[EM] This is not a continuation of an arguemnt or debate

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

  Today I'm posting several messages, because I might be away from the 
computer for a while, and I don't know for how long. It could be up to a 
week or more. So I should add, too, that if someone refutes something that 
I've said, and I'm not heard from replying to that, that's only because I'm 
away from the computer for a while.

  I have no wish to add to or continue the evolution debate. But it's an 
issue on which, if one isn't careful with one's wording, one can give the 
wrong impression of one's opinion or position. So, though it's off-topic, 
I'd like to clarify my position a little.

  I was commenting on the claim that evolution of species had never taken 
place, but then it turned out that the claim was merely evolution of species 
due to natural selection has never taken place. So that's the claim that I 
then replied to.

  I criticized it in two ways:

  1. By telling why the arguments claiming that natural selection isn't 
feasible weren't valid.

  2. By saying that the claim that evolution wasn't caused by natural 
selection is conveniently unverifiable.

  That last argument is the one that I want to clarify. I didn't mean to say 
that I criticize any proposition that isn't verifiable. That could make me 
sound like the science-worshipers who argue these issues. And that's what I 
want to avoid, by this clarification message.

   So , it isn't because that claim isn't verifiable or scientifically 
provable. Science is only valid so far, with its own particular  range of 
applicability, to describe and predict events in the physical world. That 
may sound obvious, but there are those who make a religion of science and 
want to apply it outside of its legitimate range of applicability.

  Of course one can show that natural selection is not only feasible, but is 
what one would expect, and that it can be expected to sometimes result in 
new species.

Other than that, one can specifically reply to the "intellligent design" 
advocates by asking why they think it's somehow less "intellilgent"  for 
life to begin and evolve without violation of this universe's physical laws.

  (To keep these comments simple, I should specify that when I speak of life 
or living things, I'm speaking of the physical  bodies of living things).

You know, most religious people don't have any problem wilth the suggestion 
that God could have created life, including advanced life-forms, without 
making exceptions to the physical laws of the universe that God created. 
Those physical organisms, after all, are part of that universe,and it is 
their surrounding environment.  So why would someone insist that they have 
to be created via  exceptions to that universe's laws?

Because-- The "intellilgent design" advocates claim that not only was an 
exception made to this universe's laws when those physical systems first 
appeared, but they also claim that the exceptions are continuing all the 
time that species are evolving.

The claim that natural selction isn't possible, or that, if it happened, it 
couldn't result in new species, is absure.

  Whan someone says that, for some reason, they want to believe that living 
things (again, referring to physical systems) must be created as exceptions 
to this universe's laws, one can only reply by asking why they need to 
believe that. It isn't a question of disproving that belief, or objecting 
that it's unverifiable.

That's what I wanted to clarify.

Again, this isn't intended to re-start a debate, but only to clarify what I 
meant.

Mike Ossipoff

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