Re: Survey

Jim Foley (jimf@vangelis.ncrmicro.ncr.com)
Fri, 22 Dec 95 09:16:51 MST

>>>>> On Thu, 21 Dec 1995 17:43:09 -0800 (PST), vandewat@seas.ucla.edu said:

>> Jim Foley and Del Ratzsch have accused me of setting up a "straw man"
>> evolutionist and debunking him at length. So I would like to ask the
>> other members of the reflector. Did anyone else besides me think it
>> somewhat doubtful that the tiny amount of rabbit feces left on the
>> forest floor could serve any useful ecological purpose whatever?
>> (Before they read my "straw man" section, that is.)

Robert, the merit of your argument has nothing to do with whether it is
a strawman. I complained because you had attributed to evolutionists an
argument that they had not made, and that I certainly would not make.

Furthermore, the argument in question was not about the ecology of
rabbit droppings, but about whether a small effect could accumulate over
time, as your earlier posting shows:

>> Some evolutionists will argue that effects of this kind are
>> too small to be significant. How ironic that it was Darwin himself
>> that proved small effects accumulated over a long period of time
>> could have a significant effect. ....

>> They want to argue that small effects accumulated over sufficiently
>> long periods of time can create the most spectacularly complex
>> mechanisms known to man, but they also want to argue that small
>> ecological effects accumulating over time cannot be the reason for
>> the imperfections of design.

-- Jim Foley                         Symbios Logic, Fort Collins, COJim.Foley@symbios.com                        (303) 223-5100 x9765  I've got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call  it a weasel.      -- Edmund Blackadder