Re: [asa] Missing post to Steve Matheson

Hello Timaeus, and thanks for a gracious response to my post, which was a bit
too harsh I think. (And so I hope you'll accept my apology for this
unnecessary sharpness.)

Since it seems we will be seeing less of you, I want to make sure you know
that I would welcome further visits here by you, whenever you can spare some
time. In my opinion, we've reached a place of respectful disagreement, from
which we can go on to explore some of the interesting stuff on the outer edges
of ID thought. Specifically, I am eager to hear what you think of Conway
Morris' ideas, especially as they compare with Denton's. Evolutionary
convergence is very interesting, and I think Conway Morris is onto something
there. (I'm cool to the "theology" he discusses, but that's another topic.)
His book is very different from Denton's, but I think his project is
essentially the same. It will be interesting to learn how you see it.

There are only two minor aspects of your response that I'd like to respond to.
 Then I will consider the discussion of your portrayal of Denton to be closed.
You may have the last word.

Timaeus:
However, Mr. Matheson is wrong to go on, as he does: “But any claim that
Nature's Destiny does damage to modern evolutionary biology is a significant
distortion.” He implies that I have made such a claim. He will not find it
in any of my postings in this discussion. I have distinguished consistently
between “evolution” as a process and “Darwinism” as a theoretical
explanation for the process, and between “evolutionary theory” generically,
and various versions of evolutionary theory (Lamarckian, Bergsonian, and so
on). I have also made it clear that Denton accepts evolution as a process, but
criticizes the Darwinian explanation for evolution as nowhere near sufficient.
Denton does not attack “modern evolutionary biology” as such, but
“Darwinian evolutionary biology”. Or, put another way, his criticism of
“modern evolutionary biology” is not that it is evolutionary, or that it is
modern, but that it is Darwinian.

Steve:
Point taken. As I hope I've made a little clearer in my conversation with
Schwarzwald, I am rejecting the claim that Denton successfully shredded
Darwinian explanation, at all, but especially in Nature's Destiny. I do feel
that many of your comments were easily understood to be triumphalist claims on
behalf of Denton regarding a thorough demolition of "the Darwinian mechanism."
And I sought to explain what Nature's Destiny was all about, while reserving
for another time a response to the failed critique of ETC. Your clarification
is helpful, and I will gladly move on to other topics.

Timaeus:
The second book, *Nature’s Destiny*, concentrates more on expounding
Denton’s positive alternative to Darwinism. Mr. Matheson is right about
that. Still, the earlier critique of Darwinism is implicit in the newer book,
and even augmented in the newer book, especially in the second part, where he
makes pointed comments here and there directly aimed at Darwinian mechanisms,
as, for example, in the first two paragraphs under “The Question of the
Spontaneity of Mutation” on page 285. Thus, despite Denton’s important
change in perspective between the two books, there is continuity between them,
in their unified critique of Darwinian explanations as woefully inadequate to
explain the phenomena.

Steve:
I agree that it's clear that Denton hasn't changed his mind about undirected
evolution. But the section you cite is a prime example of the weakness of his
critique. That section is really bad. It's special pleading, indeed one of
the worst examples in the book. After describing the classic experiments that
supported the hypothesis of spontaneous (i.e., "random") mutation, he attacks
the strawman of whether this means that all mutations in all of history have
been spontaneous. That's not a successful attack on Darwinism; it's not even
an unsuccessful one. There are ways to at least try to address hypotheses of
directed mutation, and I have issues an open invitation to scholars who wish to
brainstorm about how to do this. Denton has provided an example of how NOT to
proceed: erect strawmen and retreat out of the range of falsifiability, both of
which he does in that section.

Anyway, Timaeus, thanks for the stimulus to read Denton -- I liked much of
Nature's Destiny, and I'm intrigued by his overall vision. Definitely
worthwhile.

Steve Matheson

>>> "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu> 11/17/08 10:31 AM >>>
Owing to my clumsiness, the part of Timaeus' reply to Steve Matheson was not
included in my earlier post. Here it now is.

