[Baron Munchausen]

Wow, what a great thread! I'm waiting for the Tachyon Internet to pop up again so we can have the time-sensitive error Messages. "Error: The host which you are attempting to reach was not responding at the time your signals arrived."

But I did want to make a comment on some of SJ's assumptions...

If the weight of evidence points towards something, and using it gives results why would you not use it?
If evidence builds up against the current theories, then a better one will be developed.

These statements show that you are accepting some of the basic precepts of 'Scientific Materialism' and I wonder if you really believe them if you examine them.

The first as that there exists a valid scientific theory to explain any and every phenomena we have observed. This is the most important underlying assumption that keeps evolution afloat. The primary point which Krsqk is trying to show you is that the evidence does NOT support evolution, at least not gradualist evolution by random mutation. The "evolution" sequence of the horse has been used as an example in text books for generations, but it now seems that even the 'die-hard' evolutionists have had to concede that at least some of the fossils used as 'proof' of the gradual evolution of the horse are actually fossils of other animals. (I was not aware of this, Krsqk, could you give me a reference to an article or book that details this?)

And when you think about it, just how do you 'prove' the connection of ANY two fossils found in rocks considered to be millions of years apart in age and hundreds or thousands of miles apart in location? Structure similarity is all that anyone ever had to go on, and genetic research over the Last few decades has been showing that the underlying genetic code of supposedly related animals is VERY different. For example, all of the spcies of 'frogs' in the world do NOT even have the same number of chromosones, let alone a high percentage of actual genes in common. Yet, these very different genes produce physically similar animals that scientists have been assuming were part of one orderly 'sequence' of evolution starting with a single common ancestor.

The case for evolution was weak before, with no way to 'prove' connections between fossils. Now, with genetic evidence showing that structural similarity does NOT correspond with genetic similarity there is simply no way to support it with existing evidence. Yet, most scientists will NOT admit that 'evolution' doesn't work. There are discussions going on in the professiponal journals about re-arranging taxonomy to suit the new genetic evidence, but no one dares to question whether evolution is even a valid theory anymore. Ergo, it is not a 'falsifiable' theory, it is a religious precept of Scientific Materialism.

Now we come to the sticky part. Most 'science' oriented people, like you, will immediately raise 'Creationism' when evolution is challenged. It is immediately assumed that anyone trying to disprove evolution is trying to replace it with Creationism. I must be very clear that though I grew up in a very 'ordinary' W.A.S.P. setting (Methodist, actually, one of the original 'Puritan' sects ) I do NOT bring this up in order to defend or restore the competing religious viewpoint of Biblical literalism. My religious views are difficult to summarize. Let's just say that 'Heretic' would be the only label the average 'Christian' would find suitable for me. So I am not a partisan in the 'either/or' conflict between 'Science' and 'Religion' that occupies so much time in the US. I find both views to be inadequate. And what is really annoying though is that most so-called 'scientific' people, even professional scientists, are as unwilling to say 'I don't know' as the most rigid fundamentalists.

This is the other assumption of Scientific Materialism, and oddly enough, of the 'Religious' viewpoint as well... that we can understand anything and everything. Only the theoretical physicists are finally breaking through this one. Once in a while you'll see a physicist say something like this in an article on the latest weird, exotic, and baffling cosmological theories -- "The Universe might not be merely stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine."

And that's the point I wanted to bring out. The Universe is not our perception of it, it's always different, it's 'not us'... and we may never really understand it. Yet 'Science' does not operate that way. There is an underlying set of assumptions held by the community of professional scientists as rigid as the religious viewpoint they claim to be in opposition to. As Krsqk says, this actually impedes scientific progress.

[ December 11, 2002, 05:46: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]