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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Living Fossils
Message-ID: <403@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 12:21:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.403
Posted: Mon Oct 22 12:21:19 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Oct-84 06:09:47 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: UW Primate Center
Lines: 69


> [Michael Ward]
> Paul Dubois has spent a lot of time and effort telling us about
> "Living Fossils".  In response, I ask two questions:
> 1) So what?

The "so what" is that it seemed to me that there was some
dissatisfaction with Larry's use of the term, and that the
dissatisfaction seemed to be along the lines of thinking
that Larry was making up some wierd creationist phrase.
I attempted to show that the term did not originate with
Larry, and that it is in fact quite widely used in evolutionary
circles.  This was explained in my article.  Your own response
to Larry ("where can I go to see living stone?") is evidence
of your ignorance of this fact.  That's not a criticism; no
one knows everything.  I hoped that the article might prove
helpful in providing background for those who, like you,
did not know to what the term refers.  I know that I am
interested in background for areas where I do not know much.

> 2) Where is the explanation of creationism that you have promised
>     us?

I did not attempt an answer to this question in my article.
It is unnecessary to criticize an article for failing to answer
questions which were not within its domain of discourse.

> Larry Bickford has excused your lack of response on this issue
> as being caused by a shaortage of time.  Yet you seem to have
> time to write over a hundred lines, well documented, in response
> to a trival point.  Larry had already taken care of that issue
> in just a few lines.  Neither of you have explained how it is
> a crippling blow to science.

(i) Achievement of my long response was, in part, made possible
by the reading which I am doing.  If you feel the article
discussed a trivial point, ok.  Don't read it.  But surely if
it's so trivial, it's not worth responding to, knowing that I
might generate another hundred lines or so?

(ii) It does not seem to me reasonable to criticize an article
for being well-documented.

(ii) I was not trying to deal a crippling blow to science.  Again,
this was explained in my article.  But I might note that your
phrasing is loaded when you talk about dealing a blow "to science",
as though I'm trying to toss science out the window.

> Come on, Paul, you said you were going to produce an explanation
> of what it is you are trying to defend in this newsgroup.  So
> produce, and forget the trivia.

I already apologized for the delay once.  I'm sorry to keep you
waiting, but I'm sure you wouldn't want me to run off half-cocked.

> "The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are correct."

Attributed by Michael Ward to Steven Hartley, this observation
may also be found, for instance, in "You take Jesus, I'll Take God"
by Samuel Levine, a book for Jewish people on refuting Christian
missionaries.  I think that it had also been observed several months
back, by Rich Rosen in net.religion.
-- 
Paul DuBois		{allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church,
and gave himself for it."	Ephesians 5:25

Would you die for your wife?