I wasn't aware that Walter ReMine was a biologist. I thought he
was an engineer at 3M who works in an area related to signal processing
& theory. I believe that Michael Denton, though he is not "thrilled"
with the "standard Darwinian notion of gradual change", nonetheless
thinks that the evolution of life has a naturalistic explanation -- Perhaps
he is leaning more to "punc eek" and chaos theories of change. Robert
Shapiro, as far as I know, has no "difficulty" with evolution although
he once wrote a book which evaluated different abiogenesis theories.
> I also disagree with your feeling that only biologists are capable of
> understanding and evaluating the evidence. I also wonder if it is even
> possible to obtain an advanced degree in biology without agreeing with the
> standard Darwinian paradigm. [...]
It's quite easy, though a bit uncommon. I have at least one friend with a
biochem Ph.D. who does not support the "standard Darwinian paradigm." Then
again, evolution & evolutionary biology are not directly relevant to his
chosen research area and he never really studied the question in any detail.
In all my talks with him, he acknowledged that his position was the result
of a religious preference rather than "scientific insight".
Regards, Tim Ikeda (timi@mendel.berkeley.edu)