Not for him. But, for him, what would be?
In “Understanding Bayesian Analysis, the Evolution Skeptic’s Friend” (Evolution News & Views, May 24, 2012), forensic analyst Stephen A. Batzer offers support for Bayesian analysis:
Jerry Coyne, in his polemic Why Evolution is True, scoffs at those 91 percent who find his analysis unconvincing. He writes, “True, breeders haven’t turned a cat into a dog, and laboratory studies haven’t turned a bacterium into an amoeba … but it is foolish to think that these are serious objections to natural selection.”
Of course these are, in fact, serious objections; Dr. Coyne doesn’t get to choose what data is and isn’t objectionable to others. Major speciation via undirected processes is the crux of the Darwinian narrative. If it can’t be replicated, this objection is an example of what logicians call a “defeater.” If you, an intelligent actor using skill, can’t breed a cat into a different genera, then presumably and reasonably nature can’t do this either.
Unless, of course, nature gets her a whiff of that ol’ Darwinian magic.