Re: ID and Scientific Utility

Eduardo G. Moros (moros_eg@rophys.wustl.edu)
Fri, 26 Sep 97 15:05:24 -0600

I hate to recurr to dogmatics but here I go anyways. Religious baggage we
have, undeniably. No man is truly objective w.r.t. God wheter theist or
atheist, everyone has something at stake. Now, after 150 years of evolution
plus all the centuries of 1001 other worldviews there is more in the bag that
biblical baggage (which I suppose was the most abundant content in the
religious bag you were handing over judging by the context of your message).
In the baggage we also have Naturalistisms of every kind and form, and that no
one should forget. I am not defending Johnson, I am just giving some balance
to your arguments because I believe that the conclusions you seem to have
arrive at based on the "data" available are also extremely premature. I, for
example, don't believe in evolution of the species (much less in purely
natural outburst of organized self-replicating and self-defending life) even
if you could add to the existing evidence. Similarities at all levels:
physical, bioligical, molecular, etc. only implies common descent because of
the "evolutionary baggage". I do believe in certain kind of common descent
which is not necessarily evolutionary which I'm sure you can guess.

Prematurely speaking,

Salu2

>As I've said before I read _Darwin on Trial_ as a good summary of the
>evidence for evolution once I remove all the rhetoric. Even _Darwin's
>Black Box_ reviews plausible explanations for the origin of biochemical
>complexity (especially if you know the things that Behe doesn't tell
>us--now there I go donning my high priestly robes), even though Behe denies
>their plausibility. If we didn't have all this religious baggage, I think
>that all would see the theory of common ancestry to be just as compelling
>as atomic theory, given the evidence (AND given theism). You see, it's
>just that the Bible doesn't say anything that intersects with atomic theory
>so there's no reason to doubt the claims of science on that one. As
>another proviso, I'm happy to separate the discussion about abiogenesis
>from the discussion of common ancestry and to admit that the evidence is
>much less compelling; however, I'm actually optimistic to the point of
>saying that all claims of the impossibility or implausibility of
>abiogenesis are extremely premature.
>
>Terry G.