On Fri, 7 Jul 1995 18:01:19 -0400 you wrote:
SJ>This is putting the chart before the horse! :-) I disagree that
>"nested patterns are perfectly good evidence for evolution".
>Historically they came well before evolution and Darwinism is
>an attempt to explain the nested hierarchy of form found in nature,
>not the other way around:
TG>The history is irrelevant. Evidence usually precedes a novel
>theory to explain it. The nested hierarchy is the evidence, the
>data, that which is to be explained. Evolution is a possible
>explanation. If something is an explanation for set of data, then
>that set of data is evidence for that explanatory theory.
I have never disagreed that "Evolution is a possible explanation".
But you claimed that "nested patterns are perfectly good evidence for
evolution" and I interpreted it to mean that they are "perfectly good
evidence" *only* "for evolution". Otherwise the point is
uninteresting. I don't think anyone would deny that "nested patterns"
are (or at least used as) "evidence for evolution"?
My historical point that you dismissed as "irrelevant" is not
irrelevant IMHO. You claim that "Evidence usually precedes a novel
theory to explain it". Of course the evidence must precede a theory
that explains it! How can there be a theory, without any evidence?
Perhaps there is in some modern mathematical physics, but even there
there must surely be evidence of some kind first?
My point was that the evidence, ie. "the nested hierarchy of form
found in nature" was previously explained, ie. by pre-Darwinian
Linnaean typology based on special separate creation of each species.
Now of course that was untenable and in fact the Bible doesn't teach
it. However, that does not mean that the idea was wrong, just that
like many theories it was wrong on its first approximation.
It remains to be seen if, in the long run, whether "the nested
hierarchy of form found in nature" will be better explained by a
non-Darwinian Intelligent Design theory such as Progressive Creation.
God bless.
Stephen