Personally I do not have a problem with accepting quantizations of a continuum, but one of the most credentialed mathematicians here on the forum has assured us time and again that it is a fallacy to quantize a continuum. As an example he asserts that some are considered rich if they make $100,000/year - which means a guy who makes $99,999/year is not rich.
The fallacy was asserted to derail an investigation into abiogenesis - the theory of life from non-life. The assertion was that it is a fallacy to quantize (define) either life or non-life/death. Our response was that if you don't have a definition for either end for the theory, there can never be a theory of abiogenesis anyone could take seriously. Thus the investigation died.
But if the fallacy applies to abiogenesis then it also must apply to evolution theory. And here it is more troubling because the theory itself is a continuum based on the quantization of another continuum. If one accepts that quantizations of continuums are fallacies per se - how can anyone take evolution seriously? After all the theory of a continuum of life is based on the quantizations (fossils) of a continuum (geologic record).
Personally, I'd like for everyone to ditch the fallacy of quantizing a continuum as cause to dismiss evidence (e.g. fossil evidence, life v non-life/death) and rather consider the quantization a fallacy only when it is used improperly in the analysis.
In the case of fossil evidence, which are quantized from the continuum, I would rather they be matched against a feasible model for the rise of autonomy, semiosis and complexity. If they don't fit the model - then either the model is bad or the evidence is bad and one should try again. If no model fits, then Occam's Razor indicates intelligent design.
Archeology, anthropology and Egypology (along with other historical sciences) face the same quantized evidence problem but do not have a comparable capability to test theory in mathematics and physics.
In the case of fossil evidence, which are quantized from the continuum, I would rather they be matched against a feasible model for the rise of autonomy, semiosis and complexity. If they don't fit the model - then either the model is bad or the evidence is bad and one should try again. If no model fits, then Occam's Razor indicates intelligent design.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, Alamo-Girl! Thank you for the excellent post/essay.
Speaking of quantisizing a continuum...
when I was a kid, I had a comic with a stick figure man
in the top corner. When you flipped the pages, he ran.
Shouldn't a random sample of fossil jaw bones
form the same sort of continuum through species?
I suspect the random sample we have shows the truth;
unconnected groups that don't run.
That's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what quantizing a continuum means. Quantizing the continuum is where you draw an imaginary line where reality has no lines. But a fossil is a real entity. Life is a succession of discrete entities - discrete genomes, discrete beings.