Re: Pamphlet Part II response 3

Brian D. Harper (bharper@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Fri, 29 Dec 1995 22:49:31 -0500

Robert wrote:

>
>Greetings and Salutations,
>
>Del Ratzsch has again made a number of helpful comments. Comments that
>I do not respond to here will be reflected in iteration two of part III.
>
>Del Ratzsch wrote:
>>Some creationists are going to have a *very* difficult time with your
>>claim that (what you call) "bad" designs were deliberately produced in
>>order to make their carries more vulnerable to predation.
>
>Creationists that have a difficult time believing this should really take
>a good look at some of the lethal designs in nature. Poisonous snakes,
>insect trapping spiders, etc... If you can believe that God designed
>these things, what is the problem with using imperfection to balance an
>ecology?
>

I think the best line of defense against the argument from
imperfection is to point out its theological underpinnings
and thus marginalize it according to the rules of the game
of science [ I kind of like this metaphor ;-)]. No one has
shown how to do this better than Paul Nelson, IMHO. Be on
the lookout, I heard from Paul that a modified version of
his paper _The Role of Theology in Current Evolutionary
Thinking_has been accepted for publication in <Biology and
Philosophy>. Did you hear that Stephen ;-).

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Brian Harper |
Associate Professor | "It is not certain that all is uncertain,
Applied Mechanics | to the glory of skepticism" -- Pascal
Ohio State University |
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