From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:08:21 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Followup-To: talk.origins
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1288@tecsun1.etl.army.mil> riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs) writes:
|In article <87623@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
|>
|>You are CONVINCED.  Whooptie do.  I'm convinced you're an idiot.  Put up
|>or shut up.  Anyone can type "I've got a theory that fits the data."  The
|>scientific creationists have been singing this gibberish for a century now.
|>It's as offkey today as it was then.
|
|	Point of historical fact. Just *when* was enough empirical
|data gathered to prove:
|
|	- Abiogenesis ?

Hard to say, perhaps about 40 to 50 years ago.  In essence the astronomical
evidence for an immensely old Earth, combined with the laboratory results
that showed that organic molecules actually could form abiotically (a radical
idea) made any other conclusion extremely unlikely.  (Note that even pan-
spermia does not really change this result, it merely pushes the time back
even further, since the pansperm material must have had an origin somewhere
as well).

That is the evidence for abiogenesis is based on the fact that life must
have *some* origin, and that the basivc building blocks necessary can
exist prior to life.

|	- Natural Selection ?

Somewhere in the 1940's, I would say, with the establishment of the
Evolutionary Synthesis by such greats as Mayr, Dobzhansky, Simpson and Huxley.

|	- Speciation ?

Hmm, at what level of certainty do you want it.  Speciation has now been
observed *directly*.  This now constitutes a hard fact, not subject to
dispute.  But overwhelming evidence for speciation was available within
a few decades of the publication Darwin's "Origin".  It was assumed by
the Saltationists of the early Mendelian school (circa 1910 to 1920).
[The Saltationist theory was that speciation occurred mainly by single
macromutations, not by the accumulation of differences over time].

|	- Mutation ?

Mutation, in its modern incarnation was demonstrated by the early Mendelians
just after the turn of the century.  But the fact of the origin of new
morphotypes had been known since Darwin's time, and before.

|	- Variations in gene pools ?

This has been known since the beginning of the *last* century, when the
precursers of the modern biological species definition were being formulated.
It was a large part of the basis of Darwin's work, and the *least*
controversial part of it.  This fact cannot possibly be doubted, since
it is simply a direct observational fact, there are individual variations
amoung all living things.

|>As a historian, you're an idiot.  Why should anyone blindly believe a
|>written record in the first place, moreso than a fossil?
|
|	That, of course, depends on the credibility of the written
|record - a highly speculative matter in the case of Genesis 1. You
|might as well ask how the ancient Israelites thought they knew
|how the world started, in order to write down Genesis 1. The reason
|Genesis 1 is not convincing "as history" is that it isn't based
|on a primary source. 

Well, the fact that we can trace its origin to a late Babylonian creation
myth doesn't help much either.  It is the *relationships* of sources
that matter more than the actual texts.

|	That's interesting, because there is a school of biblical 
|criticism which maintains that there was no Jesus Christ, despite
|the evidence to the contrary. These people claim to be both
|scientific, and skeptical. And yet, such theorists indulge
|in a marvelous amount of speculation to explain how Christ did not
|exist and could not have existed. Most of these guys also manage
|to mess around with his name, too.

I think these people are fools.  That a 'Jesus son of Mary' did exist
is fairly clear.  The most that can be debated is his status as a
prophet or deity, and the accuracy of the most widely circulated accounts
of his life.

I think the most consistant agnostic/atheist position would be that he
was a charismaic jewish teacher.

|	True students of history get to the point where the data
|overwelms them. It all seemed much simpler in high school, when the
|textbook said that A was caused by B, and that was all they needed to know.
|Yep, there are lots of gaps in the data, and nothing should be thrown
|out (at least without good reason), and everything ought to be taken
|with a pinch of salt. And all conclusions are tentative.

Quite correct, all conclusions are tentative, and no data should be
thrown out.   (One of the most frequent aggravations for a paleontologist
is to find that the person who excavated a fossil failed to maintain
records of its provenance and exact original situation.).
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com