On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, John Wilkins wrote:
david ford <dford3@gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, John Wilkins wrote:
david ford <dford3@gl.umbc.edu> wrote:
AC:

Natural selection is but one means that evolution occurs, David.

Graham Bell's book _Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution_ (1997),
xix, which was recommended to me, disagrees. Care to explain how
Bell is wrong?

Care to quote Bell's statement with enough context so we know what he
said first?

I'll let you do the honors, John. I gave the page reference.

You have the book - I don't.

You'll have it soon.

Can you back up your assertion? It shouldn't be up to me to do that for
you according to the usual rules of debate.

I decline to back up my assertion with a quote-mined nugget at the present
time.

A great many people think selection is the major mechanism of
evolution, but nobody I am aware of thinks that the only thing going
on in evolution is natural selection, and when I read Bell (which I
recommended) I didn't notice him saying that selection was all there
was to it.

Failing that, if I get time this busy week coming, I'll go check it
out.

Sounds good. I'll have a question for you about the book waiting.

Ask now. I can check it at the same time. However, I'm not kidding about
the busy week.

Where does the 699+ page book discuss [Bell on xx]"the appearance of new
types over long periods of time"?

By the way, what do you mean by "neo-Darwinism"? I tried for years to
get Pagano to define what *he* meant by it, but I have higher hopes for
you.

Yeah, well don't.
BTW, when will you be killfiling me?

[snip]

I killfile the abusive and the terminally clueless, david. So far, you
are not in that class.

Your post in
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=1g2eagv.ndx9r7dlo27xN%25wilkins%40wehi.e
du.au had my hopes high. Now you just had to dash them.

I haven't killfiled Pagano either (let me check;
nope, he's not there). I just stopped responding to his circular and
constant repetition. If and when he makes some interesting new claim or
adds actual information to one of his old claims, then I may be moved to
reply.

You use terms. I want to know what you (and Pagano) mean by them, so I
can tell what it is you are ruling in or out. I want to do this not to
score points but because it has been my experience that very often when
arguing over labels, one or both are misunderstanding a term, and
sometimes even that what one thinks is excluded by a term is actually
included, and that they both share the same view under other names.

So if you can give me an idea what you think neo-Darwinism involves, I
can either tell you whether I think it does, and we can move on to
discuss that content, or that it doesn't. It may be that what you think
*I* must accept because I am a "neo-Darwinian" is not what I accept at
all, and that you will find my ideas more agreeable than you otherwise
realise. That is why I ask you to define this term.

Alternatively, you can stop using that term and we can discuss the ideas
one by one. That way there is no problem with us arguing over labels.
It's up to you. However, I have the right to seek for you to define
terms you use in an argument. If you don't like that, either stopp
making the assertions, or take the time to say what you mean by them.
It's not an unreasonable request.

I regularly speak about the theory, the mechanism, that
Bell discusses on xvii-xviii.