centralnet{at}telkom.net (Mohammad Nor Syamsu) wrote in message 



> > I noticed the same thing about fifteen years ago.  So I set out to
> > revise it, to get rid of the emotive language.  What I found was that
> > the problems are more numerous and run much deeper than I had ever
> > imagined they could be.  But I was able work it all out.
> > 
> > But the hardest part of all is selling it.  Most people, including
> > those that call themselves scientists, did not arrive at their current
> > understanding of evolutionary theory by way of reason but by emotion. 
> > My experiences on this NG have brought me to the realization that you
> > can't reason somebody out of a position which they did not employ
> > reason to arrive at originally.
> 
> I think they arrived at their viewpoints through having to affirm it
> as true on a test, and also having to learn and affirm the reasons why
> it is true as good reasons on a test, which test they would otherwise
> fail.

I have no idea what test you speak of here.  Example?


> The emotions come after that I think. There seem to be some
> candy-beliefs about freedom associated with Dawkins' and the late
> Gould's evolutionism for instance. That would neccesarily lead to some
> defensiveness.

?

> I think that I should revise my argument to drop the focus on
> emotional benefit altogether, 

Emotional benefit?

> eventhough I believe this is the
> greatest benefit by far. In stead I think now that I should focus on
> environmentalists and zookeepers trying to save a species from
> extinction. 

Huh? 

> I think this may create a healthy political pressure to
> have a theory that's clear and usable. A zookeeper needs to know that
> a plant needs light for it to reproduce for instance. 

Why would you need evolutionary theory here at all.  
(You're not making any sense.)

> As before, a
> simple thing like that is not easy to put into standard Darwinist
> terminology because of the many requirements for it to apply, like
> variation etc. Maybe I shouldn't even contrast this usage of
> straightforward reproduction theory with traditional Natural Selection
> usage in writing it. But then I might be accused of misrepresenting
> Natural Selection in the process.

You're getting way too wishy-washy way too fast.  I may 
be slow on the uptake but I'm starting to suspect you 
have less than scientfically altruistic intentions.  
Am I right?  Are you a creationist?  (Thank God I'm not 
a creationist.)

> 
> Anyway I'm pretty confident that such a discipline, to view organisms
> in view of their chance of reproduction, and evolution as incident to
> that by way of mutation,

I can't make any sense of this.

 would be accepted by any student without much
> of any questions.

Assuming, for starters, that they can make more sense of it than I could.

Jim
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