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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Let's have scientific evolutionism too
Message-ID: <3388@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 11:51:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbscc.3388
Posted: Wed Aug  8 11:51:38 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Aug-84 04:43:52 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus
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>[from Dick Dunn:]
>In the few months that I've been following this group, I've seen a number
>of complaints along the lines of:
>	"You're talking about religious creationism.  That's not the same
>	as scientific creationism.  There is a creationist view which
>	doesn't rely on the Bible."
>and I've occasionally seen offers to post some information on the basics of
>scientific creationism.
>
>Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't yet seen an explanation of what is
>meant by scientific creationism.  If the article has appeared and I just
>missed it, would someone please send email to point it out to me.  But if,
>as I suspect, there hasn't been anything, would one of the scientific-
>creation proponents please try to post something, subject to the following
>two constraints:
>	1.  Don't just give references.  References are fine for someone
>	who wants to spend the time/effort/money to locate them for further
>	reading, but all we need here are some basics to get us started,
>	and a lot more people will read the material if it's right here in
>	front of their noses.
>	2.  Try to focus on what scientific creationism has to say, on its
>	own merits, rather than comparing it with evolution.  That is, I
>	think we need to see some creationist material which is positive on
>	its own ground rather than negative toward evolution.  [Stated yet
>	another way, I'm interested in evaluating creationism, not weighing
>	it against evolutionism.  After all, they might both be wrong:-]

A very good idea, I think.  I think articles of that nature have been posted
back in the early days before net.origins was (the battle went on in net.misc
then).  But one thing I have noticed in trying to follow the debate is that
no evolutionist has been under these constraints to do the same thing with
evolutionism... and no one has complained about that.  I wonder just how well
evolutionism stands on its own merits.  There seems to be the tacit assumption
that evolutionism relys more heavily upon, or is even derived wholly from
empirical scientific data--that there is little "filling in of cracks" with
a religious type belief and speculation.  Evolutionism has enjoyed being the
status quo, the basic assumption, in the public education of most of us.  We've
all been told how scientific it is--indeed, that it *is* science.  (And so
we've been told by evolutionists that creationism is not.)

All in all I think the general public has a very fuzzy idea of the definite
workings of evolutionary theory.  We all know about Darwin, and the
concept most people have of evolution rests on fragments of neo-Darwinian
evolutionism.  But is neo-Darwinism more than just fragments?  Norman MacBeth,
an evolutionist and lawyer who has made the study of evolution his avocation
for more than a decade, has said that it is not.  He claims that the main
reason the synthetic theory has enjoyed such wide acceptance is that no
one ever took the time to formulate it and work out the details.  Then
we have people like Steven J. Gould saying that neo-Darwinian theory is dead
while still proclaiming evolution to be a fact (although not in the sense
that we are used to thinking of facts.  He qualifies the word "fact".)

There is much internal debate on the very mechanisms that are supposed
to be responsible for evolutionary progression.  Whether it be natural
selection, genetic mutation, hopful monsters, inherited traits (Lamarkianism
still lives in some quarters) or Gould's own (along with Niles Eldredge)
punctuated equilibria.  In my understanding all of these have problems
and fall short of being a plausible mechanism.  Some are mutually exclusive,
others are built around the lack of evidence (fossils) rather than its
existence.  It's hard to image, for example, punctuated equlibria accounting
for all the gaps in the fossil record.  PE is concievable, but it couldn't
have all happened that way.

So Dick Dunn's suggestion is a good one.  But let's have the same from
evolutionist too.  Why should creationists have to cater to the assumption
that evolutionism has "made the grade" as a solid explanation of origins?
-- 

Paul Dubuc 		{cbosgd,ihnp4}!cbscc!pmd

  The true light that enlightens every one was coming
  into the world...		(John 1:9)