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Pastimes : Neocon's Seminar Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mitch Blevins who wrote (537)	5/9/2001 6:41:25 PM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1112

The usual request for an example of speciation is answered by mules and asses. I think many of your examples are simply trait divergence, and not examples of speciation. I certainly haven't read all of the articles. Organism altruism-See groups.google.com If not wanting to click, brief answer: Dawkins is guilty of invalidly using models, as is the Neo Darwinistic establishment. Why do it then? Only such misuse allows organism fitness altruism to become, yet again (but quite falsely), a part of nature. "Organism fitness altruism" was thrown out along with "organism group selection" after over 30 years very costly and bitter, debate. Neo Darwinian altruists are desperate to find some other theory that can support organism altruism within nature. Note that the term "altruism" is a political term, and has never been a scientific defined term. It is favored by those on both the "left" and the "right" of western politics. Using Neo Darwinian "altruism", the individual becomes quite expendable, with the apparent sanction of nature. The removal of individual's rights via any political process can now be justified as "a normal part of nature". This is what Hitler did via his misuse of social Darwinism during the lead up to WW2. Today, others from both the right and the left seek yet again, to misuse evolutionary theory to justify political positions, IMO. Within the testable science of biology only adult organisms are a testable unit of selection within nature, not their contained genes nor any organism populations. ________________ Anyway, given that, I do not believe your examples provide enough substance to call evolution a science. SOME of it does. Some of it does not. That an evolutionary process is at work and observable is certainly both correct and scientific. Beyond that point, there is simply conjecture based upon a desire to explain what is observed. If we throw out a literal interpretation of Genesis (everything which lives or has ever lived created in 6 days), there is nothing in the science which precludes a Creation by a Devine Entity, or a seeding by extraterrestrials, or a seeding by accident, or a host of other possibilities. One HAS to accept that organisms evolve; that is simply unassailable, but one doesn't have to accept ascent from one-celled organisms, or life developing from chemical components spontaneously. This argument will never be resolved, partly because the two sides are NEVER arguing the same terminology, and partly because the totality of the issues will remain untestable. Science does not support all facets of evolutionary theory. --That was not said by me, and I would only add that the 6 days does not need to be thrown out. A good google thread on the subject: groups.google.com