From: Richard Loggins (brloggins@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 03:04:23 BST
Steve, Bob, and all,
I just thought I'd say that I agreed with Bob's post until I read Steve's. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to say that evolution is not directed or has no purpose and yet this is what we are taught to belive! How screwy is that, to deny what is so obvious? No offence, Bob, but you are spouting the kind of scientific rhetoric that, like the emperor, has no clothes. The MOQ once again is better because it has a better overall explanatory power, and it shows again here with it's take on evolution. I first thought that terms like "chance" and "random" do not work well under the MOQ and therefore it's coverage is wanting, but then it occurred to me that the reason is because, as Steve said, "chance" and "random" are vacuous concepts in terms of explanatory power and we are only tricked into thinking that they are integral under an SOM framework. Chance and random have no Quality, therefore they are not real. Has anyone put these ideas together in a really good essay or post and try to get it published somewhe
re? I think it's important that some of the brain damage inflicted on the culture at large from neo-Darwinism has to be undone, and who but one of us is better qualified to do it? Steve?
Rich
Steve Peterson <peterson.steve@verizon.net> wrote:
Hi Bob,
Have you read Pirsig's books?
> Two things about this process are
> important to remember: 1) it takes TIME (many generations, many years), and
> 2) the process is not directed towards any goal.
So evolution has no purpose? To me questions of purpose (will, desire,
intent, etc) can only be thought of from an internal perspective to whatever
you are talking about. Since an important scientific value is taking an
external (objective) perspective, questions of purpose are irrelevant. To
say the question of purpose has no meaning in this or any scientific theory
is far different than to say evolution has no purpose.
>Its mechanism is chance
> mutation.
As Platt likes to point out (and so do I) "chance" and "random" are words
that scientists like to pass off as explanations, while what they really
mean is that they simply don't know what will happen. Randomness is
certainly a useful concept. But to try to pass off randomness as a cause is
self-contradictory.
>Its outcome, at any stage, is measured by survival.
So evolution is a matter of survival of the fittest. That sounds like an
explanation, too until you ask Pirsig's question, "fittest for what?"
...errrr.....survival.
Evolution is survival of the survivors? Is that really supposed to be an
explanation? It is certainly a good description (though limited), but it is
no explanation.
Are you a scientist?
Perhaps you could tell me the purpose of gravity.
Thanks,
Steve
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