Re: Why the theory of evolution is ontologically impossible

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article <dv03a7$2dg3$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
John Wilkins <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

rev.goetz wrote:
John Wilkins wrote:
rev.goetz wrote:
...

All potential phenotypes existed Platonically in the initial conditions
of the universe while only a small fraction of them were *aquired* by
descent with modification.

snip

Which is effectively the same claim as "All phenotypes are physically
realiseable states, but not all physically realiseable states exist". No
need
for Platonism.

I was not implying Platonism. I was implying only that all potential
phenotypes existed as Platonic friends in the initial conditions of the
universe. Are you suggested that various phenotypes were romantically
involved in the initial conditions of the universe? I thought that
non-Platonic romance started roughly 13.5 billion years after the
origin of the universe.

If you say "X existed Platonically" you imply Platonism, nicht wahr? All
I'm saying is that the same point can be less objectionably (yes, I
object to Platonism) stated as a simple claim about what states can be
physically realised, due to the laws of physics. But just because, say, a
human phenotype could be instantiated at some point in the universe based
on the laws of physics, it didn't then and doesn't now follow that they
*will* be. We have to explain why what phenotypes exist do, and the
explanation is a historical one. We exist because our ancestors, and
their ancestors, etc., existed, and each one was both viable in the
conditions they encountered, and not too different from the descendant
forms.

The way you put it, we exist because our Form exists Platonically and we
realise that Form. This is no explanation at all.

What would be needed would be a study of Platonic valid Platonic Forms,
or Platonic forms that seem to have attractive power. This would go a
long way toward putting Science and Philosophy on an satisfactory basis,
because we would be closer to basing them on sense impressions and ideas
which are the only things we can experience directly.

And how could we do that? At what level of description could we find "forms"?
For example, to a first or even second approximation all objects are oblate
spheroids. Or at the molecular level the "platonic forms" appear to be alpha
helices and beta sheets. And so on.

The current paradime requires a real (whatever that might mean) physical
world that exists in its own right, that can only be accepted by faith,
because their can be no evidence for it, or accepted as a working
hypothoses since it seems as far as can be determined to produce the
best results possible.

Using the word "paradigm" is one way to get my goat. Misspelling it is
another. And there are arguments for scientific realism.


--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
Who are you going to believe? Me, or your own eyes?

.

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