>     My absurd assertion was to get you and James to come up 
>  from the depth for a real discussion of Darwinian Evolution.
I'm not sure what depth I'm supposed to come up from.  Also, I'm not 
sure what James has to do with this;  my original statement was made to  
Eric Watt Forste, and Tim Freeman replied.  I don't recall that James 
commented on this.  
I was using the term "Darwinian" loosely.  I am not at all committed to 
the idea that Darwin's mechanism of natural selection is the whole 
story.  To get an argument on that point you should bait Dawkins, not 
me.  
I certainly agree that this subject is important and worth discussing at 
length.  But is this the right forum in which to do it?  I am less and less 
convinced that unstructured e-mail arguments are a productive use of 
anybody's time.  
I am going to open an on-line university.  The curriculum will be quite 
different from any existing university.  The concept of causality will be 
explored from many angles.  The origin of species will be one of our 
main concerns.  The discussion will be structured in such a way as to 
avoid pointless semantic arguments, flameouts, and other unpleasant 
phenomena of e-mail lists.  Stay tuned.  
Lyle