Re: [asa] Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics Introduction now available

Hello Bill,

  You wrote: "I was using "trial and error" in the sense that evolution is a process of trial and error."

  Would you be willing to reverse this statement: 'trial and error is a process of evolution'? This is important because in my view trial and error is independent from evolutionary thought. T&E is comandeered (one of many seemingly related things, just like 'altruism') to shore-up the legitimacy of evolutionary thought outside of natural-physical sciences. But it makes no sense when human beings are involved, which is exactly what I'm repeating to you. The human-making feature of trying and erring itself invalidates 'evolution.'
   
  Technology doesn't 'happen on its own.' Gladly, on this we are agreed.
   
  You write: "Of course it doesn't happen on its own. Other technologists/inventors/what have you invent it. However, they have little or no knowledge what their inventions will be used for."
   
  Shall we call these particular inventors, those who "have little or no knowledge what their inventions will be used for," 'clueless inventors'? Or did you mean that the uses of technologies are beyond their inventors' knowledge, rather than not knowing what they were doing at all? This is totally different! I put to you that a vast majority of inventors at least know what they are 'trying' to invent. The A.G. Bell example is another - trying to make a hearing aid, ended up with a 'telephone.' But this doesn't discount the obvious point I've been making that inventors invent with intention, purpose, meaning, goal-directedness, etc. otherwise they would never get anywhere! This, in my view, is a non-evolutionary process; invention, innovation, humans making things.
   
  So again, automobiles or 'the automobile' does not 'evolve' anything like a biological entity can be said to 'evolve.' You would agree with this, right Bill? To disagree is to committ a category mistake, to force one's disciplinary specific context (nod to Murray's semantics of evolution thread) upon another.
   
  For a 'stickler about language,' Bill, you seem to equate development and evolution in your recent post ("they do evolve, because they are developed..."). Trial and error should be freed from the constraints of evolutionary thought; it is easier to understand on its own without the confusing selectionist/adaptationist ideology. As an electrical engineer/computer scientist, does it make any sense to say you, Bill, 'evolved' programs and projects? Isn't there a better way, without the baggage ideology of evolution, to express the action of your engineering and programming? Are you perhaps holding on to evolution too tightly (for reconciliation)? Maybe to let go would offer something new...
   
  Arago
   
  
Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
        Gregory wrote

    ----- Original Message ----
From: Gregory Arago <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca>
To: Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>; Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 5:07:31 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Evangelicals, Evolution, and Academics Introduction now available

  Trial and error is one thing. It need not be limited to 'evolutionary' thought, though it is obviously part of the cumulative knowledge perspective that evolutionary philosophy assumes. Let's put that aside for now.

However, I was using "trial and error" in the sense that evolution is a process of trial and error.

   
  You write: "later on a new technology emerges that provides a better method and developers incorporate it."
   
  A simple question: Who (or what) 'makes' that 'technology' to 'emerge' (i.e. who 'emerges' it)? It doesn't happen on its own. Please don't dodge this!

Of course it doesn't happen on its own. Other technologists/inventors/what have you invent it. However, they have little or no knowledge what their inventions will be used for. The inventors of the transistor probably didn't foresee that their invention would eventually make pointless ignition possible. They just published their results aand other inventors/developers improved on them until we had power transisters, SCR's etc. capable of implementing an electronic ignition, and cheap enough that they could be used one per cylinder, doing away with the distributer. The point is that the inventors of the technologies that eventually get incorporated into the automobile don't know that theuir inventions will be used for that purpose. So the whole process of "evolution" of the automobile is not totally deterministic,. There is a random component. (It's not totally random either) Now imagine a being from another universe looking at a junk yard long after humans have left the
 earth and having no understanding of humans or even of their existence. To them it will look very much as though the vehicles in the junk yard have evolved.

   
  In my view, as soon as you have human making, agency, purpose, meaning, intentionality, goal-directness, etc. you have NO evolution. End of story. If you want to exclude human beings from your answer to the above simple question, then we can move to another category (a non-human one, like your alien example). But for now, what you've said makes no sense if you accept that humans make technology.

Of course humans make technology, but as I said above, one inventor has no idea what his product will be used for (there is a famous paper written I believe in the 50's which estimated that eventually the United States would need (I forget the number, but it was probably about 10) computers.

   
  Of course mouse traps don't 'evolve' - they are human-made things! Steps, yes, intentional, purposeful (even if sometimes unintelligent) ones...

BUT in a sense they do evolve, because they are developed by a process of trial and error. I believe that evolution occurs under God's control. You may say that means there can be no trial and error, but that only applies if God does the process directly. If he uses material (or even spiritual) agents to do the work, agents can make mistakes. That He does use agents is hinted at by Genesis 1:24: "Let THE EARTH bring forth ..."

Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
    Gregory wrote

As a student of human-made things, including technology, my view is that technological evolution is nonsense! Humans (consciously) make technology, therefore technology doesn't 'evolve.'

Most technology is developed by trial and error. One method of accomplishing a function is devised, then later on a new technology emerges that provides a better method and developers incorporate it. And if a being who had no acquaintance with humans could look at the history of our technology over many years, it might get the impression that evolution had taken place. A couple examples might help.

First, what about Mike Behe's famous example of irreducible complexity: the mousetrap? Probably the idea of a trap came about when one of our ancestors found an animal crushed by a falling tree. He got the idea that he could suspend a tree branch above an animal trail and drop it on an animal passing under the branch. Then he or another inventive person realized that he could prop the branch up with a stick to which he attached some bait, so he wouldn't have to wait by the trap all day. Eventually someone realized a spring could be substituted for gravity -- initially springy wood, eventually steel.
Through many steps we get the mouse trap and the many other varieties of traps we have today.

Take another example: cars. The Ford Model T had a separate coil for each sspark plug. Probably because the separate set of points each coil had to have were unreliable someone got the idea of using a single set of points and a distributer. That arrangement was used until power electronics that could stand the environment of an engine compartment became available. If you look under the hood of one of today's cars -- GM anyway -- you'll see a separate coil for each spark plug. New technology from another field was adopted when it became available.
  

   
William E. (Bill) Hamilton, Ph.D.
248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
http://www.bricolagia.blogspot.com/
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Received on Thu May 22 13:27:45 2008