randman writes:
Bottom line is I've been told rules-breaking will result in permanent banning.
I personally hope you don't get suspended again: I'd miss you too much.
Commenting on randman's three "weaknesses" of evolutionary theory, which are (paraphrased):
1. evolution by natural selection is overwhelming contradicted by evidence
2. natural selection actually [i]decreases[i] genetic diversity, and thus, it can't explain why we have great diversity of life today
3. the fossils do not conform to evolution.
I'd like to make a few distinctions before I continue with my post. The word "weakness" can refer to several things in relation to a scientific theory. It could refer to a shortcoming in the evidence, or it could refer to some phenomenon that the theory cannot, even in in principle, explain. (I cannot download the NY Times article from the OP, so I am not entirely certain what definition the "strengths and weaknesses" people are arguing.)
A lack of evidence would be correctly termed a "lack of evidence." A phenomenon that a theory cannot explain could be called a "theoretical weakness." If the "S&W" people are using "weakness" in the former sense (lack of evidence), they are arguing the same stuff as before, with a different name. But, that stuff is still just ID, and it is illegal to teach, since Kitzmiller vs Dover. This leads me to believe that the S&Wists (I think I'll call them "sawists," from now until they get smashed by another court case in the near future) are referring to the second type, the "theoretical weakness."
Your #2 is a good example of a theoretical weakness (I'll pretend that it's correct for the sake of this argument). If natural selection actually decreases genetic diversity, there is a glitch in the
theory, not in the
evidence: natural selection (the theory/hypothesis) cannot explain a phenomenon (the genetic diversity of organisms on the planet) that it should be able to explain.
The other two points, however, are just lack-of-evidence issues, which, if you remember, are illegal. Plus, we've been over them a million times since I started here in February alone.
Do you have any other theoretical weaknesses of the ToE that you can think of? Do you know of any phenomenon pertaining to the diversity of life that ToE could not, even in principle, explain? If you could find something like that, it would be good evidence that ToE is not sufficient to singlehandedly explain the diversity of life on Earth.
Darwin loves you.