Reflectorites
On 31 Jan 2000 18:24:53 -0000, amka@vcode.com wrote:
AC>Steve Jones:
>
>>A welcome to Ami to the Reflector. Perhaps he
>>can tell us a bit more about himself?
AC>Thanks for the welcome. I have been here for a couple of
>years though, and posted a few times. While my name may
>appear foreign, and in that case masculine.think Amy but with an `I'.
>My last name is my husband's, who is from Russia.
My apologies to Ami for not realising she had posted before and for the
sexist assumption that she was a he!
AC>I have some
>schooling in biology, so I have just slightly more than the layman's
>knowledge of evolution. It is a subject of great interest to me, so
>I've tried to keep up in these years I've been a housewife.
I am not sure that that "schooling in biology" and "knowledge
of evolution" are necessarily the same thing. I have a friend who
with a Ph.D in Zoology who is a professional entomologist. When we met
after many years absence, and got talking about evolution, I was
amazed how little he knew about it, although he knew a lot about the
*biology* of his specialty, ants.
>SJ>One of Ami's problems might be posting in HTML
>>format. He could try using text format.
AC>We have moved twice in the last few months, and I encountered
>problems with this little laptop and web based server. I pressed
>return for another paragraph and apparently the cursor was outside
>the text field on the send button. But thanks - I am using my word
>processor now while writing.
OK. But on my emailer it still came out in hard to read text with
"<br>"'s and "\"s all through it that I had to clean it up first.
>SJ>Palevitz wrongly conflates "intelligent design theory" with
>>"scientific creationism". Dembski makes it quote clear the
>>ID and SC are two entirely different things:
AC>It would appear that in most things we agree. However, I would
>like to discuss one thing you said:
>>AK>It should not be dismissed by the scientific establishment
>>purely because theists will use it as evidence that God exists.
>SJ>Agreed again. But it is precisely because they *are* "the
>>scientific establishment" that design is "dismissed ... because
>>theists will use it as evidence that God exists"!
>>
>>"Naturalistic evolution is not merely a scientific theory; it is the
>>official creation story of modern culture. The scientific priesthood
>>that has authority to interpret the official creation story gains
>>immense cultural influence thereby, which it might lose if the story
>>were called into question. The experts therefore have a vested
>>interest in protecting the story, and in imposing rules of reasoning
>>that make it invulnerable....'" (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial",
>>1993, p159).
>AC>I am of the opinion that the scientific "priesthood" is not like a
>conspiracy or anything of that sort. But it is a group of people who
>learned while they were young and impressionable that evolution was
>a completely natural process and needed no intellegent intervention.
>They took on faith the answer to many problems facing naturalistic
>evolution: Science will eventually find the naturalistic answers to
>these questions. More knowledge will prove our theory.
Agreed. No "conspiracy" is stated, implied or needed. Once a common way
of thinking (materialistic-naturalism) is in place and then enforced, the
only answers that are possible are materialistic-naturalistic ones.
AC>It has been a question of faith on both sides. And both sides have
>their dogma which cannot be contradicted by any new discovery or
>insight. Perhaps the devil planted it. Or if we interpret the theory just
>this way, and the data in just this manner, perhaps we can still have
>the planets following perfect circles. None of these people are evil,
>and want to suppress truth. They just feel they know the truth and
>naturally ignore, gloss over, or sometimes attack evidence which
>goes against the wisdom they learned in their youth. Unfortunately,
>the battle lines were drawn in the wrong place.
Sorry, but I disagree on this simplistic analysis. The real issue is *basic
metaphysical assumptions* about ultimate origins, which no one can prove
but which are indispensable to even begin reasoning. Those who believe
there is a God will see reality entirely differently from those who don't. And
in the end, one view is right and one view is wrong-either there is a God or
there isn't. There is no middle-ground between these two basic
metaphysical assumptions.
And the above "dogma" explanation is contradicted in my case. I grew up
in a non-Christian home and became an atheist. But in my mid-teens it
seemed to me, with no pressure from anyone, that there must be a God,
because of the evidence order and design of nature. When I became a
Christian a couple of years later, I went into it with my eyes wide open as
an adult convert with no one pressurising me to believe anything.
