Hi RAZD,
But what is it a straw man of? I find many people make this claim when they don't like an argument, but they never show why it is a straw man -- what is the more complex issue that has been simplified, and what is thereby being refuted?
Straw Man
quote:
Definition:
The author attacks an argument which is different from, and usually weaker than, the opposition's best argument.
Here Taz is proposing that accumulation is almost universally apparent around us, that the effects of accumulation can be seen in virtually everything we observe, do, use, interact with.
You are a product of accumulation, most recently having just accumulated the reading of this post.
What is your stronger argument?
Ok it's being a a while since I posted this, but usually I do not use the 'strawmen' accusation lightly. If I remember correctly, it was that TAZ was attacking an unnuanced position of a creationist, as if a creationist cannot make any nuance concerning accumulation, that nothing comes through with accumulation. Of course, attacking this position is very easy and simply requires to show that thigns can come through accumulation. (The way TAZ expressed this in the OP also implied that therefore, everything could come through accumulation)
The stronger argument, of course, is that the creationist mind can make nuances. I can see that many things come through accumulation. I can easily imagine myself a river over millions of years carving the rock slowly in the formation of a canyon. Same for a lot of things. Therefore, in front of this position, TAZ's argument has no value.
Can you think of anything that has not been made or modified by an accumulation of characteristics\traits\features?
Maybe I'm a little brain lazy this saturday morning, but I can't think of any.
I guess a grenade making a hole into the ground would do. Or maybe an asteroid hitting the earth. Both of which produce ''instanteneous'' results.
But of course, this is all tricky. Since time is continue, we can always take a small enough elapsed time as to come down to an accumulation-like appearance. Even for the explosion of a grenade, if the time is flowing slowly enough it will appear accumulative. However, if we are talking reel-time (which we should, since this is the time in which we live in afterall) then a grenade explosion carving a hole in the ground isn't really cumulative.
Of course, my knowledge of quantum mechanics isn't great yet, but I would see this as the complete opposite as to what I have described earlier. On a macroscopic level, energy for example seems to accumulate. But if you go smaller on the smallest of scales, quantum mechanics tells you that it isn't continuous accumulation, but rather that energy goes in leaps and bounds because they come in bundles of quanta. So it jumps from one to two quanta, without accumulating through all the in-between.
The eye example is a well known PRATT (Claim CB921.1: What use is half an eye?), so citing this as an example is based on evidence of many typical arguments put forth by people who don't understand evolution.
Would you agree that the features of the mammalian eye can be explained by an accumulation of characteristics\traits\features?
We can also look at explaining the development of the octopus eye by an accumulation of characteristics\traits\features to the point that it seems to be similar to the mammalian eye, except for a couple of distinct differences:
the nerves are on the back side of the octopus eye and on the front side of the mammalian eye.
the eye is focused by changing the length of the octopus eye to move the retina to the focal point of the fixed lens, and by changing the focal length of the lens to focus on the fixed retina in the mammalian eye.
Accumulation of characteristics over time explains these differences.
I would say that the accumulation of characteristics over time is so universal that we can regard it as a natural law.
I can imagine the eye, just as a canyone, accumulating over time to what it is today. In fact, Behe in his book (black box) had such a description of an accumulation of the eye. However, that I can see it dos not mean that this is therefore what has actually happened.
Got2go, but I hope this was a good read.
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