Winning Souls for Darwin
david ford
(New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 390pp. On 20 through the end of the
chapter on 24:
7. THIS HAS BEEN a long yarn, and we had better see to it that we
have it well in hand. All these interesting things flashed through
our mind while we were admiring the cleverness of our Ascaris in
neutralizing the dangerous effects of enzymes by anti-enzymes. All we
had to do was to look around with wide-open eyes and occasionally to
conjure some pleasant memories in order to find the ubiquity of the
phenomenon of adaptation to the specific environment. And again we
meet the ominous questions, How? and Why?
There are not many people who have never heard the name of Darwin,
though there are still fewer who actually read his writings. There
was a time about seventy years ago when the mention of this name acted
like a battle cry. But this belongs to the past. There is no more
dissension about the basis of his teachings among those whose training
permits of a sensible judgment. All naturalists agree that the world
of living beings has not always been like what it is nowadays, and
that the present forms of life have been slowly evolved in the course
of millions of years from simpler ancestors. Nobody--
to return to our example-- will doubt that once upon a time the
parasitic worm sprang from free-living ancestors. Nobody will doubt
that the ancestors of the strangely deformed deep-sea animals looked
like their ordinary cousins who live today at the surface of the
oceans. The strange ways of living inside other animals or in the
dark abysses of the oceans must, then, have been originated once upon
a time, and the characters which are so well adapted to these specific
surroundings must also have arisen anew. How might this have come to
pass?
Again a reminiscence of my high school days comes to my mind. In the
stormy days of early adolescence I was deeply interested in the very
final questions man can ask-- more deeply, certainly, than in my
regular schoolwork. Among the many books which I devoured were some
of the most aggressive general books on evolution. The result of this
wild reading was that I tried to make my friends also see the new
light of scientific insight into the greatest problems of humanity.
Once when I stood among a group of youngsters, handing down to them my
new revolutionary knowledge, I overheard the model boy of the class
saying: "Look at him catching souls." Maybe his derision was not so
ill-founded after all. I was actually trying to persuade others to
believe things which I was myself not in a position to prove. If at
that time the boys had
asked me to explain the origin of the adaptations, I should probably
have answered in the sense of the early Darwinian books: Very simple!
Among the many members of the fish family which once decided to look
for new hunting grounds in the deep seas, not all were perfectly
alike, just as brothers are usually different from one another. For
example, there might have been some who happened to have slightly
different eyes capable of perceiving dimmer light. This chance
character gave them a certain superiority over their less fortunate
brethren in the constant search for food. Maybe, also, their
chances of finding mates for propagation were better; in short, they
were better fitted in the struggle for existence. Their offspring,
again, inherited these lucky characteristics, and in some of them
these characters were even improved. Again, these were ahead of their
brethren and had better chances to propagate. Thus, in each
generation the same process of selection of the fittest was repeated
until finally the maximum effect, the telescopic eyes, was produced by
continuous selection of small improvements.
Meanwhile, others as well as myself have learned that another answer
to the question would be superior to that argumentation of early
Darwinism. Today the precocious boy would probably speak thus: It is
hardly conceivable that a living being could stand the impact of a new
environment if it were not already in possession of the necessary
characters. He who visits the North Pole without a fur coat will
freeze to death. He who wants to burrow in the earth, as does the
mole, will not get very far without the proper instruments, the shovel
feet and the proper shape. If the first Ascaris arriving in the
bowels of a host had not had the faculty to produce the anti-enzyme,
he would have been digested, and there would have been the end of him.
Therefore, the adaptations may have first appeared thus: First, the
specific characters appeared by chance, and without any usefulness or
significance. Only then could the organism afford to look for new
modes of living which were accessible to him on account of such
properties. The animal, then, was not adapted or acclimated to new
conditions; but it migrated into the new place when it was already
fitted for them.
But today, I know still more: namely, that it is a waste of time to
argue about such matters from the desk. Why talk, when it is possible
to experiment? Take organisms and expose them to new conditions and
watch the result. Take organisms which are a little different from
their brethren and find out whether this difference reappears in their
offspring. Take organisms and try to make them develop new characters
under your eyes. Ask Dame Nature your questions and force her to
answer. Do not philosophize, but start experiments. Needless to say,
this is exactly what hundreds of the best brains and the cleverest
hands are doing, in order to find the right answers to these and a
thousand more questions. Be patient! In due time we shall record the
answers.
