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From: long@oliveb.UUCP (A Panther Modern)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Pathetic?
Message-ID: <390@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Apr-85 20:06:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.390
Posted: Sat Apr 27 20:06:30 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-May-85 03:26:14 EDT
References: <1852@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: long@oliveb.UUCP (A Panther Modern)
Organization: the Sprawl
Lines: 65
Summary: 

In article <1852@decwrl.UUCP> arndt@lymph.DEC writes:
| 
| Padraig Houlahan says it's 'pathetic' to point out the error of past
| evolutionary arguments (he references mention of embryo development as
| an argument for evolution is no longer used and to point that out is
| to en effect to beat a dead horse) since no one believes them any longer.
| 
| But this is merely the same kind of argument religious people us to point
| out to non believers when they, the non believers hold up silly notions
| of what the believers really believe!  Such as the utterly stupid idea 
| that God has to be explained - who/what caused God?
| 

    Ken, you have made an error in equivocation here.  The two cases are not
the same.  In the first case, the person who is attacking old arguments is
attacking an argument that neither side holds as true any longer (beating a
dead horse).  In the second case, the person who asks for any ghod to be ex-
plained is asking a valid question to which the answer forms a major part of
the religion to be evaluated* (inspecting a live horse).

* in most religious contexts, I guess that the answer "that is not a question
for one of our faith to ask" would be a good one.

| Many uninformed believers in evolution, just like the uniformed unbelievers
| in God, still hold to outmoded or bogus ideas to bolster their convictions.

    These folk will always be about.  Their affiliation with any side of an ar-
gument does not mean anything.

| ... SO IT IS RIGHT, AS A TECHNIQUE, TO CRITICISE EVOLUTION POINT BY POINT
| IN MAKING A CASE FOR CREATIONISM.

    That is an either/or fallacy: If the use of science to explain and pre-
dict the development of systems is impossible, then the only alternative is
your creator created everything in the way that you say that "he" said "he"
did.
    In making a case for your brand of creationism, you should build a group
of facts that we can agree with.  In the case of a "scientific" creationism,
you would have to show the data from which you concluded creation, how well
your interpretation of that data fits, and how well your interpretation can
be used to predict future events.  If it accomplishes all of these better than
the best theory of evolution, then you have made your case for creationism in
the correct manner.

| As has been pointed out here several times, while the exhalted presenses
| on the net may not believe any longer in the development of the embryo
| as a argument for evolution it is still an 'evidence' with much of the
| 'great unwashed' public school herd.  Still in some textbooks used, etc.
| Perhaps the most that can be said against mentioning the idea on the net
| is that most HERE no longer use it.  But pathetic? . . . no.

    Pathetic? . . . yes.  I'd consider anyone beating dead horses either pa-
thetic or a necroequisadist.  Just because a majority of people are carrying
about dead horses does not mean that live horses do not exist, and that the
horse farm is not doing quite well.
    Just because the release of a program (or theory) that most people use has
a few bugs and style problems does not mean that the current release of the
program (or theory) has not been mostly fixed, nor that the whole concept of
the program (or theory) is invalid.

						Dave Long
-- 
	gnoL evaD						Beware of
{msoft,allegra,gsgvax,fortune,hplabs,idi,ios,			Black ICE
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