Re: Stereotypes and reputations

----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Rusbult" <craig@chem.wisc.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2005 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: Stereotypes and reputations

> George says,
>>There is controversy among evolutionary scientists about some aspects of
>>evolutionary theory. But there is no real scientific controversy about
>>evolution itself.
>
> Whether there SHOULD be "no real scientific controversy" depends on how
> "evolution" is defined. A word overpopulated with meanings, "biological
> evolution" is used to mean:
> >
> How convincing is the evidence for each type of E?
> no scientists (including yeCs) disagree with micro-E;
> yeCs (but not oeCs) disagree with basic fossil progressions;
> some oeCs disagree with full common descent, but I think the evidence
> for it is strong.
> But are there no reasons -- none at all? -- to wonder about Total
> Macro-E?

I don't think that an adequate definition of "evolution" for the purpose of
discussion in the public arena is that hard to come by. You give 4 possible
meanings for "evolution":

(1) a micro-E change in the gene pool of a population,
(2) evolutionary fossil progressions in geological contexts,
(3) full common descent among biological organisms,
(4) totally natural development (which I'll call Total Macro-E) of all
       biological complexity.

(3) is closest to what informed people mean when they speak about a
scientific theory of evolution. (But the qualification "full" is ambiguous.
Does it mean that all living things have descended from a single common
ancestor? Darwin didn't require that, referring in the closing paragraph of
the Origin to "life ... having been originally breathed by the Creator into
a few forms (N.B.) or into one".)

People have known about the consequences of (1) - variations within
species - for millennia without considering it to be "evolution" in anything
like the modern sense. (2) is evidence for evolution in sense (3). & (4) -
if I'm understanding what you mean by "totally natural" - is a philosophical
interpretation of (3).

When I say that there is no real scientific controversy about evolution
itself I'm using the word in sense (3) - though of course that include (1)
and (2) as well. A great deal of the confusion here, some a result of
ignorance and some deliberate - comes from the insistence of many
anti-evolutionists and many atheists that (3) implies (4). That is, of
course, false.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Sat Jul 30 15:09:37 2005