Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site ihlpa.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!ihlpa!lew
From: lew@ihlpa.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Let's be fair
Message-ID: <172@ihlpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Mar-85 14:12:31 EST
Article-I.D.: ihlpa.172
Posted: Fri Mar 29 14:12:31 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Mar-85 01:30:27 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 31

Ken Arndt wants to know if it isn't fair to hold up wild speculations
made in the name of evolution to ridicule. Well, basically I would say
yes, but with two provisos.

First, I'll warn for the nth time that all these criticisms of the
scientific status of Darwinism are a separate issue from the FACTS
of earth history, as established by dating of the fossil record.

Second, maybe your presumption that these speculations are unverified
and unverifiable isn't true.  People are doing field work on behavioral
evolution, though the results are often a bit tenuous.  I recall seeing
an account having to do with warning signals given by squirrels. An attempt
was made to measure the statistical success of different behaviours.

I was impressed by the results of nesting behavior studies in penguins
and other colonial birds.  It was long presumed that the birds brooded
indiscriminately "for the good of the species".  It was pointed out that
this behavior was evolutionarily unstable, since freeloaders would "invade"
the population.  Field work showed that the birds do not brood eggs other
than their own.  Subsequent work has been done on how these birds are able
to keep track of their own nest location in the seeming mass confusion.

The first example that Ken cited about the wavy flight patterns of birds
being selected for by predation is typical of a lot of current work. I
think, to be fair, this is mostly theoretical, but often the theories
suggest inquiries into more exact details of these behaviors, and I think
these do qualify as predictions which can be verified.

Fair enough?

	Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihlpa!lew