On Sat, 12 Jul 1997 23:18:42 -0400, Brian D Harper wrote:
[...]
SJ>Gould concludes with a call for pluralism: "In summary, Darwin
>cut to the heart of nature by insisting so forcefully that "natural
>selection has been the main, but not the exclusive means of
>modification"--and that hard-line adaptationism could only represent
>a simplistic caricature and distortion of his theory. We live in a
>world of enormous complexity in organic design and diversity--a
>world where some features of organisms evolved by an algorithmic
>form of natural selection, some by an equally algorithmic theory of
>unselected neutrality, some by the vagaries of history's
>contingency, and some as byproducts of other processes. Why should
>such a complex and various world yield to one narrowly construed
>cause? Let us have a cast of cranes, some more important and
>general, others for particular things--but all subject to scientific
>understanding, and all working together in a comprehensible way."
>
>Which only goes to confirm ReMine's point that "Evolutionary
>theory is a smorgasbord": "The central illusion of evolution lies
>in making a wide array of contradictory mechanisms look like a
>seamless whole. There is no single evolutionary mechanism-there are
>countless. Evolutionary theory is a smorgasbord: a vast buffet of
>disjointed and conflicting mechanisms waiting to be chosen by the
>theorist. For any given question, the theorist invokes only those
>mechanisms that look most satisfying. Yet, the next question
>elicits a different response, with other mechanisms invoked and
>neglected. Evolutionary theory has no coherent structure. It is
>amorphous. It is malleable and can readily adjust to disparate
>patterns of data. Evolution accommodates data like fog accommodates
>landscape. In fact evolutionary theory fails to clearly predict
>anything about life that is actually true....evolution is not
>science." (ReMine W.J., "The Biotic Message", 1993, p24)
BH>If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a couple of questions.
I "don't mind" at all. Thank you for your "questions".
BH>(1) Why is it unreasonable to suppose that a complex phenomena may
>involve many different mechanisms? Or, as Gould put it: "Why
>should such a complex and various world yield to one narrowly
>construed cause?"
I didn't say it was "unreasonable". Please don't put words into my
mouth. I said it was "a smorgasbord...a vast buffet of disjointed
and conflicting mechanisms waiting to be chosen by the theorist."
The problem of "many different mechanisms" is that it will never
be possible to show scientifically which (if any) of these
"mechanisms" were the "cause" as Patterson notes:
"When these two theories [natural selection and genetic drift] are
combined, as a general explanation of evolutionary change, that
general theory is no longer testable. Take natural selection: no
matter how many cases fail to yield to a natural selection analysis,
the theory is not threatened, for it can always be said that these
failures of selection theory are explained by genetic drift. And no
matter how many supposed examples of genetic drift are shown to be
due, after all, to natural selection, the neutral theory is not
threatened, for it never pretended to explain all evolution."
(Patterson C., "Evolution", 1978, p70, in Bird W. R., "The Origin of
Species Revisited", Vol. II, 1991, p113)
Indeed, if evolution "may involve many different mechanisms", why may
it not also "involve" the actions of an Intelligent Designer?
BH>(2) Why is it unreasonable that some mechanisms might be active
>in some situations and not in others?
See above. I did not say it was "unreasonable". But if "some
mechanisms might be active in some situations and not in others", how
do we know which among these many "mechanisms" was, or indeed if
*any* "mechanism" was?
And do you consider it "unreasonable" that an Intelligent Designer
might have used those natural "mechanisms" in a supernatural way?
BH>(3) Why is it unreasonable to describe a particular case only in
>terms of the mechanisms appropriate to that case?
Again, I did not say it was "unreasonable". But how do you determine
what was the "appropriate" "mechanism"? Why may not the supernatural
influence or intervention of an Intelligent Designer be one "of the
mechanisms appropriate to that case"?
God bless.
Steve
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