If Darwinism was one of many contributing factors to the Holocaust, then so is religion. Hitler did claim to be doing the bidding of God, after all.
I wonder how long until Mathis makes a film about that...
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If Darwinism was one of many contributing factors to the Holocaust, then so is religion. Hitler did claim to be doing the bidding of God, after all.I am sure the Nazi parallel is offensive, but its not like anyone can prove him wrong (or right). Its just an argument with some logic. If you misapply that logic to require that Darwinism cause literal pogroms at Harvard, then it would sound absurd. But, the argument is only a form of "but for" causation -- ie, it was one of many contributing factors.
Apparently I didn't listen carefully enough. How does he use them differently?
What do you think is the difference between evolutionism and darwinism?I haven't seen the movie so I'd have to assume that I know what he believes to answer your questions, in which I don't.
Regarding Nazism, you absolutely right.
However, we would argue that it was a "slippery slope", sort of like what we were taught about drugs in school: try a little pot and you are bound to be shooting up. There is no 1 for 1 correlation, but very few people didnt smoke before trying heroin. But, many people who smoked pot never really took more than a very passing interest. Its a confusing area, and I think that people would like Ben Stein to be more confused about it than he really is. Most of the soundbites are taking advantave of this inherent confusion in these ideas about causation.
As for randomness, conceptually, I have a real hard time with the notion of "semi-randomness" or partial randomness. If you look at, for example, the mathematical power of life processes to overcome the odds against functioning enzymes, is any concept of partial randomness really valid?
Said otherwise, if you take a "inherent property" (or ID) that is well-matched to a "random" process, such that life processes result, how exactly do you segregate any portion of the whole to make one part random and one part "inherent" or "designed?" An inherent proclivity to take advantage of randomness (assuming it exists) means that there isn't any randomness anymore. Whatever is "random" is subsumed by the inherent properties. If design is an even number and random an odd number, when you multiply them, you always get an even number and you can't get an odd number.
To me, the latter issue is the core of the current ID v. Darwinism debate. Most evolutionists are blowing by it. ID has not quite discovered the fertile ground in neo-Darwinism. I think that would be a great OT thread, though we have had a few go rounds. I just don't think it is well understood by creationists or evolutionists.
As for "partial randomness", this notion also betrays an interesting idea: much of the territory presumed to be random has given way to notions of inherent properties of molecules to create life (or ID). It would be presumptious to say that randomness is not an unexplained area where designed might eventually be discovered.
Gluadys talked about randomness more than adequately. But so that I can phrase it in my own words (because that's the kind of guy I am):
You may be very right that there is design in what we perceive to be randomness. As I said, I have written a number of programs that use evolution as the premise for their functionality. But the "randomness" that I use isn't random at all! On the contrary, one of the great puzzles in computer science is how to devise a random number generator that's fast and gives good distribution. I, for one, certainly don't think that the randomness (read "unpredictability") in nature is beyond the providence of God. Nevertheless, insofar as it is unpredictable we call it random.
But, again, all that aside, although randomness (unpredictability) is necessary in evolution, it is only one part and it is insufficient on its own. In fact, Darwin didn't even know about it. One of the perceived weaknesses in his theory was that there was no mechanism in descent for divergence.
As I asked in the neocreationist subforum, what miracles of evolution are you referring to, specifically?The creationist problem with evolution, etc, however, is that it evolution does propose miracles of its own and refuses to recognize God's miracles or put a name with those miracles.
As I asked in the neocreationist subforum, what miracles of evolution are you referring to, specifically?
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman06/kauffman06_index.html[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I would like to begin a discussion about the first glimmerings of a new scientific world view — beyond reductionism to emergence and radical creativity in the biosphere and human world. This emerging view finds a natural scientific place for value and ethics, and places us as co-creators of the enormous web of emerging complexity that is the evolving biosphere and human economics and culture. In this scientific world view, we can ask: Is it more astonishing that a God created all that exists in six days, or that the natural processes of the creative universe have yielded galaxies, chemistry, life, agency, meaning, value, consciousness, culture without a Creator. In my mind and heart, the overwhelming answer is that the truth as best we know it, that all arose with no Creator agent, all on its wondrous own, is so awesome and stunning that it is God enough for me and I hope much of humankind.[/FONT]
http://s8int.com/phile/art-darwin-defection.html[SIZE=small]Meanwhile, Kauffman's had a breathtaking career, beginning as a medical doctor, honored as a MacArthur fellow (genius) and has worked with Nobel prize winner Murray Gell-Mann at the Santa Fe Institute where he first studied self-organization. Looking at simple forms like the snowflake, he noted that its "delicate sixfold symmetry tells us that order can arise without the benefit of natural selection". Kauffman says natural selection is about competition for resources and snowflakes are not alive -- they don't need it. [/size][SIZE=small]But he reminded me in our phone conversation that Darwin doesn't explain how life begins, "Darwin starts with life. He doesn't get you to life." [/size][SIZE=small]Thus the scramble at Altenberg for a new theory of evolution. [/size][SIZE=small]But Kauffman also describes genes as "utterly dead". However, he says there are some genes that turn the rest of the genes and one another on and off. Certain chemical reactions happen. Enzymes are produced, etc. And that while we only have 25,000 to 30,000 genes, there are many combinations of activity. [/size][SIZE=small]Here's what he told me over the phone: [/size][SIZE=small]"Well there's 25,000 genes, so each could be on or off. So there's 2 x 2 x 2 x 25,000 times. Well that's 2 to the 25,000th. Right? Which is something like 10 to the 7,000th. Okay? There's only 10 to the 80th particles in the whole universe. Are you stunned?" [/size]
[SIZE=small]It's getting pretty staggering I told him. But there was more to come as he took me into his rugged landscapes theory – hopping out of one lake into a mountain pass and flowing down a creek into another lake and then wiggling the mountains and changing where the lakes are – all to demonstrate that the cell and the organism are a very complicated set of processes activating and inhibiting one another. "It's really much broader than genes," he said. [/size][SIZE=small]Kauffman presents some of this in his new book Reinventing the Sacred. [/size][SIZE=small]And natural selection is back in the equation. [/size][SIZE=small]In his book Investigations (2000), Kauffman wrote that "self-organization mingles with natural selection in barely understood ways to yield the magnificence of our teeming biosphere".[/size]
You're talking about abiogenesis again, busterdog. Not evolution. I asked you about evolution.
