Ross and all,

Those who believe believe, those who don't don't. That's a fact of life.
But let everyone, man, woman and child decide for themselves what their
attitude towards evolution or creation will be. Denying people the knowledge
to make such a choice consciously is to be highly condemned. (in my
opinion). Therefore I sincerely hope the 'Jayhawk Revolution' will fail.

Greetings to all of you,

Erick






-----Original Message-----
From: Ross Mayhew <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, August 16, 1999 6:04 PM
Subject: Evolution and other theories


>        I think people are getting just a trifle too exited about the
"Jayhawk revolution" development: so
>far as i know, this is not as if the Scopes monkey trial had been re-run,
and the monkeys lost this
>time: i do not know the exact wording of what was passed, but i think they
just said is wasn't
>*mandatory* to teach evolutionary theory in grade school - they didn't say
that creationistic
>viewpoints should be taught instead of, or even together with the current
scientific thinking on the
>subject.  Granted, this is a possibility for the future, but it has not
happened yet.
>        Now, as to whether Evolution is a theory, this is, as Holmes would
have said "sedementary, my dear
>Watson" : everything that cannot be directly observed  (and nobody has ever
observed speciation
>first-hand!!!) *must* be called a theory!  Evolution of some sort - whether
classical Darwinian
>gradualism, or "punctuated equilbrium" or "hopeful monster" stories - seems
to be the best
>explanation of the fossil record as we know it, so it is the prevailing
theory; but like many things
>in Science, such as the life-cycles of stars and galaxies or the internal
workings of the sun's
>core, it cannot be observed directly, therefore must remain a theory: the
explanation which best
>fits the observations to date.  (An example of a theory that became a fact
is dinosaur reproduction:
>in the early days of fossilling, dinosaur skeletons were observed to be
reptilian in nature - hence
>it was theorized that they would have laid eggs, like modern reptiles.
Sure enough, dinosaur eggs
>were soon discovered, and that theory became a fact: nobody can now deny
that certain dinosaurs for
>which we have eggs and embryos, did indeed reproduce in a manner similar to
modern reptiles - but
>before the eggs were observed directly, their existance was simply a
theory.
>Cheers,
>Ross M.
>--
>Ross Mayhew:  Schooner Specimen Shells:
Http://www.schnr-specimen-shells.com
>"We Specialize in the Unusual"
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>