Hi all,
I hate to disagree, but I must. There are many active listservs
dedicated to ID, creationism, etc., of which talk.origins is among the
best (
http://www.talkorigins.org/ ). And I strongly recommend
them.
But those broad listservs do not focus primarily on paleontological
issues, of which many of our threads here are. Let's face it,
biologists, astronomers, chemists, ecologists (creationism almost never
shows up on the ecolog listserv), and many soft-rock geologists deal with
evolution in their work, but it's either ancillary (applied, as in
biostratigraphy), using living organisms (which can be "seen living
today" and therefore thought to be more "factual"), or so
saturated in math (most of astronomy and biology) that it's a different
issue. For example, most creationists (at least the savvier ones)
are fine with microevolution. Almost all of my students can
rationalize natural selection acting on populations.
But the reason evolution (as seen by paleontologists) is almost always
going to be held in greater doubt by the public is because of the deep
time element. This really is distinct from most other disciplines
that deal with evolution as a routine matter. And so while I could
understand (and would surely join) a separate listserv for
"paleontologists-defending-evolution," I really think it
belongs here on paleonet.
Basically, I really do think we have a bigger battle to fight than
most. And the decline of paleontology does not bode well for this,
especially since most evolutionary biologists (our sister group) don't
consider deep time. And this is even more important since there are
legitimate issues that paleontologists and biologists do argue over (and
that add further fuel to the creationist's fire).
As always, I'm speaking from my own experience. But I hear it's a
big problem elsewhere too.
Phil
At 04:31 AM 3/29/2005, you wrote:
The question is not
"which sort of ms do I want to read?" nor "shall we keep
on getting ms about evolution vs. creationism?" ...
Regarding the first question, I fully support Jere H. Lipps's Opinion,
that is "(...) the talk about vertebrates, most inverts, email
requests, equipment, etc, not what I want to read either. But it is
all part of being a community."
Regarding the 2nd question, I just wonder whether an issue generating
more than 20 ms weekly is well suited for a Newsgroup/List (that should
have been the original question!) or if it deserves a dedicated Forum
(taht is a possible answer!) ...
In my opinion, the discussion about "evolution vs. creationism"
is generating too many ms to be part of a Newsgroup/List! There are many
tools / facilities (PHP, Perl, ASP, ... some are eventually available as
freewares) to build such a Forum ... I believe your IT (Information
Technology) people can help you to build it!
Any volunteer?
BG
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTE NEW CONTACT INFORMATION
Phil
Novack-Gottshall
pnovackg@westga.edu
Assistant
Professor
Department of
Geosciences
"Do not be too moral. You
may cheat
University of West
Georgia
yourself out of much of life.
Aim above
Carrollton,
GA
morality. Be not simply good;
be good
30118-3100
for something."
Phone:
678-839-4061
-- H.D. Thoreau
Fax: 678-839-4071
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~