But let us stop now a little. Questions upon questions come up which
we are not yet prepared to have answered. We are trying, I am afraid,
to walk the tight-rope before we have even learned to walk. Let us
then return from the lofty heights of the great theories to the level
ground of systematic detailed work. To be honest, thus far we do not
know so very much more than the fact that there lies in front of us
the worm Ascaris, whom we have appointed to be our guide into the
science of life.
================================================================
For Further Reading
"Why talk, when it is possible to experiment? Take organisms and
expose them to new conditions and watch the result."
1959 Gertrude Himmelfarb on 1871 Darwin backtracking; 1892 Henry de
Varigny
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0312222212.4728f71b%40posting.google.com
"start experiments. Needless to say, this is exactly what hundreds of
the best brains and the cleverest hands are doing"
fruit flies
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0403082115.67a4b153%40posting.google.com
more Goldschmidt appears in
Goldschmidt and macro- vs. microevolution
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401311639.3dc8e050%40posting.google.com
david ford
=============================================
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
david ford wrote:
> Goldschmidt, Richard. 1937. _Ascaris: The Biologist's Story of Life_
> (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 390pp. On 20 through the end of the
> chapter on 24:
That's nice. <yawn>
What, if anything, is the scientific theory of creation? How, if any
way, can we test it using the scientific method? Why, if any reason,
won't Ford answer those simple questions?
===============================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"
Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
DebunkCreation Email list:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/DebunkCreation
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----
Rodjk
<Yawn> So, what have we learned since 1937?
Rodjk #613
Steven Carr
ford) wrote:
>Goldschmidt, Richard. 1937. _Ascaris: The Biologist's
>Story of Life_ (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 390pp. On
>20 through the end of the chapter on 24:
1937??
<skip>
Steven Carr
ste...@bowness.demon.co.uk
http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/
Dave
> (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 390pp. On 20 through the end of the
> chapter on 24:
>
> 7. THIS HAS BEEN a long yarn, and we had better see to it that we
> have it well in hand. All these interesting things flashed through
> our mind while we were admiring the cleverness of our Ascaris in
> neutralizing the dangerous effects of enzymes by anti-enzymes. All we
> had to do was to look around with wide-open eyes and occasionally to
> conjure some pleasant memories in order to find the ubiquity of the
> phenomenon of adaptation to the specific environment. And again we
> meet the ominous questions, How? and Why?
>
> There are not many people who have never heard the name of Darwin,
> though there are still fewer who actually read his writings. There
> was a time about seventy years ago when the mention of this name acted
> like a battle cry. But this belongs to the past. There is no more
> dissension about the basis of his teachings among those whose training
> permits of a sensible judgment. All naturalists agree that the world
> of living beings has not always been like what it is nowadays, and
> that the present forms of life have been slowly evolved in the course
Good thing that you know better. Wouldn't want to put your soul at
risk. Thank the fairies that childish thinking will never go out of
style.
Daniel T.
> But today, I know still more: namely, that it is a waste
> of time to argue about such matters from the desk. Why
> talk, when it is possible to experiment? Take organisms
> and expose them to new conditions and watch the result.
> Take organisms which are a little different from their
> brethren and find out whether this difference reappears
> in their offspring. Take organisms and try to make them
> develop new characters under your eyes. Ask Dame
> Nature your questions and force her to answer. Do not
> philosophize, but start experiments. Needless to say,
> this is exactly what hundreds of the best brains and the
> cleverest hands are doing, in order to find the right
> answers to these and a thousand more questions. Be
> patient! In due time we shall record the answers.
Many experiments have in fact been done. We have observed speciation in
the laboratory, we have watched creatures become successively more
adapted to environments that were once hostile to them. We have
witnessed evolution at work.
However, your point is well taken. Even the most avid of evolutionist on
these newsgroups have probably never *conducted* an experiment to prove
their beliefs. One of the great strengths of the Human race is the
ability to build on the knowledge of our fathers, so that we don't have
to "reinvent the wheel" every single generation.
Frank J
> david ford wrote:
>
> > Goldschmidt, Richard. 1937. _Ascaris: The Biologist's Story of Life_
> > (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 390pp. On 20 through the end of the
> > chapter on 24:
>
>
> That's nice. <yawn>
>
>
> What, if anything, is the scientific theory of creation? How, if any
> way, can we test it using the scientific method? Why, if any reason,
> won't Ford answer those simple questions?
I hate to sound like a broken record, but the reason no one answers
that question is because the theory of evolution *is* the "theory of
creation" as it pertains to new species (vice organisms, in which case
it's replication or reproduction).
