For percy: setting the record straight on Charlie Rose interview

I think that you're right in that we need to consider the oral nature of the communication. If we listen to it, we can clearly detect that 'by -- you know,' is a discourse particle. If we remove it and replace it with a comma we get:

quote:

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Hence, the origin of diversity of life as we know it on Earth by autonomy, independent of any outside force.

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Which seems fine to me, though I agree that the word autonomy is ill-placed. I think the following is generally better:

quote:

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Hence, the origin of diversity of life as we know it on Earth came about autonomously, independent of any outside force.

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Well, that historically has been THE basis of all the objections to Darwinism, you know, going back to the publication of the Origin of Species. This addition of other religions is a recent thing and a bit of a red herring. ID is also new. Until recently literalist Biblical Christianity was THE objection, and it's still the main problem for evolutionists. Yes, but this is really just an artificial point that has nothing to do with what people have believed about Darwinism. From the beginning we've seen those drawings of the fish crawling up on the land until it becomes human. We know the implications of Darwinism whether he spelled them out all that explicitly or not, and I do think the emphasis on what he literally wrote in so many words is a disingenuous ploy to deny the true history of its effect on the public mind.AND in the scientific mind too. Round up Watson and Wilson and ask them what they meant. That's the only thing that's going to settle this.

I completely agree right up to the last bit which I bolded. The creationist objections honestly aren't much of an impediment to evolutionary biology. Except in the US, the integrated sciences of evolutionary biology, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary developmental biology, etc, are humming along quite nicely. I obviously have no control over what people believe. Nor do I have any control over what people think are the implications. Those opinions are entirely subjective and personal. I certainly don't consider reading the texts and studying the science - without reading into it more than is actually there - to be "disingenuous". It would be a fallacy to do otherwise. A fallacy, btw, which has led to such abominations as the eugenics movement, monism, racisim, etc.See, that's the inherent weakness in science - biological or otherwise: people taking the results and theories of science out of context. Happens with religion, too. The safest and most reasonable thing to do is simply take the theory as it is, see if the evidence supports it, and avoid playing the "social implications" game. Once you move into the latter, you've moved out of science. Which brings me back to my point: simply because Watson, Wilson et al have expressed opinions concerning what they believe are implications of the theory, doesn't mean they are using science in any objective sense. Which, ipso facto refutes your contention to the contrary. Actually, I don't think we need to. They're pretty clear on their opinions in the interview, and Wilson especially has been clear in other writings. A point, btw, which I conceded rand was correct about. Still, no one has answered the question: where's the beef?

Dude. It was a parody of randman. I am certain that Percy does not really believe that.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

If you go to post 185 in this thread you will see a retraction.

My bad. You replied to jar rather than Percy which is why I missed it.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)