Re: [asa] Sternberg quote

How do you tell then the difference between baraminology and structuralism?

I am of course referring to "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories" by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. Meyer is clearly a creationist, but does that necessarily mean that the paper is baraminolgy, and therefore pseudoscience? And does that mean that Sternberg is guilty by association? He has repeatedly denied being a creationist. He thought the paper had some interesting things to say, and was hoping to start a dialog on the subject.

I have no expertise in judging this paper. But it was reviewed through the normal peer review process, so I have no basis to believe that the paper is without merit. It seems clear to me however, that the subsequent treatment of Sternberg was motivated by more than scientific concerns. In my opinion, it is the role of groups like ours to help to prevent biases in science that are anti-religious, as much as we should be educating our Christian brethren about the fallacies of creationism.
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: PvM
  To: Jack
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2007 3:48 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Sternberg quote

  Seems that it is not much different from cladistic methods and evo-devo. The lack of a historical component seems to make structuralist analysis complementary to the prevailing theories.

  In fact, Ruse and others have pointed out that teleology involves historical as well as physical constraints.

  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism_(biology)

  While evolutionary science seems to have been quite effective in using ideas from structuralism, it seems that baraminologist creationists have used (sic) the methodology to support their religious beliefs about a young earth with separate creations.

  On 3/11/07, Jack <drsyme@cablespeed.com> wrote:
    "Structuralist analysis is generally ahistorical, systems-oriented, and non-evolutionary (not anti-evolutionary). Both creationism and neo-Darwinism are, in contrast, emphatically historicist with one positing extreme polyphyly (de novo creation of species) and the other radical monophyly (common descent). "

    Interesting stuff. My question for you is, what is wrong with this? Often, it seems, that the truth lies between two extremes.

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Received on Mon Mar 12 20:36:13 2007