Re: 1980 Eldredge: "time to reexamine" theory of NS

david ford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Dec 2003, Lenny Flank wrote:
> david ford:
> 
> > > Eldredge, Niles.  July 1980.  "An Extravagance of Species"
> > > _Natural History_, 47-51.  Paragraphs from 48, 50, and 51:
> >
> > Is this before, or after, Eldredge says that creationists are liars
> > and poor scholars, and that creation "science" is bankrupt and
> > dishonest.
> 
> I am an old-earth creationist that rejects "creation science," which says
> that the earth and universe is about 10,000 years old.
> Do you consider me to be a liar?  If so, on what basis do you arrive at
> that conclusion?
> Do you consider me to be a poor scholar?  If so, on what basis do you
> arrive at that conclusion?

david, *I* don't consider you a liar, in fact I consider you to be an
honest man in intent, but I do think you show poor scholarship. 

You cherrypick quotes without regard to context or the state of debates,
you read only part of the source material without attempting to
sympathetically understand the author's POV, and you seem to think that
a lack of monolithy in the views of scientists in a discipline
indicates, somehow, that the discipline is "in crisis". 

And yet, you never seem to respond when folk reply to you, at least not
in any depth or even covering the entirety of how people have taken the
trouble to reply. You never defend these interminable regurgiposts, and
when challenged to back up the implications you are drawing out however
poorly or tacitly, you won't do it.

Now suppose I did the same thing for the Christian religion (or whatever
POV you favour personally). Would you take my opinions thus expressed to
be on a par with the leading theologians or specialists in that domain?
I sure as hell wouldn't expect you to.

So I think I am justified in claiming that your POV over evolution is
bankrupt. I am not claiming that the *theological* doctrine of cretion
is dishonest or bankrupt, but the snide attacks on "Neo-Darwinism"
(which you refuse to define or elaborate) are. Sorry.
-- 
John Wilkins
DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?
wilkins.id.au