On Mon, 28 Apr 1997 17:02:39 -0400, Pim van Meurs wrote:
[...]
>PM>That depends on the person's ability to understand the assumptions
>behind the arguments.
>SJ>That indeed is Johnson's specialty!
PM>Is it ? How well does Johnson understand evolution?
You are shifting ground. Your first criterion was "the person's
ability to understand the assumptions behind the arguments". Now you
are changing it to "the arguments" themselves! Which is it to be?
BTW, Johnson understands both "the assumptions behind the arguments".
and "the arguments" themselves. He has debated with Darwinist
heavyweights like Gould, Eldredge, Provine, Ruse, etc, and has at
least held his own. On one of his tapes, in answer to a question
from the audience, he answers that early in his anti-Darwinist career
he debated with Gould in a closed session. Those watching declared
it a draw. On your claim, that sounds to me like staying 15 rounds
with Mike Tyson and coming away with a draw, without knowing how to
box!
>PM>Darwin did not apply theology to explain the vaste evidence of
>evolution but used a scientific approach.
>SJ>Have you ever read The Origin of Species, Pim? It drips with
>"theology" - there are literally *dozens* (if not hundreds) of
>references to either "God", "the Creator", and "creation". In fact,
>Darwin actually gave his number one reason for writing it, as
>theological, namely to overthrow the current Christian doctrine of
>separate creations:
PM>Irrelevant. Darwin did not require the existance of a creator for
>his explanation of evolution. You appear to be confusing Darwin's
>motivation versus his actual proof .
You are shifting ground again. You said "Darwin DID NOT APPLY
THEOLOGY to explain the vaste evidence of evolution but used a
scientific approach", not "Darwin did not require THE EXISTANCE OF A
CREATOR for his explanation of evolution" (my emphases). But what
"Darwin" did "require" was the *non*-"existance of a creator for
his explanation of evolution":
"Instead of a single, once and for all creation in the Garden of
Eden, many Victorians thought that the deity had intervened
repeatedly, at crucial points in evolution. Complex organs like
eyes, instead of evolving from simpler ones by slow degrees as Darwin
had it, were thought to have sprung into existence in a single
instant. Such people rightly perceived that such instant
'evolution', if it occurred, would imply supernatural
intervention...Darwin perceived this too. He wrote in a letter to
Sir Charles Lyell, the leading geologist of his day:
`If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of
natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish...I would give
nothing for the theory of Natural selection, if it requires
miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.' (Darwin F., ed.,
"The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin", John Murray: London, 1888,
ii:210).
This is no petty matter. In Darwin's view, the whole point of the
theory of evolution by natural selection was that it provided a
non-miraculous account of the existence of complex adaptations. For
what it is worth, it is also the whole point of this book. For
Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was
not evolution at all." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991,
pp248-249)
[...]
>PM>Does this not mean that Johnson in his own logic is just another
>layman?
>SJ>He cheerfully admits he is. But he points out that so is almost
>everyone else in the subject of Creation v Evolution.
PM>Perhaps on the creation side this is true but on the science side
>this is far from true.
Are you claiming "almost everyone...on the science side", is an
expert "in the subject of Creation v Evolution"?
>PM>That is, what if it turned out that the evidence for Darwin's
>theory is in tatters and science is hanging on to it only because no
>other theory is in prospect?
>
>[While this might be the premise for an SF novel, Johnson does nothing
>to demonstrate that this actually holds. -- WRE]
>SJ>On the contrary Johnson does just that!
PM>I guess we have a diasgreement.
We do indeed!
>PM>What if "evolution" is just a word that covers up scientific
>ignorance of how the wonders of the living world could have been
>created?
>
>[Then I guess that it holds an analogous position to the word
>"gravity" covering up the scientific ignorance of how clumps of matter
>attract one another. -- WRE]
>
>SJ>If Elseberry wants to claim that "evolution" is a "word" that is
>"covering up...scientific ignorance", "analogous...to the word
>`gravity'" that's fine by me!
PM>Care to read again?
I read it several times before I posted it, and I have "read" it
"again". Elsberry clearly says that:
1. "if `evolution' is just a word that covers up scientific
ignorance of how the wonders of the living world could have been
created"
then
2. "it holds an analogous position to the word "gravity" covering up
the scientific ignorance of how clumps of matter attract one
another."
Maybe you need to "read again"?
>PM>Berkely law professor Phillip Johnson looks at the evidence for
>Darwinistic evolution the way a lawyer would -- with a cold
>dispassionate eye for logic and proof.
>
>[ROFL -- lawyers take an adversarial position and run with it.
>SJ>So, even if that generalisation was true, what's wrong with that? Is
>"evolution" some sort of sacred cow that cannot be attacked?
PM>Of course not but the attack should be scientific not based on
>lawyer arguments.
The "lawyer arguments" in this case were "a cold dispassionate eye
for logic and proof". Are you claiming that "scientific" arguments
are somehow different and are "not based on" "a cold dispassionate
eye for logic and proof"?
>SJ>In fact, the sudden appearance and stasis, which Gould confirms is
>the overwhelmingly pervasive feature of the fossil record:...is
>*more* consistent with creation than `blind watchmaker' evolution.
PM>Both stasis as well as sudden appearance are very compatible with
>neo-darwinism.
