> Why not adhere to how scientists use the term rather than rely on
> secondary sources that suit your argument ?
John: <<You know I've had -plenty- of frustrating disagreements with Stephen, but isn't he quite right in saying that definitions of evolution and creation from leading science dictionaries show at least what many scientists believe?>>
I disagree. Dictionaries hardly are what I would consider 'what scientists' believe. IMHO what scientists believe should be determined from what is published by them.
John: <<It's more than fair enough for either of you to point out their inadequacies, and to stipulate that they're not the defns you're using for "evolution" and "creation".>>
Focusing on dictionaries and ignoring what scientists themselves have written on evolution is not very useful imho. Dictionaries by definition tend to give concise definitions, often tend to be behind the times.
John: <<But it hardly seems fair to call that a straw man argument, unless he's
claiming against your assertions that this is what -you- or -all scientists-
believe (versus many, -maybe- even most, or most non-specialist scientists,
or the most aggressively polemical, or.... I'll let him specify his scope).>>
If Stephen's argument is to disprove or address merely the dictionary's definitions then I agree but my reading of his article suggested more than this.
John: <<Does this make sense to you?>>
Yep
--John