>principles. If he enjoys it and people enjoy reading him, and he can make
>a career out of it, he is a success.
>
>Philosophy of science is not itself a scientific activity. When philosophy
>is looked to to settle scientific questions, this only shows that the science
>is in trouble.
>
> >Since we know that speciation occurs, and the fossil record shows patterns
> >of small changes building up into larger changes over long periods of time,
> >the onus is on anti-evolutionists to show that some barrier exists which
> >prevents small changes from building up in this way.
>
>There are no final logical barriers in evolutionary biology. The DNA in
>my gametes could get scrambled by some trauma such that my offspring
>are flying dragons with giant brains. So the arguments are simply about
>what is most likely to have occurred. It seems unlikely to me that the
>microevolution we can observe is the mechanism that put together
>the complex organisms that appear suddenly in the Cambrian strata.
>Both the time factor and the irreducible-complexity factor weigh heavily
>against this. Irreducible complexity is a good criticism of microevolution;
>and thus, for those who assume evolution, irreducible complexity is a
>good argument for macroevolution.
Chris
I don't think so. Because it assumes that there is only *one* prospective
pathway from ground-zero to the complex structure (straight up), and that
no roundabout paths are allowed. This does not mean that there are never
large steps of some sort that we would not want to call microevolution, but
only that the concept of irreducible complexity (as defined by Behe) is
quite narrow -- so narrow that finding something that is irreducibly
complex (by Behe's definition) has almost no significance whatever for
microevolution, which predicts that over a long time and varying selective
conditions, some evolution *will* be roundabout.
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