Why not just ignore the creation or design issue altogether and ask
exactly what is their alternative to evolution? IOW, are they talking
"saltation," as DF implies by referring to Goldschmidt, or more in
terms of "independent origins," (per Schwabe or Senapathy) or "front
loading" (ber Behe)?
Yes I know that most people would evade that too (especially because I
have asked it ~100x with very little luck). But at least asking the
question that way, instead of lumping it all under the ambiguous
"creation" label, might get more lurkers to realize that these people
not only know that there is no promising alternative to evolution, but
they also know that they better not commit to any testable
alternatives or use proper scientific terminology, because that would
give away their irreconcilable differences and their "big tent"
strategy to cover them up.
david ford
>
> > Goldschmidt, Richard. 1937. _Ascaris: The Biologist's Story of Life_
> > (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 390pp. On 20 through the end of the
> > chapter on 24:
>
> That's nice. <yawn>
>
> What, if anything, is the scientific theory of creation? How, if any
> way, can we test it using the scientific method? Why, if any reason,
> won't Ford answer those simple questions?
Lenny, I posted this in "Re: Quote mine project, part 5". Do you have
a response to it?:
While reading
Lenny Flank's 1996 "What Is the 'Scientific Theory of Creation'?"
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/science.htm
some thoughts occurred to me.
It is possible to argue that an intelligent creator(s) made physics
and biology without even mentioning the Bible or any of its contents.
The theoretical and observational evidence for the Big Bang theory is
strong. Such evidence includes the general theory of relativity, the
temperature and characteristics of the cosmic microwave background
radiation, and red-shifting of light originating from other galaxies.
The creation out-of-nothing/ ex nihilo creation of space, time,
matter, and energy in the Big Bang suggests that something(s)
not-material made the universe. Physics began to exist in the Big
Bang and has the strong appearance of having been designed by one or
more super-intellects, possessing levels of intelligence far beyond
that of the best and brightest human Nobel laureates.
Dean Kenyon, a member of the scientific community and a long-time
origin of life researcher, ceased to think that life came from
non-life all apart from the input of intelligence.
During the Cambrian explosion, also known as "Biology's Big Bang," all
the phyla appeared on earth in under 10 million years, starting 543
million years ago (possible exception: one phylum hasn't yet been
found that early in the fossil record). Judging by the fossil record,
these major categories of animals appeared fully-formed. The sudden
appearance of organisms during the Cambrian explosion is only the most
famous of several sets of sudden appearances, or "punctuations."
Once they arrive in the fossil record, organisms stay roughly the same
in morphological appearance. The vast majority have gone extinct,
sometimes after tens of millions of years in existence. A few
continue to survive to the present day, roughly similar in appearance
to their ancestors preserved as fossils millions or even hundreds of
millions of years old. Such "stasis" in organisms' appearance is a
recurring theme in the fossil record.
In short, the fossil record is characterized by
a) punctuations/ sudden appearances,
and by
b) stasis in form following the punctuations.
The observation of much punctuation followed by stasis coincides well
with the view that one or more intelligent designers created the
organisms that appeared during the punctuations. Moreover, plants and
animals strongly exhibit the appearance of having been designed by one
or more super-intellects possessing levels of intelligence far beyond
that of the best and brightest human Nobel laureates.
In the 1970s, a team of American scientists extensively studied the
Shroud of Turin's body and "blood" images-- the latter of which are
actual blood products-- seeking to learn the nature of the Shroud body
and blood images. Despite their and other scientists' efforts, the
characteristics of the body image on the Shroud haven't been
duplicated. Some have speculated that a dead, crucified body emitted
some sort of energy that caused certain of the Shroud of Turin's linen
fibers to undergo accelerated degradation, resulting in the body
image. Dead bodies normally don't emit energy, and such a
body-image-formation event could perhaps be described as involving the
"physics of miracles," to use one science reporter's phrase.
Steven J.
"david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
news:b1c67abe.04031...@posting.google.com...
> "\"Rev Dr\" Lenny Flank" <lflank...@ij.net> wrote in message
news:<4053d443$1...@corp.newsgroups.com>...
> > david ford wrote:
> >
> > > Goldschmidt, Richard. 1937. _Ascaris: The Biologist's Story of Life_
> > > (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 390pp. On 20 through the end of the
> > > chapter on 24:
> >
> > That's nice. <yawn>
> >
> > What, if anything, is the scientific theory of creation? How, if any
> > way, can we test it using the scientific method? Why, if any reason,
> > won't Ford answer those simple questions?
