Post by Al Moritz on Apr 23, 2009 19:01:42 GMT
This article by Jerry Coyne, linked to on the thread "Accommodation Vs Non-Accommodation" is one single philosophical disaster:
snipurl.com/gjxrj [whyevolutionistrue_wordpress_com]
I only want to point out one argument of his:
Miller’s theism is also reflected in his published statements such as the following:
In reality, the potential for human existence is woven into every fiber of that universe, from the starry furnaces that forged the carbon upon which life is based, to the chemical bonds that fashioned our DNA from the muck and dust of this rocky planet. Seems like a plan to me.
And this:
. . . . .the God that we know through Christianity is not someone who acts like an ordinary human being, who simply happens to be endowed with supernatural powers. We are talking about a being whose intelligence is transcendent; we’re talking about a being who brought the universe into existence, who set up the rules of existence, and uses those rules and that universe and the natural world in which we live to bring about his will.
As both Massimo Pigliucci (a biologist and philosopher at Stony Book) and I have noted, this kind of talk comes perilously close to intelligent design; indeed, it may well be a form of intelligent design. If God “uses rules” to bring about his will, then evolution cannot be undirected.
And later Coyne says:
If we’re to defend evolutionary biology, we must defend it as a science: a nonteleological theory in which the panoply of life results from the action of natural selection and genetic drift acting on random mutations.
***
Coyne clearly confuses philosophy with science, and the result is bad science. Since when is it a scientific statement that evolution is undirected or unguided or nonteological?
Here is what I once wrote in an essay on evolution and belief:
The scientific concept of “randomness”
Natural selection is not random – that is why, as pointed out above, it is false to call evolution as a whole a random process, or a chance process. Yet does not “random” genetic variation, which precedes natural selection, imply unguided and unplanned events? That certainly is a wide-spread assumption, and needs to be addressed before we can discuss evolution and philosophy of belief.
While writing in the context of evolution and belief, the theoretical particle physicist Stephen M. Barr convincingly notes in his essay “The Design of Evolution” (it is worthwhile to read his entire text beyond just this quote) about the strictly scientific term of “random”:
“The word “random” is a basic technical term in most branches of science. It is used to discuss the motions of molecules in a gas, the fluctuations of quantum fields, noise in electronic devices, and the statistical errors in a data set, to give but a few examples. So if the word “random” necessarily entails the idea that some events are “unguided” in the sense of falling “outside of the bounds of divine providence,” we should have to condemn as incompatible with Christian faith a great deal of modern physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy, as well as biology.
“This is absurd, of course. The word “random” as used in science does not mean uncaused, unplanned, or inexplicable; it means uncorrelated.”
One should add: lack of correlation in the concept of randomness can be either total or to a certain degree. Random events of mutations and rearrangements of genes are totally uncorrelated to the function of the proteins they encode. Random is also used as: “unpredictable”. Only in psychology the at times apparent use of the term as “purposeless” forms an exception to these definitions in science.
When Nobel Prize winner Jaques Monod explains random mutation in chapter VI of Chance and Necessity (the single most gripping explanation of the phenomenon I have read), he speaks, even though he may be one of the pioneers of the propagation of atheistic evolutionism, only of “chance”, of “complete independence” between an error in the replication of the genetic message and its functional consequences on the level of the protein that the gene encodes (compare “complete independence” with “uncorrelated”), and he uses the words “absolute coincidence” and “unpredictable” – however, he does not speak of “unguided”, “undirected” and “unplanned”, which are either philosophical or everyday uses of the word “random”. In other words, Monod speaks like a true scientist when explaining a scientific concept.
Contamination of science with philosophy; confusion of the two disciplines
On the other hand, the letter of Nobel Prize winners to the Kansas State Board of Education from September 9, 2005, in a just campaign against “Intelligent Design”, states:
“Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.”
