patrick at corona
Mon May 29 10:40:52 EST 1995
On 29 May 1995, A.Marchant wrote:
> > After billions of dollars, years of research,
> > and busloads of fossils providing what one
> > eminent scientist referred to as less than a
> > coffin-full of "evidence", I would think you
> > people would have moved on by now.
> Evidence, when composed of disparate kinds of data, is difficult to
> quantify. A 'coffin-full' seems to be an eminently suitable unit.
> Let us then calibrate one coffin-full to be equal to 1.25 times the
> amount of evidence that there is for evolution - this would make the amount
> of evidence for evolution equal to 0.8 coffin-fulls (Scotto is not
> precise in saying how much less than one coffin-full of evidence there is
> for evolution).
Ah, but such a measure (and I would question a mere coffin-load unless
you are restricting fossil evidence to humans alone) does not account
for the mass of observational evidence and molecular biological evidence
which only takes up paper-space or disk space, depending on the storage
media. If you wish to somehow equate information and raw data with mass
and volume, you would end up with FAR more than a single coffin-full.
Evolution evidence includes fossils, bones, and data on more than just
the hominid line and so the initial coffin reference is falsified.
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