>
> Lenny, I posted this in "Re: Quote mine project, part 5". Do you have
> a response to it?:
>
> While reading
> Lenny Flank's 1996 "What Is the 'Scientific Theory of Creation'?"
> http://www.geocities.com/lflank/science.htm
> some thoughts occurred to me.
>
> It is possible to argue that an intelligent creator(s) made physics
> and biology without even mentioning the Bible or any of its contents.
>
creationists to point to. The point is, how does this argument for "mere
creation" become anything other than a "god of the gaps" argument?
>
> The theoretical and observational evidence for the Big Bang theory is
> strong. Such evidence includes the general theory of relativity, the
> temperature and characteristics of the cosmic microwave background
> radiation, and red-shifting of light originating from other galaxies.
> The creation out-of-nothing/ ex nihilo creation of space, time,
> matter, and energy in the Big Bang suggests that something(s)
> not-material made the universe. Physics began to exist in the Big
> Bang and has the strong appearance of having been designed by one or
> more super-intellects, possessing levels of intelligence far beyond
> that of the best and brightest human Nobel laureates.
>
amount of time) from an intitial very small, very hot volume. That it was
created out of nothing, or that an intelligent Agent was responsible, is not
a valid inference simply from the lack of a well-tested, nonintentional
explanatory mechanism. Again, you seem to be confusing "god of the gaps"
apologetics for a "theory." A "theory" implies an explanation, in terms of
causes with predictable effects, of why something has certain
characteristics and not others. A theory of intelligent design, it seems to
me, must posit some testable idea about the purposes and/or methods of the
Designer. Otherwise you have no reason to prefer an intelligent designer as
an explanation to unknown unintelligent causes. I ignore, for the purposes
of this discussion, various recent speculations about the origin of the
universe (e.g. the colliding branes model for the Big Bang), as the
underlying principle remains even if there are *no* "naturalistic"
explanations, even tentative ones, for some phenomenon. If you don't have a
theory, you don't have any *scientific* reason to prefer one cause to
another.
>
> Dean Kenyon, a member of the scientific community and a long-time
> origin of life researcher, ceased to think that life came from
> non-life all apart from the input of intelligence.
>
the other side.
>
> During the Cambrian explosion, also known as "Biology's Big Bang," all
> the phyla appeared on earth in under 10 million years, starting 543
> million years ago (possible exception: one phylum hasn't yet been
> found that early in the fossil record). Judging by the fossil record,
> these major categories of animals appeared fully-formed. The sudden
> appearance of organisms during the Cambrian explosion is only the most
> famous of several sets of sudden appearances, or "punctuations."
>
means simply that they possessed, even if in rudimentary form, the traits by
which membership in their phyla is diagnosed. By the same token, one could
argue that _Hyracotherium_ was a fully-formed horse, and _Hyrarchus_ was a
fully-formed rhinoceros, even though these two Eocene ungulates were more
similar to each other than either was to a modern horse or rhino. You
should not assume that these different phyla were as differentiated from
each other as they are today (i.e. that if we were classifying them without
regard to their affinities with modern species, we'd put the Cambrian forms
in different phyla).
>
> Once they arrive in the fossil record, organisms stay roughly the same
> in morphological appearance. The vast majority have gone extinct,
> sometimes after tens of millions of years in existence. A few
> continue to survive to the present day, roughly similar in appearance
> to their ancestors preserved as fossils millions or even hundreds of
> millions of years old. Such "stasis" in organisms' appearance is a
> recurring theme in the fossil record.
>
which is the lack of change in *species* until they are abruptly replaced by
a similar but distinct species. There is variation within the species, and
overlap between the variation in one species and its successor species, but
the traits typical of the successor species do not become commoner over the
lifespan of the species -- the change in the frequency of morphological
traits, at least, seems to occur very abruptly. There are exceptions, of
course -- samples of gradual morphological change, so that there is no clear
line in the fossil record between one species and another.
The point is, "stasis" was startling because one species (within a "kind")
was replaced by another without any sign of gradual change -- that is, the
sort of evolution most creationists accept happens without leaving much
fossil evidence. Mere failure to change over time is less remarkable; if a
species is well-adapted to a stable environment, why *should* it change?
Likewise, a succession of different species which remain "roughly similar in
appearance" (whether we're talking about horseshoe crabs or the similarities
between Cambrian _Pikaia_ and modern _Amphioxus_) is not "stasis" at all.
