On 07/01/2011 04:02 PM, Paul Fuller wrote:
> I've said it before and I'll say it again - You write very well about
> complex topics.

Well, I like to think so. But then, everybody likes to think that 
they're intelligent, and they can't all be right...

> That is a good layman's introduction (I count myself as one). There are
> of course substantial bodies of research, competing theories and
> unresolved details several layers deep below each and every thing that
> you mentioned. However the overall picture is really shaping up and some
> aspects are very well understood by specialists in the field.

I was simplifying vastly, and there is a whole crapload of other 
interesting stuff I could have added also. But it's already an utterly 
huge post... (And huge posts usually result in everybody fixating on one 
passing side-remark.)

> Not only *what* happens and *how* but the *way* in which such mechanisms
> came about.

The more you look, the more interesting stuff you find.

> And yet, the uninformed masses have no problem saying that "it is
> obviously too complex to come about by chance and therefore must have
> been created".

Um, it *is* too complex to have been created by chance! :-P The point 
is, nobody is claiming that it was chance; they're claiming that it was 
a very specific method which, while it does /involve/ chance, also 
involves some very, very NON-random elements as well.

But you knew that already...

> Yeh, as if those who don't understand and perhaps can't
> understand the complexity have a right to dismiss out of hand the
> enormity of what is now understood at a very deep level. Then having
> dismissed it they assert their pet belief as the indisputable truth and
> go on to tell everybody else what they should and should not do.

A well-known writer once wrote "quod enim mavult homo verum esse, id 
potius credit". I think he was right.

I've actually met people like this, by the way. I know a guy, very 
friendly bloke, but he *always* has to be right. If he doesn't agree 
with what you're saying, that's it. There's nothing you can ever do to 
convince him otherwise.

For example, I said that War of the Worlds was written by H. G. Wells, 
and he insisted that Wells wrote The Time Machine, and War of the Worlds 
was by Gorge Orwell. I told him that he was wrong, but I wouldn't hear 
of it. I mean, hell, it's not as if I've been obsessed with that story 
for over two decades. It's not like I've actually got the book out of 
the library and read it. But no, he wouldn't hear of it. He's always right.

He's a nice bloke really, but he's a bit frustrating to be around. 
Eventually you learn to just smile and accept whatever he says, no 
matter how obviously incorrect it is.

> Unfortunately Behe has armed them with yet another false plank to rest
> their beliefs on - "See, even scientists don't believe that evolution is
> true". Uh, yes... One scientist who is refuted at every turn by actual
> experts in the field yet who continues to make such statements. Let's
> see some actual research published in peer reviewed journals that
> support your alternative hypothesis. Then there can be proper discussion.

Trouble is, Behe will just claim that nobody will publish his research 
because it's "controversial". As if which scientific theories get 
accepted or rejected depends on which scientists are part of the "in 
club" or something.

Unfortunately, there *have* actually been instances of scientists making 
genuine scientific discoveries and being laughed at by mainstream 
science for decades afterwards. Sometimes an idea is just so radical 
that nobody takes it seriously. Who an idea comes from should have no 
baring on its scientific validity, but sometimes that affects how 
willing people are to look at it. How similar a theory is to an existing 
one doesn't necessarily indicate how correct it is, but sometimes people 
act like it does.

I have no idea to what extent this problem has been solved in the modern 
era. I imagine there are probably still ideas that you would be 
hard-pressed to get people to accept, even with valid data to back it 
up. But then, I am not a scientist, so I couldn't say...

Behe, of course, is just using all this as an excuse to get bibles into 
schools, as is transparently self-evident.

> In defence of the tree kangaroos of New Guinea and Northern Australia,
> they quite likely are very well adapted to the same sort of niche as the
> sloths. Live in trees, eat low nutrition leaves which need to be
> fermented in order to extract energy, move slowly, conserve energy. If
> it works then evolution doesn't care how stupid *you* think they look.
> But you know that.

Indeed.

Actually, in general you find that low-energy habitats are populated by 
animals that move very slowly. (Take a look at the bottom of the sea, 
for example...)

Post a reply to this message