Thanks for poiting this out Jim, but I'm not sure why you single me out here.
de Duve's comments are important not just for philosophical naturalists who
confuse science with metaphysics (a point I've made several times before),
but also important for their critics. One common complaint of Christians
about evolution is that the random part automatically excludes God. This is
only true if you assume the naive viewpoint of the woman to whom de Duve
responded:
>She fails to mention, however, that many popularizers of evolution, from
>Jacques Monod to Stephen Jay Gould, are partly responsible for this revival by
>using science as a prop for ideology.
>
>Ms. Mathews is herself a victim of this kind of indoctrination when she writes
>that "Darwinian evolution ... means that human life is a cosmic accident, with
>no purpose." That misleadingly presents as scientifically proven a
>philosophical view which some scientists, but by no means all, derive from
>established facts and their accepted interpretation....
>
>The philosophical inference of "cosmic accident with no purpose" hinges on an
>implicit acceptance of the word "random" as meaning "determined by chance
>among a huge number of more or less equally probable possibilities." It
>neglects the fact that, in biological evolution, chance operates within a set
>of internal constraints...(the genome)" (clip)
To which I would add the possible role of external constraints such as
selection.
To view the nature and interaction of such constraints as totally determined
by chance, purposless, not interconnected is to make a metaphysical
conclusion about science. However, to believe that these constraints have
purpose and are somehow regulated by God is also to make metaphysical
conclusions about science.
What I don't understand from creationists is, when you disagree with the
metaphysical conclusions, why do you tend to discard the science? Why not
criticize the metaphysics and let the science stand or fall on its own right
rather than on the basis of how some would overinterpret it?
I introduce the philosophy of bilogy to my students using evolution as an
example of the limits of science. In doing so, I try to have them
understand the problem of presuming absolute metaphysical truths on the
basis of scientific information. At least some students are surprised to
learn how they have bought into such thinking and learn that scientific data
never support only one theory. Thus, I try to teach them that it is
intellectually honest to acknowledge that evolutionary data also are
consistent with a theory of intelligent design. Whether or not they believe
in design or purposeless randomness has more to do with the metaphysics they
believe than with the science they learn.
This is also a good lesson for creationists.
Cheers,
Steve
__________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53792
"I had a great deal of respect for that preacher and I was saddened when
he was called to a bigger church. He was a Baptist, but he was still a
loss to the community". Ferrol Sams in EPIPHANY
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