[general_re]

Evolution insists on new species, but you can't prove new species because proving something is new requires you to prove that it never existed before. The best thing that Abbot could do, though this still wouldn't meet the logical test, is to debunk the most conventional explanations. That's what a reasonable person would require, and what I've been asking for.

Which is exactly why proof is absolutely, 100% the wrong standard to apply here. I don't quite know how many ways I can keep saying this, but in insisting on logical proof, you are insisting that Abbott meet a standard that is plainly impossible to meet, to perform a task that is plainly impossible to perform.

But we're apparently feeling generous here - in order to persuade you, you'll allow that Abbott doesn't have to prove the single negative thesis you lay out for him above. Oh, no - all he has to do to persuade you is prove a whole host of negative theses that you have arbitrarily designated as "conventional". Well, that is mighty generous - you'll let him off the hook for failing to perform the impossible task of conclusively proving that the species is new, but only so long as he succeeds in the half-dozen new impossible tasks you lay out for him by proving a whole other set of negatives. An eminently reasonable standard, no doubt - asking for the impossible is practically the hallmark of reasonable men...

You don't think it's a tad arrogant to conclude that everything has been included in that book?

I read of their methodology, and it is remarkably thorough. The British Isles are not infinite in size, nor are there an infinite number of plants therein - fewer than 2,500 species, as a matter of fact, which is a quite manageable number, even for mere mortals such as we.

Your colleagues in the 19th century, I wager, would not have been nearly so trusting of the academy.

Tell me about it. And I don't fly neither - it's just arrogant, thinking that man should be flitting about among the birds.

Fortunately for everyone, occasionally among us comes someone who lacks the humility that you recommend, and undertakes the difficult or the seemingly impossible. Upon their backs is progress made. If the notion that someone, or several someones, or thousands of someones, might be actually able to catalogue every single species of flowering plant in Britain bothers you, you can always ignore it and dismiss it on the grounds of hubris. Those of us who like to live on the edge, on the other hand, will approach it with an open mind, examining it to see if it is what it claims to be, rather than potentially dismissing out-of-hand some piece of reality because it happens to make a poor fit with our views of how the world should be.

But perhaps there's a method behind the madness of subjecting evidence in favor of evolution to impossible standards of proof after all...

[farmer18th]

Oh, no - all he has to do to persuade you is prove a whole host of negative theses that you have arbitrarily designated as "conventional".

There's a difference between proving a negative ("this species never existed before") and showing why dormant seed germination would be unlikely, or introduction would be unlikely, or a failure to have catalogued the species before would be unlikely or even fraud would be unlikely.

If empirical likelihoods are the stock and trade of science, why is there no discussion of these more prosaic explanations? If the value of this discovery is so valuable to the cause of proving evolution, so unique, doesn't it have to attain that singular status by discounting the more conventional explanations?

Let's return to the facts here. Abbot didn't witness this new species erupt in his laboratory. He stumbled upon a plant he had never seen before in a field. He compared this plant to the currently known British plants and found that it wasn't in the book. A more humble, and perhaps less ideologically inclined scientist of an earlier generation, might have concluded this was an occasion for the inclusion of a species not yet catalogued, but not necessarily "new." In this case, because of genetic similarities to an allegedly introduced plant, he concludes that it is a new species. This is a leap that might better be understood if he could explain why he thinks the current catalogue is full. Have there been so few instances of newly catalogued plants that he feels safe in making this assumption? Were there, for example, 300 newly catalogued in the 1790s, 50 in the 1860s, 20 in the 1920s and so on in a mathematical projection approaching 0 on the y axis? What would be the mathematical model for concluding there was nothing new to catalogue? What was the nature of its introduction into Britain and is it possible this "new" plant was also introduced? Do trans-European birds ever introduce plants from the continent? Has any known "Piltdown" style fraud occured in this field of study?

Those seem to be questions an esteemed botanist could answer fairly easily. The fact that they make supporters of evolution bristle, doesn't speak well for the cause.