>
>>>>>> On Tue, 27 Feb 96 22:12:05 EST, sjones@iinet.net.au (Stephen Jones) said:
>
>>> If Yockey believes that "the origin of life...could not have happened
>>> by chance" then he is not a "Darwinist" in my book. Once it is
>>> admitted that the "origin of life" did not happen by "chance", then
>>> there is no justification for believe that it was "evolution" that
>>> "began after the origin of life".
>
>Got to disagree here, the question of how the first life arose is
>separate from the question of whether it evolved after that. There is
>nothing inconsistent with saying that God created the first life, but
>that it evolved subsequently (with or without further intervention).
>Darwin did not say that life had to have arisen by chance; he seems to
>have been deliberately vague on the question:
>
> "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
> powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into
> one; ..."
>
>That is certainly compatible with a supernatural origin of life. Was
>Darwin also not a Darwinist in your book?
>
I agree with Jim, biological evolution and chemical evolution
are separate issues. There is one other point I want to make here.
Yockey is a very good example of the dangers of stereotyping. One
might think that a person who has devoted so much energy to bringing
down the chemical evolution paradigm might be motivated by the view
that Jim identifies above. This is not, however,
Yockey's view. As far as I know, he is an agnostic. I haven't asked
him directly, but this is the impression I get. I have also heard
this second hand from various places. His view on the origin of life
is that it is undecidable. He doesn't argue from the false
alternative, evidence against chemical evolution is just that.
Here again I think we have a problem with popularizations. I don't
think there is any question that Dawkins would like to tie the
origin of life with Darwinism. Nor do I think that there is any
question that Daniel Dennett considers this as part of "Darwin's
Dangerous Idea". The intents of one of the Yockey posts that I
submitted to the reflector was to uncouple Darwin from the prebiotic
soup paradigm. Yockey's main point here is that people try to tie
Darwin to this in view of his famous "warm little pond" quote.
But this quote comes from a *private* letter. Yockey argues that
one should not determine Darwin's position on this matter from
private correspondence but rather from what he published for
public scrutiny. Yockey then gives some quotations from OoS
indicating that Darwin's views were very much like those of Niels
Bohr, i.e. that life is inscrutable. Life just is. I believe Darwin
also used gravity as an analogy. Why is there gravity?
========================
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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