Re: [asa] True Scotsman fallacy - was Of m....

I think you've touched on the crux of the matter, and I expect it's not
resolvable by logic for most.

One difficulty is that this appears not so much about logic as
plausibility for most, simply because it our nature to defend vigorously
(and largely even unconsciously) our existing worldview. In that light,
any small generation-to-generation change is dismissively merely change
within a kind. Any larger differentiation between kinds is too big and
too successful (of course! Can't you see that?) to have come about by
natural processes, and could only then come about by fiat. There is no
engagement with the troublesome middle ground between "too big" and
"merely" because they seem too different to even argue about. The use of
micro and macro terminology apparently does not help because it seems to
be mostly invoked for scientific-sounding caché rather than for any
relevance of the scale implications of the terminology. A default
invocation of a young earth perspective makes the time scale virtually
irrelevant as applied to creatures most familiar to us, big ones with
life cycles sort of like ours. The young earth presumption then
supports or draws support from this "kind" differentiation. We cannot
see those major changes in creatures familiar to us because their life
cycles are too much like our own. On the other hand, one usually has to
be a specialist in micro-whatever to appreciate the degree and
implications of changes made over zillions of lifetimes of (tiny)
creatures that have very short life spans, and therefore can truly
evolve significantly in a span of time akin to our own life spans. On
the other hand, evolution on a cosmic scale is to large in scale, and
inorganic, that its relevance to the basic concept of evolution is hard
for many to make.

That sort of defines through negative space the second problem, a
difficulty is with extrapolation. For most of us technoids,
extrapolation is as familiar as a carpenter's hammer. But for
non-technoids (and some that have technical or critical thinking
preparation) there appears to be remarkable difficulty with
comceptualizing that small incremental changes over a short time period
extrapolate perfectly naturally into very large changes over very long
spans of time. Part of the difficulty is the cloud of misunderstanding
about "random" and "undirected" when talking about evolution. But, I
think there is a fundamental problem having to do with the tool of
extrapolation. Without understanding of or experience with this tool, it
is easier to partition than to place two very different things onto some
continuum of development.

The third difficulty is definition. If you can't come up with a sharply
defined widely-understandable definition of how to distinguish
microevolution from macroevolution (for example), you're done. The
default is opinion. It's the same problem with "transitional"
evolutionary forms. The definition of how much change is involved is
critical. The definition of transitional is whatever you think it is. I
say fossil x is clearly a transitional creature; you say it is
different in kind. How can this difference in view be settled. Because
creature x is either or even both, depending upon how the definitions
are drawn, it is clear that in the absence of any suitable mutually
agreed-upon definition, there is no way to resolve this. Make the
differences as small as you wish, or as great, and it will not satisfy
the (subjective) criterion that has worn its place in another's worldview.

Ultimately, and ironically, such a change in worldview is evolutionary
in both nature and time scale. For a few, a particular fact may
represent a tipping point. But for most who have the capacity for
change, change is a consequence of accumulation of information that is
relevant to them, in company of time for digestion to take place.

I do not think the public debates, lectures, rebuttals, and such are
without benefit. But I am persuaded that the jelly jar lid principle is
in play here for most, a steady pressure over a long time is likely to
produce the greatest success. Now that I think of it, that also reflects
my sensibility about how Christianity "seasons" the world around us. In
neither case is it as much about force and will as it is about steady
truth-telling and consistency. In the case of standard science and
scripture, we can only hope to spread the contents of the
previously-opened jam jars as far and wide as possible, at every
opportunity. But recognize as well, that there are few killer arguments
and few instant conversions in this sort of work, though I think it is a
very special calling indeed.

Or so it seemeth to me....

Jim Armstrong

Bill Hamilton wrote:

>--- Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Thanks for the true Scotsman fallacy. As one with a Scottish heritage I got a
>kick out of it.
>
>
>
>>It's my view that Vernon has committed this fallacy on two counts.
>>
>>When I challenged him about evolution producing "good" fruits by mentioning
>>the immune system and what it does to fight off infection, Vernon responded
>>"Ah yes, but that's micro-evolution, not macro-evolution - it's not the real
>>thing". i.e. it's not "True" evolution.
>>
>>
>>
>Some time ago I got into a debate with Phil Johnson. I pointed out to him
>several papers on the web that documented speciation in various kinds of
>plants. Phil said well, the plants were still essentially the same and so it
>wasn't an example of evolution. In thinking about the paper and Phil's response
>I realized that speciation is not the whole story. These plants had split
>apart into two species, but to the unaided eye they probably didn't look much
>different. I presume the researchers had to prove speciation by trying to
>crossbreed the descendents and showing they couldn't. However, they were now
>two populations that could not interbreed, and thus free to evolve separately,
>and many years down the road might look quite different. So the morphological
>changes that are used to identify separate species in the fossil record may lag
>the actual speciation by many years.
>
>
>Bill Hamilton
>William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
>248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
>"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
>"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
>
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Jul 31 19:28:39 2006