Bertvan@aol.com writes
in message <38.49e2fc7.2629e546@aol.com>:
>
> Hi Ted:
> Where you see RM&NS such a powerful and persuasive explanation,
> it requires powerful and persuasive explanations to overturn
> it. Many of us see RM&NS as such an inadequate explanation,
> we would carefully examine ANY other explanation. The evidence
> for and against RM&NS is available to all of us,
I'm not sure the evidence for (and against) RM & NS is all that
easily available to everyone in its totality. We can't assume
that we've all been exposed to the same information.
> Do you think there is room in science for more than one view
> on the subject-without either side attacking the other's motives
> or intelligence? Do you think it possible ID scientists and
> RM&NS scientists might coexist? Would you consider it legitimate
> for the public (including school children) to be aware of such
> a difference of opinion among scientists --without anyone
> declaring that those with minority views weren't "real" scientists?
Science is supposed to be a framework for the "peaceful"
competition of ideas so something in the ID/naturalist debate
is out of whack. I see differing viewpoints all the time in
textbooks and no hint that all minority viewpoints are considered
unscientific. I'd have to look at specific examples of ID
scientists and the treatment they've received to make a judgement
call.
> Ted: It's just like suggesting that erosion can explain the Grand
> > > Canyon. We know that erosion works on our small observable
> > > scale so we assume in can also do a much larger job over a
> > > much larger interval of time. However, that explanation
> > > would quickly fall out of favor if good evidence for a
> > > different mechanism were found, or if evidence for aliens
> > > who had good reason to do such things was discovered.
> Bertvan: The assumption is justified in the case of erosion
> because we can observe small changes turning into large scale
> effects.
Have we observed the creation of canyon even 1/100th
the size of GC? I recall we observed some interesting
affects of large scale erosion during the Mt. St. Hellens
eruption but geologists are quite clear that the results
of that look nothing like what we see in the Grand Canyon.
> We not only don't observe the gradual creation of new
> organs and
We don't observe the gradual creation of large-scale erosion
features, either, without begging the question. Looking at sand
swirling in water eddies in a small rock indentation shouldn't
give us any help explaining large potholes in river beds. Yet,
ID'ers have no problem letting geologists do just that.
> complex systems by gradual, random mutations and
> natural selection -- some of us have trouble even imagining the
> steps involved in such a process.
All things a skeptic could say about erosion evidence and
properties, I think. Look at the series of steps proposed for
the Grand Canyon: water erosion, uplift, water and wind erosion,
slip-fault-movement, more water and wind erosion, etc (if memory
serves). All plausible, yes, but where's the evidence right now
that erosion can explain something that huge?
> Because one assumption has proved to be justified doesn't
> automatically justify all assumptions.
It doesn't, but science is concerned with the most likely and
explanatory hypothesis, not the one that is absolutely true
(because we don't have any shortcuts to absolute truth so we
use science with the assumption that it will lead us in the
right direction).
> Since part of your attachment to RM&NS is merely lack of
> alternative explanations, I should think you would applaud
> anyone searching for other options, such as evidence
> for non-random, environmental influences upon mutation. Yet
> most RM&NS defenders appear not only uninterested in such
> research; they seem to have an emotional aversion such a
> possibility.
I doubt anyone objects to a search; they do, however object to
the suggestion that ID is a solution that should receive equal
treatment with RM & NS. I think geologists would react the same
way if someone claimed ID should be taught as an alternate
explanation for the Grand Canyon.
> If mutations were not random, there would be no
> need for Natural Selection to "create" anything. Surely
> Darwinist aversion to purposeful mutations can't merely be
> emotional attachment to the idea of Natural Selection!!
>
> >Ted : Let's also not forget to look at the other side of
> >the coin. If similarity and complexity suggests intelligence,
> >then the sheer coldness and lack of any moral decency whatsoever
> >in nature suggests the absence of intelligence (if we
> >associate higher intelligence with higher morality). Frankly,
> >I can't conceive of an intelligence so great that it could
> >manipulate genes but so morally-flawed that it would permit
> >the unimaginable scale of pain and suffering in life's
> >history. We must suppose an intelligence that is far more
> >frightening then no intelligence at all; an intelligence
> >that would permit any intelligent race to be wiped out to
> >see what organism might next fill its niche. Perhaps it is
> >far more comforting to imagine that nature alone gave rise
> >to life than to imagine an advanced intelligence without a
> >trace of human decency!
>
> Bertvan: Here I think we have the heart of the disagreement.
> You are defining "intelligence" as human intelligence. Certainly
> not canine intelligence, feline intelligence, nor bacterial
> intelligence, but even most religious people regard the intelligence
> in nature as something more than " human intelligence". It is
> true that many religious people paint their God in pretty human
> terms, but agnostics can consider nature the result of an
> intelligent, rational design without even speculating about the
> nature of any designer.
But why not speculate? If design can infer a designer, why can't
the nature of the design infer the nature of the designer?
The inference that I would get from the "design" in nature is
that the designer has the same morals as nature itself; which
makes it rather simpler, again, to posit nature as the designer
rather than another entity for which there is no other evidence.
Further, morality assumes a social organism of some type, so
the only way a postulated intelligence could be a-moral would
be if it were the only one of its kind, which seems farfetched.
For morality to have logical appeal, it must be based on values
which transcend mere physical or genetic appearance -- probably
consciousness or the ability to feel pain. An intelligence
would be able to determine trivially that many organisms here
on earth are capable of this (I don't think it all unlikely that
early humans, such as Neandertals, for example, experienced
consciousness much like we do today). Thus, I find it most
likely that, if an intelligence did exist, it would regard the
the process we observe in Earth's history as a-moral and would
not incorporate it for its own ends.
Now, you seem to say that this sort of reasoning is out-of-bounds
or off-limits. Why?
> We do not have to understand any ultimate purposes to believe
> teleology might be a part of nature. In addition, you seem to
> believe intelligence should include moral judgments such as
> "human decency". This belief that nature is immoral seems to
> be behind some people's passionate denial of teleology as a
> possible part of nature. According to whose standards might
> nature be immoral? A century or so ago "human decency" included
> the institution of slavery. Has twenty-first-century, Western
> "human decency" reached some objective plateau ?
The goal of morality has always been objective at its roots:
maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain for the individuals
that make up society. We don't need to go into the subjective
nature of morality at all for this discussion. Pain and
pleasure are pretty obvious to any sentient creature.
> Are you convinced
> the only possible "intelligent" purpose of nature must be bliss?
> (absence of pain and conflict) Human bliss? Animal bliss"?
As I reasoned above, it seems most likely that intelligence
should tend to avoid unnecessary suffering.
> How could we even define bliss in the absence of suffering?
I don't believe I proposed that an absence of suffering
was ever possible; merely, that with intelligence comes
the desire and the ability to minimize suffering in wider and
wider circles. You can observe this trend in the human race.
> RM&NS is an explanation of nature devoid of teleology. If some
> people, in their disappointment that nature doesn't "show a
> trace of human decency" have decided teleology does not exist,
> fine. That decision should not be imposed anyone as "scientific
> truth".
Actually, in this instance, I believe it doesn't stop with
disappointment, it continues to an argument that demonstrates
that intelligence without morality is really a bit far-fetched.
But again, I don't agree that anyone has decreed that teleology,
in theory, does not exist; only that there is no evidence in
nature that requires an ID explanation-- just like a geologist
might say about the Grand Canyon.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 17 2000 - 18:07:02 EDT