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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Creation, Evolution, and Flood
Message-ID: <1199@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Sep-86 17:46:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: bunker.1199
Posted: Thu Sep 25 17:46:46 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Sep-86 00:32:48 EDT
References: <203@BMS-AT.UUCP> <1148@cybvax0.UUCP> <210@BMS-AT.UUCP> <1159@cybvax0.UUCP>
Reply-To: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Organization: Bunker Ramo, Trumbull Ct
Lines: 35
Keywords: science flood cosmology
Xref: linus talk.origins:105 talk.religion.misc:255

In article <1159@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:

>No theory is "scientifically verifiable".  At best, a theory may be refutable
>in the Popperian sense.  These criteria do exist for evolution: for example,
>if a mosaic pattern (rather than the hierarchical pattern we observe) of
>characters of species is discovered, then evolution would be falsified.

This seems like a place to start a fruitful discussion.  Would you go into
more detail regarding what would constitute a 'mosaic' pattern, as opposed
to a 'hierarchical' pattern?  Would finding what were considered modern
features in what was thought to be a primitive creature an example of
a 'mosaic' pattern?  Would finding features which were common to what
were thought to be distant relatives, but not common to what were thought
to be close relatives, an example of a 'mosaic' pattern?  (I'm just trying
to find out if I have a good feel for what a 'mosaic pattern' is.)

It occurs to me to wonder how much of the hierarchical pattern is 'really'
there, and how much is imposed on the observations because that is what
people expected or wanted to find.  It further occurs to me that some
patterns ought to be considered mosaic, but are forced into the hierarchical
model as examples of parallel evolution, or some such phrase meaning
that, yes, it's an exception, but we aren't going to let it bother us.
(That probably doesn't sound the way I want it to; take it as a suggestion
for introspection.  The ones who never question their objectivity are
the ones I think are least objective.)

It also occurs to me to ask whether creationism predicts a mosaic or
a hierarchical pattern (I know that many say that creationism doesn't
predict anything; please refrain from flooding the net with statements
to that effect.  I want to know what (if anything) creationism does
predict.)

Hoping for answers, not flames.

Gary Samuelson