Re: Evolutionary Psychology and Free Will

OK, Greg, I'll respond now. I was frustrated before by what appears to be
different ideas of what I meant, when I used the term, "theory of
everything." I'll spell it out.

I have been using the term to mean simply this, nothing more. "Evolution"
presently functions in science as a "theory of everything," by which I mean
that mainstream science tries to offer explanations for when/where/how
things came into being. An example: the earth is ca. 4.65 BY old, and the
Cambrian period began ca. 530 MY ago (if my memory is wrong on either
number, I'm happy to be corrected, it isn't germane to my point). And the
K-T boundary, corresponding geologically to the mass extinction at the end
of the cretaceous, was ca. 65 MY ago. Ditto the huge crater near the
Yucatan on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, the "smoking gun" for the
Alvarez asteroid extinction theory.

Creationism also tries to be a "theory of everything." The fossils, e.g.,
virtually all came into being at the time of Noah's flood, whatever recent
date we assign for that event. The dinosaurs did not become extinct until
shortly after the Flood (an interesting claim in itself, given the trouble
that God put Noah into by having to round them up in pairs). And the earth
is ca. 10KY old, not 4.65 BY old. This is a false theory of everything, but
a theory of everything nonetheless.

ID, by contrast, is not a theory of everything. It deliberately avoids
commenting on phenomena such as those above. My overall claim is then as
follows: Unless/until ID advocates put forth a theory of everything that is
more convincing than the mainstream theory of everything, they have no
chance at all to be taught as an alternative to evolution in public schools.
 I base my claim on the belief that Kuhn was right about paradigm changes,
that scientists don't abandon a paradigm until they see a better one out
there. And if ID doesn't try to be a theory of everything, it won't be seen
as a better theory of everything.

That's the whole of my point, and the reason I've been referring to a theory
of everything. I mean no more than this.

Ted
Received on Tue May 2 23:36:42 2006