Hi David,
You would define evolution as:
EVOLUTION (in the context of high school -college level science curricula): =
"The postulated process by which new, biologically beneficial, increasingly
complex genetic code appears and accumulates over time in a pre-existing
(simpler) gene pool by random mass/energy interactions."
It sounds more like a definition Darwinism than that a definition of
evolution. Evolution was a concept which predated Darwin. Darwin's
contribution was the idea that natural selection was the actual creator of
complex biological innovation. Even Darwin didn't go so far as to insist
mutations were necessarily random and purposeless. Insistence upon
randomness and lack of teleology were additions of more dedicated
philosophical materialists. Even if you were to persuade a majority of
scientists to agree upon a definition, an unlikely possibility, the
controversy would continue. It is a question of whether reality can be
completely described by naturalistic explanations. Perhaps, neither
naturalism nor non-naturalism can be proved, but one or the other is a more
accurate description of reality. I believe we went through a period where
materialists were temporarily successful in intimidating many intellectuals
into supporting materialism as a "fight against ignorance and superstition".
I doubt such intimidation will survive the present open public debate.
Bertvan
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