But the same is *not* the case for evolutionists. Within science one does
not have to work hard to be a materialist-naturalist, one has to swim
against the tide not to be one. In science classes, particularly in Biology,
from the first assignment onwards, the rewards are there for those who
want to toe the `party line', and the punishments are also there for those
who don't. Those who are not materialist-naturalists, but wish to remain in
science, particularly in Biology, must learn to hide their true beliefs.
AC>Occam's Razor will become a double edged sword cutting away these
>imaginary creations MikeBGene spoke about so well.
Agreed, but even Mike has pointed out that the practical value of
Ockham's razor in modern science, particularly in biology, is limited.
Originally it was used by the medieval scholastic philosopher-
theologian William of Ockham in the 14th century to decide between
competing *philosophical* theories. It's basic statement is that "Entities
are not to be multiplied beyond necessity":
"Ockham's razor, n. the principle of parsimony or economy evident in the
NOMINALISM of WILLIAM OF OCKHAM (c.1285-1349): entities not
known to exist should not be postulated as existing unless absolutely
necessary to an explanation of the phenomena. Unnecessary entities should
be erased (hence 'razor'). The usual wording, in Latin, of the principle is
Entia non sent Multiplicands Jaeger necessitated ('Entities are not to be
multiplied beyond necessity'), but this wording does not actually occur in
Ockham's writings." (Vesey G. & Foulkes P., "Collins Dictionary of
Philosophy", 1990, p212).
The key words are "without necessity". To know in advance that
something was not necessary one would have to know all (or at least a
lot) about both it and its rival. But it is highly unlikely that knowing all
(or a lot) about two opposing theories would not reveal one as
superior to the other.
So while Ockham's razor might have been a useful principle to distinguish
between rival medieval *philosophical* arguments, its application to
modern science, and especially biology, would seem to be limited or non-
existent. I have got only four dictionaries of Science (Oxford, Penguin,
Hutchinson, and Chambers) and *none* of them even mentions Ockham's
(or Occam's) razor.
The reason is that Ockham's razor would only ever come into play in
modern science when two rival hypothesis were equal in every respect,
which in practice would rarely (if ever), happen.
No one who has ever cited Ockham's razor in the 5 years I have been
on the Reflector, has ever cited an instance where it was decisive in
deciding between two otherwise exactly equal scientific hypotheses.
Maybe it has happened once or twice in more abstract sciences like
theoretical physics, but I doubt that Ockham's razor has ever been used
in biology.
The point is that science is about finding out what really happened. And
sometimes the complicated thing really happened. As Fred Hoyle says:
"When in science several paths are open to investigation it makes sense to
try the apparently simplest one first. But if what at first appeared the
simplest path turns out to lead into a morass, it then makes sense to
investigate other paths. The aim of science should be to discover the
correct path, not to adhere to an incorrect route because at first glance it
seemed simplest." (Hoyle F., "Mathematics of Evolution", 1999, p103).
Steve
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"I am convinced it is this almost trivial simplicity that explains why the
Darwinian theory is so widely accepted, why it has penetrated through the
educational system so completely. As one student text puts it, `The theory
is a two-step process. First variation must exist in a population. Second,
the fittest members of the population have a selective advantage and are
more likely to transmit their genes to the next generation.' But what if
individuals with a good gene A carry a bad gene B. having the larger value
of |s|. Does the bad gene not carry the good one down to disaster? What of
the situation that bad mutations must enormously exceed good ones in
number? ... The essential problem for the Darwinian theory in its twentieth
century form is how to cope with this continuing flood of adverse
mutations, a far cry indeed from the trite problem of only the single
mutation in (1.1). Supposing a favourable mutation to occur among the
avalanche of unfavourable ones, how is the favourable mutation to advance
against the downward pressure of the others?" (Hoyle F., "Mathematics of
Evolution", [1987], Acorn Enterprises: Memphis TN, 1999, pp8-9)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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