Evolution: Science, Pseudo-Science, or Both?

You've given us lots of definitions of pseudoscience.Your original point was that Darwinism specifically is still in the realm of pseudoscience.Please can you substantiate this argument by giving specific examples from evolutionary biology that you consider to be pseudoscientific? That way, we can move beyond dictionary quoting.mick

yeah, i've often thought that the adaptive landscape is just a good excuse for drawing complicated-looking 3d graphs Like any graph, it's an aid to thought. It's an aid to understanding a multidimentional problem (this is why the "landscape" is so often drawn in 3d, because it just happens to be the number of dimensions our brain can comprehend from paper).But I'm not sure it's an accepted part of evolutionary theory rather than just a convenient way of thinking about a multidimensional problem. I mean I'm not sure that biologists are using this idea to generate hypotheses all that often. Rather to interpret the results of their hypotheses in an intelligible way.[added in edit - Brad, please could you provide the Provine reference? I haven't read it]This message has been edited by mick, 04-14-2005 05:52 PM

sorry, i misunderstood

Surely "dysteleology" is attempting to find evidence against teleology in nature, rather than evidence against god. For example if you believe in a God without a plan or purpose in the natural world, then evidence against teleology doesn't amount to evidence against God. But if you believe in God's plan for the natural world, then evidence against teleology is evidence against your belief.So it isn't that Dawkins disproves the existence of God. He is trying to disprove teleology, and whether you see that as a challenge to your religious beliefs just depends on what your beliefs happen to be. Dawkins has a problem with the major world religions, which all happen to have a purposeful God, so he is correct to say that evidence against teleology is also evidence against this conception of God. But that is just a logical consequence of the results of his research. It is not THE result of his research. The results of dysteleological research are that vestigial parts are nonfunctional, etc.