If you want to know what they really believe about the Woodpecker,
Not really, no :) That is, I got the basic argument, but couldn't bring myself to wade into the morbid detritus of people yelling about it.
Looking at that, oh dear. That is impressively dumb :( It's not even about the tongue, which seemed like a potentially relevant argument, just wrong if you don't check the anatomy properly.
But he seems to be saying "The woodpecker's hardened head and fast drilling can't have evolved in exactly two steps, since one without the other would be useless/deadly." It doesn't even seem to have occurred to him it might have happened gradually, that either a slightly harder head or beak might have helped rooting in trees just a little, despite that seeming the simplest sort of change conceivable.
He says he's a fundamentalist convert the other way? I know there are people who convert to religion from personal experiences, and insights, and philosophical observations, and emotions, and observations, and bibles, but I hadn't thought from that sort of specific evidence. That, if you're used to assuming species are constant, then the idea of them changing by evolution does sound pretty wacky. But did he really used to understand evolution, and then look at a woodpecker and say "Wow, that's really a counterexample! I don't believe it any more!"? I came up with a credible theory in 0.3 seconds and I don't know anything about it at all.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 03:02 pm (UTC)Not really, no :) That is, I got the basic argument, but couldn't bring myself to wade into the morbid detritus of people yelling about it.
Looking at that, oh dear. That is impressively dumb :( It's not even about the tongue, which seemed like a potentially relevant argument, just wrong if you don't check the anatomy properly.
But he seems to be saying "The woodpecker's hardened head and fast drilling can't have evolved in exactly two steps, since one without the other would be useless/deadly." It doesn't even seem to have occurred to him it might have happened gradually, that either a slightly harder head or beak might have helped rooting in trees just a little, despite that seeming the simplest sort of change conceivable.
He says he's a fundamentalist convert the other way? I know there are people who convert to religion from personal experiences, and insights, and philosophical observations, and emotions, and observations, and bibles, but I hadn't thought from that sort of specific evidence. That, if you're used to assuming species are constant, then the idea of them changing by evolution does sound pretty wacky. But did he really used to understand evolution, and then look at a woodpecker and say "Wow, that's really a counterexample! I don't believe it any more!"? I came up with a credible theory in 0.3 seconds and I don't know anything about it at all.