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To: GarySpFc
So you say, but I have not seen one yet which contradicts anything I posted.

So much of creation science is about not seeing what is there.

You quoted this.

"It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test."

Personal letter (written 10 April 1979) from Dr Collin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, to Luther D. Sunderland; as quoted in Darwin's Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland, Master Books, San Diego, USA, 1984, p. 89.

Patterson said this about that:

The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes. The passage quoted continues "... a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."

I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false.

Further explained here. And you see nothing. That "you can't make me see" science is really something.
513 posted on 11/29/2004 1:16:57 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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To: VadeRetro; GarySpFc
Patterson: It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."

Hey Retro,

Posting material like that might make me wonder whose side you're really on.

518 posted on 11/29/2004 1:28:04 PM PST by Dataman
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To: VadeRetro
So much of creation science is about not seeing what is there.

"He's dead, Jim."

521 posted on 11/29/2004 1:31:22 PM PST by longshadow
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To: GarySpFc; VadeRetro
You know, looking harder at that letter, I suppose you're to be congratulated. Patterson is pointing to one part of his text as refuting the creationist interpretation of an earlier section. But you've mined your snippet from the part Patterson cites, not what someone else used earlier.

It's the same thing, of course. The part you left out is where Patterson actually explains in detail what he's saying.

The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question.
He's pointing out something frequently acknowledged. Non-DNA fossils won't let you do paternity testing. Even when it appears that Thing A is obviously an ancestor of Thing B, an even better contemporary candidate for ancestor of Thing B could turn up later, making Thing A basically a great uncle. That's too limited in scope for your purposes, so you simply picked up the bit of hyperbole that followed it.

It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test.
Patterson's original protest would work as well for your latest bit of mining. Were he alive, he might say:

"I think the continuation of material preceding the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false..."

522 posted on 11/29/2004 1:35:48 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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To: VadeRetro
It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."
I think the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct, and the creationists' is false.

You seem to think my interpretation is a false creationist's interpretation. WRONG! I am simply interpretation Collin Patterson's words literally, "But such stories are not part of science, for their is no way to put them to the test." The problem is the Darwinists' use of "justso stories," because there is no way to put them to the test.
627 posted on 11/29/2004 5:57:58 PM PST by GarySpFc (Sneakypete, De Oppresso Liber)
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