alt.education

On Sep 25, 8:39 am, Danwood wrote:
> Martin Phipps wrote:
> > On Sep 25, 12:33 am, Danwood wrote:
> >> Martin Phipps wrote:
> >>> On Sep 24, 2:32 pm, Danwood wrote:
> >>>> Bob LeChevalier wrote:
> >>>>> Danwood wrote:
> >>>>>> You misunderstood, I stated something to the effect, that science is
> >>>>>> supposed to be hard nosed, objective, dispassionate. However, some
> >>>>>> people have become so emotionally invested in evolution that when some
> >>>>>> aspect of evolution is questioned or challenged they become very
> >>>>>> disturbed. In this regard they are little different from any religious
> >>>>>> fanatics. For _such_people_ evolution _is_ a religion; it's part of
> >>>>>> their worldview - it's who they are.
> >>>>> "Worldview" and "philosophy" and "culture" are not the same things as
> >>>>> "religion". "Religion" is a set of beliefs about the supernatural or
> >>>>> ultimate nature of the universe.
> >>>>>>> The only reason you (or this other Dan Wood) get called a liar, is for
> >>>>>>> lies like that.
> >>>>>> I'm convinced that this "liar" moniker is nothing, but a subterfuge to
> >>>>>> divert any real debate away from discussions about some of the fallacies
> >>>>>> of evolution.
> >>>>> The fallacies are entirely in the form of misunderstandings that
> >>>>> people have as to what "evolution" entails.
> >>>> I came across a book by Niles Eldridge in which he is complaining about
> >>>> assertions by "students of adaption" "that complex functionings of
> >>>> structures are carefully fashioned through natural selection. For
> >>>> instance, a woodpecker manages to blast into a tree with such rapidity
> >>>> and force without scrambling it's brain because the bones and muscles of
> >>>> a woodpecker head are built through (random mutation) and natural
> >>>> selection precisely to avoid brain scrambling."
> >>>> Eldredge, 1995. .
> >>>> It occurs to me that this is no better explanation than the design
> >>>> hypothesis.
> >>> Tell that to the primitive woodpeckers who scrambled their brains and
> >>> died leaving the descendents of modern woodpeckers to have all the
> >>> babies.
>
> >> Ok provide the supporting evidence for your claim. I don't mean the
> >> "just so stories" ie such as Kiplinger's fables explaining how the
> >> elephant got his trunk and the leopard got his spots". I want to see
> >> hard empirical evidence, not just an appeal to theory.
>
> > Natural selection is an observed phenomena. Creationism isn't.
>
> Ok, again if NG has been observed at work in the formation of the
> woodpeckers head, then you should have no problem in presenting the hard
> empirical evidence clearly demonstrating the role of NS in the evolution
> of the woodpecker.

There are woodpecker fossils displayiong their earlier forms. If you
are interested in the details then wikipedia is a good place to start.

/wiki/Woodpecker#Unassigned_fossil_forms

In the meantime, your argument is "I don't know about the evidence and
therefore the evidence doesn't exist". That's argument from
ignorance.

Martin