Re: Darwinism: reply to Steve Clark's message of 9/22/97
paul.carline@virgin.net
Wed, 03 Sep 1997 21:28:11 -0700paul.carline@virgin.net wrote:
>
> Dear Steve,
> Thanks for your long and detailed reply to the points I raised. I'm
> afraid I'm not persuaded by your claims about the nature of scientific
> activity in general and supposed evolutionary mechanisms in particular.
>
> We need to be a lot more precise in our use of terms. You did not say
> what *you* mean when you use the word 'science'. You gave me the nice,
> historical definition which, however, is not necessarily what is actually
> going on in laboratories and in scientists' minds today.
>
> 'Natural philosophy' aims to study Nature. The preconception of Nature as
> mechanism distorts and prejudices the outcome and dictates the
> 'acceptable' parameters and phenomena, leading to the blurring or even
> erasing of the distinction between 'natural' (i.e. pertaining to Nature)
> and 'naturalistic' (meaning 'materialistic').
>
> The right to define what constitutes Nature has been historically
> arrogated to itself by an increasingly powerful establishment which
> claims to be the sole representative and practitioner of true science.
> Empiricism is fine. It is the only acceptable scientific method. But
> empiricism cannot mean defining arbitrarily what is allowed to be
> examined and the means of doing so. When 'empiricism' means limiting the
> enquiry only to what can be counted, weighed and measured, a valid mode
> of enquiry has been hijacked for ulterior motives. Merely appealing to a
> historical consensus is not valid; nor do I find any intellectual or
> moral integrity in accepting a fatally flawed paradigm just because
> no-one has yet come up with a better one. The only scientifically honest
> and decent response to such a situation would be a modest agnosticism.
>
> On what grounds are decisions made as to what is 'trivial' data? Is this
> not quite clearly done on the basis of prejudices? This is in my view
> simply bad science which leads almost inevitably to results which cannot
> be trusted.
>
> This is quite different from the ideal of setting up a hypothesis to
> which one is not already attached or committed. Scientists attempting to
> get interesting research done in areas that are on the borders of or even
> outside the restricted field of materialist science are denied funding
> and other support. Research which challenges the current materialistic
> paradigm is typically dismissed out of hand: if the results appear to
> contravene the 'known' (i.e. currently accepted materialistic) laws of
> matter, they are dismissed as 'impossible'.
>
> Hypotheses certainly may display preconceptions/prejudices. Dishonesty
> only enters into the game when data which argue against the favoured
> hypothesis are dismissed as 'trivial' or when an obviously flimsy
> hypothesis is supported and promoted for non-scientific reasons.
> We have to ask the question: why has this particular theory (Darwin's)
> survived *despite* the clear lack of hard evidence (and not just
> survived, but become the dominant view not just in science, but in wide
> sections of society)?
>
> You dismiss out of hand my statement that there is no evidence to support
> the claim that natural selection could explain evolution, without
> offering a single piece of evidence to support that claim yourself.
>
> Could you please list all the facts of evolution which you know to be
> incontrovertibly true and show the proof for your assertions?
>
> Scientists wedded to the materialistic theory of evolution science are
> not normally candid about the lack of evidence to support their case.
> They do not typically admit that theirs is a theory full of holes
> requiring substantiation. They typically claim the status of 'fact' for
> their theory and pour scorn on anyone who dares to challenge them.
> Very few, if any, evolution scientists are doing research on basic theory
> and certainly not on ways of possibly falsifying the paradigm in order to
> test it more rigorously. Alice Fulton's review of Michael Behe's book is
> instructive: 'Behe overestimates biochemists' interest in evolution. ...
> The biochemists I know well (from fifteen years working together) don't
> think about evolution very much..' Behe found virtually no papers which
> even attempted to prove evolutionary pathways. The reality is that
> scientists are not typically the ardent searchers for truth as which they
> are usually portrayed and modern science is characterised by much lazy
> and slovenly thinking.
>
> I repeat. The current myth told by science about the history of the
> universe and the origin and development of life on planet earth is a
> set of hypotheses based on an interconnected mass of other hypotheses and
> assumptions. Since it has no explanation for the origin of life and the
> proposed mechanism of evolution is completely inadequate to explain what
> appears to have happened, there is no good reason for taking the myth
> seriously. It is not merely a question of filling in a few holes; there
> is far more hole than substance.
>
> I agree that I should not have used the word 'inexplicably'. Evolution
> science does not use it. It claims to be able to explain how life emerged
> and evolved, yet it cannot show a single definitive evolutionary
> sequence. As a hypothesis it is effectively dead in the water. I find it
> difficult to have much respect for anyone who wants to pretend that it is
> alive and well and swimming around. The known facts cannot support ND.
> The natural world is not a mechanism.That is already a metaphysical assumption or preconception, not a conclusion deriving from the facts. To
claim that science can equally support ID and ND is to my mind to have
failed to look at the real world with open eyes (For those who have eyes
to see..) But if you start from the metaphysical presumption that the
> natural world is a mechanism, then perhaps one has already reduced
> oneself to the status of the one-eyed, colour-blind observer described by Sir Arthur Eddington in his >Philosophy of Physical Science<
>
> Paul Carline