From: carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Young earth creationist logic NOT!
Date: 29 Aug 92 04:54:02 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In <1992Aug28.152117.15314@acuson.com> lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:

>In article <1992Aug27.043427.505@panix.com> carlf@panix.com (Carl Fink) writes:
>>In <1992Aug20.171831.346@acuson.com> lawson@acuson.com (Drew Lawson) writes:
>>
>>[much deleted]
>>
>>>There is another point I've been meaning to bring up on this thread.
>>>The anti-faith side of this debate questions why the evidence points to
>>>long times, evolution, etc.  Perhaps the "evidence" is not pointing.
>>>As an example, let me bring up the old "canals" on Mars topic.  They
>>>were clear evidence that there was an advanced civilization on Mars.
>>>More recent views is that they just happen to be there and aren't
>>>evidence of anything.  They just appeared to be canals.
>>
>>  Drew, there are no Martian canals.  Never were.  They were a combination
>>of bad telescopy and wishful thinking.  There are no features on Mars
>>that resemble the "canali" of Mars.

>That is not what I said.  Are you saying that no one ever thought there
>were canals on Mars?

  "They just appeared to be canals."  "...they just happen to be there...".
These are not the words of someone who knows that there are no canals
on Mars.  Drew, to this observer it seems that you DIDN'T know about
the nonexistent nature of the Martian canals until I told you, which
again indicates that your grounding in the physical scieces could stand
some improvement.

  Of course people believed in them.  The data were equivocal, and
several hypotheses were constructed to explain them, from "dying Martian
cvilization" to "just imagination".  What followed was exactly how
science is supposed to work:  better evidence was gathered, which
disproved one set of hypotheses, and supported the others.  How does
this help your case against evolution?  ALL the evidence with which
I'm familiar supports evolution and paleontology, or is irrelevant to 
it.

[another big deletion]

>>  As Stephen Gould has so trenchantly pointed out, "Evolution is a 
>>theory.  It is also a fact."  That is, the "Theory of Evolution" 
>>(more correctly, any given theory of evolution) is an attempt by 
>>scholars to explain the fact of evolution.  Fact, sir, as certain
>>as the existence of Siberia is a fact.  We have excellent records
>>of evolution, we have seen it occur in modern times, and there's
>>no *rational* way to dispute the matter.

>Here we hit the same vocabulary tangle I have previously made problems
>for myself with.  (Boy that's a terrible sentence.)  I do not dispute
>contemporary evolution, though I haven't seen the evidence for it.  I
>dispute evolutionary origin.  I dispute that all the life on the earth
>originated by random survivable mutations from a single
>proto-lifeform.

  Dispute away, Drew - but since you have presented zero evidence,
how is that different from saying "I dispute that the orbits
of planets about stars take an elliptical shape"?

[another, final deletion]

-- 
==============================================================================
Carl Fink          carlf@panix.com, C.FINK4(GEnie), or CF427620I@LIUVAX.BITNET
  "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits"  -  Mark Twain
From: joe@csource.oz.au (Joe Slater)
Sender: acsnet@csource.oz.au