From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Sep 06 2003 - 20:25:18 BST
Andy,
> I just finished my morning walk with the dog. It wasn't too productive,
but I
> did have one insight.
Don't tire him/her out :-)
>
> You mentioned Crick and Watson. I don't know if Darwin had any influece
on
> their work, perhaps you or someone else does. Regardless, you would have
to
> include their work as important evidence in support of Darwin, and thus
> catagorize them under what we call Darwinism or what you would prefer to
cal
> evolution.
I've said many times what I mean by Darwinism, and I do *not* call it
"evolution". I call it evolution by means of random genetic mutation and
natural selection.
The amazing thing about Darwin and all that he proposed is all the
> evidence he did not have at the time of his work. When he proposed
natural
> selection, there was no known mechanism for natural selection to work with
from
> generation to generation. There was still and ongoing debate going on
between
> Lamarckism and Darwinism. Crick and Watson's double helix provided the
> mechanism and Darwinism got the nod. I don't know what Darwin had to say
on
> chance, but chance mutations have to have been proposed after Crick and
Watson
> it would seem to me. Speciation does not have to be based solely on
chance
> mutations and natural selection. Many Darwinists have rejected this idea.
> Ernst Mayr has done extensive work on speciation with Founder populations.
> Under this theory, geographic boundaries result in new species. Chance
and
> natural selection do the rest and as a computer scientist you should
appreciate
> the relatively short number of generations needed to produce significant
change
> and vast diversity after programing a little chance and natural selection,
i. e.
> genetic algorithms.
As I've said, I do not deny that new forms can spring from old within a
space-time system. But I consider it implausible that this is how species
differentiation takes place. As a computer scientist I know how fragile
computer systems are. So this is the old objection to Darwinism that chance
mutations are almost always less likely to result in survival, to which the
Darwinist reply is: given enough time the unfavorable odds will eventually
be overcome. So the anti-Darwinists attempt to calculate the odds, and come
up with less than 1 in 10 to the 150th (a number greater than the estimated
number of particles in the universe, multiplied by the estimated age of the
universe in Plank units) for some particular formation. The Darwinists say
that that calculation is wrong.
So I acknowledge that, while it sure looks implausible, that doesn't mean
impossible. But I consider that since,
a) it doesn't matter how complex a spatio-temporal system is, it still can't
be conscious, and
b) No science depends on Darwinism being true (something you haven't
responded to, by the way), then
why maintain such an implausible theory?
- Scott
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Sep 06 2003 - 20:28:33 BST