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More words...Do you agree with this interpretation?
BobRyan
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Let's make it simple - as I already did here!Here is my first quote of Patterson in the SAME thread where UTEOTW attempts to claim I have misquoted Patterson.
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=784211&postcount=65 Here we have a classic blunder where believers in atheist darwinism are seen to cling to their "orthodoxy" so blatantly that they are willing to "tell story after story" just to prop up their orthodox faith in evolutionism - presenting them as if they are "science".
Quote:
The late Colin Patterson, while serving as senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, summed it up best when he stated that Archaeopteryx has simply become a patsy for wishful thinking . Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is [b ]no way of answering the question. [/b]
It is easy enough to [b ] make up stories [/b] of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not a part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test (as quoted in Sunderland, 1988, p. 102). Click to expand...
BobRyan
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More words --What UTEOTW STILL REFUSES TO DO - is to show a quote of ME quoting PAtterson and claiming that Patterson believed ANYTHING other than what HE STATED!!
BobRyan
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Lionel Theunissen said --
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html
During the lecture a quotation of
Dr. Colin Patterson was used to justify the standard creationist argument that 'there are no transitional forms .' Numerous other creationists I have encountered have used the quote, and an extended version (which fills in the text between the ellipsis) appears in the CSF "Revised Quote Book", published in 1990. So the quote is in wide usage, at least in Australia:
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book . If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History.
I decided to get to the bottom of the matter
Click to expand...
Well done Lionel - after all there is no sense in BELIEVING what Patterson is saying!! WHY would ANY self-respecting ADMIT to the difficulty in the matter as Patterson has done AND YET remain a devotee to atheist darwinism as Patterson does -- UNLESS they had NO OTHER CHOICE!!
BobRyan
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Question for the atheist darwinist believing UTEOTW --
BobRyan
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Lionel Theunissen said --
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html
It is actually this statement which is the key to interpreting the Sunderland quote correctly; it is not possible to say for certain whether a fossil is in the direct ancestral line of a species group .
Archaeopteryx , for example, is not necessarily directly ancestral to birds. It may have been a species on a side-branch. However, that in no way disqualifies it as a transitional form, or as evidence for evolution. Evolution predicts that such fossils will exist, and if there was no link between reptiles and birds then
Archaeopteryx would not exist, whether it is directly ancestral or not.
What Patterson was saying to Sunderland was that, of the transitional forms that are known, he could not make a watertight argument for any being directly ancestral to living species groups. Of course, my opinion on the interpretation was never going to impress a creationist -- I don't think
anything is enough to convince a creationist --
so I decided to see if I could get the full text of the letter and see if it would clarify the context. Click to expand...
Hmmm - Lionel is wanting to READ the lettter AND SEE what the real context is -- how "instructive".
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It is such a simple pair of questions.Do you agree with the interpretation to which Patterson agreed, paraphrased that what he meant was only that you cannot tell if a given fossil is directly ancestral to a living species or only a closely related side branch?
BobRyan
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Here is the full letter -- as requested.
Dear Mr Theunissen, I seem fated continually to make a fool of myself with creationists. The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes. The passage quoted continues The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record . Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds ? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, such stories are not part of science, no way to put them to the test the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct , and the creationists' is false. Science just the week before. I gave a fairly rumbustious talk, arguing that the theory of evolution had done more harm than good to biological systematics (classification). Unknown to me, there was a creationist in the audience with a hidden tape recorder. So much the worse for me. But my talk was addressed to professional systematists, and concerned systematics, nothing else. But I still maintain that scepticism is the scientist's duty, however much the stance may expose us to ridicule
Click to expand...
BobRyan
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Patterson SAID -
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book . If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument
Click to expand...
Patterson SAID of the quote above ...
"The specific quote you mention, from a letter to Sunderland dated 10th April 1979, is accurate as far as it goes. The passage quoted continues The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record . Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds ? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, such stories are not part of science, no way to put them to the test the continuation of the passage shows clearly that your interpretation (at the end of your letter) is correct , and the creationists' is false.
Click to expand...
Clearly the evolutionist agrees to STAY evolutionist.
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Bob
BobRyan
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I agree that Patterson agrees with his own views.
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Patterson agrees with his own views?
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We all know why these two questions are being avoided.
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But we know how this will go.
BobRyan
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UTEOTW ACCUSES Bob of misquoting Patterson and as "support" he says that I AM not quoting Patterson ENOUGH!!
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Quit making stuff up.
I am not asking for more quotes.
I am asking for the one quote in context.
Can you provide that context?
Can we see the rest of the letter?More importantly, do you agree with the interpretation of the paragraph with which Patterson says he agrees?
BobRyan
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In an effort to stop digging the UTEOTW hole that he is digging - UTEOTW asks for more QUOTES from Patterson as directed TO Sunderland.
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it . . "[Stephen] Gould [of Harvard] and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. You say that I should at least `show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record . . It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science; there is no way of putting them to the test."—*Colin Patterson, Letter dated April 10, 1979, to Luther Sunderland, quoted in L.D. Sunderland Darwin's Enigma, p. 89.
Click to expand...
Question: IS this going to come back to bite UTEOTW?? you betcha!
BobRyan
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Question: do you agree with that part with which I said I agree and do you disagree on the part where I said you and I differ in our views?
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Quit avoiding the questions.
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It is obvious that even you know that your are trying to spin a meaning of the quote with which the author would not agree.