In a message dated 9/27/2000 9:54:55 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
Bertvan@aol.com writes:
>
> Hi Howard,
> I enjoyed your piece. I have no objection "fully gifted creation", as long
> as
> the "gift" isn't defined as "chance variation and natural selection".
That's quite a dogmatic view given the evidence that chance variation and
natural selection can explain so much. But I guess there are always those who
reject science when it interferes with their faith.
I
> agree with much of what you write, but I argue on the side of ID, and you
> count yourself among its critics. I suppose you feel religious beliefs
> pose
> a threat to science, and I'm convinced the real threat to science is
> materialism. Our understanding of evolution will never progress as long as
> we view life as a collection of inanimate pieces of matter.
>
So far our understanding has progressed quite well. But life is hardly seen
as an inanimate piece of matter so that would seem to be a strawman argument.
> The evolution of the biosphere, cultures and economies should give us a hint
> of how organic evolution might have occurred.
Indeed, symbiosis has been shown to play a likely role in the origins of the
mytochondria and are considered quite relevant in biology. Hardly what you
seem to imply though
Those systems are designed by
> the "intelligence" of the individual components. They are the cumulative
> result of individual choices. The pieces of the system routinely function
> according to rules, habit or instinct, with no "intelligence" required.
> Stability of the system requires it. Yet each piece has the ability to
> occasionally act spontaneously and creatively. (free will)
>
I am glad that you place "intelligence" inside the quotes where they truely
belong. After all since ID cannot exclude natural selection as the
"intelligent" designer, it seems that intelligence covers a large range of
possibilities.
> If the cell was created by symbiosis, symbiosis is a collection of
> individual
> acts. All life gives evidence of some ability to make choices. (Some
> admittedly more limited than others. However, bacteria can be observed
> pursuing, devouring and escaping from each other.) Evidence is emerging
> that
> DNA makes choices.
>
Evidence is emerging that organisms make choices. But your arguments start to
sound more and more as that of an evolutionists.
> Science can not, at the moment, deal with free will and creativity. Some
> people would even regard them as supernatural. Whatever mind is, evidence
> exists that mind can affect physical matter. (Biofeedback and the placebo
> effect, for instance.)
>
Biofeedback affects known pathways, it's hardly evidence of a supernatural
"free will or creativity". These are quite well understood in terms of
physiology and biology.
> There is room in "free will" for anyone's definition of God. (could be
> God's
> will)
>
Giving free will a truely meaningless meaning. At least at a scientific level
but if I understand you correctly you are not that interested in that aspect?
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