My mail program asked me "Include original in reply?" And I thought,
"Goodness, NO!" ;)
Great insight, David. Thanks for that. But I still stand behind my
analogy, although for a different reason now.
Keep in mind, it's just an analogy, and any analogy is only good up to a
point.
I'm saying, microevolution is not enough to imply macroevolution. My
first physics analogy was way too clumsy, but let me try a new one (after
consulting an encyclopedia -- briefly, anyway):
You would not use quantum mechanics to explain classical mechanics. They
just don't apply. After you reach a certain level they become, not
invalid, but irrelevant. You don't use quantum mechanics to explain the
orbits of the planets around the sun, or to measure one's weight. As
Feynman said (he was quoted in my encyclopedia), "an atom does not behave
like a weight hanging on a spring." Those quantum forces are there, to be
sure, but they just don't matter, they aren't sufficient enough to explain
what we observe.
I think the same is true of evolution. What we observe at the macro level
just can't be explained sufficiently by what we have theorized to date at
the micro level.
(What makes the analogy interesting to me is that in physics, we went from
a "macro" view to a "micro" view, in that we started with classical
mechanics and worked our way toward quantum mechanics, because it is
easier for us to observe and experiment on macroscopic particles than
microscopic ones. In evolution, however, we went the other way, from
"micro" to "macro", again, because it is easier. We can see
microevolution occur, and we have extrapolated from that to the macro
level, just as early physicists tried to extrapolate from the macro level
to the micro level, and found it wanting.)
What do you think? Is this any better, or have I really done a hatchet
job on physics -- again! (You'd never guess I was once interested in
studying physics, would you! Sheesh, I'm pathetic.)
Erich Hurst
Houston, TX