Glenn:
> PLATT:
> >Are you saying that science does not assert that creation of order
> >occurs by chance? If so, how does science explain the creation of
> >order. I'm all ears. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Can you give me a hint of where
> >I might find the "full scientific argument" wherein chance plays no role?
> >Thanks. Perish the thought that I should annoy anyone.
GLENN:
> There is a big difference between saying "science asserts that
>creation of
> order occurs by chance" and saying "science asserts that chance plays a
> role in the creation of order". If you'd said the latter I'd have no
> complaint with you. In fact if you'd said "science asserts that creation of
> order occurs by chance" once or twice in passing I would let it go and
> attribute it to sloppy writing, not thinking. But you've said it this way
> many times with side comments like "faith in chance by science knows no
> bounds" and that this faith has turned into an "SOM dogma", no different in
> spirit from creationist dogma. You've said that scientific explanations
> amount to "Oops", as if science thinks that chance alone creates order in
> the world and in the cosmos. This is a deliberate misrepresentation, a
> strawman, if you will.
>
> The casino analogy blatantly shows that the insinuation of the claim - that
> random gaming events work *alone* to produce ordered outcomes (predictable
> profits) - is grossly misleading. The roulette *spin* is random (it will
> land in a random place), but obviously the casino will take a profit in the
> long run because the roulette *wheel* is *patterned* in such a way as to
> benefit the house. The *combination* of random spin and patterned wheel
> create order (predictable profits) for the casino.
>
> Similarly, the order arising from natural selection is not caused by random
> mutations in a patternless environment; they are caused by random mutations
> in a contingent but patterned environment - one bounded by the laws of
> physics and chemistry and the basic requirements for life. Anyone who has
> read anything about evolution outside the creation science literature
> should know that all these elements are crucial to the full scientific
> argument. Glenn
In making my statements about the fundamental faith in chance
required by the Darwinian view of evolution I assumed, perhaps
generously, that anyone with a high school education was aware of the
"contingency of a patterned environment," i.e., evolution doesn't take
place in a vacuum. The argument between creationists and Darwinists
is usually framed as intelligent design vs. random events. As mentioned
before, I wouldn't expect you in defending Darwinism to present all the
reasons why the intelligent design theory has adherents among
biologists. (For example, two recent books, "Evolution: A Theory in
Crises" and "Darwin's Black Box."). My point in making my "deliberate
misrepresentations" is to counter the prevailing false belief that faith
plays no part in science, similar to Pirsig's counter to the widespread
belief that values are absent from the scientific worldview. I fail to
understand why you find this to be a problem unless I have failed to
make my motive clear which is not to downgrade science, but to bring
attention to its principle, praised by Pirsig, that its presuppositions are
not inviolate. Is it your view that faith in unprovable premises doesn't
intrude on the scientific outlook?
It's probably a cheap shot, but I can't resist pointing out that your
analogy of Darwinian evolution to a casino is somewhat unfortunate in
that a casino is intelligently designed from the ground up. But, I guess
I'm just being annoying again. (-:
Platt
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