Re: Testing Darwinism

Dave Probert (probert@cs.ucsb.edu)
Sat, 18 Nov 1995 18:43:25 -0800

To the group:

It seems to me that neither Steve Clark, Walter, Loren, nor any one
else will get anywhere by arguing whether or not evolution *is* science
based on whether it *is* falsifiable. Likewise with whether the biotic
message, or intelligent design, or any other idea based on the
intervention of a creator/designer *is* science because it *is* falsifiable.

As I have tried to point out before, what is important to science
is mechanism. Evolution is based on the belief that there
are mechanisms that produce the species observed on earth, i.e. some
set of processes based on fundamental rules. The popularization
of a potential process (natural selection) by Darwin is what gave
evolution such a strong foothold in science. It is pretty clear that
the validity of evolution to any scientist who believes in it is
unshaken by the possibility that natural selection is wrong. They
believe that there will be found *some* sufficient mechanism someday.

Evolution would only retreat if some *other* mechanism were found which
produced life. However a creator or designer is not a mechanism. He
is not a process operating by rules and processes which can be known
[Isa 55]. If the rules and processes cannot be scrutinized by science,
then they are irrelevant to science.

If it could be demonstrated that the universe was not mechanistic, then
what would be falsified is not specifically evolution, but science itself.

Theistic (or agnostic) science is really a non-science. It is simply
a technique for retaining God in the picture, but relegating Him to
some point in the history of the world where He cannot interfere with
the processes under investigation. For some physicists, His participation
is now in the picoseconds.

When I finally recognized the importance of mechanism in the mind of
scientists, I finally understood most of their complaints about
creationists. The mistake we made was in thinking science is about
truth. To call it a game is somewhat perjorative. Science is a
method for investigating the mechanisms of the universe. Investigations
into the non-mechanistic aspects of the universe are philosophy and
theology.

I believe the truth about the world is that it is non-mechanistic. Most
believers in God must believe the universe is non-mechanistic, at least
in part. If we are right, then Science will never arrive at the truths
that are essential to me until it falsifies itself.

--Dave