Oolon Colluphid

I agree with you Deb, of course (wouldn't dare not to ). It similarly took rather a while for Wegener�s �continental drift� to become plate tectonics, despite the �obvious� fit of South America and Africa. It takes the gradual accumulation of evidence to bring about a paradigm shift.

My only defence of the molecular/fossil example is that it seems the fossil folk rejected the molecular data because it didn�t fit (despite, of course, the fact that there were no fossils that showed it didn�t), but also because they didn�t really understand it. (To be fair, why would they, they�re palaeontologists not molecular biologists! But it shows the danger of rejecting something from outside one�s field -- Fred Hoyle�s antievolutionism being the most irritating example.) Palaeontologists said things like �the mutation rates are assumed to be steady within the lineages�, to which Wilson (IIRC) angrily replied that �it�s not assumed, we measure it!� And the fact that the clock is calibrated from accurately dated fossils in the first place seemed to wash over them.

But all of this is normal in science, gradually inching closer to the truth by rejecting ideas that don�t quite work and finding better ones that do. tgamble�s cretinist doesn�t know this, however.

Cheers, Oolon