Re: Schutzenberger

From: Stephen E. Jones (sejones@iinet.net.au)
Date: Tue Oct 17 2000 - 08:50:31 EDT

  • Next message: Stephen E. Jones: "Re: ID and Creationism"

    Reflectorites

    On Fri, 13 Oct 2000 22:55:01 -0400, David Bradbury wrote:

    [...]

    DB>A recent Washington Post article on endangered species by Advanced Cell
    >Technologist Robert Lanza tells us "One hundred species are lost every day, and
    >these mass erxtinctions are mostly our own doing." As an OEC (Old Earth
    >Creationist), could you comment on how many years this imbalance has been going
    >on?

    I have no specifically OEC position on this. I understand there have been
    at least five major mass-extinctions in the history of life on Earth.

    Apart from that there have been extinctions happening constantly. The average
    species lasts only a few million years.

    DB>And perhaps explain how OEE (Old Earth Evolutionists) might possibly explain
    >it?

    I don't know any such position as "OEE (Old Earth Evolutionists)". Since all
    evolutionists believe in an old Earth, maybe David better ask the evolutionists
    on this List that question?

    DB>3) Your excerpts from mathematicians Schutzenberger and Eden from the 1966 Wistar
    >Symposium MATHEMATICAL CHALLENGES TO THE NEO-DARWINIAN INTERPRETATION OF
    EVOLUTION
    >(with participants as Medawar, Mayr, Fox, Eiseley, Lewontin, etc., etc.) were both
    >pertinent and interesting. I would like to add one more. This by Dr. Eden on
    >page 109 where he states: "It is our contention that if 'random' is given a
    >serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the
    >randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory
    >of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural
    >laws--physical, physico-chemical and biological."

    Yes. There are many evolutionists who have had a problem with Darwinism's
    randomness.

    DB>Thus, over 30 years ago, Dr. Eden was acknowledging the very problem (inadequacy of
    >Random Mutations and Natural Selection [RM+NS] to explain biological evolution)
    >which Dembski, Johnson, Behe, et al are today addressing as Intelligent Design
    >(ID), Irreducible Complexity (IC), etc. -- and which evolutionists, like ostriches,
    >prefer not to acknowledge rather than facing up to reality.

    Agreed. I would not be surprised if ID flushes out a lot of scientists (even
    biologists) who believe in design but don't know how to express it.

    A lot of ordinary people who are not religious believe in design too. Today
    I was talking with the fellow I share an office with about some biology
    news item which I was reading on the web (I can't even remember what it
    was) and he just blurted out "there must be a Supreme Being, there's too
    much design." Then he clammed up. He is in his 50's and as far as I know
    not a religious person. I would not be surprised if most people are like that:
    non-religious people who believe in design, no matter what the atheist
    evolutionists have been trying to drum into them as kids all these years.

    Steve

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