From: Susan Brassfield Cogan <Susan-Brassfield@ou.edu>
[...]
>"evolutionist" is fine. Evolutionary biology cannot detect the
>supernatural. Therefore it has nothing much to say on the subject except
>"get your religious beliefs out of my face." Life did not arise
>"accidentally" from inert chemicals. Physics is not accidental which is why
>people refer to "laws" of physics.
I think this is misleading. Our present understanding (based on quantum
physics and chaos theory) is that physical laws do give rise to true
randomness. Thus the origin of life probably was a random event, i.e.
"accidental". But random does not mean unlikely or without cause.
This is my part of my ongoing campaign to educate the public about the
meaning of randomness, a much misunderstood concept. Susan is in good
company here. ;-)
>If the conditions are right, life is
>inevitable.
That may not be true. We have no idea how likely the origin of life was.
>Why not? Randomness terrifies you. Physics should comfort you.
Randomness does unsettle people. I think we have a natural tendency to
prefer things to be predictable.
Richard Wein (Tich)
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