Re: [asa] Education, Medicine, and Evolution

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Collin Brendemuehl
<collinb@brendemuehl.net> wrote:
>> That's a meaningless assertion. Could I invite you to present a more
>> easoned argument?
>
> I forgot to paste something in. Got too quick with the Send button. Will
> have to come back to this one later.
>
>> Any in particular? Really? I named two.
>
>> Then I have to reject them as strawmen since none of them showed a
>> problem with naturalism per se. In fact, none of them are relevant to
>> naturalism.
>
> No. You are only rejecting them because you dislike them.
> Mayr's contradiction is certainly relevant as we will show.
>
>> Yes, and you confuse this to be a paradox when in fact as I explained
>> your interpretation of Mayr is flawed. Just because Mayr believes that
>> evolution presents some problems to the understanding by some does not
>> mean that evolution and evolutionary theory has any problems, in fact.
>> As I explained the facts are simple that regularity and chance
>> processes are quite well understood. So let me see if I can give you
>> an example or two to clarify as you seem to be struggling with the
>> concept of necessity versus probability.
>
>> First example: Given a set of initial conditions, distributed with
>> some unnamed probability distribution function, calculate how they
>> 'evolve' under the process of a regular process. Chaos theory shows
>> that often, especially in case of non-linearities, the solutions
>> quickly diverge. So in other words, despite the regularity involved,
>> the solutions become some distribution.
>
>> Second Example: Given a probability distribution and a regularity,
>> such a a selective force, you can calculate for various cases their
>> outcome and obtain a distribution function for the expected outcome.
>> Even though the mechanism is regular and repeatable, the outcome
>> depends on chance variations and thus in some cases, the advantageous
>> allele can still be lost due to chance, especially in small
>> populations.
>
> It is you who misrepresent Mayr. He is very clear that by Necessity he means Determinism and by Chance > he means Contingency. He explains himself. Your explanation of another option is beside the point. It's a > > distraction from the reality of Mayr's own words.

and

> Chance vs Determinism is a paradox of contradiction, not conflict.
> Again, read Mayr better. He is quite clear.

So what do you believe Mayr says because so far nothing Mayr said
contradicts my interpretation. In fact, it also matches Mayr's
interpretation. Chance versus determinism is not a paradox of
contradiction, it may be confusing to use them at the same time but
they are not exclusive. Mayr points out that evolution consists of, at
least in case of Darwinism, two processes: one is variation which is
inherently probabilistic in nature (the term random is often used but
this may lead to unnecessary confusion), and selection which is
inherently 'law like'. Combine the two processes and you get something
which is stochastic in nature but there is hardly a contradiction or
paradox of contradiction here.

Perhaps I am failing to understand your argument but let me state
clearly that nothing what Mayr stated in the paragraph you quoted is
an insurmountable problem for evolutionary theory, even though some,
as Mayr suggests, have trouble appreciating that the process is both
law like and chance like..

I still encourage you to clarify your claims, since the examples you
provided show no problems for naturalism.

What am I missing here?

Mayr:

One can conclude from these observations that evolution is neither
merely a series of accidents nor a deterministic movement towards even
more perfect adaptation. To be sure, evolution is in part an adaptive
process because natural selection operates in every generation. The
principle of adaptionism has been adopted so widely by Darwinists
because it is such a heuristic methodology. To question what the
adaptive properties might be for every attribute of an organism leads
almost inevitable to a deeper understanding. However, every attribute
is ultimately the product of variation and this variation is large a
product of chance. Many authors seem to have a problem in
comprehending the virtually simultaneous actions of two seemingly
opposing causations, chance and necessity. But this is precisely the
power of the Darwinian process.

note the _seemingly opposing_ . Mayr is stating, as I stated, that
evolutionary processes have two components: one of mostly necessity
called selection and one mostly of a chance nature: variation.

Now remember what I stated

> Excellent but now combine this with variation and you have a lawlike
> process with chance variations.

To which you responded: No. A lawlike process. Variation does not
demand contingency.

As I and Mayr point out Variation is a probabilistic process of mostly chance.

I continued

> Just like Mayr argued, selection is deterministic in nature, variation
> is probabilistic in nature, the combine process is stochastic.

To which you responded partially: And you don't see the problem? THis
is why there are

It would be nice to hear the rest of the argument as well as why you
believe Mayr and Rosenhouse show a problem for naturalism. What am I
missing?

So you claim the debate is law-like, to which I answer that neither
Mayr nor Rosenhouse claimed that variation is lawlike but rather that
the process of selection is law-like. Combine this with the chance
processes involved in variation and you may appreciate why the process
can be both contingent and deterministic. I referred to stochastic
processes as an example

I hope that this contributes to a better understanding of what Mayr is
telling us.

>> I have to simply reject that claim. There is nothing religious about
>> the workable premise of science that it has to deal in falsifiable
>> presumptions. Otherwise, it is not science. If your argument is that
>> the _effect_ of this presumption is that it eliminates the
>> supernatural as an explanation then this is not an a priori assumption
>> but a constraint on the supernatural which lacks falsifiability since
>> it predicts anything and thus nothing.

> Whoa! At this point you've rejected a great deal of science

By rejecting the supernatural? Too bad but that's just not part of science.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Jun 2 21:23:29 2008