Subject:
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Re: Macro-Evolution - Impossible!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:26:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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549 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Tim Culberson writes:
> > In other words, evidence from the fossil record can't prove or disprove
> > evolution. But since it can produce testable hypotheses, evolution is a more
> > powerful explanation of what we observe in the fossil record than creation
> > "science" is.
>
> IANAP either, however:
>
> http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c006.html
Virtually none of this material has any source attribution,
and what little does is some 40 years old--the palaeontological
equivalent of considering an IBM PC-XT "cutting edge" in 2001,
just because it's only a dozen or so years old. It's selective
misinformation--Kitts's work is even older, mostly in the
1950s. And the vaunted Dr Gary Parker, who claims a "cognate"
to an Ed.D. in geology and palaeontology? No years are given
for these achievements, but it's worthwhile noting that his
"Textbook" (which the CA info page doesn't title) was called
_The Structure and Function of the Cell_ (hardly palaeontological)
and was published in only one edition in *1966*. (As a sidebar,
successful textbooks are generally revised every four to five
years, both to bring in revenue for the publisher, but also to
update the knowledge which in the sciences changes quite quickly.
One edition only usually indicates a failed text.) Creation
Science is notorious for grabbing material that is highly
outdated (for example, the Glen Rose footprints or the moon
dust influx data--the former proven a hoax in 1931, the latter
revised well before the launch of Sputnik) and citing it as
evidence.
It's apparent that the folks producing much of this material
also aren't really palaeontologists or geologists. For example,
the suggestion that evolution doesn't anticipate catastrophism,
or that areas of strata missing three or four geological periods
at a time are somehow problems, are dead wrong; what's more, the
idea that transitional fossils don't exist is wrong; and finally,
and most damagingly, the exercise in anti-logic that the
entire Creation Science movement represents. The argument
basically boils down to "Evolution wrong, therefore Creation
right." They're not the only two necessary answers; what
about the Hindi, or Khoisan, or Ojibwe beliefs? They're
just as supportable as the Christian. The blurb at the
bottom gives away the religiously partisan nature of Creation
Science.
There's also a conceptual demarcator, first erected by science,
that Creationists have turned to their debating advantage.
That's phylogeny. Basically, people say that x is a fish, y is
a bird, and z is a hominid, when there's no necessary division
but rather a gradation. "Macro-evolution," the bugaboo erected
as unprovable by Creationists, isn't really a thing--it's an
arbitrary assessment of what constitutes novelty in a structure.
For example, the development of a viable lung or an enclosed eye
are usually used as cases; however, wouldn't *some* ability to
survive anoxic aquatic environments by absorbing atmospheric
oxygen or some sensitivity to light be better than none? These
are all soft parts that don't fossilize, so it's also a soft
target for naysayers. Furthermore, speciation is also a soft
target--and one that palaeontologists themselves admit is a
liability. Who decides if specimen x or y is attributed to a
given species, or is merely a male or female or juvenile of
another? Greg Paul has grappled with this in _Predatory Dinosaurs
of the World_ quite effectively, rethinking ossified phylogeny
(pun intended) in light of better deductive methods. Even
that work has been superseded--well, it *is* nearly seven years
old!
The major difference in the end is that evolutionary theory can
respond to contrary evidence and shift accordingly--as it has many,
many times--and Darwin would scarcely recognise it today. Creation
Science cannot move its feet, and for that reason it is plainly
not science but dogma, with no explanatory value of its own. It
is in an effort to hide this fact that its proponents attack
evolution as immobile dogma itself.
best
LFB (who is also not actually a palaeontologist, but is a historian
of science, which is a lot closer than Hank Morris and his ICR
cohorts...)
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