>
> In short, the fossil record is characterized by
> a) punctuations/ sudden appearances,
> and by
> b) stasis in form following the punctuations.
>
For the most part, as I understand it, this is correct -- but I don't think
you understand what you're stating. Again, "stasis" is the failure of the
fossil record (for the most part) to record examples of evolution within
"kinds." When Stephen Gould pointed out the sudden transitions between
species within a trilobite genus, one species did not possess any startling
new adaption or greater (or lesser) complexity than its predecessor; it was
simply a bit different, as, say, horses and donkeys are a bit different. It
is not the failure of the fossil record to contain transitionals between
higher taxa; the horse series shows transitionals between genera, and the
whale series between families, and both show the gradual development of new
traits as modifications of old ones -- but neither shows gradual change of
one species in a genus into another (although this has been observed in the
lab).
>
> The observation of much punctuation followed by stasis coincides well
> with the view that one or more intelligent designers created the
> organisms that appeared during the punctuations. Moreover, plants and
> animals strongly exhibit the appearance of having been designed by one
> or more super-intellects possessing levels of intelligence far beyond
> that of the best and brightest human Nobel laureates.
>
You seem to be arguing that these super-intellects could only produce new
"kinds" as modifications of older "kinds," revising older designs rather
than coming up with novel solutions (since that is what the fossil record
indicates). This would seem to argue less for super-intelligence, and more
for simply superior science and technology at their disposal. Or, of
course, it might simply argue that speciation events neither designed nor
guided, but are simply different from the processes that produce *gradual*
changes in the frequencies of different genes in a population.
>
> In the 1970s, a team of American scientists extensively studied the
> Shroud of Turin's body and "blood" images-- the latter of which are
> actual blood products-- seeking to learn the nature of the Shroud body
> and blood images. Despite their and other scientists' efforts, the
> characteristics of the body image on the Shroud haven't been
> duplicated. Some have speculated that a dead, crucified body emitted
> some sort of energy that caused certain of the Shroud of Turin's linen
> fibers to undergo accelerated degradation, resulting in the body
> image. Dead bodies normally don't emit energy, and such a
> body-image-formation event could perhaps be described as involving the
> "physics of miracles," to use one science reporter's phrase.
>
My understanding was that radiometric dating of the shroud had put its
origin in the 14th century -- confirming the statement of a contemporary
bishop that it was "cunningly forged" -- perhaps by rubbing the shroud with
spices and pigments over a bas-relief of a crucified body. "Some sort of
energy" is not a theory. A specific sort of energy, with testable effects,
and preferably some reason for such energy to be emitted during a
resurrection, would be a theory. I don't see that any of this is
particularly relevant to whether current gaps in evolutionary theory should
be stuffed with a Designer -- except that it shows the deficiency in your
understanding of what a "theory" ought to be.
>
-- Steven J.
maff
Practical applications of Evolutionary Biology
http://groups.google.com/groups?as_epq=Practical%20applications%20of%20Evolutionary%20Biology&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&lr=&num=100&hl=en
Frank Reichenbacher
news:<4053d443$1...@corp.newsgroups.com>...
> > david ford wrote:
> >
<snippage>
>
> In the 1970s, a team of American scientists extensively studied the
> Shroud of Turin's body and "blood" images-- the latter of which are
> actual blood products-- seeking to learn the nature of the Shroud body
> and blood images. Despite their and other scientists' efforts, the
> characteristics of the body image on the Shroud haven't been
> duplicated. Some have speculated that a dead, crucified body emitted
> some sort of energy that caused certain of the Shroud of Turin's linen
> fibers to undergo accelerated degradation, resulting in the body
> image. Dead bodies normally don't emit energy, and such a
> body-image-formation event could perhaps be described as involving the
> "physics of miracles," to use one science reporter's phrase.
????
Yes...and what has this got to do with either the Big Bang or the Theory of
Evolution?
Frank
John Harshman
Steven J. wrote:
And we should perhaps note that Kenyon came to his new scientific
position shortly after being "born again".
>>During the Cambrian explosion, also known as "Biology's Big Bang," all
>>the phyla appeared on earth in under 10 million years, starting 543
>>million years ago (possible exception: one phylum hasn't yet been
>>found that early in the fossil record). Judging by the fossil record,
>>these major categories of animals appeared fully-formed. The sudden
>>appearance of organisms during the Cambrian explosion is only the most
>>famous of several sets of sudden appearances, or "punctuations."
