>Bertvan
>>>Our understanding of evolution will never progress as long as
>>>we view life as a collection of inanimate pieces of matter.
>
>>Chris
>>Actually, it *is* progressing, and very rapidly. You might even say it's
>>*evolving*.
>
>Bertvan:
>I thoroughly agree. Understanding of evolution is evolving, not randomly
>(and natural selection plays absolutely no role), but by individual
>judgements of individual people. The position I take, and the position you
>take both play a part in the outcome. We both claim intelligence is
>involved. Some scientists (probably a majority) have tried to impose a
>certain interpretation of the evidence (Darwinism). We will see how long
>they are successful.
>
>>>Bertvan
>>> The evolution of the biosphere, cultures and economies should give us a
>>> hint of how organic evolution might have occurred. Those systems are
>designed by
>>>the "intelligence" of the individual components. They are the cumulative
>>>result of individual choices.
>
>>Chris
>>These last two sentences contradict each other. In most cases, the second
>>is true, the first is not. Very few cultures are designed. The Soviet
>>Union, Communist China, Nazi Germany were designed, but most cultures
>>mostly just grow as the accumulation of the unintended, unplanned, often
>>unknown, consequences of the actions of individuals and small groups.
>>Languages seem to arise and develop in the same general way, as do most
>>economies.
>
>Bertvan:
>This shows our different definition of the word "designed". To you it
>requires a designer. To me it merely means the result of rational,
>intelligent, choices, as opposed to chance events. Communism was an attempt
>by human designers. A system, culture or economy, designed by the
individual
>choices of its components is more successful. (If there is a designer, I'll
>bet he knew that.) The cultural and economic choices people make are seldom
>random. They usually have what they consider intelligent reasons.
You seem to assume that "rational, intelligent choices" are invariably
better than a chance event. Yes, people usually do have "what they
consider intelligent reasons" for their actions--including panic stock
selling,
runs on banks and paying 7-foot basketball players millions of dollars.
>>Chris:
>>And the biosphere, even more obviously than cultures and economies, shows
>>all the signs of *unintelligent* evolution.
>
>Bertvan:
>I seen nothing unintelligent about the evolution of the biosphere. Acts of
>symbiosis are usually performed to the benefit of at least one, and often
>both, of the organisms involved.
That symbiotic relationship that benefits only one of the organisms
is often described as "parasitic" and it's frequently to the detriment of
the other organism. But I'll bet the ID knew that, too.
>Bertvan:
>Even people can be fooled by a paper tiger, but you have no idea how
bacteria
>"know" to pursue or flee from certain signals. As to DNA being no more
>"intelligent" a computer program, I'll agree when you build a computer
>actually capable of creating complex organic systems. (With or without
>computer programs designed by humans.)
Yet if you go in and scramble some of a gene's DNA, that DNA will go right
ahead and follow its scrambled code, regardless of the eventual result to
the organism. Is this a sign of intelligence?
>Bertvan:
>These are not live organisms. For an understanding of how multicelled
>organisms came into existence, we might study the slime mold. It can be
>individual organisms pursuing their own interests or it can combine to
pursue
>the interest of the whole. Can you declare with certainty no intelligence
is
>required to know when to do each? If the parts are "forced" into such
>cooperative behavior, what forces them? I don't think we know enough about
>the process to say anything -- unless we already have a philosophical
>prejudice against the existence of intelligence.
Or *for* it. :) Bertvan, if you need "certainty" before you'll accept a
explanation, science is going to be frustrating for you.
>>Bertvan
>>Science can not, at the moment, deal with free will and creativity. Some
>>people would even regard them as supernatural.
>
>Chris
>>And some people think that Santa Claus is *real*, too. So what? Is there
>>any *evidence* that they are supernatural? Can you even coherently define
>>what kind of evidence *could* indicate that they are supernatural? Is this
>>the kind of claim that even *can* have evidential support?
>
>
>Bertvan
>I actually don't consider them supernatural. However supernatural is how
>materialists often label phenomena they can neither measure, analyze, nor
>predict their effects.
I thought it was part of your definition of "materialist" that they consider
all things to be part of the material world? In that case, how could a
materialist justify calling anything "supernatural"?
ralph
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Sep 29 2000 - 00:39:11 EDT