Re: Crocodile Rock
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
15 Oct 1995 01:57:36 -0400
David Froehlich <eohippus@curly.cc.utexas.edu> writes:
>No, virtually nothing is impossible, just implausible. The explanation
>that best explains the data with the fewest non-testable assumptions is
>the one to be preffered.
Is this a new version of philosophy of science. If assumptions could
be tested we wouldn't have to assume them.
If you are saying that this is something like a mathematical
proof in which you assume A and then find that it leads to a
contradiction, then so far the one that has more serious
problems and is still flaky is the "savannah". It probably
was never even meant to be a theory to begin with. Someone just
looked at the feet and said "Oh, they're not for climbing so
they were walking around and hence they could not have been
in a forest. Therefore they were out in the grasslands."
When it's time to consider the difficulties of this process
with as much stringence as the aquatic version, it fails at least
as miserably, and definitely more miserably according to those
who favor some kind of AAT.
AAS makes a lot of untestable assumptions (no
>fossil data for the aquatic phase, etc.)
Here we go again. "untestable assumptions" ????? "no fossil data"????
what??? What exactly do you expect? Maybe a fossil that's got
"I was aquatic" stamped on it? If it's found in an aquatic area, then
"Oh, well many of them are because that's how they are preserved."
Well then where should they be found? in the air? on mountain tops?
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
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