From: Gary Collins (gwcollins@algol.co.uk)
Date: Fri Nov 07 2003 - 09:35:52 EST
--Original Message Text---
From: Michael Roberts
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2003 11:41:26 -0000
WHAT IS DARWINISM?
The whole problem with Denyse's interviews and the ISCID article is that it puts up Darwinism as a strawman. I dont know what
Darwinism is as it has as many definitions as there are people. Of course, this approach is to retain the big tent of ID.
It also prevents us from considering non-reductionist and non-atheistic and non-chance views of evolution .
Before we can consider all this;
What is the status of the age of the earth and the fossil succession over time?
Any discussion which does not deal with that is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark
What is chance and natural selection?
A lot of confusion is caused by the loose use of terms such as chance, Darwinism and Naturalism.
Michael
I generally agree with this. I'm not especially an advocate of ID myself. I sympathise with
their views to the extent that I believe it is certainly possible that God (aka the IDer)
specifically intervened in some way at some points in evolutionary history. If this is the
case, then in my opinion - and it is only my opinion - this would most likely have been
accomplished by 'rigging' probabilities, such that an extremely improbable event
becomes actualised, and as such would not be distinguishable from a 'purely natural
process' (another loaded phrase). ID should not, in my opinion be viewed as part of
science, because it seems to me that it will never be possible to show that something IS
intelligently designed - in the sense of being specifically manipulated in some way. As a
result, (a) if something is declared to be 'IDed' the research effectively stops there, as you
can't then investigate the details, at least not by a scientific process; and (b) wouldn't
they look sheepish if someone subsequently shows the example to be not ID after all.
OTOH I think it is extremely important to avoid dogmatism, and to keep in mind at all
times that all our theories, even the best ones, are not as watertight as we might like them
to be, and perhaps to think a bit more about what the confidence levels for a particular
theory, or part of a theory, might be. To weigh up pros and cons a bit more. I'm sure we
all know this and assume it as an 'unsaid' but sometimes in our discourses we might
speak as though we have forgotten this, and I am, I think, as guilty in that regard as
anyone else! And it's important too that when we don't know something, for scientists
to honestly admit as much. Our methodological naturalism, whilst extremely useful,
even indispensible, may in the end turn out to have its limitations.
/Gary
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