Well, yeah. As I said I have no problem with this theory; I find it plausible enough.
But you've been screaming that I don't know you, don't know your religion, etc.
No I haven't. More precisely, that's not what I've been screaming.
I don't care that you "don't know" me and "don't know my religion". In fact I don't particularly want you to. But that's not the point.
The reason I was "screaming" is that you have continually brought up biographical information about me, or at least your pathetic guesses about my biographical information, in a discussion where it has no place whatsoever (a discussion about science). It's not that you don't know my religion that bothers me, it's that you keep bringing it up in the first place. This would bother me whether or not you are correct about what you guess my religion to be.
What you don't seem to fully understand is that this type of thing is widely recognized as a weak and fallacious form of argumentation. Essentially, you have been trying to say to me (I think), "I know what you are - I'll bet you're one of those FUNDIES, ain't ya? Ain't ya??"
This type of crap would get you laughed out of any junior high debating club.
It's bad enough that you seem to think that my religion proves something or other about whether the school's decision is ok. But yes, it's even worse that you have no frickin' idea what you're talking about and thus (what you believe to be) my religion is a completely wild-blue guess on your part. That's just pathetic.
So of course I could be wrong about you having a revulsion to sharing with the chimpanzees a common ancestor less than ten million years back.
I wouldn't say I have a "revulsion" to this, no. I don't know whether or not it's true (neither do you), but in any event, truth is truth. I don't particularly even care one way or the other, except to say that I'm a curious fellow and would like to know what happened either way, if that were possible.
By the way, this type of consideration has no bearing on whether or not the school board's decision is ok.
Surprise me, then, and tell me that you have no problem with common descent as part of the factual evidence that has to be explained by any theory of evolution.
I don't understand this sentence. It lacks precision.
What is "factual evidence"? Is that different from "evidence"? Is there "non-factual" or perhaps "counter-factual evidence"?
If you are trying to say that "common descent" is a "fact", then you're just flat-out wrong. You don't know for sure whether all living things have a common ancestor. You have no way of knowing this, and neither does any human. There is, to be sure, plenty of evidence which lends credence to this hypothesis, and as far as I can tell, that's what "the theory of evolution" is - the hypothesis that all current life descended from a common ancestor through well-known obvious mechanisms such as natural selection.
That's a theory, not a "fact". Further, I don't have to "explain" the theory of "common descent". Even the theory of evolution doesn't "explain" common descent, it hypothesizes common descent.
If you are a proponent of the theory evolution then you're not "explaining" common descent, you're starting from the hypothesis that common descent happened. All you're doing beyond that is providing a plausible mechanism for how it could have happened so as to provide a believable theory (otherwise it would not get off the ground).
That's all fine with me. I have no huge axe to grind with the whole evolution theory. But it is, in the end, a theory. In your overzealous aversion to the term you still don't seem to realize that.
(Bwahahahahaha!!)
???
More non-English.
I see you've been welcomed by the "howler monkey" crowd. They are strong on repetition, Ad Hominem, and error. Most are inveterate mind-readers, as you have noticed, but are poor at accuracy. They also play to the audience whenever they have been soundly thrashed, as if some invisible spectre can breathe life into their argument. Anyway, I wish you good luck and encourage you --- "Illegitimi non carborundum".
Current mission: support disclaimer. Staying on mission. If people want to quibble about what a theory is, let them. First, support disclaimer. Support targeting of evolution.
But yes, it's even worse that you have no frickin' idea what you're talking about and thus (what you believe to be) my religion is a completely wild-blue guess on your part. That's just pathetic.
That's your story and you're stickin' to it. But you also appeal to the lack of human eyewitnesses to common descent as a means of relegating evolution to conjecture. (You do recall "agreeing" to conjectural status, don't you?) That same standard of proof would make the idea that you had a great-great-great-great-great grandfather a conjecture, as you can't possibly have more than a piece of paper or two of who-knows-what authenticity to attest the existence of such a person and you probably don't even have that.
"I know what you are - I'll bet you're one of those FUNDIES ..." This type of crap would get you laughed out of any junior high debating club.
You just happened to notice my use of the juvenilism, "NOT!" I just happen to notice that you aren't passing the sniff test. You try not to get into the details of the anti-E technicals, which would only end with you linking TrueOrigins or AnswersinGenesis (at very best, Discovery-of-Nothing Institute). Even so, you've "agreed" with me on the opposite of what I've said, you've set an absurdly high bar for any statement avoiding the "theory" label, you've twisted words, and you've bludgeoned with feigned confusion.
Seen enough ducks to know a duck.
If you are trying to say that "common descent" is a "fact", then you're just flat-out wrong. You don't know for sure whether all living things have a common ancestor. You have no way of knowing this, and neither does any human. There is, to be sure, plenty of evidence which lends credence to this hypothesis, and as far as I can tell, that's what "the theory of evolution" is - the hypothesis that all current life descended from a common ancestor through well-known obvious mechanisms such as natural selection.
There's controvery on this branch and that branch about how exactly to reconstruct the tree of life, but it's a little too late to say that there is no tree, or that it's really five separate trees, or seven, or that humans at least are somehow disconnected from the rest of the thing.
A theory provides insight and mechanism to observation. It's a useful framework, not a guess or a pipe dream. Any useful framework (scientific theory) for the diversity of life has to deal with the evidence for common descent in the obvious way, which is that outwardly divergent life forms appear related because they are.
The preponderance of evidence for common descent has reached the status of fact. A scientific theory has to address why the preponderance of observation is what it is. It is possible to spin stories that ignore the preponderance of evidence, but such stories do not have the status of scientific theories.
But I was eerily correct in predicting that you would not accept it as a fact that any theory of the diversity of life would have to explain. Perhaps I should sign up with Psychic Network.
Is your having a great-great-great-great-great grandfather--several of them, probably--a hypothesis as well? If it is, what's the use of insisting upon such ridiculous legalisms? I mean, where could you have come from without this line of descent?
The real difference between a scientific theory and a hypothesis (or a conjecture or a fairy tale) is that a scientific theory explains observation in some recognizably systematic, insightful, and rational way. No scientific theory, Darwin's or Gould's or anyone else's, of the diversity of life will get away with ignoring the evidence of the fossil record, comparative anatomy, molecular biology, embryology, field observation, etc. that there is a hierarchical tree of relatedness, the clear result of common descent.