On Mon, 1 Dec 2003 14:14:05 +0000 (UTC), nullus fides <dev@null.none>
wrote:

And so upon Mon, 01 Dec 2003 06:06:15 +0000 didst david ford speak thusly:

After that, would you mind telling me how I can tell that it is Sagan's
pet naturalistic mechanisms that were responsible for turning bacteria
into humans, and not my next door neighbor's or my car mechanic's or my
sister's dog's former owner's? Please be as specific as possible.

You're actually *at a university and saying such stupid things?

Wow.

We don't have an education system left anywhere in the country do we?

Sadly, no. It's all just "cash for grades" these days. Ford's at
least shown us that he remembers how test questions are typically
formatted... "Please be as specific as possible..." LOL.

Where should I go to see evidence of "evolution," where
"evolution" is defined using Sagan's definition:
"Only nine percent of Americans accept the central finding of
modern biology that human beings (and all the other species)
have slowly evolved by natural processes from a succession
of more ancient beings with no divine intervention needed
along the way."

Hopping in late in this thread. Try Botany. Grow
plants, buy books about your fave genera, get specialized
journals. etc.

I grow Haworthias, plants related to aloes, small jewels
of plants, mainly easy, takes little space.
I have long grown many plants, cacti, succullents et al over te years.

Clines. What is a cline? Plants, as they succeed and spread, don't stop
evolving. Across an area, you end up with many 'species' that on careful
examination, are graded variations over large areas that make it hard
to even speak of species.

Real botanists often give up and speak of complexes, or clines,
sorting this mess out is often impossible and many botanists seriously
question the usefulness of species as a result.

This is what you get when you follow specialist literature.
Evolution is at work and these situations are a snap shot as it were, of
evolution in action, its obvious, and evolution causes nothing but problems
for plant taxonomists. And others.

Haworthia is one very complex genus, with many very varible species, many
clines and many arguments of how to go about dealing with the problem.

There are others.

And you find it with zoologists too. Some years ago, bored, I grabbed a
herpatology magazine at a book store and later read a discussion on Eastern
Diamond rattlesnakes and the problems there of varieties vs subspecies vs
new species.


These arguments in botany are the same.
We might as well be describing arguments as to does that speciman represent
a species from the Hawrothia Retusae complex or Hawrothia Magnifica complex.

It goes higher too. Agaves? Are they Lilaceae, or Amyrillaceae?
Tired of incessent argument, Agavaceae was set up as a family to
more or less arbitrarily end the futile arguing. I know of numerous other
families where genera are questionable as to what family they should belong
to, or even if these genera should exist at all, or be split up into more
genera. Some of these cases sit there unresolved, people got tired of
arguing.

Many of these labels for planst are not considered hard and fast
designations as mere labels to allow discussion.

We have battles between lumpers, and splitters, splitters see many genera
and species where lumpers see few genera, few species and great variabilty.
Sometimes it gets extreme and bitter, more an ideological battle or
personality conflict.

Then you get down to technical details, DNA analysis, explanations of
various methods of DNA details involved in evolution, methylization in
animals for example.

All of this is stuff the creationist types have no idea exists, it is
beyond their feeble ken, its like a pig trying to imagine the World's Fair.

And even well educated Atheists who accept evolution often have no idea
this stuff exists, how deep and rich and complex it all is.

Its a bit like sex, describing it is nothing like doing it.

Until one gets down and dirty like this with evolution as it affects the
real world, its hard to really tell you how obvious evolution is when you
have spent 20 years face to face with it at these varying deeper levels.

And every field botanist, every taxonomist has evolution kicking him in the
shins on a daily basis making things hard, complex and just plain
impossible to wrap up neatly and simply like us humans like things,
in a simply book of bronze age myths, preferably for most of 'em.
Evolution is, it is a fact, and botanists have evolution right in their
faces all the time.

Mess with botany on this level and its like trying to miss that elephant in
the living room.

Wanna mess with evolution at that level? Google Haworthia, Arid land
nursery, Burk's nursery and others, check out books on Haworthias,
order some, start growing them and studying the rich (and expensive)
literature, and after ten years, you will know far more about evolution
than you can learn in the abstract.

Otherwise, its like trying to learn cooking without a kitchen or pots and
pans but with chemistry books.
With religion, its like doing that with a bag over your head and all your
chemisrty books are in French.

I raise Haworthias. Darwin raised pidgeons.
Both teach deep lessons if you are willing to do the hard work to get there.
And you can't get there in abstractions.