Evolutionary establishment tactics (page 13)

rem

Hooberus,

Don't you ever get tired of strawmen?

Notice - even in Mayr's expanded definition - no hint of the "origins of life" is included. I never said the definition I gave above was the absolute be-all-end-all. But what it does, however, is limit the scope to something that mostly resembles the definition of the scientific study of Evolution as real scientists do their work. Including the origins of life anywhere near the definition shows a gross misunderstanding of the Theory and/or intellectual dishonesty.

rem

tetrapod.sapien

ID-ots

Abaddon,

ROFLMAO!

nice one...

Shining One

REM,
Do you ever get tired of using logical terms to try and show how 'intellectual' you seek to be?

Rex

Shining One

Hi Scholar,
While I may not agree with all of your conclusions, you have it Alan right on his square head. He constantly points out irrelevant details in an attempt to embarrass or intimidate those who disagree with him. Did I spell everything right here or miss a 'typo'? Who cares, Alan and his neonaturalist followers seem to be the few who do.
BTW, Alan, if you read this I want to see your grand explanation for your own deistic belief system. Just how do you square that logically?
Rex

Shining One

REM,
When are you going to quit mixing up unproven macro-evolution and observable microevolution?
Rex

rem

Shining One,

Perhaps you can show me where real scientists work in a dual Evolutionary theory (Micro vs. Macro). Hint: it doesn't exist.

It's kinda like this, SO:

You blow on your hand and the air molecules can't move it. You just add more and more air molecules being moved and you finally get a hurricane that can blow your house down. There is no known mechanism that blocks the phenomenon from scaling up.

The same is true for Evolution:

A small amount of genetic change and you get minor local variation within a species. Keep adding more and more genetic change and you finally get speciation and beyond. There is no known mechanism that blocks genetic change from increasing from generation to generation.

Cheers,

rem

hooberus

Hooberus,

Don't you ever get tired of strawmen?

Notice - even in Mayr's expanded definition - no hint of the "origins of life" is included.

Rem, your methodology seems to be to point to definitions of evolution that do not specifically mention the origins of life (ie: ther "allele-frequency" definition; Mayr's "adaptation/diversity" definition), and based on these to accuse me of setting up a strawman (because I say that evolution can be defined to include the origins of life). The problems with this are:
1. It is possible to define evolution in many different ways (Evolutionists themselves frequently do this), thus merely because some definitions of evolution do not include something does not mean that it is a "strawman" to for other definitions to include the item. 2. Even though an evolutionist may in a certain context define evolution in certain way, the same evolutionist may themselve later include things not specifically in the afore mentioned definition as also being "evolution". The classic example of this is to define evolution "as any change in allele frequencies" then later on to also include things such as "universal common ancestry" in evolution. As another example while Mayr defined evolution as: ". . . change in the adaptation and in the diversity of populations of organisms" (Mayr 1988: 162), other statements of his include things such as "the origin of new higher taxa" ("What evolution Is" Chapter 10) that are were not specifically named in the previous definition. 3. Prominent evolutionists themselves have either directly included the origin of life (such as when George Gaylord Simpson wrote: "The origin of life was necessarily the beginning of organic evolution and it is among the greatest of all evolutionary problems." - opening sentence chapter 2 "The Meaning of evolution" 1949) or at least included it prominently in specific evolution books (such as the entire 3rd Chapter in "What Evolution Is" being on the subject of the origin of life.

Including the origins of life anywhere near the definition shows a gross misunderstanding of the Theory and/or intellectual dishonesty.

Despite the above facts (such as evolution being definable in many ways and that even some prominent evolutionists themselves have included the origin of life in "evolution") if a creationist includes it the following frequently occurs: 1. We are told that we have "a gross misunderstaning of the Theory" ; "simply do not understand the nature of evolutionary theory" etc. or 2. That we are guilty of "intellectual dishonesty" ; "being consciously and deliberately dishonest." etc. (see for example your comments compared with http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evo/blfaq_evo_abio.htm)

Abaddon

Oh deary, dreary me...

Not only does leading a Creationist (big C indicative or literalism) to facts NOT make them think, you can't an old Creationist new tricks... they carry on with the tired old ones.

This I love;

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=254

If you go through these figures you will find that the average person who believes;

things were created in their current forms
that scientists don't agree about evolution (false)
that Creationism should be taught instead of evolution
that parents should decide how Evolution is taught in schools

and who is "very certain"

the Bible is the literal word of God
that their view on the development of life are right

and whose thoughts (is that the right word?) on the development of life are most strongly influenced by religion will most likely be;

a white evangelical
with no more than a high school education
living in the South or Mid-West

Now, if we were talking about the tooth-fairy, everyone would agree that the above group (geographical location excluded) are more likely to be in error than your typical evolutionist. But the magical thinking of the above group means that they are actually almost twice as likely to be "very certain" about their views on the development of life than us naughty naughty evolutionists who on average;

are secular
College graduates
don't live in parts of the country where "Bubba" is considered an attractive boys name (okay, that's a joke, the rest is serious)
think scientists agree about evolution (true)
allow their education to be the strongest influence on their views about the development of life
think teachers should decide about how evolution is taught in schools

I suppose the less you know, the less you know how wrong you, and the less likely you are to conceed you might be wrong. Praise the lord, or something...

But of course, we will now be told by our local common-or-garden Creationists how wrong evolutionists are, as they frantically avoid discussing dishonesty and incompetence in Creationists (while accusing evolutionists of the same with outstanding, one could say Pharasee-like levels of hypocracy) and fail to refute simple dating techniques which prove the Bible does NOT give a literal description of Creation (big C literalism).

rem

Sorry Hooberus, but your side-stepping won't work here.

Scientists don't work with a "definition" of Evolution - they work with an actual Theory. The "definition" that we are talking about is a very high level description of the Theory that necessarily leaves out many details. The point is that the scientific Theory of Evolution does not include anything about the origins of life - even in its most broad definition. I used a mainstream definition of Evolution to illustrate this.

Nowhere in your sources did you demonstrate that the origins of life are a part of the Theory of Evolution. The fact that the origins of life are naturally an important question regarding the evolution of life is stating the obvious. Just because the Origins of life got Evolution started doesn't mean the Theory of Evolution includes Origin hypotheses.

It is easy to talk casually about evolution and include origins of life. The fact that even prominent scientists do it in books they publish doesn't change the fact that the technical Theory is different. Physicists talk about the Big Bang theory all the time when talking about the Theory of Gravity. It doesn't make them the same theory, though they are necessarily connected in a logical way.

When I say Evolution I'm talking about what actual scientists work on. When you say evolution you are talking about a general concept with so much baggage loaded that you cannot wrap your head around the fact that the scientific Theory of Evolution is quite different than what you are thinking about.

Notice the capitalization in the words above so you can understand when words are being used in a technical way vs. a casual way.

Cheers,

rem

hooberus

Sorry Hooberus, but your side-stepping won't work here.

Theory of Evolution does not include anything about the origins of life - even in its most broad definition. I used a mainstream definition of Evolution to illustrate this.

the Theory of Evolution. The fact that the origins of life are naturally an important question regarding the evolution of life is stating the obvious. Just because the Origins of life got Evolution started doesn't mean the Theory of Evolution includes Origin hypotheses.

Theory of Evolution is quite different than what you are thinking about.

Before I respond to the above, a brief question:

By "Theory of Evolution" above I assume that you are still referring to the same item as in the below post, is this correct?

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/97209/1674305/post.ashx#1674305

Evolutionary establishment tactics

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