Bertvan
>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". 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.
Chris
Are you sure you actually read Howard's piece? Take a look at his last
paragraph. It does not appear to *me* that he thinks that religious
beliefs, per se, pose a threat to science.
Bertvan
>Our understanding of evolution will never progress as long as
>we view life as a collection of inanimate pieces of matter.
Chris
Actually, it *is* progressing, and very rapidly. You might even say it's
*evolving*.
>Bertvan
> The evolution of the biosphere, cultures and economies should give us a
> hint
>of how organic evolution might have occurred. Those systems are designed by
>the "intelligence" of the individual components. They are the cumulative
>result of individual choices.
Chris
These last two sentences contradict each other. In most cases, the second
is true, the first is not. Very few cultures are designed. The Soviet
Union, Communist China, Nazi Germany were designed, but most cultures
mostly just grow as the accumulation of the unintended, unplanned, often
unknown, consequences of the actions of individuals and small groups.
Languages seem to arise and develop in the same general way, as do most
economies.
And the biosphere, even more obviously than cultures and economies, shows
all the signs of *unintelligent* evolution.
Bertvan
>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)
>
>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.
Chris
In a metaphorical sense only. Bacteria respond to chemical differentials,
light, temperature, and physical contact, so a bacterium will "pursue"
another even if the other isn't even there, as long as the chemical or
other signals are there. It is essentially mechanically responding to
stimuli. The "choices" of DNA show no signs of being any more "intelligent"
than the "choices" of a computer program.
Does a rock tend to continue to move in whatever direction it's already
moving in because it *chooses* to, does a knife choose to cut?
>Bertvan
>Science can not, at the moment, deal with free will and creativity. Some
>people would even regard them as supernatural.
Chris
And some people think that Santa Claus is *real*, too. So what? Is there
any *evidence* that they are supernatural? Can you even coherently define
what kind of evidence *could* indicate that they are supernatural? Is this
the kind of claim that even *can* have evidential support?
Bertvan
>Whatever mind is, evidence
>exists that mind can affect physical matter. (Biofeedback and the placebo
>effect, for instance.)
Chris
Mind seems to affect matter in essentially the same way as do the processes
in a computer, because, mind, like the computer processes, is itself a
process carried out by matter, like the sounds coming from a speaker or the
light coming from a computer monitor, etc. There is no more reason to think
that mind is supernatural than that a candle-flame is supernatural.
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