To : ALL Subj: Biele's authority ARTHUR BIELE to ALL on 091994 00:06 re: TRANSITIONS, PART
From: LARRY SITES 21 Sep 94 21:27
To : ALL
Subj: Biele's authority
ARTHUR BIELE to ALL on 09-19-94 00:06 re: TRANSITIONS, PART 6. 1/
AB>As I have posted,
[In 1979, Creationist Luther D Sunderland, on behalf of the NYS Board
of Regents and the NYS board of Education, was requested to conduct
taped interviews
Mr. Sunderland explicitly asked each of these officials if they were
aware of any transitional forms from fish to amphibians, and in
particular,the crossopterygian to Ichthyostega, they each indicated that
they were unaware of any confirming evidence for such a transition.]
researcher Luther Sunderland, Interviewed top paleontology experts from
AB>five of the world's greatest fossil museums. They were Dr. Raup of the
AB>Chicago Field Museum; Dr. Niles Eldredge of the New York City Museum of
AB>Natural History; Dr. David Pilbeam of, Curator of the Peabody Museum of
AB>Natural History at Yale; Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist of
AB>the British Museum of Natural History in London, England; and Dr.
AB>Fisher of the New York State Museum of Natural History. The Result:
AB> "No museum official offered any real fossil evidence that any one of
AB> the various invertebrates evolved into vertebrate fish" P. 63
AB> "None of the museum officials could produce any fossil evidence of an
AB> intermediate ancestor connecting the amphibians with with fishes." p 6
AB> "None of the five museum officials could offer a single example of a
AB> transitional series of fossilized organisms that would document the
AB> transformation of one basically different type to another." p. 88
AB>Luther Sunderland, 'Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and other Problems', Master
AB>Books, 1988.
Talk about someone with an agenda, Sunderland is it. Master Books is the
old publishing arm of the ICR. Say, since you appear to have read
Sunderland's book, does he still mis-represent Patterson's AMNH speech like
this:
LS> From : Dave Mullenix 03-25-93 03:38
LS>
LS> 'Colin Patterson
LS> made some statements that taken out of the context of cladistic
LS> taxonomy, might sound anti-evolutionary. The Institute for Creation
LS> Research published a tract, "Evolution? Prominent Scientist
LS> Reconsiders" in 1982, claiming that at the AMNH speech, Patterson
LS> "confessed" that he no longer "believed" in evolution. This claim has
LS> been widely circulated due to a clandestine tape transcript of the
LS> session.
This tract by Sunderland is apparently STILL available from the ICR at
Impact Reprints, PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021 as it is listed as #108 on
a recent order list, even though according to the following posts, that is
NOT Patterson's position:
From : Dave Mullenix 03-25-93 03:38
To : All
Subj : Colin Patterson
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just got the Winter 92 issue of NCSE Reports, the journal of the National
Center for Science Education and it has an interesting article that bears
on that Colin Patterson quote we were discussing a while ago. It's
"Tracking Those Incredible Creationists", a regular column and this issue
it's written by Eugenie C. Scott. I quote:
'In Patterson's own words, from a 1982 letter to teacher Steven Binkley,
I was asked to talk on "evolutionism and creationism," and
knowing the meetings of the group as informal sessions where
ideas could be kicked around among specialists, I put a case
for difficulties and problems with evolution, specifically in
the field of systematics.
(Commentary by Scott deleted)
I was too naive and foolish to guess what might happen: the talk
was taped by a creationist who passed the tape to Luther Sunderland ...
Since, in my view, the tape was obtained unethically, I asked
Sunderland to stop circulating the transcript, but of course to
no effect. There is not much point in my going through the article
point by point. I was putting a case for discussion, as I thought
off the record _and was speaking only about systematics, a specialized
field_. (italics not in original) I do not support the creationist
movement in any way, and in particular I am opposed to their efforts
to modify school curricula. In short, the article does not fairly
represent my views.
Scott then goes on:
'So Patterson was tossing around ideas to a group of students and
specialists about a specialized subfield, transformed cladistics. The
specialized nature of the discussion and the particular philosophical
context of the statements were ripe for taking words out of context.
Patterson has not "reconsidered" whether evolution has taken place, he is
arguing about how to work out relationships between organisms.'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
So eight or nine years ago, Patterson told Sunderland that the quote was
out of context, concerned a field other than evolution and that it did not
represent Patterson's views on evolution. Yet I purchased an ICR book with
this quote in it three years ago at a "Back to Genesis" seminar. Shameful!
***************************************************************************
*
Message # 5852 Area : 53 BIOGENESIS
From : Scott Faust 04-07-93 03:13
To : Steve Geller
Subj : Re: Colin Patterson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Eugenie Scott explained in the article that Dave was quoting,
Patterson adheres to a particular school of taxonomy called
"transformed cladistics". I have never really come across a
sufficiently detailed account of what this "transformed" cladistics
actually is, but my understanding is that these folks hold that the
classification of biological organisms should be stripped of any
assumptions supplied by evolutionary theory. This, of course,
could be easily misinterpreted by our creationist friends: To say
that taxonomy should not be -informed- by evolutionary theory, but
should instead be based on independent assumptions, is nothing like
saying that evolution hasn't occurred, or that evolutionary theory
is hogwash.
But this is what strikes me as odd... So far as I can tell from
the very little I have read about it, "transformed" cladism makes
no significant modification to the methodology of cladism. And the
cladistic methodology is certainly thoroughgoing evolutionary, in
the sense that it is explicitly intended to create classifications
that correspond on a one to one basis with phylogenetic branching
events. In fact, the system was initially called "phylogenetic
systematics," but the name was changed to avoid confusion with a
more standard approach called by the same name (even though this
other is actually less phylogenetic!).
