Islands, Science and Creationism

[Richard Jensen]

These postings seem, to me, to be missing my point.  Curtis initially
wrote "organisms in their beings carry traces of their entire
evolutionary  history, in their locations they carry traces of their
entire geographic history."

If the latter is true, then simply knowing where an organism occurs
provides information about its "entire geographic history."  Notice that
there are no qualifiers in this statement, nothing to suggest context in
which the statement is made, etc. Given Curtis' statement *as it
stands*, what can any of you tell me about the geographic history of a
species (what species is irrelevant to the question) that is found
growing in a park in the city of South Bend, St. Joseph County, Indiana,
USA?

As Curtis noted, and I agreed, context is critical.  Without an
appropriate taxonomic, phylogenetic, or biogeographic context, my guess
is that no one can tell me anything about the geographic history of the
unknown plant in question (except for the trivial observation that it is
found where it is).

Cheers,

Dick
--
Richard J. Jensen              TEL: 219-284-4674
Department of Biology      FAX: 219-284-4716
Saint Mary's College         E-mail: rjensen at saintmarys.edu
Notre Dame, IN  46556     http://www.saintmarys.edu/~rjensen