Ted

***

B. To Steve Matheson:

Steve Matheson has undertaken to give his interpretation of Michael Denton.
That is fine with me. However, he also makes some comments to the effect that
I have misinterpreted Denton. This is not the case. Rather, Mr. Matheson has
failed to take into account the difference between my terminology and his own.

First of all, Mr. Matheson is correct to say: “Nature's Destiny seeks to
defend a law-based, teleological view of cosmic history in which the
development of humanity is the ultimate goal. The view is non-Darwinian for
sure, in the sense that such strong teleological
conceptions are non-Darwinian by definition.” Exactly right. This is my
interpretation of Denton, and expresses the main difference that I have been
trying to point out between front-loading design models, such as Denton’s,
and true Darwinian explanations.

However, Mr. Matheson is wrong to go on, as he does: “But any claim that
Nature's
Destiny does damage to modern evolutionary biology is a significant
distortion.” He implies that I have made such a claim. He will not find it
in any of my postings in this discussion. I have distinguished consistently
between “evolution” as a process and “Darwinism” as a theoretical
explanation for the process, and between “evolutionary theory” generically,
and various versions of evolutionary theory (Lamarckian, Bergsonian, and so
on). I have also made it clear that Denton accepts evolution as a process, but
criticizes the Darwinian explanation for evolution as nowhere near sufficient.
Denton does not attack “modern evolutionary biology” as such,
but “Darwinian evolutionary biology”. Or, put another way, his
criticism of “modern evolutionary biology” is not that it is evolutionary,
or that it is modern, but that it is Darwinian. In fact, he refers favourably
to another “modern” evolutionary theory, i.e., that of Stuart Kauffman.

If I was not 100% clear about where Denton “rips the Darwinian mechanism to
shreds”, I will be clearer now. The bulk of his negative critique, his
attack on Darwinism, is found in his earlier book, *Evolution: A Theory in
Crisis* (which would have been better titled, *Darwinism: A Theory in Crisis*,
since it is Darwinism, not evolution as such, that it rejects). The second
book, *Nature’s Destiny*, concentrates more on expounding Denton’s positive
alternative to Darwinism. Mr. Matheson is right about that. Still, the
earlier critique of Darwinism is implicit in the newer book, and even augmented
in the newer book, especially in the second part, where he makes pointed
comments here and there directly aimed at Darwinian mechanisms, as, for
example, in the first two paragraphs under “The Question of the Spontaneity
of Mutation” on page 285. Thus, despite Denton’s important change in
perspective between the two books, there is continuity between them, in their
unified critique of Darwinian explanations as woefully inadequate to explain
the phenomena.

As for Denton’s alleged Platonist bias, from reading his books and articles
I have the impression that his Platonism is something that has come about as
the result of his biological studies, not a metaphysical framework that he
began with, and forced his studies to fit, as Mr. Matheson seems to intimate at
one point. In this respect I think he compares favourably with most of the
celebrated promoters of neo-Darwinism (including many of Darwin’s early
British and German disciples, plus Sagan, Asimov, Dawkins, Coyne, Gaylord
Simpson, etc.), who began with metaphysical materialism as their philosophical
template, and forced biology, including evolutionary theory, to fit to that
template.

I thank Mr. Matheson for the reference to Conway Morris. He is another author
I have been meaning to have a look at.

As for Mr. Matheson’s critique of Denton, I won’t enter into the fray.
I’ve already indicated that I am not claiming any certainty that Denton is
correct overall, and still less do I claim that he has made no scientific
errors. I even agree that Denton’s assertions of fitness are
often “stretched”. What I find important in Denton, from the point of
view of the ID/TE debate, is that it embraces aspects of both positions, by
incorporating both evolution and design, and does it in a way that is
compatible with the notion of the absolute sovereignty of God, as given in the
Bible and Christian tradition. Whether Denton himself believes in the Biblical
God, or any kind of God, I do not know, but his overall scheme is God-friendly,
much more so than Darwin’s, which can only be accommodated to Christian
theism by means of ad hoc patchwork and strained arguments.

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Received on Mon Nov 17 17:07:25 2008