From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Sun Sep 11 2005 - 23:34:22 BST
[Scott wrote]
> It seems to me that Pirsig's discussion of evolution in Lila, ch. 11, is
> at
> odds with what you are saying. For Pirsig, evolution requires something
> that
> an old-style materialist (who thinks in terms of chance and mechanisms)
> would call supernatural, namely DQ. Pirsig says that there is no conflict
> between the MOQ and Darwinism, as long as "survival of the fittest" is
> understood as "survival of the more valuable". And he says that there is
> no
> conflict with teleological versions of evolution. To put it another way, I
> think that Dawkins would reject the MOQ's view of evolution as being
> teleological.
[Case wrote]
Thanks Scott! After rereading Chapter 11 I see that you are correct. Pirsig
does attempt to reconcile these two points of view. I think nearly
everything he says is this chapter is off base and am working on a much
longer response. But thanks for pointing this out! It stimulated a great
deal of reanalysis on my part.
[Case begs pardon of Ham]
While I think I disagree with you on a profound level I do confess to being
a bit sarcastic. But after listening to Lee Stroble and Hank Hanegraaff talk
about it for a week on the Bible Answerman radiio show, I have little
patience with the Watchermaker arguement. It just leads to infinite regress,
adds nothing to our understanding and passes for reasoned discourse but only
with the right theme music.
I thought I actually first read what follows in a book by Bertrand Russell
but this was all I could find of it on the internet. It sums up my thoughts
on the Watchermaker pretty well:
"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a
public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the
sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection
of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at
the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish.
The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant
tortoise."
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is
the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever,"
said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."
I could tolerate the notion of intelligent design as a harmless fantasy, if
people would stop trying to require teaching it as science in our schools.
I am sorry I really mean no sarcasm here but imagining myself stepping
outside of space and time and looking at the cosmos from a divine
perspective has not enhanced my understanding. Having thought this problem
through for myself a couple of times now, I still conclude that the notion
of purpose and design in nature conceals more of the mystery than it
reveals.
Case
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