Re: My views on evolution

Steven Sullivan <ssully@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
>Stephen Montgomery-Smith <stephen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> Nevertheless, I do think it very likely that the I.D. people are
>> correct in their conclusions, even if their reasoning is wrong. I have
>> to admit that is based upon my interpretation of the Bible - I feel
>> that the Genesis account is incompatible with humans evolving from
>> lesser species, even if the Genesis account is interpreted
>> metaphorically. I think that currently evolution is ahead with regards
>> to the scientific evidence, but that the scientific evidence is
>> sufficiently incomplete that it is too early to declare a winner.

>Oh, really? Let's turn that sort of critique around. What is the
>evidence to declare the Bible story even *remotely* likely to be correct?
>How 'incomplete' is the Bible story, compared to the scientific view?

That's probably the wrong way to discuss these issues. For
creationists, the truth of the Bible is axiomatic, and thus is beyond
question. A mathematician, such as Stephen M-S, is used to working
from axioms as starting points. Mathematicians are also familiar
with the possibility that you can draw conclusions from your axioms,
which don't quite fit the world when you try to apply them. Zeno's
paradox is an example. So apparent conflicts with reality are not,
by themselves, sufficient reason to distrust the axioms.

The basic laws of classical physics have the appearance of axioms, so
you can treat physics as an axiom based system from which one can
draw enormously valuable conclusions about the world. Such
appearances are deceptive, of course, but you can get a reasonable
picture of classical physics that way. The role of empirical
investigation is almost invisible when physics is presented this
way.

This doesn't work for biology. It has a rich empirical basis, but it
is not easily explained in terms of a simple axiom-like system of
laws. There is an underlying logical structure, but it is far too
complex to be easily noticed by those who have not studied biology in
detail.

If you divorce TofE from the underlying biology, and consider it in
isolation, then it does seem to have an axiomatic structure. But the
executive summary (natural selection from random mutation) seems
quite implausible. That's why you see so many strawman arguments
against evolution. The creationists are arguing against the
executive summary, without understanding the biological context in
which it fits.

The driving force of evolution is not natural selection, for that can
only select from what is already present. And the driving force is
not random mutation, for randomness is too weak. The real driving
force of evolution is the biological reproduction system. You need
to find a way of including that in the executive summary, and
including it as the main actor.

As an analogy, consider an organ pipe. It is tuned to reinforce
certain frequencies. That's a kind of filter, analogous to random
selection. The motion of air molecules has random aspects, which are
analogous to the random mutations. If you put your ear to an organ
pipe, you might hear a weak echoing sound at the particular
frequency, due to the selection (tuning) applied to the random
motions. But the pipe won't really produce much in the way of sound
until you blow into it. It is the blowing which is seen by most
people as initiating the sound. In biology, it is the reproduction
system that is doing the analog of the blowing.

.

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