I can't see how it is possible to strip cladism of evolutionary
assumptions, unless one does so by means that amount to little more
than mere declaration. My guess (admittedly made without adequate
background knowledge) is that this "transformed cladism" deal is a
tempest in a teapot, concerned more with issues of semantics than
genuine substance.
However this may be, cladism only works because there are very
particular patterns of homology (similarities and dissimilarities
among corresponding features of different organisms) which do
obtain in nature; and these patterns do obtain because evolution
has occurred. Thus, cladism works because evolution has occurred.
Patterson's own attempts to decouple classification from evolution
apparently led him to recognize this. The following is from a
letter he wrote in response to inquiries from the editor of the
_Creation/Evolution Newsletter_ (v5,n5 Sept-Oct 1985):
[Luther Sunderland, the creationist who taped and transcribed
Patterson's talk, said...] "He [Patterson] changed his position
[to that of an "anti-evolutionist"] because of the dramatic
fossil evidence" -- rubbish. I got myself tangled because of
six months cogitating about homology, the central concept of
comparative biology. Five years later, I know of no alternative
to common ancestry as an explanation for homology. The efforts
I have made to find an alternative convince me that there isn't
one.
So... It seems fairly clear to me also that Patterson's describing
himself as a "non-evolutionist" or even an "anti-evolutionist," are
to be understood in terms of the approach that he was advocating
toward taxonomy. Its very clear that he was never opposed to
evolutionary theory, but only to its supposedly undesirable
intrusions into the task of classifying living organisms.
Anyway, I can understand how this all might be misinterpreted by a
layperson, and particularly by a creationist.
************************************************************************
From: PHIL NICHOLLS To: ANDREW CUMMINS
Subj: Re: Quotes Area: BIOGENESIS Date: 93/09/02
This is in response to your recent posting about Colin Patterson and
his so-called "anti-evolution" statements. Last year on GENIE I got
involved in a debate with someone who made this claim. I decided that
the best way to approach this was to go straight to the horses mouth,
so to speak. I placed a long distance call to the British Museum of
Natural History and asked to speak with Dr. Patterson. Unfortunately,
Dr. Patterson was vacationing at the time of my call. I did talk with
one of his assistants, whose name escapes me at present. I was told
that these often quoted remarks were a constant source of irritation
to Dr. Patterson and that it was perhaps best that I hadn't been able
to reach him. Dr. Patterson made those remarks IN ORDER TO GET HIS
AUDIENCE TO THINK ABOUT EVOLUTION AND WHAT IT MEANS AND NOT JUST
RECITE WHAT THEY HAD BEEN TAUGHT. It is a tactic that many good
teachers take in order to get students to think critically. Dr.
Patterson's assistant assured me that Dr. Patterson was definitely not
an anti-evolutionist, that he was in fact in the midst of editing a
new book on evolutionary biology and cladistics.
Phil Nicholls
---end of reposts
Some of these posters are still here maybe they have more to say about
Sunderland. Also here is another snippet of his work:
Area # 53 BIOGENESIS 03-31-94 21:32 Message # 258
From : SCOTT FAUST
To : BERNIE WILT
Subj : Origin of races!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jim Lippard:
Tom McIver, an anthropologist who has written several articles for
_Creation/Evolution_, _NCSE Reports_, and the _Skeptical Inquirer_, as
well as the book _Anti-Evolution: An Annotated Bibliography_, has a book
on creationism that will be published by the Univ. of California Press.
Chapter 15 of the book is titled "Creationism and Racism," and the
history of connections between creationism and racism. A shorter
version of the chapter will be published in a future issue of _Skeptic_
magazine (probably the issue after next, i.e., vol. 2, no. 4).
Anyway, I wanted to share some of it here. McIver begins with a bunch
of quotes from creationists who maintain that racism comes from belief
in evolution--Henry Morris, Ken Ham, Bert Thompson, Malcolm Bowden,
etc.--it's a pretty long list. This part really caught my eye, though:
"Evolution and racism are the same thing," declares Jerry Bergman
(McIver 1990:21; see Bergman's "Evolution and the Development of Nazi
Race Policy" in _Bible-Science Newsletter_ [1988] and articles in
_Creation Research Society Quarterly_ [1980], _CSSHQ_ [1986], and
_Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal_ [1991, 1992]).[2]
[2] Bergman has been featured in many creationist publications for
his complaint that he was denied tenure and dismissed from Bowling
Green State University "solely because of my beliefs and publications
in the area of creationism"; a cover story, for instance, in the
Creation Science Legal Defense Fund's magazine _Creation_ ("The Jerry
Bergman Story," 1984). In Bergman's _The Criterion_ (preface by
Wendell Bird, foreword by John Eidsmoe), Luther Sunderland said
Bergman was fired "solely" because of his religious beliefs--his
creationism (1984:64). But in a signed letter published in David
Duke's National Association of White People newsletter, Bergman
stated that "reverse [racial] discrimination was clearly part of the
decision"--i.e., that it was *not* solely religious discrimination
(Bergman 1985:2).
---end of second repost
I have not personally checked these, nor do I have the complete references.
I am however quite willing to write Jim Lippard for answers to any
questions you might have.
Now you tell me, who is misrepresenting what?
Peace, Larry
___
* WR # 398 * Watch out for your paradigm...shift happens.
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