Bill:
>Note the use of the past tense in Steve's final sentence. Perhaps it comes
>from Brian's definition of macro-evolution (origin of novelty) earlier.
>Thus the place to look for macroevolution is in the fossil record. But it
>seems to me that speciation ought to be considered macroevolution, since
>it's a change that produces a new noninterbreeding population. And
>speciation is happening today. It's been documented. Check the
>talk.origins archives. Last time I looked there was a long list of
>references to documented speciation events.
>
Bill is right of course. What I was intending was to discuss the
differences between "facts" and "theories" in the context of
macro-evolution and didn't want to get side-tracked by arguments
as to what is micro or macro. Thus I chose origin of novelty as
being something everyone could agree was macro-evolution. In
retrospect, perhaps speciation may have been a better example.
The same point seems to apply here. We have the fact (observation)
of speciation and we have theories that seek to account for this
fact. The distinction is very important since the fact remains
even when theories fall. I think some would like to blur this
distinction in the hopes that problems with a particular theory
might cause one to forget the facts ;-).
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Brian Harper | "I can't take my guesses back
Associate Professor | That I based on almost facts
Applied Mechanics | That ain't necessarily so"
Ohio State University | -- Willie Nelson
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