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According to Tim Flannery's The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History  
of North America and Its Peoples (2002), the North American landscape  
some hundreds of thousands of years ago was a savannah very similar in  
climate and ecology to the African savannah of today.

That North American landscape was populated by a range of fauna that  
was also very similar to today's Africa (or maybe, more properly, the  
more bountiful Africa of two/three hundred years ago).  There were no  
giraffes, but there were animals with many identical features.  I wish  
I had the book in front of me...he states it as something to the effect  
that if we could go back there today, there would be something very  
familiar about the animals roaming the prairie, but also something  
eerily mixed-up.  For example, there were canines filling the feline  
niche (solitary, fast-running, tree-climbing hunters) and felines  
filling what we consider the canine niche (fetching the paper, barking  
at the mailman, etc.).

He hints at an argument that particular ecological conditions give rise  
to particular forms of plants and animals.

This hints at underlying rules to evolution, or at least that there is  
a form evolution follows.

(I'm just a student of this stuff...so I raise my hand and ask: Can we  
really call it chance, or random-ness?  I'm convinced of the  
possibility that the paradigm/semantics of random genetic changes  
supplying organisms fit enough for survival isn't necessary for  
understanding evolution, even in lieu of ID.  Maybe we don't understand  
the subtleties of the mechanism, right?
Is it possible that ecological changes trigger ancient genes, instead  
of demanding genetic mistakes? Good God, is there really any such thing  
as chance?)

___
JasonJayStevens
exhibits . annArborHands-OnMuseum . [log in to unmask]
art . potterBelmarLabs . www.potterbelmar.org . [log in to unmask]

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On Jun 9, 2005, at 6:22 AM, Ian Russell wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
> institutions.
> *********************************************************************** 
> ******
>
> At 01:02 09/06/2005, Amanda Chesworth wrote:
>
>> What I think concerns me the most, however, is when I see scientists  
>> just
>> adding fuel to the flame by not recognizing the twists in logic, the
>> invented arguments (like micro and macro evolution), the great haze of
>> confusion spread by misinformation.
>
> At 22:59 08/06/2005, William Katzman wrote:
>
>> I have read part of one anti-evolution book state that there is a  
>> conflict
>> between religion and evolution, precisely because evolution says that  
>> the
>> process of natural selection and that of mutations is RANDOM.  Thus  
>> the book
>> argued that people who believe that the process is random can't  
>> believe that
>> God has any hand in any of it or ever did, and therefore don't  
>> believe in
>> God.
>
> "No-chance-ism", in my experience, seems to be the principal root of  
> militant creationism, especially the Intelligent Design variety.
>
> And Amanda is right. There seems little headway against the endless  
> flow of theoretical objections to evolution, because they are  
> emotionally rooted in something else. A major cause of creationist  
> militancy is "no-chance-ism".
>
> However, you could try this:
>
> 1. By definition, Darwinism = Chance
>
> 2. By definition, Intelligent Design = The Hand of God
>
> 3. According to traditional Christian theology, Chance = The Hand of  
> God
>
> 4. Therefore, logically, seen ONLY from the viewpoint of traditional  
> Christian theology, Darwinism = Intelligent Design = The Hand of God
>
> 5. Seen from the scientific viewpoint, even for the many scientists  
> who are Christians, chance is unpredictable chance. It has to be  
> viewed like this. It is how science works. This is what science is.  
> And because of this self-imposed limitation, science is not qualified  
> to comment on the theological viewpoint.
>
> This only applies if the "Hand of God" operates invisibly within the  
> laws of probability (science is only able to make non-specific,  
> statistical predictions about coin-tosses or quantum events). Because  
> of course Darwinism MUST be based on observable randomness. So  
> 'chance' has entirely different meanings theologically and  
> scientifically.
>
> I find this approach works pretty well, depending very much on how  
> gently it is presented. Line 3 is the sticking point for most militant  
> creationists, who show a distinct deist tendency to conceive of a  
> limited god who periodically "intervenes" (they use this word a lot)  
> by breaking through natural processes and chance events he is  
> otherwise powerless to control. Line 4 looks equally outrageous from  
> either viewpoint, until the logically separate nature of the  
> viewpoints is digested. (NOMA again.)
>
> So there seem to be two lines of attack:
>
> A. We can insist that militant creationists cease to believe in their  
> Creator, as a necessary pre-condition of shutting-up about evolution.
>
> or
>
> B. Whatever our personal beliefs, we could ask them, with careful  
> respect, to consider the implications of a bigger Creator and  
> Sustainer than they have previously imagined, ruling over 'natural'  
> phenomena and working within his own laws of  'chance'.
>
> If Dawinism is your religion, go for A. If you want results, I  
> personally recommend B.
>
>
> [log in to unmask] * http://www.interactives.co.uk
> *
> Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
> Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
> *
> Ian Russell
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