Hold on, not just “unplanned” random variation – questionable by itself as purely scientific statement – but an entire “unplanned process”? This shows how by now, decades after Monod, decidedly philosophical concepts have contaminated explanations of evolution that are supposed to be strictly scientific.
Historically this will have evolved in part deliberately due to certain world views, but for a substantial part it may also have been an unintentional development. A not too far-fetched analogy for the latter, I think, is the typical use of “lab jargon” to name certain scientific concepts in everyday conversation between people in a laboratory – however, once a publication is written, sloppy terms are critically assessed and modified in order to satisfy scientific precision. Alas, this process of analytical evaluation has been watered down when it comes to scientists explaining evolution to the world (in scientific publications on evolution within the field of biology and biochemistry itself, this problem is not readily apparent). And no, please do not ask me how the letter managed to obtain the signature of no less than 38 Nobel Prize winners – this clearly is not one of science’s proudest moments.
At least the letter states that there is no “need for conflict between the theory of evolution and religious faith. Science and faith are not mutually exclusive. Neither should feel threatened by the other.” Ironically, even though this statement is correct, it squarely contradicts the two words “unplanned process” in the letter’s definition of evolution.
Of course, the scientists could have simply meant a “process unplanned by nature”. However, this would be rather pointless and is to be doubted, and in that case the inaccuracy of wording would be disappointing as well.
In any event, the contamination of scientific explanations of evolution by philosophy is not particularly helpful for science to win its case in the court of public opinion.
One must not make the profound mistake of confusing the mandatory naturalistic operating and observation principle of science with a mandatory naturalistic philosophy. This is done by atheistic “evolutionism”, which misuses scientific facts to draw metaphysical conclusions that go beyond these facts, yet are disguised as “science”. The influence of this philosophy seems tangible in above letter, even though, as I pointed out, the confusion of science and philosophy there also may for a substantial part have been unintended.
[End of text quote.]
***
Of course, even from a purely scientific point of view it is questionable to claim that evolution is unguided. A pillar of evolution is natural selection, which implies guidance: guidance by nature, by the environment. This guidance is what makes evolution overall a non-random process, even though the genetic variations are random.
snipurl.com/gjxrj [whyevolutionistrue_wordpress_com]
I only want to point out one argument of his:
Miller’s theism is also reflected in his published statements such as the following:
In reality, the potential for human existence is woven into every fiber of that universe, from the starry furnaces that forged the carbon upon which life is based, to the chemical bonds that fashioned our DNA from the muck and dust of this rocky planet. Seems like a plan to me.
And this:
. . . . .the God that we know through Christianity is not someone who acts like an ordinary human being, who simply happens to be endowed with supernatural powers. We are talking about a being whose intelligence is transcendent; we’re talking about a being who brought the universe into existence, who set up the rules of existence, and uses those rules and that universe and the natural world in which we live to bring about his will.
As both Massimo Pigliucci (a biologist and philosopher at Stony Book) and I have noted, this kind of talk comes perilously close to intelligent design; indeed, it may well be a form of intelligent design. If God “uses rules” to bring about his will, then evolution cannot be undirected.
And later Coyne says:
If we’re to defend evolutionary biology, we must defend it as a science: a nonteleological theory in which the panoply of life results from the action of natural selection and genetic drift acting on random mutations.
***
Coyne clearly confuses philosophy with science, and the result is bad science. Since when is it a scientific statement that evolution is undirected or unguided or nonteological?
Here is what I once wrote in an essay on evolution and belief:
The scientific concept of “randomness”
Natural selection is not random – that is why, as pointed out above, it is false to call evolution as a whole a random process, or a chance process. Yet does not “random” genetic variation, which precedes natural selection, imply unguided and unplanned events? That certainly is a wide-spread assumption, and needs to be addressed before we can discuss evolution and philosophy of belief.
