--- boddi satva <lbo.boddi at gmail.com> wrote:
> On evolution, Wojtek has it a little wrong. Natural
> selection does
> cause speciation through isolation.
>
I thought I mentioned that, no? In the passage re. 'intermediate' forms.
Obviously, the disapearance of some life forms "causes" not just speciation (i.e. disappearance of intermediary forms linking one species to another), but also the the growth of new life forms by the vitue of opening "living space" for that new form. For example, mammals probably woulnd not have much of a chance had the dinosaurs become extinct.
But the new forms must first emerge i.e. start to exist before the natural selection creates more "lebensraum" for them. That is, mammals must have already existed before dinosours became extinct. So it is clear that extinction couldnot cause the mammals to come to existence, albeit it did cause the mammals to spread.
In reality, emergence of new life form and the extinction of the old ones are of course intertwined, as one life form is a part of th eenvironemtn of another. But an essential part of any scientific inquiry is to analytically separate what is intertwines to better understand how different forces operate. To that end, I offered was a theoretical model that does just that analytically separates these two processes.
I furthermre think you and others really missed the point of that argument. I was not arguing for the evolution (I think that is prety much accepted stuff, a few flat earth wingnuts notwithstanding) - I was arguing against the creationist argument against evolution, which is not the same thing. To reiterate, the argument was that creationist attacks on evolution and natural selection are a red herring, because what does the creationsit in is not the notion of natural selection, but that of self-organizing and self-improving matter. However, the latter has strong support in genetics where creationists do not stand a chance, so they use a red herring.
I would like to add that the evolution/creationism controversy is really a new iteration of an ancient debate, nah, mortal combat, between pantheists and belivers in a transcendent deity. It is a mortal combar rather than a mere debate, because these positions have fundamental implication for th eexistnecd of organozed religion and the priestly class. The raison d'etre of organized religion and the priestly class is to serve as an intermediary between this world and the deity that "transcends" i.e is remote from this world. Claiming that there is no transcendent deity undermines that raison d'etre. It is like with drug dealers, who needs them if the stuff grows in everyone's backyard?
Wojtek
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