From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: questions for super-biologist Antti
Date: 10 Sep 92 21:55:53 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Sep9.153545.12655@cs.joensuu.fi> asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen) writes:
|colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) writes:
|>If you are really a biologist (yeah right) who has studied evolution
|>(uh huh, sure) and has found big flaws in it, you should at least
|>be able to answer these basic questions. The first one is fresh-
|>man level biology, the rest are somewhat harder. ...
|
|	I can say that this is the way Marxists pose questions - if you use 
|	false questions, you can't get right answers, if you use evolutionary
|	questions you get evolutionary answers.
|	How could I give you right answers if you use wrong therminology ?

The questions he posed were more basic population genetics than evolution.

The terminology was correct.  Thie current terminology in population genetics
is based on long experience in what does and does not work.  Most of the
terms he used refered to phenomena observable in the laboratory.  These
phenomena exist whether we have terms for them or not.

What terminology would *you* apply to these phenomena?  How would you describe
what is happening in the relevant experiments?

Now I know all except his first question involved some rather involved
mathematics, but they are all based on actual research.

|	I consider your attitude as
|	the "propaganda of the class-enemy" . Can I ask you, how you explain
|	Social Darwinism and the zero-probabilities of useful mutations ?

Social Darwinism is irrelevent to the scientific theory of evolution.
It was a bogus attempt to expand the scope of the theory out of its
proper realm.

What do you mean about 'zero probablilities of useful mutations'?

Useful mutations have been demonstrated in the laboratory innumerable times.

|	"They don't exist" is a wrong answer. I found your questions 
|	irrelevant.

His questions were an attempt to see if you *understood* the evolutionary
theory you are claiming to reject because it has insufficient supporting
evidence.

Even if you reject the premise of some of the questions, they are a
legitimate test of your claim to have *studied* evolution.

Thus, if you expect us to believe that you have *understood* and rejected
evolution on a rational basis, then answering the questionsm or at elast
discussing them, would be a good idea.  [I would have a hard time answering
some of them without refering to my textbooks, so just an intelligent
discussion would go a long way to giving your claim of having studied
evolution some credibility - I certainly doubt it].

Did you even *understand* the questions?  As hard as they were to answer,
I at least found them all easily comprehensible.

|	PS. Your high-brow scientific jargon doesn't impress me. The words are
|	meant to express the meaning, not to hide, but it seems that you 
|	prefer hiding it. 

The terminology is indeed for increased understanding - via increased
precision.  His questions could not be adequately expressed in any less
technical form.  Colloquial English simply does not have the right words.
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
Newsgroups: talk.origins