You keep repeating that, despite having been told here (and you could have found it in the professional papers) about a great many tests of Darwinism.

Your refusal to acknowledge the elephant in the living room does not prove there is no elephant.

OJ:

Maybe you could drop the pejorative "Darwinists."

You don't call those who believe the theory of relativity Einsteinists.

Within the realm of rational inquiry, the theory of evolution is as overdetermined as the theory of relativity.

Which you would know if you bothered to do any reading on the subject beyond Stove's effluvia.

Ah, the peppered moths...

Elephants have speciated that we've observed?

You know you're right, evolution is not properly supported by the mountains of evidence that scientists seem to think support it (what do they know?), and the fact that it resides at the heart of much of the biological sciences is merely an indicator of how foolish and ignorant our biologists are compared to our Christian fundamentalists.

I have seen the light- God made all the animals. With magic.

Geez, guys, Orrin pens an ode to science and you are all testy as heck. I thought you rationalists were supposed to be cool and dispassionate about evidentiary debates.

Amos:

Darwinians do that alot--pretend that the only alternative to Darwinism being fact is a resort to the supernatural. It's not a serious argument but does demonstrate that Darwinism flows not from science but from opposition to religion.

I suspect they'll one day figure out the process, whether natural or not, that causes massive speciation, driving creation from amoeba to Man. But it seems more doubtful with every passing day that Darwin's theories will have much to do with it. They explain merely the same changes within a species that the farmers he talked to told him they could bring about by breeding. That's no small insight on his part, but it's not evolution.

OJ:

You may well be right about Evolutionary Theory. Unfortunately, your attacks upon it have nothing to do with how rational inquiry works. That is what gets us spun up.

There are, as has been noted at least several times here, several ways within rational inquiry to hurl the Theory of Evolution on the ash-heap of scientific history.

In a very narrow sense, the sense you use in insisting on upon the pejorative Darwinism, you are right. Darwin was left trying to explain how species differentiate without having any idea about what it is that makes you OJ and a housecat a waste of gravity.

Well, we know about DNA now. And based on that knowledge, selection pressures alone could not produce observed speciation.

In that respect, Darwinism is incomplete, not wrong, incomplete. Just like Newtonian mechanics aren't wrong, just incomplete.

But the Theory of Evolution is Darwinism plus what we have learned since. And that what includes knowing, at least in broad terms, what DNA is, how it works, and that replication is anything but deterministic.

If that non-determinism is a statistical, non-teleological process, then Evolutionary Theory stands: what we see is the result of directionless, statistical, processes.

Or it could be there is a guiding hand in that non-determinism. Find it, and the Nobel is yours.

Or find cases where environment causes sufficient DNA mutation to cause true speciation.

The theory works under test conditions.

All alternatives, not merely creationism, are eligible to compete.

Oh! There are not any other alternatives but creationism, which doesn't work. Too bad.

Once again you've ducked the question of why you deny there are any objective tests that would cripple Darwinism. Darwinism say there are.

Of course, the tests so far have stood up.

Perhaps that's why you have to ignore them.

I suppose all the species differentiation following continental drift doesn't count?

Harry:

How about this: If we were to find a deposit of remains that extended one million years in a region where drastic climate and environmental change has occurred there should be signs of significant evolution.

Jeff:

Like what?

OJ:

The first dispositive evidence that continental drift was something other than suspiciously mirror-imaged South American and African coast lines lay in fossil evidence.

The fossils on both sides were identical up until a certain time, then strikingly diverged afterwards. So paleontologists were the first with physical evidence pointing towards continental drift.

That evidence has since been overdetermined by magnetic orientation in minerals, and the central Atlantic rift zone, among other things. And that other evidence demonstrated the divergence started after the continents separated.

Now I know no one has actually seen a continent move, and we certainly haven't been able to make one move in the lab.

But no one seems to dispute plate tectonics.

So why can't consequences of plate tectonics count as a natural history experiment supporting evolutionary theory?

Jeff:

That's an excellent example of the difference between a science and a faith. We note that the continents would seem to once have been joined, propose that they have shifted over a vast period of time and observation and experimentation shows them to indeed shift. We observe that evolution has occurred, as evidenced by the variety of species and the fossil record, again over a vast period of time. We propose Darwinism. Experimentation and observation demonstrate that Darwinism does not produce such change and speciation. We then insist that we are in the midst of a unique period of evolutionary stasis rather than acknowledge that Darwinism has failed the test.

