Reflectorites
On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 21:42:04 -0000, Richard Wein wrote:
[...]
RW>After lurking here for a couple of weeks, I'm just about to join in the
>discussion. I thought I'd briefly introduce myself first.
>
>I live in Bristol, England. My educational background is in maths (BSc in
>Statistics and Operational Research from the Universty of Manchester). I've
>worked mostly in software development, but also as a freelance technical
>translator (Russian to English).
Welcome to Richard!
RW>Since religion plays a large part in these discussions, I should mention
>that I'm an atheist, but not a card-carrying one. I was raised in
>progressive Judaism and have briefly tried other religions, but ultimately
>found no reason to believe in the existence of God. Nevertheless, there are
>two great mysteries of which I'm in awe: the existence of the universe (and
>its physical laws) and the existence of consciousness. Perhaps the latter
>will be less of a mystery once I've read Dennett's book "Consciousness
>Explained", which is next on my reading list.
Although Richard has said that he is an "atheist" because he "found no
reason to believe in the existence of God", perhaps he could confirm
exactly what he means by "atheist", since different atheists mean different
things by the term?
The Webster's online dictionary captures these two meanings of "atheism"
as follows: "a: a disbelief in the existence of deity" and "b: the doctrine that
there is no deity". (http://m-w.com/cgibin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=atheism)
Does Richard make the strong claim that there *is* no God, or does he
merely make the weaker claim that he doesn't *believe* there is a God?
If the latter, how does Richard distinguish his position from agnosticism
which holds that one does not, or cannot know that there is a God?
RW>As you might expect from the above, I'm an "evolutionist", that is I think
>the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is broadly correct.
I am glad to see there actually is an evolutionist who states up front that
he believes in Neo-Darwinism. After 5 years on this Evolution Reflector I
was starting to wonder if I would ever meet one! :-)
Phillip E. Johnson has a question which he puts to Neo-Darwinists, and
which they have great difficulty in answering, and usually evade it by
blurring the issue and/or counter-attack. Perhaps Richard can answer it
fairly and squarely without evasion and counter-attack? It is as follows:
"What evidence persuades you, that random mutation and natural selection
has the fantastic creative power attributed to it by Neo-Darwinists"?
RW>I consider
>creationism and ID to be pseudoscience, in a similar league to astrology,
>dowsing and Atlantis.
Perhaps Richard could also clarify exactly what he means by "creationism"?
In particular, does Richard make any distinction between Young-Earth
Creationism and old-Earth creationist positions such as Progressive
Creation?
And while we are at it, maybe Richard can also clarify exactly what he
means by " pseudoscience"? What is the criteria he uses for demarcating
true science from pseudoscience?
Steve
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Stephen E. (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ Email: sejones@iinet.net.au
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Web: http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Warwick 6024 -> *_,--\_/ Phone: +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, Western Australia v "Test everything." (1 Thess. 5:21)
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