On Sun, 23 Jul 1995 23:24:41 -0400 you wrote:
>Stephen Jones wrote:
SJ>"I find it interesting that you are still defending "fairly
traditional
>Darwinian principles" when Glenn in a recent post has chided
>"Christians" for still attacking Darwin's views. In the interests of clarity,
>perhaps you should take this up with Glenn, for the benefit of us all?<<
>
GM>Stephen, your memory is very short. On June seventh I cited the
case of the
>I'iwi bird whose beak is in the process of gradual change. You criticised
>that as evidence of evolution by saying
>
SJ>Yes. These birds are still birds. What are they evolving to?<<
I was referrring to Terry's use of the words "fairly traditional
Darwinian principles" and your criticism of "Christians" for attacking
same. So now
I take it you *do* accept "fairly traditional Darwinian principles"?
:-)
GM>So gradual change is not enough for you to believe that evolution
can occur,
>but when I cited the experiments which produced lizard legs from chicken legs
>in chick embryos, you also criticised that as "Goldschmidtism". Is it
>possible that absolutely no piece of data would be able to convince you that
>morphological change has occurred?
The strength of my believe is directly proportional to the quality of
the evidence
presented. For example, I found Terry's claim about vitamin C
deficiency good evidence for common ancestry in primates (your memory
must be short too? :-)).
Unfortunately, to date Terry has not answered my questions about that.
Perhaps
you can?
GM>During that exchange you quoted Bohlin and Lester concerning the
"limits" to
>biological change. This is a quite common criticism of evolution, yet I have
>not found a single experiment which has proven such a limitation. Can you
>provide a single experimental fact supporting the contention that there are
>limits to biological change? In what experiment did mankind attempt to alter
>a form and find the limit?
All the evidence from selective breeding is that change can only be
taken so
far. Since you are presumably making the claim that there are no
limits to
biological change, please present your evidence.
GM>I do not disagree with Terry's point about the beaks of the
finches. I have
>never said that gradual change can not occur. What I have said is that there
>is evidence for BOTH gradual AND rapid change in biological systems. Darwin
>beilieved that ONLY gradual change could occur. Modern data has shown this
>to be untrue. Yet too many Christians still argue against the view that ONLY
>gradual change can be invoked to explain morphological change.
So if "Christians" criticise gradual change then it must have been
rapid, but
if they criticise rapid change then it must have been gradual? :-)
God bless.
Stephen
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