Re: Sense Within Evolutiomary Theory
- From: "g" <gillawton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:19:08 -0400 (EDT)
"g" <gillawton@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:...
(THIS MESSAGE IS SAME AS PRIOR ONE, BUT SNIPS ALL PRIOR MESSAGES)
>
> John,
>
> Biological evolution, as a reality, is so abundantly in evidence
> throughout the world -- so unanimously supported by a convergence of all
> data deriving from manifold formal scientific disciplines --that no
> empirically based case can be offered against it. Where any arguments are
> thrown up against it, those arguments are metaphysical -- empirically
> untestable -- and are founded on nothing more than assertions of dogma,
> and that dogma inconsistent as the decuples of the one and disciples of
> the other.
>
> Despite the overwhelming empirical evidence that evolution has occurred
> and is still occurring, however, enormous gaps remain in that evidence, to
> the extent that there is not consensus as to just exactly what has
> occurred, when it occurred, how it occurred or why it occurred.
>
> In short, the picture of biological evolution as a real and present
> dynamic is abundantly clear, but the details of that dynamic remain
> shrouded in mystery. Scientists continue to find hard data which answers
> some of the what's, when's, where's, how's and whys... but have been
> unable to close many of the gaps between facts and relationships in the
> evidence, so far.
>
> Some professional scientists and academicians and, also, some self-styled
> interpreters-of-reality to the ignorant majority, pretend to have figured
> out much of what cannot yet be confirmed by the existing evidence. Some
> of the foregoing pose themselves as "spokespersons" for a veritable inner
> sanctum of "knowers" of a priori truths to which they insist all future
> evidence must conform, in order to be valid. Rather than saying, "I don't
> know," some of those would pose themselves as authorities over things not
> yet evidenced, and judges of who is as wise as themselves (those who
> concur with them) and who is less wise (and would have the audacity to
> reach other conclusions or hold their opinions in reserve).
>
> Just as, a few centuries ago, mathematicians tended to be cliquish and
> secretive and vain in their esoteric guardianship of the principles they
> shared only among themselves -- and just as professional alchemists and
> magicians once strove to conceal among themselves the tricks of their
> trade -- some modern day bio-evolutionists use a special language that
> (although they deny it) serves to disguise the lines between the things
> they know and the things they pretend to know.
>
> Words that suggest one thing to the uninitiated are alleged by
> self-appointed inner circle of bio-evolution "knowers," to be understood
> among themselves. And if any uninitiated outsider should dare to ask too
> many
> questions aimed at pinning down just what IS the precise ontology of one
> or more of these words, he is branded as too unintelligent to grasp what
> is a simple and obvious meaning to all initiates.
>
> If the good ol' boy insiders (including self-appointed guardians of the
> keys to their "club") argue among themselves -- citing ideas of, and
> quoting, people who invented words and used them in statements which
> rationalized information available during lives lived in the past, even up
> to a century or more ago -- they condone that from one another. If
> someone from outside "the club" should ask too many questions about any of
> the insider clichés or buzz words -- not having memorized and conformed
> to their use -- not only is that
> person perceived by the clique to be ignorant but, also, audacious,
> disrespectful, intrusive and brazen.
>
> "Good science," I submit to you, John, is not possible where terms are
> ambiguous, hazy, misleading, imprecise, or loyal to former rationales that
> have been refuted by subsequent evidence.
>
> Where there is to be any empirical testing possible, as to the validity of
> a term, or a cliché containing a term, an exhaustive ontology (set of
> subsumptive relations, ruling in what is meant by it, and ruling out what
> is to be excluded from it) is essential to delimit what it is that would
> be tested. Thereafter, and ONLY thereafter, can the general definitive
> statement, and/or any subsumptive statement, be unambiguously tested.
>
> It appears that you, John, have recognized the problem with such terms as
> natural selection, survival of the fittest, altruism... and many others
> have taken on different meanings for different people, and that much
> emotional baggage has been loaded onto them, such that asking questions at
> pinning down a clear, unambiguous statement, and an exhaustive set of
> subsumptive relations with regard to any of these... results in your being
> told it is YOU who are confused or YOU who don't 'get it.'
>
> One of the most frustrating things about trying to think with scientific
> rigor is that the effort brings you into
> conflict with people who, instead of working with you to clarify, go
> postal, as it were, and try to throw you off the track of pinning down
> what some people DO NOT WANT to be pinned down. If you were allowed to
> pin down a person who is defending his very claim to credibility and his
> very status as an "authority" on a subject, you would strip him of some of
> the aura that surrounds him.
>
> Fortunately we live in a world today in which mathematicians are eager and
> willing to share their secrets. Even some magicians (although the inner
> core resent it and deem their profession betrayed by it) reveal how their
> smoke and mirrors and attention diversion techniques work.
>
> As much as I love science and biologists -- especially those who do the
> labor of gathering and documenting and organizing and observing and
> experimenting with evidence, and get very little thanks for it -- I
> believe that those who have nothing to gain from obfuscative language and
> worn-out clichés will not be defensive about being pinned down on the
> terminology and syntax the stand upon in making assertions about anything
> (including bio-evolutionary assumptions and gaps filled by assumptions,
> between the parts of their evidence.
>
> Ever notice that if a wife asks an unfaithful husband where he has been he
> will heap shame and blame and
> resentment on her.
>
> Could it not be true of science that its unfaithful -- those who under
> badge of academic authority, or assertions of understanding of things not
> in evidence -- most vehemently attack those who would ask their
> cooperation in stripping away any veils that might hide deception.
>
> g
>
.
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