Seems to me that the quotations are totally irrelevant, like asking
Madelyn Murray O'Hare (I'm not sure of the spelling)as an authority on
the existence of God. If they begin with scientism and atheism, what else
could they say? They are as sophisticated theologically and
philosophically as some folks I knew in Esmeraldas were medically. They
closed their windows when a funeral procession passed by because the
_viento del muerto_ or "wind from the dead" would cause them to be sick.
This of course is the danger when amoebic dysentery is killing as many as
15 a day in a population of no more than 7000.
Dave
On Sat, 1 Jul 2000 07:27:21 EDT RDehaan237@aol.com writes:
>
> In a message dated 6/30/2000 12:11:21 PM, wendee@greendzn.com
> writes:
>
> << Now I teach college biology I and generally consider that I have
> a
>
> good understanding of evolutionary theory. And I don't see that
>
> scientists' current understanding of Darwinian evolution (i.e. the
>
> synthetic theory or neo-Darwinian theory) "claims" that (1) it is
>
> undirected (2) it progressed randomly (3) it progresses from simple
> to
>
> complex. >>
>
> Wendee:
>
> There are prominent evolutionists who say that evolution is
> undirected. Here
> are some:
>
> Perhaps the most prominent synthetic evolutionary theorist was
> George Gaylord
> Simpson, who as you know, was a mid-century world class
> paleontologist. He
> wrote, "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic
> process that
> did not have him in mind...He happens to repre sent the high est
> form of
> organization of matter and energy that has ever ap peared” " (The
> Meaning of
> Evolution. 1950, p. 344). In a later edition he changed
> "materialistic" to
> "naturalistic".
>
> In another place he wrote, “Evolution has no purpose; man must
> supply this
> for himself” (p. 310).
>
> Francisco Ayala, past president of American Association for the
> Advancement
> of Science asserted that Darwin’s “mechanism, natural se lection,
> excluded
> God as the explanation accounting for the obvious design of
> or ganisms”
> (Darwin’s revolution. In Campbell, J. H. and Schopf, J. W., Eds.
> Creative
> Evolution. 1995, p. 5).
>
> Dawkins (1987) expanded and popularized the idea of purposelessness:
> "Natural
> selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin
> dis cov ered, and which we now know is the explanation for the
> existence and
> ap parently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in
> mind.…Natural
> selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see
> ahead, does
> not plan conse quences, has no purpose in view” (The Blind
> Watchmaker" pp. 5,
> 21).
>
> That Darwinism is goal-less is asserted in a modern college biology
> text book
> by Purves, et al.. These authors state: "Accepting this paradigm
> (Darwinism,
> DH) means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also
> the view
> that the living world is constantly evolving, but with out any
> 'goals.' The
> idea that evolutionary change is not directed toward a final goal or
> state
> has been more difficult for some people to accept than the process
> of
> evolution itself" (Life: The Science of Biology, 4th ed. 1995, p.
> 14..).
>
> Simpson’s assertion that evolution has no purpose; “man must supply
> that for
> himself,” is the essen tial message of evolution for education,
> according to
> Futuyama (Science on Trial: The Case of Evolution, 1983, p. 13).
> “Some
> shrink from the conclusion that the human species was not designed,
> has no
> purpose, and is the product of mere mechanical mechanisms” (
> Evolutionary
> Biology. 2nd Ed. 1986, p. 3). In an open letter.
>
> The National Association of Biology Teachers an organization of
> science
> teachers, endorses, among other statements, this one on evolution:
> "The
> diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an
> unpredictable and
> natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that
> is
> affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and
> changing
> environments."
>
> In an open letter to Richard Storey, to the President of the NABT,
> Massimo
> Pigliucci defined evolution this way "The diversity of life on
> earth is the
> outcome of evolution,: a natural process of temporal descent with
> genetic
> modification that is _non-directional_, except for human
> intervention, and is
> explicable by principles of physical and biological science, and
> historical
> contingencies (emphasis mine.) (March 22, 1998)
>
> He explained the word "non-directional" "First it implies that
> evolution is
> not going anywhere in particular, on which most evolutionists would
> agree....Second, and most importantly, it takes care of old (wrong)
> theories
> of "internal" forces directing evolution toward increasing
> complexity or of
> the whole idea of a "ladder of being". In other words, don't look
> at
> evolution as a process aimed at producing humans, because there is
> no
> evidence that it is."
>
> As recently as September 1999 Ernst Mayr "one of the towering
> figures in the
> history of evolutionary biology" gave a lecture in Stockholm on
> receiving the
> Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. It was
> published in
> the July 2000 issue of _Scientific American_. One of his main
> points was
> that "Darwin's theory of natural selection made _any_ invocation of
> teleology
> unnecessary" (p. 82. Emphasis added).
>
> In my opinion purposelessness is deeply embedded in evolutionary
> theory. I
> doubt if you would find any mainline evolutionists who would deny
> this.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bob
>
>
>
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