Regarding where (on 02 JUL 00) Bob wrote:
> ...
>This claim, however, not just a philosphically-based claim. It is also a
>scientifically justifiable one. If natural selection is demonstrated
>empirically only to enhance immediate adaptation to the environment, then it
>is a necessary inference that it has no long range direction as to where this
>immediate adaptation will lead. This is a scientific inference, not just a
>philosophical or theological one.
I'm sorry to cut in on this discussion, but I fail to see the "necessary
inference" referred to above. Maybe Bob can explain his reasoning a
little further. It seems to me that a process possessing short-term
causal correlations at a local scientific level of description, but which
is unpredictable in the long run (where the short term causal influences
can not be extrapolated to the long term via any deterministic or
quasi-deterministic stochastic scientific description) this does not
imply a lack of purpose--especially a lack of *Divine* purpose. All it
implies is a scientific inability to discern any teleology that may be
present based on the consideration of those local conditions.
In the case of Darwinian mechanisms (mostly random variation and natural
selection) mentioned above it seems that any evolutionary process that
is selection-biased by the local environmental conditions will tend to
have a general trend or direction which is guided by the history of the
relevant environmental conditions. So whatever or whoever determines the
environmental conditions also will tend to guide the course of evolution.
Thus, even at the purely scientific level, one would, at the very least,
have to presume that the environmental conditions are beyond any control
and are exempt from any teleology before one could conclude that the
Darwinian mechanisms are devoid of any purpose. In addition, one would
also have to asssume that the apparently stochastic elements in the
Darwinian mechanisms were devoid of any underlying teleology that is
not detectable via scientific investigation. I don't see how such
assumptions are logically necessary.
>I think it is inescapable that the current scientific understanding of
>Darwinian evolution is that it is directionless, purposeless, and devoid of
>long range goals.
It seems to me if Darwinian mechanisms *really* implied that evolution
was devoid of purpose and direction, then the Biology teachers would not
have been able to be persuaded to drop the word "undirected" from their
statement on evolution.
So Bob, why is local adaptation incompatible with teleology for Darwinian
mechanisms?
David Bowman
David_Bowman@georgetowncollege.edu
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