On Sun, 28 Jul 1996 19:57:45 -0400, Bill Hamilton wrote:
BH>Stephen Jones wrote in response to Loren:
SJ>By not addressing my substantive point that: "`TE has no original
>theory of `basic design' unique to itself", ie. "it believes in the
>same random mutation + natural selection mechanism as Naturalistic
>Evolution, with no intervention by God", do you not implicitly
>confirm it? :-)
BH>Stephen here appears to be assuming that "random" means "not
>controlled by any entity".
No. I am using it in the same sense that *Naturalistic Evolution*
uses it, ie. not directed:
"We can now see that the question of whether mutation is really
random is not a trivial question. Its answer depends on what we
understand random to mean. If you take 'random mutation' to mean
that mutations are not influenced by external events, then X-rays
disprove the contention that mutation is random. If you think
'random mutation' implies that all genes are equally likely to
mutate, then hot spots show that mutation is not random. If you
think 'random mutation' implies that at all chromosomal loci the
mutation pressure is zero, then once again mutation is not random.
It is only if you define 'random' as meaning 'no general bias towards
bodily improvement' that mutation is truly random." (Dawkins R.,
"The Blind Watchmaker", Penguin: London, 1991, p307)
"There is a fifth respect in which mutation might have been non-
random. We can imagine (just) a form of mutation that was
systematically biased in the direction of improving the animal's
adaptedness to its life. But although we can imagine it, nobody has
ever come close to suggesting any means by which this bias could come
about. It is only in this fifth respect, the 'mutationist' respect,
that the true, real-life Darwinian insists that mutation is random.
Mutation is not systematically biased in the direction of adaptive
improvement, and no mechanism is known (to put the point mildly) that
could guide mutation in directions that are non-random in this fifth
sense. Mutation is random with respect to adaptive advantage,
although it is non-random in all sorts of other respects. It is
selection, and only selection, that directs evolution in directions
that are non- random with respect to advantage." (Dawkins R., "The
Blind Watchmaker", Penguin: London, 1991, p312)
BH>As a Christian I reject that. The concepts of randomness and
>chance are used when _the observer_ -- a human scientist -- is unable to
>precisely predict the outcome of an experiment or the consequences of a
>natural process.
Your answer indeed seems to "confirm" that "TE....believes in the
same random mutation + natural selection mechanism as Naturalistic
Evolution, with no intervention by God". The difference is that NE
believes that mutation is random in the sense of undirected but TE
believe it is random in the sense of unpredictable?
BH>No human being in his right mind would, I believe, claim he/she
>could predict what God will do in a given circumstance (except of
>course in those instances in Scripture where He has told us exactly
>what He will do). Thus when studying nature, even though we are
>studying acts of God, it's perfectly reasonable to use the concepts
>of probability theory and to assume some degree of randomness. By
>doing so we are not (or should not be) assuming that the outcome of
>events or experiments is not controlled, but only that we cannot
>predict what the outcome will be.
Agreed. So does TE differ from NE in that the former says that
random mutations are directed but unpredictable and the latter says
they are undirected and unpredictable ?
BH>Observationally, progressive creation may well be
>indistinguishable from evolution.
No. The fossil record looks like "progressive creation" and not like
"evolution":
"A mysterious process that produces dozens of complex animal groups
directly from single-celled predecessors, with only some words like
"fast-transition" in between, may be called "evolution"-but the term
is being used more in the sense of Grasse's heresy than of
Dobzhansky's Darwinian orthodoxy. Each of those Cambrian animals
contained a variety of immensely complicated organ systems. How can
such innovations appear except by the gradual accumulation of
micromutations, unless there was some supernatural intervention? It
is not only that the Darwinian theory requires a very gradual line of
descent from each Cambrian animal group back to its hypothetical
single-celled ancestor. Because Darwinian evolution is a
purposeless, chance-driven process, which would not proceed directly
from a starting point to a destination, there should also be thick
bushes of side branches in each line. As Darwin himself put it, if
Darwinism is true the Precambrian world must have "swarmed with
living creatures" many of which were ancestral to the Cambrian
animals. If he really rejects the artifact theory of the Precambrian
fossil record, Gould also rejects the Darwinian theory of evolution."
(Johnson P.E., "Darwinism's Rules of Reasoning", in Buell J. & Hearn
V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?", Foundation for
Thought and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, pp13-14)
God bless.
Steve
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