methods in evolution

[Robin Leech]

For what it is worth, members of the Family Columbidae (pigeons, etc.)
produce from their crop a milky substance that they feed their young.
Robin Leech

----- Original Message -----
From: John Grehan <jrg13 at PSU.EDU>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 1999 7:04 PM
Subject: methods in evolution


> >At 07:19 AM 8/15/99 -0400, Johne Grehane wrote:
> >>Curtis Clarke wrote
>
> >A "lactating bird" would do it for me: the existence of a group of shared
> >features that supported a pattern of kinship not reconcilable with the
> >"accepted" pattern, and with both sets of data being solid enough that I
> >could not explain either away. Of course, "extraordinary claims require
> >extraordinary evidence".
>
> I can see how an individual might impose this demarkation for oneself, but
> another person might view a lactating bird as just a very abberent bird,
or
> a group of shared features might be accepted by invoking an ad hoc
> hypothesis.
>
>
> >>In evolution I was taught doctrine (of beliefs about evolution having
> >taken place and how it took place).
> >
> >I had a similar experience. I'm sorry you weren't able to go beyond it.
>
> I'm sorry I might have given this impression. It was not my intention.
> I have my own ideas on methods, but they are rather eccentric, so I am
> looking for what the mainstream might propose.
>
>
> >>Agreed. But I was referring to creation theory as a science, not whether
> >>people who believed in creation were doing science or not.
> >
> >Wait a minute. You demand evolutionary methodologies, and yet you assert
> >that just because creationists can do science, that doesn't show that
> >creation theory is a science. How else do we determine that? Doctrine,
> >perhaps?
>
> I am looking for the methods and principles of the theoretical framework
that
> establishes the kind of research activities that they carry out. So a
person
> might be an evolutionist in perspective, but not simply by doing science.
> A person might, for example, work on the systematics of taxa, using
generally
> accepted methods and principles, establish monophyletic classifications
etc.,
> but could still be either a creationist or evolutionist.
>
>
> >Even Hennig's detractors are remiss if they deny that the use of shared
> >homology to infer kinship is one possible direct consequence of Darwin's
> >theories. If anything, it would seem that it would have taken even less
> >time to develop if it were a trivial "non-advance".
>
> I'm not sure if I am being labelled as a hennig detractor, but I have no
> problem with the above statement. In the sense that the inference arises
from
> Darwin, it is possible that Hennig's advance was not all that great, but
my
> point is that it did not take a century since the connection was already
> proposed  before Hennig by systematists such as Rosa.
>
>
> >>I look forward to more specifics on evolution as a research program.
> >
> >Sorry, you won't be getting any more from me.
>
> It was not my intention to be so summary in my dismissal so I will try to
> elaborate. I agree that the examples below do provide instances of
> evolutionary theory being applied to particular patterns of biology,
> but what I am interested to know is how one would describe this
> application in methodological terms. Does one study endosymbiosis in
> a particular way if one is an evolutionist? None of the studies themselves
> require an evolutionary framework as I understand them.
>
> An off-the-top-of-my-head list of biological studies that *require* an
> evolutionary framework:
>
> * endosymbiosis (why did God create chloroplasts and mitochondria with
> bacterial genes?)
>
> Even if a creationist would not answer that question, would a creationist
> be unable to recongize endosymbiosis? My feeling is that a creationist
would.
>
> * biogeography (the distribution of each *created* species must be studied
> individually; in the case of vicariance, it *must* be established whether
> the vicariants are separate species or the same)
>
> I would have thought a creationist would have no problem comparing
> the distribution of species. There have been creationist biogeographers
> and they did have biogeographic explanations for distributions.
>
> * genetic engineering, especially transgenics (No a priori basis to assume
> that genes artificially transfered between species will behave in the same
> way as those transfered within)
>
> I am less a geneticist, so I would like further elaboration. Are you
saying that
> a creationist could not be a genetic enginner?
>
> * animal models in biomedicine (who among creationists would have ever
> expected that chimps and only chimps could be infected with HIV?)
>
> They might have if chimps and humans were seen to share a created
> design plan and so have other features in common.
>
> John Grehan
>