It's different the same way the theory of relatively explains gravity but doesn't explain the origin of gravity.Why is it different?
It would certainly take many mutations, accumulated over millions of years. But why do you say they need to be "vastly complex"? Even the simplest of mutations can greatly alter bodyplans.Going from marmot-like mammal to chimp, that takes many hugely, vastly complex mutations, would it not?
How is it helpful to focus on either of two alleged factors in causation when both factors are not understood?
So the model is X (intrinsic property favoring beneficial mutation) multiplied by Y (randomness in some mechanics, such as recombination) = a new beneficial trait or species.
But, what is the point when we don't know how or why X is X and we are not even sure that Y exists, since there may not be any true randomness? Once you start dealing in "intrinsic properties" tending toward evolution or abiogenesis, but you don't know where or why they exist, you can't have randomness. It would like be like being half pregnant, unless and until you can prove true randomness exists.
Since you can't prove it, why the loose talk about probability?.
Ah, no. It doesn't really matter whether the process is ontologically random. It's random as far as testing is concerned. That's why I say "unpredictable." It may not be random at all, but since we can't predict it, and since the possibilities seem to fit a uniform distribution - whatever the actual nature of the process - it is sufficient for scientific purposes. If you are under the impression that evolution requires ontologically random processes to function, that's incorrect. As I mentioned, in my own engineering, I have used pseudo-random functions and they are amply sufficient for my purposes.
If it's the word "random" that bothers you, I don't mind using "humanly unpredictable - insofar as we have been able to determine so far" but _do_ realize that other people are going to use the term "random" without meaning random in the ontological sense. Science may exclude certain ontologies but it doesn't characterize them.
As an aside, I've read a lot of creationist literature and it seems as though most authors either have difficulty distinguishing between perceptions and ontology or think that scientists think they have a grasp on the latter through science. It's almost a visceral reaction to ideas like the beginning of the universe or the origin of man (or life) - as if science was asking the same questions that the spirit asks. It's true that many scientists are inspired (because of their work) to ask the spiritual questions but they _are_ spiritual questions, not scientific ones.
What interests me is that evolutionists have gotten over randomness and required processes that inherently overcome very long odds and great complexity.
And yet the "process" is really of an unknown origin and is only partially understood.
THe notion that it is predictable and therefore understood is a pipe dream.
A process that can overcome barriers to life and "evolution" must be so powerful, that our very narrow slice of experience cannot possibly say with any confidence that it is predictable in the long term.
All of the foregoing are aspects of theology.
What interests me is that evolutionists have gotten over randomness and required processes that inherently overcome very long odds and great complexity. And yet the "process" is really of an unknown origin and is only partially understood.
THe notion that it is predictable and therefore understood is a pipe dream. A process that can overcome barriers to life and "evolution" must be so powerful, that our very narrow slice of experience cannot possibly say with any confidence that it is predictable in the long term.
All of the foregoing are aspects of theology.
The odds are not that long. After all, we wouldn't engineer with it if desired results didn't reliably come in.
Engineered results are not experimental observations of anything but engineering.
Nobody said it was predictable in the long term. It isn't even predictable in the short term. Are you under the impression that evolutionary scientists are making predictions about what is going to happen in the future?
I think we agree that they cant. In otherwords, the creative force that underlies where we came from is beyond them.
How so?
This theory invokes mystery and virtually infinite power to overcome barriers to make life from nothing and new species from old species. It has everything but the name of a god attached to it.
Engineered results are not experimental observations of anything but engineering.
I think we agree that they cant. In otherwords, the creative force that underlies where we came from is beyond them.
This theory invokes mystery and virtually infinite power to overcome barriers to make life from nothing and new species from old species. It has everything but the name of a god attached to it.
1) Biological evolution isn't abiogenesis, busterdog. Honestly, I don't know how many times you need to be told this. I'm starting to think you're being rather disingenuous and thick-skulled on this point. Evolution occurs, regardless of whether life came about via natural means or in a magical puff of smoke.This theory invokes mystery and virtually infinite power to overcome barriers to make life from nothing and new species from old species. It has everything but the name of a god attached to it.
1) Biological evolution isn't abiogenesis, busterdog. Honestly, I don't know how many times you need to be told this. I'm starting to think you're being rather disingenuous and thick-skulled on this point. Evolution occurs, regardless of whether life came about via natural means or in a magical puff of smoke.
2) We see new species borne of old species all the time. And we can account for the natural mechanisms that brought them about. Here's a recent example:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001907
I'm perfectly happy to admit God orchestrates speciation, but do we really have to hide behind our ignorance in order to give him the glory for it?
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