From: wiml@milton.u.washington.edu (William Lewis)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Re: Proving the existance of a deity (was Re: Mandatory negatives)
Date: 18 Aug 92 03:28:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug18.032837.11615
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Aug18.002908.20040@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann) writes:
>[I know I promised to stay out of this, but I just couldn't pass this up...]
>
>In article <4756@balrog.ctron.com>, smith@ctron (Larry Smith) writes:
>>And Dawkins goes to great lengths to (a) point out those forms and (b) explain
>>why the fossil record cannot be trusted to provide a complete explanation.
>         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>"The fossil record cannot be trusted to provide a complete explanation"??!!!

  [misc. flamage]

>The fossil record *is* an unbiased record of passed events.  ...
                           ^^^^^^^^

You're not reading the same thing that Larry wrote. Larry wrote that
the fossil record cannot be trusted to provide a "complete" explanation.
You rejoinder that, on the contrary, it provides an "unbiased" record.
There's no conflict here --- these statements can both be true, and as far
as I know they both *are* true[1]. Fossilization, like any stochastic
sampling method, cannot be trusted to provide a complete record[2].
I believe the fossil "sampling" is dense enough to provide a good
description of the course of history, but not dense enough to give
*all* the details (this would certainly require *everything* to be
fossilized, which would use up a prohibitive amount of volume and
remove too much stuff from the biosphere.) Still, it gives more than
enough details to support the theory of evolution[3].


As an aside, I really doubt the fossil record does provide a strictly
*unbiased* record. Were there really THAT many wolves, proportionally,
around La Brea? No, but wolves happened to be particularly susceptible.
However, I *do* believe, lacking contrary evidence, that the fossil
record's biases are orthogonal to the question at hand, re. evolution.


[1] It dismays me that, even in an sf group, people are so concerned
with grinding their own axes that they don't stop to read other postings
carefully, for fear that there might not even be a disagreement or
something to flame. A little voice in my head tells me, At least it's
better than the Real World, at least people *do* read each others' postings,
or at least keep them on the screen long enough to hit 'F'.

[2] Yes, I know that Larry wrote "... complete explanation". However,
even a complete fossil record (which I, and I think Larry, are asserting there
is not) would not provide a complete explanation, since not all materials
fossilize. 

[3] Some might argue that it provides enough details to disprove the
theory of evolution as well, but that's a different subject.


Post, mail, or flame about sentences or words which are too large or
complex, including this one.

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