Doug Hayworth wrote:
> This is just the point. I don't have an intellectual "goal" one way or
> the other.
No goal? None? Not even to get at the truth about the natural world?
> I am compelled to my present understanding by the weight of manifold
> evidence from 150 years of intense investigation of the observable
> properties and behavior of the physical universe, including the nature of
> inheritance, production of variation by mutation, and ecological
> interactions. If, over time, the Doolittle stuff becomes more and more
> substantiated, then that will become incorporated into a more expanded
> and refined understanding on my part about the nature of early
> evolutionary history.
As I noted in my posts, it's not just W. Ford Doolittle's work, but
a wide and growing range of anomalies throughout molecular and
morphological phylogenetics. Doolittle has simply been especially
eloquent in talking about some of those anomalies. Anyway -- waiting
until new ideas become "more and more substantiated" is a safe bet,
yes, but that also means that one may miss out on the fun (and challenge)
of developing fresh approaches to puzzling data.
> You, on the other hand, *appear* to have an a priori commitment to
> disprove evolution, including the animal ancestry of humans, by searching
> high and low for a few lines of evidence which you can interpret to that
> end by way of considerable convolution.
Nah, my only a priori commitment is to be as stubborn as a donkey.
(Come on, smile.)
> Yes, we can try to stick to the evidence, but our basic philosophy of
> approach to that evidence differs so immensely that we are left without
> common ground to work from. This was my point in the original post.
> For me, acceptance of common ancestry is a yardstick for measuring
> the extent of our common ground.
Everyone has yardsticks. (I've got one in relation to the double-blind
testing of pharmaceuticals, for instance, which makes me impatient
with the claims of the "alternative medicine" advocates.) But if you
make the common ancestry of life, or really of any particular group,
a "yardstick" -- in the sense that the theory cannot be challenged
either by observation or theoretical argument -- you risk falling into
what Malcolm Gordon (1999, p. 332) calls a "near ideological
commitment to the concept of monophyly."
> If you do not accept (what I believe to be) the
> overwhelming evidence for common ancestry (in the form of a continuity of
> descent - whether it be unitary, reticulate, mosaic, or otherwise - and
> going at least "way back" in time) then my conclusion is that you have
> either not looked at the evidence or you have interpreted the evidence so
> completely differently that there is no hope to talk about the evidence in
> a meaningful way.
I understand. Common ancestry is off the table & safely in a jar on the
high shelf. No one can make you ask questions about a theory you've
placed out of reach.
> There are more important matters in my life than continuing along this
> thread.
OK by me.
Paul Nelson
Senior Fellow
The Discovery Institute
www.discovery.org/crsc
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