Re: textbook problems, from Cobb County...

> I came across and ASA message from 1999 that read, in part.
>
> "For example, the popular 10th grade textbook, "Biology", by Miller
> and
> Levine,
> states that "evolution is random and undirected" and also that
> "evolution
> works without either plan or purpose" (Prentice-Hall, 1993, 1995 and
> 1998
> editions, pg. 658).

The first statement is incorrect from a scientific perspective (if not
qualified) in that selection is decidedly not a random process.
However, the other statements above can be understood as being correct
WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A SCIENTIFIC DESCRIPTION. In otherwords,
organisms do not strive toward a goal. Evolutionary processes cannot
anticipate future conditions or adapt organisms to future evinronmental
opportunities. A goal-directed evolutionary process is really what the
vitalists saw. This is a Lamarkian view with organisms being propelled
up the great chain of being by an inner vital force.

The absence of goal-directed processes at a descriptive level, however,
does not have any implication with regard to God's providential
guidance of the whole of the evolutionary process toward God's desired
ends. But this would be wholly invisible to scientific inquiry.

Keith
Received on Mon Jan 31 14:31:18 2005