On Tue, 22 Aug 1995 12:40:39 GMT you wrote:
>Stephen Jones wrote:
>"Does anyone know where Gould refers to re-running the "tape" of life
>again, or is that what someone else wrote?"
Thanks to you and those who posted me Gould's "Wonderful Life"
reference. I had read his Scientific American article, but although
the idea is there, Gould did not mention a "tape".
>In addition to the *Wonderful Life* reference, Gould uses a similar
>line of thought in a special issue of Scientific American (Oct. '94).
>
>Stephen Jay Gould contributes an essay on "The evolution of life
>on the Earth".
>" . . . the Darwinian revolution remains woefully incomplete
>because, even though thinking humanity accepts the fact of
>evolution, most of us are still unwilling to abandon the
>comforting view that evolution means (or at least embodies a
>central principle of) progress defined to render the appearance
>of something like human consciousness either virtually inevitable
>or at least predictable. The pedestal is not smashed until we
>abandon progress or complexification as a central principle and
>come to entertain the strong possibility that *H. sapiens* is but
>a tiny, late-arising twig on life's enormously arborescent bush -
>a small bud that would almost surely not appear a second time
>if we could replant the bush from seed and let it grow again."
It is fairly clear that Progressive Creation can argue that
because of God's intervention at strategic points, if the "tape"
of life is re-run, man would arise again.
However, it is not clear that on a Theistic Evolution view (where
God works solely through the same naturalistic processes as
Gould believes in), that if the tape was re-played, man would
arise?
It seems there are two TE's. In one, God sets up the conditions and
nature finds its own way. In the other, God is controlling the
outcome,
so that the tape of life, if re-run, comes out the same.
Comments?
God bless
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