Re: [asa] The term Darwinism

Hi Cameron,

This will have to be my last comment on this thread. Thanks for the
discussion...

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Cameron Wybrow<wybrowc@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> Hi, Doug!
>
> Re Point 1, I had in the back of my mind two things:
>SNIP
> So we're not disagreeing on Point 1.
>
> RE Point 2, I think that majority of the scientific community did support
> Darwin's form of gradualism until fairly recently.

It depends on what on considers "Darwin's form of gradualism". I think
that since the modern synthesis, and definitely since elucidation of
DNA as the means of particulate inheritance, nearly everyone
acknowledged the various levels and types of characters (e.g.,
genetic, biochemical, morphological, etc.) could exhibit different
pictures of the tempo of evolution. Few, I think, remained strict
Darwinian gradualists.

>
> On Point 3: Just as an aside, you use the word "demonstrate" far more loosely than I
> would.  But if you really believe that macroevolutionary mechanisms have
> been "well-documented", there is an easy way of proving me wrong:  provide
> me with the titles of those 500-page books I mentioned earlier.  I

As I said, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I didn't expect for
you to accept my line of reasoning. I don't know if there are any
500-page books that outline the "proof" for macroevolution. (500-page
books are a 19th century way of making an argument). The evidence is
in the thousands if individual phylogeographic, character-evolution
and other kinds of evolutionary research studies that have been done.
I described one type of such a study, and you could find many such
original research articles in the pages of evolutionary biology
journals.

> On Point 5, The boundary between science and
> metaphysics is much blurrier than many people here suppose.  But it's a
> useful polemical device when people, for either atheist or Christian
> reasons, wish to prevent others from discussing the possibility of
> intelligent design.

But none of us on this list need convincing about the possibility of
intelligent design. We all believe in a creator who designed the
creation. We just disagree about whether the idea of intelligent
design helps explain anything scientifically (except for the basic
anthropic principle that provides us with a reason to believe that the
structure of the universe is rational enough to enable us to do
science).

Doug

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Received on Fri Jul 3 14:47:28 2009