At 03:27 PM 12/09/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>Bill Wald said:
> >Until Francis Bacon and the Rationalists "we" lived in a spiritual world.
> >From Bacon and Newton we had a physical world to study but since
> >Copenhagen the universe has reverted to a spiritual world and science has
> >been conquered by philosophy. many of the pop science books are more
> >philosophical than scientific.
>
> >Personally, I think science should stick to Bacon's rules - verifyable
> >observations.
> >Dembski and others are preaching metaphysics.
>
>Hi Bill,
>You may be right that Demski is preaching metaphysics, but so are Darwinists
>who claim evolution and life is explainable without teleology. Few people
>would have any criticism of evolution vaguely defined as changes in organsims
>over time, but whether that happened by random mutation and natural
>selection is not anything about which many verifyable observations can be
>made.
Creationists have strenuous objections to any contradiction of the
Platonistic idea of the fixity of species. Teleology is metaphysics. You
are a perfect example of Bill's point. Your belief in teleology *requires*
random mutation and natural selection to be false. I have told you this
many, many times, but here it is again: random mutations have been observed
in nature and in the lab. It has been observed that some of them are
beneficial and are inherited by their descendents. It has been observed
that natural selection eliminates harmful mutations. Natural selection has
been observed to occur many thousands of times in the lab and in nature. A
fossil record attests to the fact that all this has been going on for
billions of years.
Whether any of these observed phenomena has a purpose is a *religious*
belief. Believing that life in general has a purpose is a *religious*
belief. It is a religious idea that obviously *you* believe is contradicted
by the discoveries of science. You can believe whatever you like, but
science is going to continue to make observations and are not going to shut
up about it and pretend not to have seen what they saw, even if it does
challenge your religious beliefs. Since they will never be able to "see"
purpose, you must decide for yourself if what they do see destroys your
religion. I don't think it needs to.
Susan
--------
Always ask. Hang out with people who make you laugh. Love as many people as
you can. Read everything you can get your hands on. Take frequent naps.
Watch as little television as you can stand. Tell people what you want. Do
what you love as much as you can. Dance every day.
--------
Please visit my website:
http://www.telepath.com/susanb
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