posted January 17, 2007 02:43 PM            

regards, Ian Cairns (sorry, unavoidably away from electricity for a while)

posted January 17, 2007 04:45 PM            

Two quotes to ponder:

quote:

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OCCAM'S RAZOR:
Occam's razor states that the explanation of any phenomenon should
make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating, or "shaving off",
those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the
explanatory hypothesis or theory. In short, when given two equally
valid explanations for a phenomenon, one should embrace the less
complicated formulation. The principle is often expressed in Latin
as the lex parsimoniae (law of succinctness)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

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quote:

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CRABTREE'S BLUDGEON:
Crabtree's Bludgeon is a foil to Occam's Razor, and may be expressed so:

"No set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which
some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation,
however complicated."

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posted January 17, 2007 05:34 PM            

quote:

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In the last chapter of their classic textbook, Evolving: The Theory and Processes of Organic Evolution,30 leading evolutionists Ayala and Valentine ask the question, “What does the future hold?” When I was an evolutionist, I would have expected that chapter to be full of bright prospects: higher IQ’s, greater mathematical and musical genius, faster runners and higher jumpers, nutritious and delicious foods in abundance, the conquest of disease. Instead, Ayala seems despondently concerned with basic survival: how can we save ourselves from mutations? He sees decay in genetic quality in plant, animal, and human species everywhere. He even wonders if the government might have to step in and license human reproduction, allowing couples to have children only after they pass extensive genetic tests.

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IRC

posted January 17, 2007 06:46 PM            

My understanding is that evolution is a process that took place
over astronomical timescales with rare occurances of beneficial
mutations. There are other mechanisms apart from random mutation in
the evolutuionary process such as sex in higher organisms and the
transposition of segments of DNA from one individual to another in
Bacteria and the like. If you look at Darwin's Origin of Species,
you will get a good perspective, not only of the early evidence but
also the arguments prevailing at the time, religious and otherwise.
We are still having some of the same arguments today.

For us humans, the idea of evolution through being mutated and then
culled is not an attractive one, so one can understand why such a
repugnant theory is rejected by many people. Fortunately in this century
we are developing the knowledge that will enable us to correct some of
our less than perfect components.