While writing in the context of evolution and belief, the theoretical particle physicist Stephen M. Barr convincingly notes in his essay “The Design of Evolution” (it is worthwhile to read his entire text beyond just this quote) about the strictly scientific term of “random”:
“The word “random” is a basic technical term in most branches of science. It is used to discuss the motions of molecules in a gas, the fluctuations of quantum fields, noise in electronic devices, and the statistical errors in a data set, to give but a few examples. So if the word “random” necessarily entails the idea that some events are “unguided” in the sense of falling “outside of the bounds of divine providence,” we should have to condemn as incompatible with Christian faith a great deal of modern physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy, as well as biology.
“This is absurd, of course. The word “random” as used in science does not mean uncaused, unplanned, or inexplicable; it means uncorrelated.”
One should add: lack of correlation in the concept of randomness can be either total or to a certain degree. Random events of mutations and rearrangements of genes are totally uncorrelated to the function of the proteins they encode. Random is also used as: “unpredictable”. Only in psychology the at times apparent use of the term as “purposeless” forms an exception to these definitions in science.
When Nobel Prize winner Jaques Monod explains random mutation in chapter VI of Chance and Necessity (the single most gripping explanation of the phenomenon I have read), he speaks, even though he may be one of the pioneers of the propagation of atheistic evolutionism, only of “chance”, of “complete independence” between an error in the replication of the genetic message and its functional consequences on the level of the protein that the gene encodes (compare “complete independence” with “uncorrelated”), and he uses the words “absolute coincidence” and “unpredictable” – however, he does not speak of “unguided”, “undirected” and “unplanned”, which are either philosophical or everyday uses of the word “random”. In other words, Monod speaks like a true scientist when explaining a scientific concept.
Contamination of science with philosophy; confusion of the two disciplines
On the other hand, the letter of Nobel Prize winners to the Kansas State Board of Education from September 9, 2005, in a just campaign against “Intelligent Design”, states:
“Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.”
Hold on, not just “unplanned” random variation – questionable by itself as purely scientific statement – but an entire “unplanned process”? This shows how by now, decades after Monod, decidedly philosophical concepts have contaminated explanations of evolution that are supposed to be strictly scientific.
Historically this will have evolved in part deliberately due to certain world views, but for a substantial part it may also have been an unintentional development. A not too far-fetched analogy for the latter, I think, is the typical use of “lab jargon” to name certain scientific concepts in everyday conversation between people in a laboratory – however, once a publication is written, sloppy terms are critically assessed and modified in order to satisfy scientific precision. Alas, this process of analytical evaluation has been watered down when it comes to scientists explaining evolution to the world (in scientific publications on evolution within the field of biology and biochemistry itself, this problem is not readily apparent). And no, please do not ask me how the letter managed to obtain the signature of no less than 38 Nobel Prize winners – this clearly is not one of science’s proudest moments.
At least the letter states that there is no “need for conflict between the theory of evolution and religious faith. Science and faith are not mutually exclusive. Neither should feel threatened by the other.” Ironically, even though this statement is correct, it squarely contradicts the two words “unplanned process” in the letter’s definition of evolution.
Of course, the scientists could have simply meant a “process unplanned by nature”. However, this would be rather pointless and is to be doubted, and in that case the inaccuracy of wording would be disappointing as well.
In any event, the contamination of scientific explanations of evolution by philosophy is not particularly helpful for science to win its case in the court of public opinion.
One must not make the profound mistake of confusing the mandatory naturalistic operating and observation principle of science with a mandatory naturalistic philosophy. This is done by atheistic “evolutionism”, which misuses scientific facts to draw metaphysical conclusions that go beyond these facts, yet are disguised as “science”. The influence of this philosophy seems tangible in above letter, even though, as I pointed out, the confusion of science and philosophy there also may for a substantial part have been unintended.
[End of text quote.]
***
Of course, even from a purely scientific point of view it is questionable to claim that evolution is unguided. A pillar of evolution is natural selection, which implies guidance: guidance by nature, by the environment. This guidance is what makes evolution overall a non-random process, even though the genetic variations are random.
