Originally posted by Preacher
Sorry about Down's--I felt uncomfortable w/ that example myself, but my weary brain couldn't come up w/ anything else @ that moment. My bad...
No problem. As you say, it's been a while since you studied genetics. I naturally assumed that a doctor would know the cause of a medical condition like Down's, and just took it from there.
Okay, seeing as this has been a long (and rather convoluted thread), how about we try to clarify just what we agree on and what we don't? That way, we can focuses on *really* getting down to arguing.
More correctly, it can't be "proven" to be genetic (leastways, not YET).
But proof is everything in science. Without any proof (or even any substantial and unequivocal evidence), it can't be stated as a scientific fact that intelligence is genetic, can it? So you would agree me with that, to the best of scientific knowledge at the present time, there is no known gene that codes for intelligence, let alone one that codes for superior intelligence. The best that can said that it's hypothesised that such a gene *may* exist, but that's a long way from saying (as others have tried to argue in this thread) that there are obviously superior genes such as the ones that code for a superior intellignce. If one don't even know that something exists, how can it be said that it's superior?
I don't say that "trying to select for traits such as intelligence is scientifically sound". I think we've both proven that it ain't.
On that point, we're in one hundred percent agreement.
Attempted Clarification: My point is that "natural selection", if it exists, would apply to the beasts completely,whereas it would
apply to humans only *partially*. Your skin color passage does nothing to refute this. Skin pigmentation is but a single trait; you've not really addressed the specific ones I raised, which are most DEFINITELY influenced by conscience/free will, etc. And, yes, the skin thing certainly CAN have taken place without my point being nullified, since I never said that free will affects ALL genetic traits, only a few--but a POTENT few they are....
So you would agree that *most* traits are subject to natural selection, even in humans, especially purely physical ones? That would support the point we both seem to be agreeing on that there is no such thing as a "superior" genotype, one that would give a person who possesses it an unqualified advantage, and that trying to engineer such a genotype is folly? If there was such a superior genotype, then natural selection would have selcted for such types, even in us humans.
To be honest with you, those two points are the only ones that I have had any burning interest in making throughout this thread. The first is that there is no clearcut "superior genotype", and the second is that trying to engineer such a one is foolish at best and outright disasterous at best. As someone who is passionate about science, it's always turned my stomach to see people try to describe Tolwyn's plans as "scientific" or "genetically sound." The kind of Eugenics he was planning is as much a perversion of science as all the "religious" wars and killings are a perversion of the faith.
Point 2) It seems that you (and a few million others) are forgetting the fact that the same applies to YOU. To whit, the vaunted "theory of evolution": Seems folks forget that it's just a theory, and take it as, um, "gospel" (pun fully intended) that this is so. Much of your writings on this thread fall back upon the considerably shaky foundation of evolution/natural selection. There's so many holes in the theory that any impartial, rational scientist, schooled in scientific theory, knows that it's far from "proven" by any stretch of the imagination. Frankly, it takes less faith to believe in "Creation theory" than it does to take such leaps in logic as are commonly made in this area!... I suggest you listen to a series of talks recently given by John MacArthur on the subject ("The Battle For The Beginning"), and you'll see just how "ludicrous" blind faith in "evolution" is...
Er, I should point out that there is a fairly significant differance between "natural selection" and "evolution". I have been using the terms natural selection and adaptation throughout this thread, not evolution, and I'll go into the differance below.
Natural selection is simply the enhanced rate of survival and perpetuation that those who are best suited to their particular envoirnment have, and the increases in the frequency of the genes responsible in the population as a whole as a result of that, which makes the whole population more suited to that envoirnment. Natural selection has been widely documented, from species as widely varying as fruit flies to rabbits to humans (that one of skin pigmentation we have been talking about being just one) and has been replicated in the lab. There is nothing particularly doubtfull, controversial or shaky about it.
Evolution, on the other hand, is the result of very large shifts in gene frequencies over millions of years, eventually leading to speciation (where the two groups of the one starting population have diverged so much that they are genetically incompatible with each other, making them two seperate species) and is, as you say, a lot more controversial. Because of the time scale involved, it can't be observed *or* replicated, making the evidence for it much more indirect.
Now, while natural selection has been postulated as the *mechanism* for evolution, it is not evolution in itself. Not only that, while evolution can't exist without natural selction, natural selection exists regardless of the validity of evolution. Or to put it another way, it's a cause and effect thing. Remove the cause and the effect vanishes. Removing the effect, on the other hand, in no way affects the existence of the cause.
Now, as for evolution, I agree that is *not* been proven to the status of the scientific law. Hence the reason it is called the *theory* of evolution. While it has quite a lot of evidence behind it (elevating it from a hypothesis to a theory, which are very differant things in science) it may never achieve the volume of evidence to be proven as a scientific law, and I'm fine with that.
Just as an aside, I could of course say it may *eventually* be proved in a way that is fully compliant with scientific theory (in the same way that you do with genetic intellignce), but I regard such a view as being unscientific in itself. As I said a while back, in science, you always go with the evidence you have, not what may exist in the future.
The view I have always taken on evolution vs creation is that it's one on which intelligent and rational people can differ. As I said before though, all my points were in referance to natural selection, not evolution. As i've also said before, I have no particular interest in debating the existence of a Creator, because that is essentially an unresolvable argument that is likely to go on forever.
This "theory" is crap, and it heartens me to know that you're not comfortable with it yourself. Lemme make you even *more* uncomfortable with it: Do you suppose the firefighters/cops who perished helping office workers get out of the towers (before they fell) expected to survive the experience?...They were doing a dangerous job, and as soon as they knew the towers might fall, they decided to sacrifice themselves anyway, to save as many others as they could. Sure, some left behind kids to propagate their genes in the gene pool, but what about the bachelors and childless amongst these heroes? Let your guy Dawkins try and explain THAT....
To be blunt, I don't want to use what happened on September 11th as debate fodder in an argument with you, and I'm not going to demean the memory of those people by trying to score debating points on their motivations. All I'll say is that if you read Dawkin's book (your local library should have a copy), you might want to check over his chapter on kin selection. And if you can find a way to disprove what he writes there, then I would be as happy as the next man. As I said, it's a theory that disturbs me.
Best, Raptor
