Re: [asa] ID question? - TE does or doesn't 'limit evolution'?

Gregory -

To Ted's comments let me add a bit. 1st, of course, a question about what
TEs are doing assumes that TEs are a well-defined group, which is highly
debateable. But let that pass for now.

Saying "biological evolution" instead of just evolution & distinguishing
that as a science from "evolutionism" as a philosophy - & especially as a
"totalizing meta-narrative" - is one way TEs "limit evolution." I often try
to do that at least at the beginning of a presentation for non-specialists.
Perhaps TEs could do that more consistently. But I have to return to a
point I've tried to make to you before. Especially in brief comments &
informal discourse among people who know what the subject is, it becomes
very tiresome to repeat qualifications that everyone in the community of
discourse understands. If one doesn't realize that & puts in all the
qualifications every time one uses a word then every conversation takes on
the character of a legal brief & it becomes very tedious.

I agree that evolution as a totalizing metanarrative should be challenged.
But that's something different from what I think you may want (correct me if
I'm wrong) - i.e., limiting the use of the word entirely to biological
evolution. The term "stellar evolution," e.g., is generally accepted
terminology in astronomy & astrophysics.
It isn't the same kind of thing as biological evolution. (If you tried to
talk about a "struggle for survival" among stars you'd be faced with the
fact that the stars that get the most resources - i.e., material - in an
interstellar cloud survive for the shortest time!) In practice you're not
going to get rid of the term - astrophysicists just won't pay any attention
if you try.

I suspect your concern, though, is more with "cultural evolution." Whether
or not that's an accepted term among cultural anthropologists you might know
better than I. In any case I can't see that it should be problematic as
long as one doesn't view it as just a sub-category of biological evolution.
(In particular, cultural evolution - if you allow the term - has a strongly
Lamarckian character lacking in biological evolution.)

Shalom
George
http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>; "Gregory Arago" <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 10:02 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] ID question? - TE does or doesn't 'limit evolution'?

>>>> Gregory Arago <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca> 10/29/2009 5:56 AM >>> writes:
>
> Again, let me follow up on this in order to be crystal clear.
>
> Ted wrote:
> "So, Gregory, what exactly do you mean? Or, have I answered your vacuous
> claim satisfactorily at this point?"
>
> What is at stake here is whether or not 'evolution' has *any* limits,
> according to 'TE.' I did not ask simply 'what are TE's doing?' but rather
> 'what are TE's doing...to limit evolution?'
>
> If you can't 'limit evolution,' then 'evolution' is effectively
> 'unlimited,' i.e. a totalizing ideology.
>
> This is not a vacuous claim (i.e. that TEs are doing nothing or very, very
> little to limit evolution) and it is not a vacuous question to ask, though
> it is certainly one that asks people to check their grammar carefully and
> to consider changing the way they communicate about something if there is
> a better alternative.
>
> ***
>
> Ted replies briefly. Gregory, when someone like Francisco Ayala or Arthur
> Peacocke or John Polkinghorne says that evolution cannot explain morality,
> mathematics, religion, or culture -- or evolutionary biology itself, for
> that matter -- then IMO that counts as doing plenty to limit evolution.
> The reason (perhaps) why you fail to see this, Gregory, is that TEs such
> as these folks don't challenge the *biology* of evolution. Rather, they
> challenge what it means to "explain" something. I'll close with this
> pithy little sentence from Polkinghorne, "Belief in God in an Age of
> Science," p. 18: "Did Oskar Schindler take great risks to rescue more than
> a thousand Jews from extermination because of some implicit calculation of
> genetic advantage?"
>
> I see no indication here, Gregory, that evolution is effectively unlimited
> in Polkinghorne's understanding of it. None.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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Received on Thu Oct 29 10:57:52 2009