>Reflectorites
>
>On Wed, 26 Apr 2000 16:40:08 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>SJ>This is incorrect. Susan did not give "the full quotation" but still left
>>>some of my omitted words out. And as I said, I was (and am), happy to
>>>put *all*
>>>the words back and debate the point, but Susan (and Chris) declined.
>
>SB>I certainly didn't quote the entire essay, what difference does that make?
>
>[...]
>
>As I said, Susan didn't even quote the entire *quote*! The fact is that
>Susan omitted words from the same quote which were irrelevant to the
>point *she* was making as I did.
I still don't understand the relivance of this however, for the record,
here is a part of my original post:
------
Stephen [speaking to Chris]:
>This is too vague. Complexity could apply only to oscillating variations of
>the beaks of finches on the Galapagos Islands. Is Chris claiming that *all*
>the complexity of life, over the last 3.8 billion years, came *only* by
>"variations, some of which themselves produce even more complex
>variations"? That's OK, but he should then acknowledge that it is
>controversial even among evolutionists:
Me:
what Chris talks about above has been observed to occur and isn't
controversial. However, this quote below brings me to the topic of the post.
>"Orthodox neo-Darwinians extrapolate these even and continuous changes
>to the most profound structural transitions in the history of life: by a long
>series of insensibly graded intermediate steps, birds are linked to reptiles,
>fish with jaws to their jawless ancestors. Macroevolution (major structural
>transition) is nothing more than microevolution (flies in bottles) extended.
>If black moths can displace white moths in a century, then reptiles can
>become birds in a few million years by the smooth and sequential
>summation of countless changes. The shift of gene frequencies in local
>populations is an adequate model for all evolutionary processes - or so the
>current orthodoxy states....The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
>offers no support for gradual change...Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin
>forged became a central tenet of the synthetic theory." (Gould S.J., "The
>Return of the Hopeful Monster", in "The Panda's Thumb", 1990, p156)
<snip>
In the Gould quote above there are two sets of elipses indicating that
material has been trimmed. The first set of elipses indicates a place where
Gould uses an illustration of his point and is perfectly acceptable. The
second set of elipses hides something very interesting though.
Stephen quotes:
"The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual
change...Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central tenet
of the synthetic theory."
The original version reads "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions
offers no support for gradual change, and the principle of natural selection
does not require it--selection can operate rapidly."
As you can see the portion left out was brief, but it refutes what Stephen
was saying. The missing verbage changes the meaning of the paragraph and
reveals that Gould does *not* agree that variation and selection are
controversial.
---------------
>[...]
>
>SB>The obvious solution to this is for you to stop quoting evolutionists or do
>>it more sparingly. Debate using your own words. Only use quotes if the
>>*entire context* actually supports your argument. This quotation-heavy
>>debate method of yours *isn't working* it's time to try something else.
>
>When evolutionists tell me that my methods aren't working, then I assume
>that they *are*!
um . . . ok. Since I don't support your goals, I won't try to persuade you
from a strategy that will never meet them. Keep doing what you are doing!!!
>SB>But I must also tell you that if I have access to the
>>entire text of something you quote, and your quote is out of context, I
>>will provide the context for the list without comment [...]
>
>That's fine by me. As I said, I would *thank* anyone who objectively
>demonstrated that a quote of mine was out-of-context. I have no desire,
>nor need, to post out-of-context quotes.
good :-)
>But if they just claimed my quote was out-of-context with no supporting
>evidence, I will treat it as an ad hominem and just delete it without
>comment, as per my new policy.
oh, I'll never do it without supporting evidence. In fact, I haven't so far.
Susan
----------
For if there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
this one.
--Albert Camus
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
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