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From: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Darwinism vs catastrophic evolution
Message-ID: <712@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 10:15:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcnc.712
Posted: Wed Aug 14 10:15:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 16:11:31 EDT
References: <364@imsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron Howes)
Organization: North Carolina Educational Computing Service
Lines: 34
Summary: 

This whole discussion is silly.  We have gone over this ground before.  The
notion that evolutionary theory is somehow "uniformitarian" in the sense that
it does not allow for catastrophic events or extinctions due to catastrophic
events is a red herring put forth by the creationists.  Natural Selection
takes place within an environment whose attributes have to be considered.

A second red-herring which Ted, among others, continually introduces is
the notion of an abrupt evolution -- a "reptile giving birth to a bird"
which conjures images of Godzilla giving birth to Donald Duck.  What these
folks fail to recognize (or admit) is that reptile<->bird is a continuum
wherin the difference between creatures close to the human-created "division"
line may be quite imperceptable.  To paraphrase the I Ching, "because we
create categories of creatures does not mean the creatures are somehow
obligated to fit themselves cleanly into our categories."

At issue is whether the catastrophe in question is that particular catastrophe
which Velikovsky and his camp-followers say it is.  Ted has yet to present
a shred of evidence to say it is or that it is to be preferred over a more
"garden variety" meteor hit which would not ask us to rewrite physics.  I
am anxious to see his evidence from myths (sorry, Ted, most scientists
think that mythical evidence is good "indicatory" evidence for things like
the eruption of Santorini -- physical evidence must be found to corroborate,
however.)

Finally, you don't need guns, cannons or even cliffs to kill a Mastodon.
Archeological evidence indicates the easiest way to kill a Mastodon is
simply to keep it on the run until it dies of thirst, starvation or both.
This remained a hunting method used by primitive people up into recorded
history.  Whether or not this method caused the extinction of a species
is an irrelevant point, however.
-- 

						Byron C. Howes
				      ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch