>Biologists on the other hand are frequently scholed in evolutionary
>thinking and therefore its philosophical import.
Actually, I think that the problem is better described as not being
schooled in its philosophical import. The inherent philosophical import of
biological evolution (i.e., the physical process) or any other scientific
evidence is nothing whatsoever. Only by making some philosophical
assumption about the world can we then see if there is a match with the
scientific data. Obviously, it makes sense to collect and interpret data
only if you believe it represents something real, but it is possible to go
through the motions while denying its significance. However, with so many
atheists and creationists claiming that biological evolution has inherent
philosophical implications, it is not too surprising that many biologists
believe this without thinking about it.
>The real issue is macromutations. The real issue is wholesale invention
>of organs. Why, lets take the eye for example. what an idea.
Evolution of the eye is relatively easy to bring about gradually, as all
the intermediate steps are useful, not to mention the full range of degree
of eye development. A single light-sensitive cell is enough to detect
light versus dark, which could indicate time of day, approaching shadow, or
exposure versus hiding. All of those are useful information. Increases in
complexity allow improved visual acuity, useful for more detailed
information about the surroundings. For example, even though I am very
nearsighted, without my glasses I can still get a lot of useful information
about objects, such as avoiding obstacles while moving. In the case of
color vision in primates, the specific mutations involved in evolving from
colorblindness to full 3 color vision are known. The different forms of
eyes in different groups also shows that there is more than one way to see
a cat. Although meeting the common goal of good vision, the variation
among eyes shows that many different ways of getting to that goal exist.
In ID terms, they are not highly specified.
>> >Reality is that evolution is inserted in the text here and there
>> >almost as a chant to some unknown god but not realy for much
>> >explanatory power and certainly and absolutely no predictive
>> >power.
That is true of almost everything in an introductory textbook. I looked at
one recently to see how well it covered mollusks. None of their figures
are free of misidentification.
David C.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 13 2000 - 10:56:19 EST