Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

Good point. Thanks.

And one more final point. Logan's statements in the second to last paragraph, (namely "When intelligent beings direct events, the events are not random either physically or metaphysically, and thus the agency is potentially detectable. And events that appear random may or may not actually be random. They cannot be both random and non-random at once.") contain a host of problematic issues which I think may be at the core of the ID/non-ID differences in perspective. These include:
a. directed events "are not random either physically or metaphysically" What is the basis for this assertion?
b. "...agency is potentially detectable" How does this follow?
c. "events that appear random may or may not actually be random." very true but what does that imply in this context? Is the converse also true, i.e., events that are not actually random may appear to be random?
d. "...cannot be both random and non-random at once." Yes and no. It can be random with respect to one variable and non-random in another. If we're talking about that same parameter space, then in a sense yes. From a complementarity point of view there can certainly be randomness at one level and non-randomness in another.

Randy
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Opderbeck
  To: Randy Isaac
  Cc: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 9:36 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Neo-Darwinism and God's action

  You might also add: 3: is "neo-Darwinism" metaphysically random? It depends on how one defines the term.

  On Feb 17, 2008 9:05 PM, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:

    Thank you all for a lot of helpful comments.
    Let me wrap up and summarize this thread.

    1. Is the biological theory of evolution truly random? While there are elements of randomness, boundary conditions and environmental factors provide a great deal of direction. Simon Conway Morris has shown a lot of evidence of convergence though the underlying factors for it are not yet known.

    2. Does the randomness of evolution mean that it is undirected? Yes--from a natural viewpoint. This means we know of no physical mechanisms that influence genetic variation on the basis of the needs or characteristics of any subsequent organism. No--from a divine viewpoint. This means that God's purposes in guiding evolution need not involve a scientifically detectable influence on genetic variation.

    Randy

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Received on Mon Feb 18 10:01:44 2008