From: bobb@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Robert W Bales)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Bob and DNA
Date: 21 Jul 92 19:41:17 GMT


Bruce Salem writes:

>> me
># Matt Brinkman

>	The usual doubletalk we get from Bales makes my brain hurt,
>but the following sticks out like a sore thumb and it shows how little
>Bob understands how science works.

>#   This is false.  Evolution would predict that vertebrate life shares a
>#common ancestor.

>>This is a conclusion formed *after* examining the evidence, not an a priori
>>prediction.

>	You have got it all messed up. There is very little a priori, as if
>you know what that term means, which I serious doubt, to the way "predictions"
>are made using evolutonary theory.

Bruce says I am engaging in "double talk" and am "all messed up" because I say
that evolution does not make a priori predictions.  The real case, Bruce says,
is that evolution makes very little in the way of a priori predictions!  Does
the same thing change from being double talk to being correct depending upon
who says it??

I also ask Bruce to present any evidence he has that I do not understand "a
priori."  For years, he has made a number of statements about what I know,
what I believe, and how I reason.  He has continually made these statements
without supporting evidence.  Some I have disproved, such as the one several
years ago that I had not gone to college.  Over the years, he has shown,from my
point of view, little understanding of what I say.

>	Of, course the conclusion that vetebrates all have a common ancestory
>is based primarily on examimining evidence, Biology IS preeminantly an
>emperical science. . . .

In other words, exactly what I said!

>	I think the denegration of emperical science, and your prejudicial
>insistance of "a priori" standards shows how little you know what you are
talking about,

Bruce apparetly missed the context of the discussion. I did not denigrate
emperical science, nor did I insis that evolution be a priori.  The context was
whether or not evolution makes a priori predictions which make it a better
theory than creation.  I was discussing whether ther are or are not a priori
predictions in evolution.  I said nothing at all against emperical science.

>You may not even know the implications of the term "a priori" in logic

I do.

>and in using it suggest that biology and evolution have a simple basis in
>known logical forms,

Bruce needs to read what I said. I said evolution is NOT a priori which, using
the definition given here, is saying that it does NOT have a simple basis in
known logical forms.  I said that something is *not* true, yet Bruce accuses
me of suggesting that it *is* true!

>which they do not.  They are not linked to simple descrete state machines
>directly, and our knowledge of them is much more emperical than deductive. Do
>you understand this distinction?

Since this is what I said, I think it is reasonable to assume I understand it.

>If you do then you must know that you are being dishonest in using the
>standard of an 'a priori' argument against evolution.

But I am not doing this.

   Bob Bales
   Tektronix, Inc.

I help Tektronix make their instruments. They don't help me make my opinions.
Newsgroups: talk.origins