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Some Thought On Intelligent Design - WAS: OT Is George BushDrinking?
wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
wrote:
...
...
The existance of some transitional species is supportive of
slow (micro) mutation and natural selection while the gaps
leave open the possibility of macromutation.
Neither of these is true.
Hmm, How come?
Transitional species say nothing about the mechanism that caused the
transitions. If, as very, very rarely happens, you see a smooth
transitional series between two morphologies (and have managed to
convince yourself that it's a true evolutionary transition and not any
of the various phenomena that can mimic one), then you have shown that
the transition was gradual, and so have ruled out macromutaion in that
one exceedingly rare case. But you can't have any real idea of whether
natural selection was responsible for the change or not.
So 'supportive' was too strong a term? How about
'not inconsistant with'?
Sure.
Gaps may leave open the theoretical possibility of macromutation, but
unless we understand nothing about how evolution works they aren't a
viable mechanism of change.
The first part sonds like what I wrote, I appreciate your your
further comments.
Essentially, you are asking the fossil record to tell us more than it's
capable of.
By the way, the proper newsgroup for all this is really talk.origins. In
theory, sci.bio.paleontology is limited to discussing actual science,
not creationism. Feel free to change the group list.
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