Re: *** Post Of The Month for August 2008: Vote Now! ***

On Sep 15, 12:36 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Max wrote:
On Sep 14, 7:11 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
hersheyh wrote:
On Sep 14, 4:45 am, Ye Old One <use...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:38:31 -0700 (PDT), Friar Broccoli
<Elia...@xxxxxxxxx> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
(2) John Harshman  25 Aug 2008
Addresses three arguments by author Jonathan Wells
- That the claim that homologies are evidence or common ancestry
 is a circular argument since homologies are defined as
 similarity due to common ancestry
- That the Cambrian explosion is evidence for creation
- That Archaeopteryx isn't a missing link because modern birds
 are not descendant from it.
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/eeaee6e4e0acbe95
news:ywFsk.18915$cW3.9861@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
This one please.
--
Bob.
I also vote for Harshman's, but I am sure he will want to correct one
minor pedant point if he wins:
*Almost* all mammals have 7 cervical vertebrae.  But manatees (with 6)
and sloths (with 6 or 9) are the exceptions that prove (in its
original meaning of probe or test) the rule.
 Galis, F. 1999: Why do almost all mammals have seven cervical
vertebrae? Developmental constraints, Hox genes, and cancer J. Exp.
Zool. / Mol. Dev. Evol. 285: 19-26
My old teacher always told me that education is a process of controlled
lying. By which he meant that you have to teach the general principles
before you teach the exceptions. Mammals have 7 cervical vertebrae.
Tetrapods have 4 feet. And so on.

That always ticked me off. I hated having to wait and wait to get on
to the more realistic and interesting picture. Plus there was that
feeling w. each class of;"Ok, how much of this is real and how much is
simplified bull*** I'm going to have to edit in my mind?"

I don't really see an alternative. If you just start with the full
complexity of any phenomenon, it's incomprehensible. Mammals have 7
cervical vertebrae. Once you learn that, we can discuss the very few
exceptions. Mammals don't all have hair either, by the way

Which are the exceptions?

.