From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: response to Sutter (II)
Date: 6 Sep 92 17:08:38 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <1992Sep4.929.17252@dosgate> "herb sutter" <herb.sutter@canrem.com> writes:

>>Or at least you can keep calling it "dog" even though mastiffs and
>>schnausers are both examples of "dog". Doesn't this strike you as
>>a really dopey semantic argument?

>I appreciate your viewpoint, though I'm sorry you think so.  I was being
>serious.  Both are of the same `kind'. 

What's a 'kind'?

> For greater contrast, one could
>juxtapose chihuahuas and St Bernards.  :-) I understand your objection,
>but I don't feel it's valid in this case; aren't there strict taxonomic
>definitions for what constitutes "dog" and what constitutes "cat"
>(etc.)?

No, these are defined by inclusion. Any new breed of dog bred from
an existing breed would be called a dog -- the category would swell 
to accommodate a new breed (or species). 

>So isn't what I said true, namely that "you can breed dogs for aeons and
>(breeding evidence seems to prove) you will always end up with a dog"?

Only because it's trivially true.

>You feel it isn't true, but could you show me a counterexample from
>recorded breeding experience where some major change like this was
>actually observed?

Chihuahuas were wolves a few hundred years ago, how much more change
do you need? If I showed you a fossil Chihuahua and a fossil Great
Dane you'd say --"where are the transitional fossils?"; but, since 
the reverse suits your argument, you claim they are the same kind.

That is a huge problem with creationist criticism, you people
always want to have it both ways. C'ists would like to see a
seemless line of fossils showing transitions, but if there is
one you claim that that doesn't count because they all might be 
the same 'kind'. And notice among living dogs you couldn't find
a nice set of "fossils" linking chihuahuas and great danes because
they share a common ancestor, they weren't derived one from the
other -- something else C'ists refuse to understand. This extends
to other branchs of creationist criticism -- in Morris' book he
claims that evolution is unfalsifiable and yet he has falsified it!

I realise that I'm jumping from your arguments to creationist
arguments in general -- but I've been through this thread before.
The short cut is; 1.) breeding experiments are not where to look for
evidence of macroevolution. 2.) There is plenty of evidence for
macroevolution (I gave some in the first response(*), where is
the evidence _for_ creationism -- for that matter, WHAT IS
CREATIONISM? Where is your theory?

(*) that is where we should start this thread, IMHO -- focus
on one aspect at a time so the thread doesn't mushroom out of
control.

>The fact that, even after
>generations of mutation at hundreds and thousands of times the normal
>rate, mutant fruit flies began again to bring forth original unmutated
>flies shows (to me) a great resistance to even minor permanent change and
>a natural order against growing into something outside its `kind'.

These are not the results of the experiment (if I'm thinking of the
right set(*)). You could at least get your basic facts straight and
not make them up to fit your arguement. By the way, I know a guy who
has stocks of fruit flies with legs growing out of their heads and
other stocks of flies with an extra midsection and set of wings.
What does this say about your "great resistance to even minor
permanent change"?  And, by the way, you are contridicting yourself
already. You said you thought microevolution was possible in a
previous post, now your tune has changed. I realise it's nifty
from a strategic point of view to never have your ideas clearly
outlined -- this keeps your opponent constantly off guard. But,
this is not how science operates. If you (or anyone) is going
to argue that creationism is science, you need to produce a
theory of creationism first. It would be a bonus if it had 
evidence for it and was internally consistent, but _any_ actual
proposed theory would do for now. 

(*) how about providing the reference?

>|UUCP:canrem!herb.sutter INTERNET:herb.sutter@canrem.com COMPUSERVE:70312,1233|

Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"

Xref: sparky talk.origins:11042 sci.skeptic:16116