At 02:24 PM 09/29/2000, you wrote:
> >Bertvan:
> >The Darwinists are the ones who claim to know for certain that intelligence/
> >mind/motivation/free will/Teleology play no important part in natures
> >processes.
Susan
>You keep asserting this in spite of the fact that you have been shown over
>and over again that science merely says that *if* anything on that list
>above causes evolution, it is not detectible by science. *You* have
>interpreted that to mean that "Darwinists" are making such a claim.
Bertvan
> >As a result they have ended up with a theory that most people
> >don't find credible, but no one can think of an alternative.
Susan
>I think you are quite wrong about "most people." Creationists don't find it
>credible. People who know nothing about biology, anthropology, geology,
>physics, cosmology or paleontology don't find it credible. People who
>examine the actual evidence are, more often than not, convinced that
>evolution occured. The bugbear about "materialism" is just a bugbear.
Chris
I disagree. I think it's a *wormbear*.
But, it *is* interesting that the more *detailed* the examination of the
evidence, the *less* it seems like design. For just one example, once we
look closely at "irreducible complexity," it becomes obvious that it only
excludes one small class of pathways (and the claim that it excludes even
all of them may be premature). When it's exposed to closer examination,
irreducible complexity as a "barrier" to evolution dissipates like morning
fog over a hot desert.
Also, since many *non-*materialists, like Howard, *agree* with us about
evolution and science, you will have a hard time making a case that we
died-in-the-wool "materialists" are trying to "impose" anything on anyone.
What we are trying to do is get intellectual pre-hominids to quit filling
the gaps in their knowledge and thinking skills with attractive nonsense
and gross illogic.
I think Howard's supernaturalism is definitely false, but, with respect to
science, I may have no disagreements with him at all. Science, as such,
does not have *any* disagreements with non-materialism as such. It's
specific "brands" of non-materialism that cause trouble. I think the
underlying epistemological premises will always tend to lead to brands of
non-materialism that *do* conflict with science, but this conflict is not
*inherent* in non-materialism in its own right. Kepler and other scientists
of his age were mostly theists. But their views of theism were more like
those of Howard than those of Jones, Johnson, and the ID movement.
They thought, in effect, "Okay, God made the Universe, but he doesn't
constantly interfere in it. Let's "read the mind of God" by finding out how
things *actually* work." Given their presuppositions, this was truly a
great enterprise. But modern "scientific" creationism and ID theory are
back to the gods-in-the-bushes view, in which God interferes in individual
events, because, apparently, He is *unable* to create a universe that can
then go on to generate life on it's own, *without* further intervention.
This is supported (albeit only mildly) by the failure of *any* ID supporter
on this list to provide a modified "design" for an Earth that is as much
like ours as possible and that yet that *can* generate and evolve life
without intervention. The same is true of the failure to provide *evidence*
for the alleged "macroevolution" barrier, and so on. Bertvan even goes so
far as to claim by implication that it's her inability to *imagine* such a
thing that holds up her belief in ID (though, even so, to be fair to her, I
must point out that her ID is more intelligent, more *reasonable*, than
that of the mainstream ID-theorists, because it seems to consist of little
more than a kind of metaphysical "elan vitale," rather than the claim of
some logically preposterous variant of Christian Gods).
Bertvan
> >Nevertheless,
> >for some reason they feel compelled to impose this theory upon society as
> >"fact".
Susan
>you and your fantasies about jack-booted thugs in white lab coats! You
>don't care about the evidence which supports evolution. Scientists do. They
>care a lot. They don't give a rat's ass whether or not God is pushing the
>molecules around in an unseen way that can't be detected. If you think
>fungi and algae shook hands, signed some kind of agreement and personally
>*decided* to live together as lichens, that's fine. But a scientist is
>going to want to see *evidence* that such a thing actually happened. Until
>you produce that evidence, no scientist (or anybody who has a scientific
>bent) will jump on your little bandwagon.
>
>The same thing is true of ID.
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