NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/talk/origins/14319

Text File | 1992-11-17 | 3.4 KB | 74 lines

Newsgroups: talk.origins
Path: sparky!uunet!europa.asd.contel.com!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!linus!linus.mitre.org!mwunix!m23364
From: m23364@mwunix (James Meritt)
Subject: Re: Bales argument
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (News Service)
Nntp-Posting-Host: mwunix.mitre.org
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 16:38:02 GMT
Lines: 61

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Burch Seymour) writes:
}I would request that the Merritt v Bales be taken to e-mail. I doubt
}many of us care to split semantic hairs about lies vs whatever. Thank you.

No can do.  Reasons:
1. email to his address has been incredibly difficult in the past.
2. If the reason is to contest his deception, the counters would HAVE to be
   as public as the original propaganda from Bales.
3. The chance of influencing him is closer to zero than the spontaneous
   creation of a complex ecosystem (as he seems to advocate).  Hence, I do
   NOT see this as a disagreement with him (a useless action if ever I saw
   one) but actions to prevent his irrational lies from being believed as
   truth by seekers of truth - and this HAS happened in the past, here, with
   him.



}
}
}>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert W Bales) writes:
}>>
}>>
}>>When we study the fossil record, we do not see an "almost-human" species from
}>>which humans could likely have evolved.  We see apes and we see humans.  We
}>>see no evidence that any organism transitioned between them.  The fossil
}>>agrees with what we would expect to see if man was separately created, but
}>>not with what we would expect if man evolved.
}>>
}
}I've always felt that the lack of transitional forms was not a problem.
}What is the percentage of animal that have died, that became fossiles?
}Pretty dang small I'd guess. Using common sense (which another member of
}this group has shown is very dangerous) I always thought that big steps
}in the decent of the species would take place in very localized
}populations. Then, when there was some disinct advantage, that group
}spread around enough to be found in the fossile record. I believe that
}is pretty much the same idea as "puntuated equilibrium". Not really a
}major leap in thought.
}
}To put it in terms Bales might understand (judging from his .sig),
}when I was in high school all the ocillioscopes I saw were big,
}vacuum tube monsters. Now all the 'scopes in our lab are semicondutor
}(except for the display). Now how likely am I to find transitional
}forms? If I went to the labs at Tektronix, I could probably find
}test stands where the intermediate forms of instruments are being
}built. But in the field we only see the previous generation and
}the latest generation. Not the in-between stuff. Why? Becuase the
}ain't much of it in the first place. And there is not opportunity
}for it to be spread.
}
}Think of a small area in the woods as the lab. Over time a new
}trait develops. It provides such a great advantage that that animal
}start spreading the trait out of its area, until it becomes
}universal. The chances of finding that area, and it's transitional
}fossiles is small. But these finds (as I understand it) do exist.
}
}Corrections welcome.
}
}-bs-