Bertvan@aol.com wrote:
> I agree to the confusion over definitions. Personally, I never use the word
> evolution. My disagreement is with "random mutation and natural selection as
> an explanation of macro evolution". Nevertheless, even if all definitions
> were agreed upon, the disagreement between people who argue on both sides of
> this controversy would be real. Those who accept the possibility of
> teleology as part of reality and those who don't. I am agnostic about the
> existence of teleology, and doubt it will ever be demonstrated to the
> satisfaction of any atheist. I argue on the "creationist" side because I
> dispute the authority of science to state that teleology does not exist.
>
> Bertvan
Thanks Bert for you comments to my post of 2/26.
You well reflect the frustration felt by many when we see what should be good,
solid, information conveying terms relegated to near uselessness by careless, or
otherwise improper usage. But let's not give up so easily ... at least not until
we take the opportunity to attempt to correct, or at least expose, past flaws.
You mention disagreement with .... "random mutation and natural selection as an
explanation of macro-evolution". This is another regularly encountered and
similarly faulty (imprecise, ambiguous) definition. While this is an improvement
over the Brassfield example I cited (inclusion of the word 'random' effectively
eliminates 'artificial selection') See, we're making progress already. More
importantly, it clearly fails to differentiate 'evolution' from it opposite,
'extinction' ... this being a semantic (logical, reasonable, scientific) no-no.
Your mention of macro-evolution (I added the hyphen as a step towards
clarification) is jumping a step or two ahead. But indeed as you have
pin-pointed, macro-evolution is simply a recent, and unnecessary semantic term
essentially duplicating the meaning for the term 'evolution' most folks have long
understood and accepted. Namely, the process by which some theoretical simplest
first single-cell gene pool grew, slowly and mechanistically by the postulated
mechanism of mutation and natural selection to the exquisitely complex genetic
information content of present mammalian gene pools.
We can expect to get into the other hyphenated versions, some obfuscating and
some helpful, as micro-, theistic-, pseudo-, directed-, etc., etc., but only
after we settle in on a mutually understood (and acceptable to both evolutionists
and non-evolutionists) definition for the basic term 'evolution' (or
'macro-evolution' as synonymously understood).
In closing, I admire (and share) your "agnostic" approach. In the context of
this dialog, this neither proposes (nor imposes) any external, non-mechanistic
influence exists ... or does not exist. It rather expresses the position that a
physically repeatable/observable phenomenon is more impressive (believable) than
claims not similarly supportable.
Now, getting back to basics, what do you think of the following? Is there
anything here to which you, or other reasonable critics with whom you are
acquainted, might object?
EVOLUTION (in the context of high school -college level science curricula): =
"The postulated process by which new, biologically beneficial, increasingly
complex genetic code appears and accumulates over time in a pre-existing
(simpler) gene pool by random mass/energy interactions."
Do recognize that this is but a second suggested 'draft' definition. Are there
flaws? Can we improve this further?
All are invited to participate.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Feb 26 2000 - 22:11:20 EST