From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 04:54:10 GMT


riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil (Bill Riggs) writes:
>My real complaint is that you
>and many, many others have stated repeatedly and dogmatically that
>if we just were intellectually honest and followed the data, it would
>automatically lead us to believe in evolution. That is clearly what
>Steven Jay Gould means when he states that evolution is a fact.

This is based on actual experience of scientists over many many years.
When after years and years of testing of the theory have gone by,
thousands of scientists have come to realize that evolution explains
the data so well, that an alternative theory would virtually have to
contain evolution as a subset, much like Einstein's theories contained
Newton as a subset.  At this point, the real interesting exploration
is occurring with regards to various specific details such as Puncutated
Equilibrium, etc. which still provide a source of controversy and
new exploration.  At some point we have to stop wasting time on the
idea that the Earth might *really* be flat and just look roughly
spherical, and realize that it really *is* roughly spherical.  For some,
this has taken hundreds of years and in some circles is still a subject
of some controversy, but there is no point for mainstream scientists to
spend much of any time on the issue anymore.  The ground has been
covered all too well.  To a non-scientist, this may seem dogmatic, but
that is only because non-scientists haven't followed all of the issues
through for years and years like scientists have.  Is it dogmatic to
say the Earth is roughly spherical?  I suppose a flat-earther would say
yes.

>But do you not see that
>simply avowing evolutionary theory as being the only "right"
>basis to look at these issues automatically limits what we can determine,
>yes scientifically determine ?

The idea that evolution is correct has not occurred in a vacuum,
it has taken years and years to arrive at that conclusion.

Besides, all scientists are perfectly welcome to explore other
possibilities.  And some do.  Most scientists don't however, as they are
knowledgeable enough to realize that the ground has been covered so well
as it would be a waste of time.  And there is plenty of uncovered ground
within the context of the details of evolution, which presents much more
interesting and fruitful challenges.

It also becomes a clear waste of time to spend much time in science classes
on obsolete alternatives, other than perhaps in the first class meeting of
an intro-bio class as a historical perspective.

Science in education may not spend a lot of time covering the old
ground to put the student fully in context, realizing that it is generally
more useful to cover the theories that have stood the test of time and
are the source of most of the current research.  Just like an enormous
amount of time is not spent on Newton when teaching about Relativity.

>Darwin and Lamarck could be just as wrong
>as Galen and Aristotle were, but we have not found the way to
>extract the data yet which proves them so. Does this mean that mankind
>should stop trying to explain the unknown, or to challenge "received
>truth" ?

No, but at some point it becomes merely an academic exercise, having
been done thousands of times with no results.  At that point it is
more useful to look at some of the yet controversial details of the
theory, when it has been shown fruitless to argue the basis of the
general theory.

Just because there are some people who still believe in flat-earth, or
even if the *majority* of non-scientists still believed in flat-earth,
does that mean that we should still be spending a lot of time questioning
what we learned from Galileo (the astronomer, not the spacecraft) and
teaching it in classrooms?  I realize that scientists are more and more
being seen as the fallible human beings they are, unlike in the '50s
where they could do anything in the streamlined, tailfinned, atomic
future, but that doesn't mean that science teaching should allofasudden
be governed by popular or political opinion.  I think scientists as
imperfect as they are, are still more qualified to decide what science is
than Political Action Committees.

>This is not to say that either aggregating data at a high level or
>drawing conclusions based on statistical probabilties is scientifically
>wrong - I certainly won't let you box me into THAT corner without a fight.
>But what lies at the bottom: casuality or numerical probability ? Are you
>prepared to take and defend a position on this ?

Possibly.  What difference does it make if that is what the evidence
implies (not saying that it is)?  Should we assume that causality or
numerical probability are invalid because we don't like the idea of living
in that kind of universe?  (Are we Politically Correct yet?*)

Plus the fact, there's nothing here that says that God can't be behind
it all, it only says he doesn't necessarily HAVE to be, and if he is,
he doesn't seem to be involved in the processes in any detectable fashion.

But it may be true that the implications here are that a certain minority
viewpoint of self-professed "literalist" interpreters of the Bible are
invalid, which is the same argument used against Galileo and the Round
Earth.  Should science take extra pains to not-offend these people, in
spite of the facts?  Why?  What about the flat-earthers?  Shouldn't they be
included as well?  Why?


Keith

*(perhaps I should say Theologically Correct (TC)) :-)
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