Of course it is. *Everything* is "very compatible with
neo-darwinism":
"Our theory of evolution has become, as Popper described, one
whichcannot be refuted by any possible observations. Every
conceivable observation can be fitted into it. It is thus "outside
of empirical science" but not necessarily false. No one can think of
ways in which to test it. Ideas, either without basis or based on a
few laboratory experiments carried out in extremely simplified
systems, have attained currency far beyond their validity. They have
become part of an evolutionary dogma accepted by most of us as part
of our training. The cure seems to us not to be a discarding of the
modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, but more scepticism about
many of its tenets". (Ehrlich P.R. & Birch C.L., "Evolutionary
History and Population Biology", Nature, vol. 214, 22 April 1967,
p352)
But I repeat my point that the fossil evidence of "sudden appearance
and stasis" is *more* compatible with creation than `blind
watchmaker' evolution.
PM>To require a 'creator' only complicates matters.
Even if it does, so what? I could just as easily say that
Neo-Darwinism *over-simplifies* matters. The real question is what
*best fits the evidence*, even if we don't like it:
"Writing in the Physics Bulletin, H.S. Lipson of the University of
Manchester Institute of Science and Technology observes: `I have
always been slightly suspicious of the theory of evolution because of
its ability to account for any property of living beings...In the
last thirty years we have learned a great deal about life
processes...and it seems to me to be only fair to see how the theory
of evolution accommodates the new evidence...To my mind the theory
does not stand up at all...we must go further than this and admit
that the only acceptable explanation is creation I know that this is
anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject
a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports
it." (Lipson H.S., "A Physicist Looks at Evolution," Physics
Bulletin, Vol. 31, May 1980, p138, in Moreland J.P. ed., "The
Creation Hypothesis", 1994, pp284-285)
On Mon, 28 Apr 1997 17:11:52 -0400, Pim van Meurs wrote:
[...]
PM>[continued]
>
>This is nonsense. Science doesn't claim to know all the answers,
>else, there would be no need for research.
I am not sure what comment of mine this referred to. What happened
to "Lawyers and theologians 2/3 ". If its important, please re-post it with
the context.
>SJ>Johnson was simply pointing out that the National Academy of
>Science's rules in "Science and Creationism: A View from the
>National Academy of Sciences" (1984) that: 1. "the most basic
>characteristic of science" is "reliance upon naturalistic
>explanations" and "the creation of the universe, the earth, living
>things, and man was accomplished through supernatural means
>inaccessible to human understanding." and 2. "negative
>argumentation employed" against "the theory of evolution" is
>"antithetical to the scientific method" effectively meant that
>"advocates of supernatural creation may neither argue for their own
>position nor dispute the claims of the scientific establishment"
>(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial", 1993, pp7-8)
PM>Nonsense
As I have pointed out before Pim, I take your repeated prefacing of
your responses with "Nonsense" as a indication that your argument is
weak. If your argument stood on its own merits, it would not need
it!
PM>1) They may argue for their own position and if they believe
>there is a scientific foundation for their arguments then they should use
>scientific reasoning to support them. The problem is that supernatural
>processes do not allow to be tested by science and can therefor not be
>tested nor disproven.
How could they "use scientific reasoning to support them", namely
arguments for "supernatural creation", when by the NACs own rules
"the most basic characteristic of science" is "reliance upon
naturalistic explanations"? Thus by those rules, one must *always*
assume a "naturalistic explanation" rather than a "supernatural"
one.
PM>2) claims of the scientific establishment can be disproven the
>way claims have been disproven for centuries.
That may be true of other things, but by the rules of the NAS, "the
theory of evolution" is granted a special status such that "negative
argumentation employed" against it is decreeed to be "antithetical
to the scientific method"
>PM>p. 19(q): {With respect to animals, Darwinists attribute the
>inability to produce new species to a lack of sufficient time.}
>
>I wonder about this, since the datum expressed here is not true.
>Animal speciation has been observed in the wild and also has been
>produced in the laboratory. Even at least one new species of
>Drosophila has been noted.
>SJ>That "Animal speciation has been observed in the wild" is
>irrelevant because the issue that Johnson raisesd is whether it had
>been observed in the "laboratory":
PM>Both were addressed above.
No. Johnson is only pointing out that in contrast to
speciation in nature, laboratory experiments have failed to produce
much beyond fruitflies that cannot interbreed and some plant
hybrids:
"experiments with *laboratory* fruitflies have not produced anything
but fruitflies...Plant hybrids have been developed which can breed
with each other, but not with the parent species, and which
therefore meet the accepted standard for new species. With respect
to animals, Darwinists attribute the inability to produce new
species to a lack of sufficient time. Humans have been breeding
dogs for only a few thousand years, but nature has millions and even
hundreds of millions of years at her disposal." (Johnson P.E.,
"Darwin on Trial", 1993, pp19-20)
>PM>[The end. For now.]
>SJ>Let's hope the second part of Elsberry's review of Darwin on Trial
>is better than the first!
PM>Johnson could only hope.
I am sure he is shaking in his boots! Since Johnson was
"elated" by Gould's "hatchet job" review of Darwin on Trial:
"Gould's review of Darwin on Trial took up four pages in the July
1992 issue of Scientific American, appearing more than a year after
the book was published. The review was an undisguised hatchet
job...Far from being discouraged by this treatment, I was elated.
Most books are no longer news a year after publication; mine was
apparently still enough of a menace to merit an all-out attack by
America's most prominent Darwinist." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on
Trial", InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 1993,
pp161-162)
somehow I doubt that he would be worried by Wesley's review!
Regards.
Steve
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