Reflectorites
On Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:21:55 -0500, Susan Brassfield Cogan wrote:
[...]
SB>This tidbit sounded hauntingly familiar.
>
>"In a belief system that uses magic as the most logical
>explanation for illness, accidents, and other unexpected
>occurrences, there is no room for natural causes, accident, or
>chance. Witchcraft provides the explanation--it can be the
>cause for most effects. "
No doubt. If witches were *real* they could be an explanation for claimed
ID effects.
BTW in the past Susan has claimed to be "heavily influenced by ... Wicca":
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On Thu, 13 Jul 2000 09:44:38 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
SB>You seem to be assuming that atheism and Christianity are the only moral
>alternatives. Obviously that is not the case. My own morality is heavily
>influenced by the Baha'is, Buddhism, and Wicca. The truth is, that all of
>the key principles of Christianity are found in nearly every human
>religion. That is because they are *human* moral principles and humans
>merely attribute them to the religion at hand.
>
>Susan
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which I understood to be a form of "witchcraft":
"Other interesting essays on this site: If you found this essay
worthwhile, you might find some of these others of interest:
abortion, Christianity, death penalty, doomsday cults, female genital
mutilation, homosexuality, physician assisted suicide, the religious
sources of the war in Kosovo, and Witchcraft (Wicca) These are
the 8 most popular essays on our web site." (Robinson B.A.,
"Ethical aspects of human cloning," 2000-JAN-15.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/cloning.htm)
If "Wicca" is in fact a form of "witchcraft", then why is Susan defending
RM&NS? If witches were real they would defeat Darwinism too! Susan's
own quote says this:
"SB>In a belief system that uses magic as the most logical
explanation...there is no room for natural causes... Witchcraft
provides the explanation--it can be the cause for most effects. "
Remember Darwinism does not *know* that all genetic changes in the 3.9
billion year history of life were random with respect to adaptive
improvement. It just *assumes* they were because it *believes* as an
article of faith that there was nothing else available to direct genetic changes
towards adaptive improvement.
Therefore *any* form of preexisting intelligent designer(s) would be an
insuperable problem for Darwinism as a universal explanation of biological
design.
Of course neither ID nor Christian theism would claim that "there is no room
for natural causes" as Susan's quote says that "magic" and "witchcraft
would. Both ID and Christian theism would limit non-natural causes to unique
origin events, and in any cause would not even then rule out the Designer
working through "natural causes".
Indeed, at its most basic, ID (and at least some versions of Christian theism)
would see the intervention/guidance of the Designer as no more mysterious
than that of human intelligent designers.
Steve
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"The most obvious contrasts between the darwinian view of the patterns
and the rates of evolution, and the evidence that has since been
documented by the fossil record.... Darwin used the only illustration in the
first edition of The Origin of Species to explain his hypothesis that the
patterns of evolution over hundreds of millions of generations were the
same as those at the level of populations and species. In fact, they are
clearly distinct in all taxonomic groups. Evolution at the level of
populations and species might, in some cases, appear as nearly continuous
change accompanied by divergence to occupy much of the available
morphospace. However, this is certainly not true for long-term, largescale
evolution, such as that of the metazoan phyla, which include most of the
taxa that formed the basis for the evolutionary synthesis. The most striking
features of large-scale evolution are the extremely rapid divergence of
lineages near the time of their origin, followed by long periods in which
basic body plans and ways of life are retained. What is missing are the
many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual
divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct
adaptive types." (Carroll R.L., "Towards a new evolutionary synthesis,"
Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 2000, Vol. 15, pp.27-32)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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