I do indeed think that the matter of paradigm change is slow and difficult.
I agree with most of what Kuhn said in his first book. (For a while, I
included this book in a course for upperclassmen. I think now that the main
difficulty I had was their immaturity in the sciences: one has to know
someting of the seventeenth to twentieth century struggles in the sciences
before appreciating Kuhn's analysis.)
Even so, if there is one exception to the previously-accepted general
theory of evolution, it will sit there like a bone in the throat.
One more point: When I said that it would be a paradigm change if the
assumption that all biological systems have evolved were replaced by the
assumption that such systems may either have evolved or been intelligently
designed, one might conclude that the new suggested paradigm is too fuzzy.
But an either-or might be the most fundamental statement one could make. It
is, in fact, possible that such a statement would be _true_.
In the Lord,
Russell Maatman
e-mail: rmaat@mtcnet.net
----------
> From: RDehaan237@aol.com
> To: rmaat@mtc1.mtcnet.net; asa@calvin.edu
> Cc: evolution@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: Fw: Mere Creation conference
> Date: Friday, November 22, 1996 6:31 AM
>
> Russ Maatman wrote the following on Nov. 21:
>
> "But the fact remains: once that clear case of intelligent design has
been
> shown, then all subsequent investigations may not be carried out assuming
> that all systems have evolved gradualistically. So the underlying
assumptions
> for each investigation change from a set that includes 'All biological
> systems have evolved gradualistically' to a set that replaces that
assumption
> with 'A given biological system may have evolved gradualistically or it
may
> have been intelligently designed.' That's a paradigm change."
>
> I wish it were as simple as that, Russ. If you read Hugh Ross's _The
> Fingerprint of God_ you will find example after example of how
cosmologists
> and astrophysicists fought the idea that the universe had a beginning,
with
> the implication, acknowledged by Einstein, of "the presence of a superior
> reasoning power". This contentious effort went on for years. The same
kind
> of prolonged, vitriolic struggle can be expected in biology in a
paradigm
> shift from gradualistic Darwinian mechanisms to systemic intelligent
design.
>
> A scientific revolution, or change of paradigms, is an all-or-none
affair.
> Kuhn says, "The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously
the
> decision to accept another' (p. 77). Later, in a chapter entitled
> "Revolutions as Changes of World View" he wrote, "Nevertheless, paradigm
> changes do cause scientist to see the world of their research-engagement
> differently" (p. 11). In the same chapter he said, "Scientists then
often
> speak of the 'scales falling from their eyes' or of the 'lightning flash'
> that 'inundates' a previously obscure puzzle, enabling its components to
be
> seen in a new way that for the first time permits its solution" (p. 122).
> The change of world views in biology will be from strictly naturalistic
> (even meta-naturalistic) to a yet-to-be clearly articulated,
> interactive-creation or realistic-theistic one. So it is unlikely that
> "gradualism" and "intelligent design" will co-exist in the new paradigm,
> except to allow gradualism to put come-lately adaptive finishing touches
on
> intelligently designed, irreducibly designed systems.
>
> In Christ,
>
> Bob