Re: [asa] Rejoinder 9C from Timaeus - to George Murphy

Heya Timaeus,

I'm a very late entrant to this discussion, but I wanted to comment on a few
things below.

I'd like to address the scientific question first. I do appreciate Mr.
> Murphy's point that Darwinism has "evolved" since the time of Darwin.
> Obviously I am not going to hold any defender of Darwinism today to
> Darwin's gross errors about the mechanisms of inheritance. However, when we
> add in all the additions and corrections made by "neo-Darwinism" since then,
> we still have to ask what they amount to, in terms of the larger issue I'm
> addressing. Even if to "random mutation" and "natural selection", we add
> things like "gene duplication" or "genetic drift", or other so-called
> mechanisms that have been bandied about, it seems to me that we are still
> talking about (a) unguided processes; (b) natural selection (or the absence
> thereof). In other words, I think that "orthodox" neo-Darwinists like Coyne
> and Dawkins are still Darwinian in their fundamental mode of explanation for
> how complex integrated structures arise. And even Gould, who cri!
>
> ticized Darwinian gradualism (rightly so, in my view), still laid a heavy
> emphasis on the unguided nature of the process, by saying that if the
> evolutionary tape were re-run, the result would be different each time. And
> again I repeat that I don't believe that in implying that evolution was
> unguided, Darwin was laying on some metaphysically gratuitous addition to
> his "science". It is of the essence of the process described by Darwin that
> it be unguided. He wanted an explanation that did not involve conscious
> design. (So also Gaylord Simpson, Sagan, Dawkins, Coyne, etc.)

I understand that 'the essence of the process described by Darwin that it be
unguided'. I'd be willing to cede that that is what Darwin had in mind when
proposing his theory. I'd cede that such a position is, naturally,
incredibly important to Sagan, Dawkins, Coyne, etc.

But here's my problem: How would they, and how could they, ever
scientifically and certainly detect/rule out design or intervention
(guidance) in natural history? At this point I'd distinguish between a
scientific explanation which makes no reference to guidance, and an
explanation which rules out guidance. The former may be scientifically
viable - the latter is not. Take a mechanical device that was definitely and
certainly designed - say a calculator. You can give an incredibly thorough
material explanation of the device, its operation, even its origin all while
making absolutely no reference to guidance, intention, or design. But giving
that would not rule out design. In fact, it would imply nothing about design
at all. And any argument to that effect would be scientifically groundless -
particularly if the definition of science were from the outset limited only
to those material explanations.

So I agree with you about what Sagan, Dawkins, Coyne, etc want
neo-/darwinism to be about. They may even believe that neo-/darwinism
scientifically proves there was no design. But they would be in gross error
if they did believe that. They can talk about the importance of Darwinism
being unguided until they're blue in the face, they could insist that this
is the conclusion that Darwin, or Dawkins, or anyone else aimed for or had
in mind when presenting their ideas. Their error remains.

This, in my opinion, is even more in force for Gould. If he asserts that
evolution is so random that 'if you rewound the tape and played it again, it
would have played out differently', that simply leaves ample room for any
Creator to intervene in the process. How would we be able to tell a creator
did or did not? Remember, there were a wide variety of possible paths for
evolution to take - all a Creator would have to do in such a scenario is
choose a desired direction to guide it towards, directly (encourage the
mutations, environment, etc necessary to guide the evolutionary path) or
indirectly (front-loading of convergences, historical inclinations within a
range, etc.) Either way, Gould's observation leaves the scientific arena
immediately - sorry, but we only have access to a single run of the tape,
and how that tape would play out requires knowledge that leaps right out of
science and right into metaphysics, philosophy, and theology.

It seems, however, that recently some philosophers and biologists have been
> putting increasing emphasis on "necessity", in the sense of natural
> properties possessed by the atoms and molecules and cells that make up
> living things, which make their association not merely a matter of luck, but
> an expected outcome. For example, Kaufmann's self-organizing theory,
> Denton's pre-programmed anthropocentric universe, and possibly Sternberg's
> interest in Platonic forms, all could be thought of as approaches to
> evolution that depart to some extent from the conventional Darwinian
> emphasis on "chance". So I think of necessitarian approaches of this kind
> as "non-Darwinian" evolution (even though of they may allow an auxiliary
> role to chance, as, e.g., Denton does). What makes them non-Darwinian
> is not the complete absence of any Darwinian element, e.g., natural
> selection, or a small degree of chance, but their complete reframing of the
> evolutionary story so that necessi!
>
> ty rather than chance is in the driver's seat. My hunch, and it can only
> be a hunch, is that this re-balancing, with less emphasis on chance, is
> going to be increasingly found in evolutionary theory over the next 50 years
> or so.

I'd echo your hunch. I think it's worth keeping in mind here that these
scientists generally do not seem to have a commitment to atheism or
'unguidedness' based on scientific, or frankly even philosophical
rationales. Any process which seems obviously teleological, front-loaded, or
otherwise guided will and would likely be filed away as 'unguided' for no
other reason than "Well, we didn't see a designer do it, therefore nature
did it, and nature is unguided".

A side question. Is there any truth to Darwin supposedly believing in an
infinitely old earth, or infinitely old universe? I have a faint suspicion
here - ungrounded, hence my asking - that Darwin's intellectual reliance on
'chance' was tied to two things: An eternal past, and an inability of mind
to fundamentally understand, and therefore have any control over, these
processes. An eternal past is out of the picture (We know the age of the
earth, we have a good idea of the age of the universe, etc), and our own
minds are making progress towards understanding life and evolution, among
many other things. If I'm right, it would seem to me that claims to
evolution/nature being unguided is fundamentally saboted as is.

Finally, a question: I'm thinking of picking up "The Modeling of Nature:
Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis", a book by Fr.
William A. Wallace about the synthesis of modern science with Aristotlean
thought. Have you heard of this, and if so would you recommend it, and if
not - well, what's a good, modern book to read about Aristotle's relevance
to scientific study? You seem like the guy to ask.

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Received on Fri Nov 14 11:29:14 2008