Peter Ruest wrote (in part):
"I don't posit a god-of-the-gaps. In theory, "methodological naturalism"
may be the ideal for both atheistic and theistic scientists (in their
science). But in practice, atheists are much less likely to recognize
and concede that the origin of life and macroevolution pose
informational problems. How should one be able to ever find a scientific
solution to these problems if one doesn't even acknowledge them as such?
In this area, talking about "emergence", "self-organization", "hierarchy
theory", "generation of information" and the like is just so much
hand-waving. Dembski's filter and Behe's mousetrap may not be the proper
way of doing it, but somehow we have to deal with the problem of
information if darwinian evolution is not to be left dangling in the
air."
I think those who work on these problems, such as my colleague Bruce Weber,
would disagree about this just being "so much hand-waving". There are a
couple of interesting papers at entries 17.2 and 17.9 of our website below.
Jim Hofmann
Philosophy Department and Liberal Studies Program
California State University Fullerton
http://nsmserver2.fullerton.edu/departments/chemistry/evolution_creation/web
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