John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<40AD0462.3000609@pacbell.net>...

Augray wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2004 14:29:21 +0000 (UTC),

[snip]

on the fossil
record, which, unfortunately for David, has no evidence that disproves
Natural Selection.

Precisely. There is no conceivable evidence that can disprove the
theory of natural selection. The theory of natural selection makes
zero predictions.

That's not true, as I've pointed out to you at least twice before.
Natural Selection predicts that some species will become extinct, and
that species will tend to diversify.

I don't think that's true. Extinction of species is quite outside the
bounds of natural selection,

Darwin thought that as one result of the operation of Darwinian
natural selection, certain species would be driven to extinction.

abstract of Hsu's "Darwin's three mistakes"; Hsu quoting Ernst Chain
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96.980426214908.24131A-100000%40umbc10.umbc.edu

unless you are extending it to include
species selection, and even then it only predicts that if you assume all
sorts of conditions. And "will tend to diversity" is too vague to count
as a prediction. Further, diversification (assuming you mean
branching/speciation) may not have all that much to do with natural
selection. If you want it to, you have to assume more conditions, in
particular disruptive selection as a major cause of speciation.
Speciation, however, can be explained without recourse to selection at
all: just the long-terms effects of geographical isolation. Ditto with
extinction: even if there were no selection, there would still be
extinction, even if only as a result of chance.

And this is what we see in nature.

Weak and invalid claims, I'm afraid. Natural selection however does make
predictions, but I don't think there are any general predictions. It
makes predictions about outcomes in specific cases in which various
parameters are known, and can also be used to make statistical
predictions about what will tend to happen in repeated situations where
the parameters are less well known. Natural selection is used to make
predictions all the time in the literature, but not these grand, global
predictions that both you and David seem to want.

The theory of natural selection makes a so-called "crazy quilt"
prediction about one pattern we should see in the fossil record. That
prediction does not match up with observation.

1952 Goldschmidt on the theory of NS's "crazy-quilt" prediction;

creationist Behe recommends research on a
intelligent-design-of-common-descent hypothesis
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401271936.9a5dfd2%40posting.google.com

Would you care to outline how Intelligent Design predicts these things?

It predicts anything and everything, depending on the details of the
design process.

"The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic
evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition" Evolutionist, Dr.
Steven M. Stanley

Compare Stanley in the essay above.

John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<40AD0462.3000609@pacbell.net>...

Augray wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2004 14:29:21 +0000 (UTC),

[snip]

on the fossil
record, which, unfortunately for David, has no evidence that disproves
Natural Selection.

Precisely. There is no conceivable evidence that can disprove the
theory of natural selection. The theory of natural selection makes
zero predictions.

That's not true, as I've pointed out to you at least twice before.
Natural Selection predicts that some species will become extinct, and
that species will tend to diversify.

I don't think that's true. Extinction of species is quite outside the
bounds of natural selection,

Darwin thought that as one result of the operation of Darwinian
natural selection, certain species would be driven to extinction.

abstract of Hsu's "Darwin's three mistakes"; Hsu quoting Ernst Chain
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96.980426214908.24131A-100000%40umbc10.umbc.edu

unless you are extending it to include
species selection, and even then it only predicts that if you assume all
sorts of conditions. And "will tend to diversity" is too vague to count
as a prediction. Further, diversification (assuming you mean
branching/speciation) may not have all that much to do with natural
selection. If you want it to, you have to assume more conditions, in
particular disruptive selection as a major cause of speciation.
Speciation, however, can be explained without recourse to selection at
all: just the long-terms effects of geographical isolation. Ditto with
extinction: even if there were no selection, there would still be
extinction, even if only as a result of chance.

And this is what we see in nature.

Weak and invalid claims, I'm afraid. Natural selection however does make
predictions, but I don't think there are any general predictions. It
makes predictions about outcomes in specific cases in which various
parameters are known, and can also be used to make statistical
predictions about what will tend to happen in repeated situations where
the parameters are less well known. Natural selection is used to make
predictions all the time in the literature, but not these grand, global
predictions that both you and David seem to want.

The theory of natural selection makes a so-called "crazy quilt"
prediction about one pattern we should see in the fossil record. That
prediction does not match up with observation.

1952 Goldschmidt on the theory of NS's "crazy-quilt" prediction;
creationist Behe recommends research on a
intelligent-design-of-common-descent hypothesis
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401271936.9a5dfd2%40posting.google.com