Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Why is WikiPedia so slow?

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Thu, 5 Jan 2006, Vern Green wrote:

> > Vern, there's no evidence to support the possibility that I threw a 
> > quarter into your back yard, but that doesn't mean that I didn't.
> >
> > Lacking evidence is not, in my mind, support for an alternative. You're 
> > trying to prove a negative, and that's usually pretty useless. Find 
> > some evidence positively (in the integer sense of the word) 
> > *supporting* your argument.
>
> I have mulled this statement over a few times trying to make sure that I 
> got it right, and maybe I am still a little confused. You are saying the 
> absence of a fossil record does not support that there really isn't one. 
> Are you saying that there still could be a connection, a fossil record 
> we have not found and might never find and that I am supposed to just 
> take it on FAITH and BELIEF there is such a thing?

Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the "quarter in the backyard" idea, 
but I like it.  Maybe that was Rick?

Anyway, there is no "faith and belief" in science.  You might know where 
your great grandfather was buried.  Do you have to dig up his grave to be 
confident of this, or do you just accept that he's probably there?  We 
know that chimpanzees live in Africa, that they have done so for many 
millenia, and that their bones must have been left behind.  Have you ever 
dug up any chimp bones in Africa?  But don't you think those bones must be 
there, somewhere in Africa?

It's the same with "missing links" in the fossil record.  We don't have 
every bone of every dead creature, but we do have enough to give us the 
big picture.  We also have DNA, which tells us a lot about where different 
modern species came from and how they are related to one another.  We 
don't have to see the fossils to know *something* about them.

Now, because of the weak fossil record we are really pretty weak on 
knowledge of how many hominid species there were, where they lived, when 
they lived there, etc.  Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, etc., seem to 
have lived at the same time as modern man, but there may have been many 
more such species.  We don't know the details of our own evolution and 
whether we interbred with other Homo species.  There are many big gaps to 
fill in.  Does this mean that humans were created by God?  Of course not.

Mike

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