Anyway, I'd like to ask Walter about a couple things he said. Given the
above circumstances, it may be that things have already been said which
provide answers, and if so the proper response to my questions might
just be: "pipe down and read your mail before sticking your oar in."
A couple days ago, Walter, you said:
2) Loren's "test" of evolution was the instantaneous origin of a new
life
forms (perhaps simultaneously around the world). The main thrust of my
response, was that Loren's test, even it it "failed", would not refute
evolution, on the contrary it would be an astounding demonstration of
evolution and would be joyfully received by evolutionists.
Maybe I misconstrued Loren's suggestion, but I thought that he meant
something like this. Suppose that some very novel new life form,
something seriously unlike and obviously not closely related to anything
else past or present, suddenly appeared full blown at various widely
scattered places around the planet - in short, suppose that we presently
observed the very sort of thing which some creationists claim happened
multiple times (once for each kind) initially. That, says Loren as I
read him, would be a crushing blow to evolutionary scenarios. But if
that is what he meant, then I don't quite see why you think
evolutionists would be "joyful" about the whole thing. I would expect
them to be at it hammer and tongs, tooth and nail, trying to make the
case that what we all knew we had seen hadn't really happened that way
at all. So am I misunderstanding Loren, you, or evolutionists?
Second, you have said several times things like "life's biologic unity
is evidence against evolution" (that particular statement was from Nov
29). But why is that? Among other things you note in that context are
that "Evolution never predicted that all life would be indelibly united
by its designs (such as biologic universals at the biochemical level)"
and that "evolution allows that two distant descendants (such as man and
microbe) cold well be totally different and completely lacking the
overwhelming unity we seen in life." But, of course, that a theory does
not predict some data, or that it is also consistent with other
(non-actual) data does not of itself pose any particular problems for a
theory. Newtonian physics did not predict that the sun would have nine
planets, and would have allowed that there could well have been 10 or
12. But there being exactly nine was not a problem, much less any sort
of falsification.
I take it, however, that you were not denying any of that, since on that
point you also say that "On the contrary, evolutionists now REJECT all
the known biologic universals as far too complex to have been in the
first life forms. In other words, they claim that life without any of
the known biolgic universals MUST HAVE EXISTED ON THIS PLANET..."
(Walter's caps). That, I take it, is what your objection rests upon.
But that only means that evolutionists do not accept universals which
hold presently as holding through all times in life's history. Present
universals speak against evolution only if the fact that those
universals hold presently also implies that they held at all times
during life's history, or if we have some additional reason for thinking
that they did. Perhaps they were historically universal, but their
holding at present does not demonstrate that, nor - since the only
biologic universals you mentioned were those "at the biochemical level"
- do we have any very good observational data concerning whether or not
those universals held in the deep past. So, an evolutionist might want
to say that there are certain biochemical features that universally
characterize life now, but which in the past initially did not, those
characteristics having developed evolutionarily over time. If we have
evidence that those present universalities also held in the past, then
the evolutionist is in trouble. If we have reason to believe that such
universalities cannot develop over time, then the evolutionist is in
trouble. But do we have either sort of case? If not, how does the mere
fact that there are present universal (biochemical or other)
characteristics of life create any difficulties for the evolutionist?
And in any case, your whole thrust here seems to me to be just a bit off
key. Biologic unity can, it seems to me, be perfectly well fitted into
an evolutionary scenario. Indeed, given the general evolutionary idea
of all life being, at worst, cousins, significant underlying unities
are certainly not intuitively outrageous. So exactly what is behind
your surprisingly (to me) powerful insistence that unity militates
against evolution?
I've got one other sort of question. I'm not quite sure exactly how to
situate it, and it isn't maybe quite as clear cut as I'd like, but since
there's nobody here but us chickens I'll ask it anyway.
I'm a bit worried about theory flexibility. Biologic unity can, as you
argue, be taken as evidence for single designerhood - one of the things
you identify as one of God's intentions (or the Designer's intentions).
But suppose that there were no such unity. One could perfectly well
take that as resulting from a designer's intention to make it obvious
that there were groups with no possible ancestral ties - i.e., that
evolution was out of the question - another of the things you identify
as one of the Designer's intentions. There are two broad themes in life
to be explained - unity and diversity. The Designer, on your theory,
has (among others) two intentions - indicating singleness and
undercutting evolution. Biochemical unity can serve the first
intention, but we could take biochemical diversity (were that what we
found) to serve the second intention. Or you have also on occasion
cited absence of wide-ranging crossbreeding as undercutting evolution.
Thus a discontinuous diversity of breeding groups you take as support
for the second intention - undercutting evolution. But suppose that we
had not found this diversity, and that there was wide-ranging
crossbreeding - i.e., a unity of interfertility. Well, that we could
take as support for the first intention - providing evidence of a single
designer, all of whose productions could int eract fruitfully.
So, I guess what is bothering me is that it seem that just as
evolutionists (on your view) have a variety of explanatory resources
which for at least a wide range of things allow them to incorporate
results either way into the system somewhere, your view is a bit that
way as well.
Is that a mischaracterization?
Del