From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Mon Jan 15 2001 - 21:29:14 MST
A little something wriiten by James P. Hogan--writer, engineer, etc. which
may (or may not) be of interest:
"How do you get the logic across to some people that showing the butler
didn't do it doesn't prove that the chauffeur must have? ...In earlier
postings (see below and in the BB Archives), and also the essay "Evolution
Revisited," contained in the fiction/nonfiction collection Rockets, Redheads, &
Revolution, [link to Title Page] I've expressed reservations that the confidence
I've displayed in accepting and promoting Neo-Darwinism in years gone by
may have been misplaced. Today, it comes across as being as much the result of
dogma rather than hard evidence as the biblical fundamentalism that many of
its advocates militantly oppose. Some people conclude that therefore I must
be a Creationist.... It's an example of false dichotomy - and one that the
media and much of the world in general perceives in connection with this
topic.
Some authorities define "science" as the seeking and study of
materialistic, naturalistic explanations of everything. But suppose the fact is that
some things don't have materialistic, naturalistic explanations. It seems to me
that if that were the case, such narrowness could end up excluding from
"science" some of the most important questions confronting us. A better measure
of "scientific" in my view would be objectivity, i.e. forgetting
preconceptions and emotional investment in what one would like the answers to be, and
being willing to follow wherever the evidence seems to point. And if, as a
lot of hard-nosed, working scientists, not just those with religious
persuasions, are coming out in the open and saying, the sheer complexity and other
irresolvables of the things being uncovered in biological cell machinery and
elsewhere lead to the suspicion that "This was designed by
somebody/something, for a purpose; it didn't just happen by itself," then so be it as far as
I'm concerned. Whatever the truth of the matter is, it isn't going to be
affected by anything I choose to believe, or how many people agree with me."
john marlow
Emlyn wrote:
Being a creationist is pretty dumb, true. However, "directed evolution" at
least sounds plausible, and merrits some attention. Further, the idea that
it's not all evolution, that something else important might be going on
which we can't see yet, that merrits attention too.
I think it's a worthwhile thread. We assume natural selection most of the
time; it's good to try defending it/breaking it down every now and again.
Emlyn
-- The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can't, and the incapacity the tell the difference. --Calvin Sent through GMX FreeMail - http://www.gmx.net
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