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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Dead Brain Weight - reply to 'Stuart' 24 Jun
Message-ID: <1152@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 13:32:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1152
Posted: Thu Sep 18 13:32:09 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 02:06:44 EDT
References: <5387@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 40

In article <5387@decwrl.DEC.COM> arndt@lymph.dec.com writes:
> It has taken me a few minutes to stop laughing so that I can see the screen
> and type again.  'Stuart' (I am going over old files) on 24 Jun posted a 
> piece to the effect that he 'silenced' "born-again fundy types" with his
> study of autopsy reports and the discovery that brain weights in humans have
> been going up and this is 'proof' of evolution taking place before our eyes.

I recall several competent rebuttals of this claim by non-creationists.
You're quite justified in making fun of it: but it would be unfair to consider
this a widely held evolutionary idea.

> Which brings to mind the claim of certain Claddists and others that there is 
> really not a single FACT that supports the Theory of Evolution.

By Claddists do you mean people like yourself with armor-clad brains?

Oh, you must be misquoting the Pattern Cladists, perhaps specifically Norman
Platnick at the American Museum of Natural History.  They claim that they
need no evolutionary hypothesis to make a cladistic classification.  Most
cladists that I know (at Harvard and Cornell) disagree on the basis that
the evolutionary hypothesis underlies character interpretation.

> I find that somewhat of an amazing thing to say.  So how about it.  Can
> someone give a SINGLE fact in support of the Theory of Evolution????

Depends on how you define "support".  Can you name a single fact in support
of the theory of universal gravitation?  Motion of planets, falling objects,
etc. are consistent with the theory: is that good enough "support"?  Or do
we need something that rules out little invisible angels first?

There are multitudes of facts that support evolution in terms of being
consistent with it, and frequently inconsistent or not necessary to other
theories.  For example, there is the fact of branching patterns of similarity,
which is required by evolution, but is unnecessary to special creation (where
a mosaic pattern or no pattern would do just as well.)  The branching patterns
of similarity describe respiration, structure, and a host of other features.
Those patterns are why we're able to make classifications of organisms.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh