Hi Platt, Andrea, Roger, Glenn, Marty, Matt and All:
I think that Andrea's posts on the evolution were great. I find his
descriptions compatible with the view held by most biologists, including
myself.
PLATT
<<<To call anyone who disagrees with Gould's view of evolution *naive*
seems arrogant to me and others who are open to the idea of
evolutionary progress. Not only does the word *evolution* imply
progress, but for every scientist you can name who agrees with Gould I
can name one who disagrees. >>>
The average layman wouldn't understand these disagreements - they are about
details. You can't get away from the fact that Gould and the vast majority of
other biologists accept the Darwinian view on evolution.
Platt
<<<I'm sure we don't want to go down that
road, but just as an example, the astronomer Fred Hoyle calculated that
the odds of natural selection producing even an enzyme is on the order
of a tornado roaring through a junkyard of airplane parts and coming up
with a Boeing 747.>>>
. . . and IMHO Hoyle is wrong. He makes the serious mistake of doing post
facto statistics.
<<<Measured in survival terms alone, I believe the horseshoe crab ranks as
high as anyone. I would ask those who believe a horseshoe crab is a
higher evolutionary form than a man if they would prefer to be a crab, or
a beetle, or whatever long-surviving creature they admire. If the answer
is no, then another meaning of *higher* is being relied on which
common sense brings immediately to the fore. >>>
Platt, I think that you should ask your question to a horseshoe crab!!!
<<<That meaning was hinted at by both Marty and Roger. Marty called it
*expansion of the ability to perceive quality,* and Roger nailed it by
saying *higher quality involves more experience and variety of
experience and more versatility of experience.*>>>
Yes, I agree with this human-centred view. I suspect that the crab might not.
<<<What Gould and other scientists of his ilk fail to take into account in
their paranoia to keep any hint of the supernatural out of evolution is the
interior development of life forms. [snip]>>>
It is not paranoia - Gould and most other biologists are developing a
description of the world that is consistent, comprehensive and useful. It is
natural that they/we should reject half-baked pseudoscientific nonsense that
undermines that aim.
PLATT
<<<The other belief open to question of Gouldian evolution is the total
reliance on chance to bring about change. Glenn and I have been back
and forth on that issue enough to bore the beejesus out of anyone.
Suffice it to say that if things just happen, it's a confession that the end
of science has been reached.>>>
Platt, that's naughty. Your pejorative "JUST" is unjust. We're back to our old
causality problem again. Things happen because "it is their cause" (remember
how much you liked that a few weeks ago Platt?).
Jonathan
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