From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Sep 07 2003 - 20:58:08 BST
Andy, David and all:
David said to Andy:
And once again, its a theory, it is not very convincing, and a lot of
research is done in a Darwinian framework only because no one has come up
with a better idea. We constantly get fed the aspects of Darwinism that are
plausible,.. a more rounded view would also discuss its limitations.
dmb joins in:
Its not so true in the common usage, but in the scientific community,
"theory" is a pretty strong word. In fact, it seems to me that the very
definition of the word implies a high degree of certainty and wide
acceptance by those who are in a position to evaluate the evidence. Further,
I'd suggest that the theory of evolution is not just an idea, but is the
central organizing principle in all the biological sciences. I can't defend
those who would feed you a one-sided story and I agree that its important to
discuss its limitations and such, but I think any decent scientist would say
the same. You'll get the dogmatic type in any field, but that's not about
science so much as its about people. Science itself is supposed to be open,
is designed to be open to new and contrary evidence, but it also has a way
of keeping out the crackpots too and that's a good thing. I mean, I disagree
with the suggestion that science is run by unprincipled tyrannts or
whatever. I think most scientists love science.
David continued:
It is also very important to put science in its SOM context. It is SOM
based, consequently it has great difficulty with approach the
characteristics split off from reality and dumped into the subject. ...Above
all I think SOM is derived from a fear of Becoming/contingency that is built
up by theistic thinking and the idea of God as the master of contingency,
that is taken up
in the notion of the self/subject into science, that becomes a dualism
without the subject, that produces scientific materism, that is a view of
reality with one of your eyes shut.
dmb says:
God as the master of contingency? Theistic thinking produces scientific
materialism? Wish I knew exactly HOW to disagree with that. Hmmm. I agree
that it is "important to put science in its SOM context", especially when
discussing evolution, but I'd paint a different picture. As I understand it,
this is where theistic thinking and scientific materialism are at odds in a
very conspicuous way. You know, the Scopes monkey trial and all that. (One
would have thought the case was decided by now but, culturally speaking, it
seems the jury is still out.) In a SOM context, biological evolution is
usually framed in cold, mechanistic terms such as survival of the fittest or
random genetic mutations. Clearly this offends thesistic thinkers insofar as
human origins are no longer attributed to a divine creator, but to natural
forces. Pirsig not only attacks the scientific materialism from a
non-thesistic perspective, he puts the two rivals into a larger evolutionary
context. There we can see that science and religion are not just offering
two rival creation stories, but are products of two different levels. I
don't mean to suggest that anybody is making a case for creationism instead
of darwinism, but the defenders of religion and the critics of scientific
materialism have at least one thing in common; they both assert that natural
selection and such is not enough to explain things.
More specifically, I think Pirsig's sexual encounter with Lila and the
related discussions of sexual selection process are meant to illustrate that
natural selection is really all about DQ. Lila, for reasons that not reasons
at all, chooses those that seems worthy of projection into the future. Its
not too hard to imagine that all sexual reproduction works something like
that. And when you've experienced that choosing or being chosen in that way,
it doesn't seem kind so random or ruthless.
Thanks,
dmb
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