>>
> The statement, "these major categories of animals appeared fully-formed,"
> means simply that they possessed, even if in rudimentary form, the traits by
> which membership in their phyla is diagnosed. By the same token, one could
> argue that _Hyracotherium_ was a fully-formed horse, and _Hyrarchus_ was a
> fully-formed rhinoceros, even though these two Eocene ungulates were more
> similar to each other than either was to a modern horse or rhino. You
> should not assume that these different phyla were as differentiated from
> each other as they are today (i.e. that if we were classifying them without
> regard to their affinities with modern species, we'd put the Cambrian forms
> in different phyla).
Besides, the statement just isn't true. To make it work you have to
change it to "all the phyla of *animals* (not plants) *with good fossil
records*, *with several possible exceptions that may have appeared in
the late Precambrian depending on your interpretation of a number of
disputed fossils*". But of course that's not so pithy. It merely has the
advantage of not being a lie. Over half the known phyly of animals have
no known fossil records. Others straggle in one at a time throughout the
Phanerozoic. The first unquestioned nematode fossil, for example, is
Jurassic, though there's a possible Carboniferous one. Plant phyla
appear at various times up through the Cretaceous.
Careful. "Kind" is undefined. Better to refer to species.
> When Stephen Gould pointed out the sudden transitions between
> species within a trilobite genus, one species did not possess any startling
> new adaption or greater (or lesser) complexity than its predecessor; it was
> simply a bit different, as, say, horses and donkeys are a bit different. It
> is not the failure of the fossil record to contain transitionals between
> higher taxa; the horse series shows transitionals between genera, and the
> whale series between families, and both show the gradual development of new
> traits as modifications of old ones -- but neither shows gradual change of
> one species in a genus into another (although this has been observed in the
> lab).
>
>>The observation of much punctuation followed by stasis coincides well
>>with the view that one or more intelligent designers created the
>>organisms that appeared during the punctuations. Moreover, plants and
>>animals strongly exhibit the appearance of having been designed by one
>>or more super-intellects possessing levels of intelligence far beyond
>>that of the best and brightest human Nobel laureates.
>>
>>
> You seem to be arguing that these super-intellects could only produce new
> "kinds" as modifications of older "kinds," revising older designs rather
> than coming up with novel solutions (since that is what the fossil record
> indicates). This would seem to argue less for super-intelligence, and more
> for simply superior science and technology at their disposal. Or, of
> course, it might simply argue that speciation events neither designed nor
> guided, but are simply different from the processes that produce *gradual*
> changes in the frequencies of different genes in a population.
Or it might argue that the fossil record is simply not fine enough to
record such gradual changes.
Greg G
> >
> > In the 1970s, a team of American scientists extensively studied the
> > Shroud of Turin's body and "blood" images-- the latter of which are
> > actual blood products-- seeking to learn the nature of the Shroud body
> > and blood images. Despite their and other scientists' efforts, the
> > characteristics of the body image on the Shroud haven't been
> > duplicated. Some have speculated that a dead, crucified body emitted
> > some sort of energy that caused certain of the Shroud of Turin's linen
> > fibers to undergo accelerated degradation, resulting in the body
> > image. Dead bodies normally don't emit energy, and such a
> > body-image-formation event could perhaps be described as involving the
> > "physics of miracles," to use one science reporter's phrase.
> >
> My understanding was that radiometric dating of the shroud had put its
> origin in the 14th century -- confirming the statement of a contemporary
> bishop that it was "cunningly forged" -- perhaps by rubbing the shroud with
> spices and pigments over a bas-relief of a crucified body. "Some sort of
> energy" is not a theory. A specific sort of energy, with testable effects,
> and preferably some reason for such energy to be emitted during a
> resurrection, would be a theory. I don't see that any of this is
> particularly relevant to whether current gaps in evolutionary theory should
> be stuffed with a Designer -- except that it shows the deficiency in your
> understanding of what a "theory" ought to be.
The radiometric dating coincided with the first historical references
to the shroud. A recent show on The History Channel showed a woman
painting a reclining person lit by candles all around the body,
producing a negative image. Then the image was transferred to a sheet
by rubbing so that only the surface fibers of the second sheet held
the pigment. If the images were produced by "some sort of energy"
emitted by a body, why are there two separate images, front and back,
rather than a continuous image that includes the top of the head?
> >
> -- Steven J.
--
Greg G.
I am Borg Hand Luke.
What we have here is a failure to assimilate.