Re: really big question

From: Stephen E. Jones (sejones@iinet.net.au)
Date: Sat Apr 08 2000 - 20:40:53 EDT

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    Reflectorites

    On Sat, 08 Apr 2000 16:47:11 -0700, Cliff Lundberg wrote:

    >SJ>...Sounds to me like the
    >>forward planning of a far-sighted Intelligent Designer, not a `blind
    >watchmaker'!]

    CL>...If one doesn't
    >begin with a bias toward teleology, the notion of 'preparing' has no appeal
    >at all.

    Or to put it another way, if one *does* "begin with a bias" *against*
    "teleology, the notion of 'preparing' has no appeal at all"!

    Remember Crick's exhortation:

    "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not
    designed, but rather evolved. " (Crick F.H.C., "What Mad Pursuit,"
    1990, p.138).

    Steve

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    "Nor, fourthly, would any man in his senses think the existence of the
    watch, with its various machinery, accounted for, by being told that it was
    one out of possible combinations of material forms; that whatever he had
    found in the place where he found the watch, must have contained some
    internal configuration or other; and that this configuration might be the
    structure now exhibited, viz. of the works of a watch, as well as a different
    structure." (Paley W., "Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence
    and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature,"
    [1802], St. Thomas Press: Houston, TX, 1972, reprint, p.4)
    Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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