>Brian Harper quotes Steve Gould:
>> Our textbooks like to illustrate evolution with examples of
>> optimal design - nearly perfect mimicry of a dead leaf by a
>> butterfly or of a poisonous species by a palatable relative.
>> But ideal design is a lousy argument for evolution, for it
>> mimics the postulated action of an omnipotent creator. Odd
>> arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution
>> - paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a
>> natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce.
>> No one understood this better than Darwin. Ernst Mayr has
>> shown how Darwin, in defending evolution, consistently turned
>> to organic parts and geographic distributions that make the
>> least sense. Which brings me to the giant panda and its "thumb."
>> -- Stephen J. Gould, 1980, _The Panda's Thumb_, W.W. Norton,
>> New York, p.20.
>>
>>This is a statement against theistic evolution every bit as much
>>as it is against special creation. How would you answer Gould?
>>
>
>Why is this a statement against TE? It seems perfectly compatible with the
>kind of evolutionary creation espoused by TEs.
>
Yes, I think this is true, but I was keying in on the argument from
imperfection. TE's believe that this is the path that God chose for
creating yet Gould says it is a path that "... a sensible God would
never tread ...". Gould is saying that if there is a God surely he
would not create via evolution, this is not a sensible way of
creating. How do we counter Gould except in the way I've been
arguing here? Gould is giving a theological argument. There is
no theory of god from which he can determine which paths are
sensible and which are not.
Brian Harper | "If you don't understand
Associate Professor | something and want to
Applied Mechanics | sound profound, use the
The Ohio State University | word 'entropy'"
| -- Morrowitz
Bastion for the naturalistic |
rulers of science |