OJ:

How could you have dodged my point so widely?

Nature itself conducted the experiment. The fossil record is completely consistent with Evolutionary Theory, so much so that ET was instrumental in supporting continental drift.

So here is the question one more time:

Why can't consequences of plate tectonics count as a natural history experiment supporting evolutionary theory?

Before you answer, keep in mind that this is far from the only example of geologically enforced separation directly preceding diverging speciation.

The fossil record does support Evolution. No one denies Evolution. The question is whether it occurs through Darwinism or not and the evidence is it does not.

OJ, I think you would preemptively stop a lot of confusion if you put some of link at the head of your blog to a page that specifies that you do not object to the conecpt of evolution, but rather the concept that natural selection is the primary engine driving evolution. A casual reader who sees the word "Darwinism" is going to assume you mean it in the broad sense of biological evolutionism rather than the narrow sense of natural selection being the evolutionary effector.

The source of such wisdom as you'll find here--which sadly ain't much--comes from first willfully confusing the issue so that we all approach the answers together.

Well, thanks for clearing that up.

Although I have to admit to being a bit perplexed at what amounts to an ongoing deception.

Your tag line on the post is a perfect example. There are no longer any Darwinists. You would be just as successful finding Newotnianists.

Making "...while the scandal of the age is that Darwinists require no such thing, yet pretend to the mantle of science." a completely empty statement.

We're all Newtonians, with modification, just as we're all Evolutionists, though only the faithful cling to Darwinism

BTW:

In this "The source of such wisdom as you'll find here--which sadly ain't much..."

You seriously underrate yourself.

My intellectual horizons have broadened considerably since coming here.

A problem is that we're not all evolutionists, or at least we're not all clear about it. In your earlier posting ( http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/008116.html ) that referenced Chuck Colson's column, Colson objects to any theory that Man came about through natural processes. Yet he uses the word "evolution" exactly once (and that in a quote from the book he reviews) but writes "Darwinist" or "Dawinism" about 10 times.

One need not believe that Man was created by natural processes in order to believe that evolution occurred. What is the creation of Eve but Evolution?

Exactly, Orrin. "If we were to find . . ."

Show me one, and we'll analyze it for evidence for or against Darwinism.

If you're offering the voles, you don't have enough information.

See under voles.

What is the creation of Eve?

A fable having no counterpart in reality.

There's no such thing as Woman? No wonder you're probuggery

OJ:

That was obnoxious.

Gotta keep you on your toes--your recent posts are barely coherent.

OJ:

I can't say the responses to them have gotten anywhere near the issues I have raised.

Oh, and I'm really annoyed at myself. The moment I hit the send key, I realized the best response was:

"I'm not pro-buggery, just antibigotry."

Only about the 10,000th time the right line came at the wrong time.

What issues? You've defended materialism/naturalism/Darwinism, abortion, anal sex, and killing the disabled all while pretending to be able to construct a morality. I don't get why you're so anxious to get rid of God but so insistent on His residue--morality.

OJ:

You really should stop distorting my positions.

I am not for killing the disabled, I am for the ability of people to decide, in advance, what kind of treatments they will allow for themselves.

I am not for anal sex, I am against unreasoned bigotry against those for whom nature, or God, saw fit, to allow no other option.

I am not for abortion, I am against the heavy hand of the state intruding where the woman should be sovereign.

As for the rest, they don't need my defense.

OJ:

Congratulations, you have distorted beyond recognition every one of my positions.

I am not for killing the disabled, I am for individuals having the freedom to decided for themselves the circumstances of their leaving this existence.

I am not for anal sex, I am against unreasoned bigotry aimed at people for whom nature, or God, left no other choice.

I am not for abortion, I am against the heavy hand of the state imposing itself in a decision where the woman should be sovereign.

I have never said I am anxious to get rid of God--I have no opinion about God. I am rather anxious, though, to not ever be under the heel of a univeralist, salvationist, authoritarian belief system.

As for the rest, they don't need my defense.

Ah, you want the action done but don't want to have to take responsibility for it happening. Don't blame you.

OJ:

No, I happen to believe in freedom. The problem is, when people have freedom, that means they get to make choices you don't like.

The alternative is tyranny.

All things considered, I think I'll go with freedom.

Which leads to tyranny.