Religions > Atheism > In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash
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Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
22 Aug 2005 05:34:48 AM |
| Object: |
In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash |
In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/national/22design.html?pagewanted=all
By KENNETH CHANG
Proponents of intelligent design say biological marvels point to the
hand of a higher being, but mainstream scientists say such an
explanation is unscientific.
Michael Behe
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/92b8b42086973adf
Dembski
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/20639ca2f139a27d
Discovery Institute
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/921aff48af0f778a
Kenneth R. Miller
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/bdcedafc9fc8b2f7
Darwinism
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/893a3ee3c6fd95a4
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| User: "Joseki" |
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| Title: Re: In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash |
22 Aug 2005 06:53:38 AM |
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A big hint for new readers. When modern biologists, botanists, and
genetists are referred to as "Darwindists" there is a creationist/ID
trap ahead. Darwin wrote about 150 years ago. Much of whatr he said
still applies, science had moved on as well.
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| User: "Dunc Harris" |
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| Title: Re: In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash |
22 Aug 2005 09:31:21 AM |
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The defence by Erwin:
"One of the rules of science is, no miracles allowed," said Douglas H.
Erwin, a paleobiologist at the Smithsonian Institution. "That's a
fundamental presumption of what we do."
is poor because it plays into the hands of the argument that scientists
are being unreasonable by practicing "methodogical naturalism". I
would say it's just poor journalism though because the author hasn't a
clue about science rather than a deliberate misrepresentation.
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| User: "Jud" |
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| Title: Re: In Explaining Life's Complexity, Darwinists and Doubters Clash |
10 Sep 2005 06:58:24 AM |
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Hi folks.
Pardon the lateness of my response on this topic. I hope somebody is
still paying attention. (This is my first post at this newsgroup.)
When I read the original article by Kenneth Chang in the NY Times, I
noticed one statement that I thought was quite absurd. I'd like to see
whether anyone here sees the same absurdity. Or maybe I am missing
something.
About halfway through the article, under the heading "Darwin's
Finches," we read:
Nowhere has evolution been more powerful than
in its prediction that there must be a means to
pass on information from one generation to another.
Darwin did not know the biological mechanism of
inheritance, but the theory of evolution required one.
It is the first sentence in the above paragraph that strikes me as
absurd. Kenneth Chang gives evolutionary theory all the credit for
predicting "that there must be a means to pass on information from one
generation to another." But as I see it, such a prediction is totally
obvious from the mere fact that offspring organisms generally resemble
their parents. A creationist would know this just as well as an
evolutionist. I.e., there must be some means for information to pass
from one generation to the next, because if there were not, then the
offspring would have no way of "knowing" what sort of organism it was
supposed to develop into...in fact, it wouldn't even "know" that it was
an organism, and the best you could get would be that the offspring
would be an amorphous blob of protoplasmic-like jelly which could have
been run through a blender. But in fact, a human gives birth to a
human, a bear gives birth to a bear, an amoeba splits into two amoebas,
etc. So it
is totally obvious that there must be some means for information to be
transmitted from one generation to the next. And it is totally absurd
to give evolutionary theory any credit for predicting this, much the
same as it would be absurd to give Einstein's theories the
credit for predicting that 2+2=4.
I have to laugh, because if Kenneth Chang's statement is true, the
implication is that evolutionary theory is an empty bag of wind,
utterly powerless to make any non-obvious predictions. For according
to Chang, nowhere does evolution demonstrate a greater power than in
making this completely obvious prediction that does not depend on
evolutionary theory.
Sure, Watson and Crick, the guys who discovered DNA, were evolutionary
scientists. The point is that if the theory of evolution had never
come along, it would have been just as obvious that we need to find the
mechanism which explains heredity.
Now, the question is, is this merely the mistake of the NY Times
journalist Kenneth Chang, or is Chang accurately reflecting the
position of evolutionary scientists? Do they really think that
predicting that there must be some means for information to be
transmitted from one generation to the next is one of the greatest
accomplishments of evolutionary theory?
I think most likely, Dunc Harris answers my question with his thoughts
about Chang: "poor journalism though because the author hasn't a clue
about science."
Jud
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