Yes Ted, thank you for answering my question clearly enough. It seems we will have to disagree for now on the issue of whether or not evolution is a ‘theory of everything,’ since I don’t buy it. But you have well clarified your meaning and gone the extra distance by stating that evolution has become (a) the ‘modern creation story,’ as explainable by science.
Perhaps the only other question in this thread that wasn’t addressed is regarding whether a theory can be considered 'scientific' if it doesn’t address the age of the earth. Your words about what the IDM is and isn’t and reporting about the boundaries of ID have been quite helpful. And I agree with most of them. Nevertheless, it seems that the idea that science must speak about 'origins of life' or 'human origins' to actually count as 'science' is a mere reversion to some kind of creation equation. Or am I missing something by not being involved in the politics?
If ID could be restricted, for example, to pattern recognition and specifying complexity, could it not then be considered ‘scientific’ and (falsifiably) limited? As a philosopher of science you may be in the best position to answer such a question.
Regards,
Gregory
Ted Davis <tdavis@messiah.edu> wrote: Gregory,
Yes, it is my view that evolution functions as a "theory of everything."
Here I am defining "evolution" very broadly to mean the "modern creation story" as it is sometimes called. That is, I include the big bang, stellar evolution and the creation of elements, the origin of life (by far the weakest part of the grand narrative), the origin of species, and the origin of humans.
"...and at the popular level ID includes only the assault on "Darwinism," which leaves aside crucial issues about when/where/how features of the universe came into being.
Is my point clear enough now?
Ted
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Received on Thu Mar 9 17:09:57 2006
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