If I stop repeating myself, I've changed my mind?
> happens in the future. If you are right that this is a normal,
> vigorous, healthy debate like other scientific debates, then Gould
I said very clearly that I thought the form this debate has taken is
vigorous, but largely unproductive. It provides for some good excitement,
though, and may have positive repurcussions.
> and Dawkins (or at least their followers) should eventually resolve
> their differences. OTOH, if I am right, and this is a deep-seated
> and irreconcilable rift caused by the failure of the
> materialist-naturalist paradigm to cope with the evidence, then the
> distance between the Gould and Dawkins' camps should not get smaller
> and even get wider.
The issue of 'selectionism vs. pluralism' will be resolved. The issue
of which is most interesting, and the semantic fight about which group
which thinks certain aspects are most interesting gets to call themselves
'true Darwinists' will not be resolved. The issue of the unit of
selection will be resolved. That seems to be less acrimonious, though.
[...]
> No doubt there are egos involved, but it is unbelievable that this
> is the sole explanation. The real explanation is the frustration
> caused by the intractable problems in Neo-Darwinist theory itself in
> failing to fit the facts, and yet being the only plausible
> naturalistic theory. Darwinism is unique among scientific theories
> in the length of time (over four generations) its core theory has
> been under dispute, as Jaki points out:
I've pointed out before which elements of Darwinian theory are no longer
under dispute. Brief review: common ancestry, selection as key element
for generating adaptation. These are the core elements of Darwin's thesis,
and they have not been in dispute for decades. Common ancestry was not
in dispute within a generation after _Origin_ was published.
> "He [Darwin] recognized, however, that there was something
> unsatisfactory with the "how" he held high, or the selective impact
> of environment on the fact that offspring were always, however
> slightly, different from their parents. That "how," supported by
> genetics as it may be, is still elusive. Indeed, so elusive as to
> have produced a unique feature in the history of science. Whereas
> in physics and chemistry the conversion of scientists to a new major
> theory becomes complete within one generation, in biology a
> respectable minority has maintained itself for now over four
What a hoot. The same thing happened with common ancestry. (Which was
the main argument of _Origin_.) Selection was discounted thereafter
for many years, largely because of the problematic fact that no good
mechanism for it was known. When Mendelian genetics was introduced,
the same thing happened with that. You can read Mayr's book, for instance,
to get a grasp on the history of the theory. It is pretty good and quite
short, and written by a key player in this particular synthesis.
> generations against the majority position represented by Darwinists.
> The latest evidence of the deep dissatisfaction felt about Darwinism
> has come from strictly Darwinistic circles. Despair about Darwinism
> is the driving force behind that recent rush to the idea of
> punctuated evolution. In no sense an explanation, the theory of
> punctuated evolution is a mere verbalization demanded by the fact
> that the geological record almost invariably shows bursts of new
> forms and hardly ever a slow gradual process as demanded by
> classical Darwinism." (Jaki S.L., "The Absolute beneath the
> Relative and Other Essays", 1988, p191)
[...]
> But my point all along has been that:
>
> 1) I "take the side" (if I am to use your words) of Dawkins in his
> claim that the Neo-Darwinist `blind watchmaker' theory of the
> gradual step-by-step cumulative preservation by natural selection of
> tiny incremental improvements in adaptability to local environments is
> the only materialist-naturalistic theory that can explain life's complex
> designs in the absence of a Designer; and
>
> 2) I "take the side" (again to use your words) of Gould in his claim that the
> fossil record does not support the Neo-Darwinist `blind watchmaker' theory
> of the gradual step-by-step cumulative preservation by natural selection of
> tiny incremental improvements in adaptability to local environments; and
> therefore
except that this is not the issue under contention here. (And you are
misrepresenting what both sides say is.)
[...]
> What you are really trying to do (whether you realise it or not) is
> have me convicted of a minor, special meaning of certain words (like
> "conspiracy"), and then I am held automatically guilty of the major
> meaning too! This is a evolutionist trick that I have learned to be
> wary of on this Reflector and that's why I insist on clarifying
> words at the outset.
I pointed out that you are using the fact of a public debate to claim
that there is some sort of arrangement whereby debates aren't made
public (for some reason, you are reluctant to recognize that this is
a 'conspiracy'). This sort of 'everybody's scheming against us' is,
unfortunately, a common technique by creationists which seems unlimited
in its explanatory power. (See 'the Great Global Evilutionist Cabal
won't publish our papers!', 'The Great Global Evilutionist Cabal is
hiding fossils that won't fit their theories!', 'The Great Global
Evilutionist Cabal is suppressing radiometric dates that disprove their
methods!' and on an on and on and on and on.) Whether other people
'convict' you of that is their problem, and, frankly, I'm almost
completely disinterested.
[...]
> popular press are probably very low" (my emphasis). No doubt
> "references to both combined in the popular press" will be "probably
> very low", compared with Presidential affairs or the war with Iraq,
> but that tells us nothing about what we were originally debating
> about!
You claimed that the reason publicity is low (despite its being
high) is the un-conspiracy. I suggested another possible reason: that
the popular press simply doesn't care. I'm not wedded to it; I suggested
some observations which would clarify the matter. I'm uninterested in
semantic arguments over whether 'quantum physics' and 'evolutionary
theory' are at the same level of granularity or not. Let me spell out
the relevance: if there is little interest in the popular press to
some debate within evolutionary biology, then that debate won't get
publicity, not because of any un-conspiracy, but because there is little
interest. To see whether that could be the case, one could examine the
popular press to see whether there is indeed this lack of interest.
Clearly, there will be some issues in physics and biology which will get
more or less attention comparatively. As a whole, then, relative levels
of exposure which each field gets would be a marker which would provide
an averaged basis of comparison for weighting. Understood? Now, just
because there is no press interest doesn't mean there is no un-conspiracy.
There could be an un-conspiracy *despite* lack of press interest.
However, evidence which tended to support the idea, given the attention
given to the debate at hand, which is fairly public (although something
as abstruse as the planetary status of Pluto seems to have received more
attention) it seems to undermine the un-conspiracy theory. I don't see
this as going much of anywhere, so this is my last communication on the
topic.
-Greg