Motorcycle Mama

There are three components to evolutionary theory, one a statement that evolution has occurred, second the mechanism of evolution and third, the cause of evolution. I've yet to see any post that addresses evolutionary theory in that context.

MOJO-JOJO

Thanks Ergaster, my best regards to Toronto btw, hope to bring the family for a visit someday.

Mo-Ma, just remembered this essay at the Kiosk. I think you would do yourself well to read it before siding with sciteach.

<a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=230" target="_blank">Evolutionary Theory - Some Thoughts</a>

More thoughts for the day;

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is, than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works. [my addition: "and teachers that can teach " ]

~~~Carl Sagan, Demon-Haunted World

Also, from Cosmos 13;

There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.

Btw, where is sciteach? Have we sufficiently convinced him? Licking his wounds somewhere perhaps?

Motorcycle Mama

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MOJO-JOJO:
[QB]

No quotes since I don't know how to get them in.

First you asked if I was a Christian. I'm not although I was baptized and confirmed and Episcopalean. But I read what Christian scholars say about science and evolution. Names were given in previous post so I'll not repeat them.

There was the statement that evolution is an observation. Perhaps to some but not to me. An observation is what is perceived by the senses, an interpretation is what is made of those observations, and this would include evolution.

I thought your comment about bikers was intended as humor and perhaps I overreacted. But some of the things I've read if said in person would result in a violent reaction. There is nothing personal in this.

You ask if I've seen other posts. The answer is yup. You might then want to ask why I persis in being a pain-in-the-ass. I've yet to encounter any post that wouldn't benefit from a reading of the Hempel text I mentioned.
Motorcycle Mama

Wyz_sub10

Some are grinding scitech because he began saying he wanted to discuss issues and learn, then *quickly* changed to a "nothing you say will ever convince me" stance, indicating that he was less than sincere to begin with.

Also, his first reference to evolution is spelled "evOlution". Only when he launches into his anti-evolution diatribe does he start using "evIlution" as his spelling. I think it's obvious that it was intentional.

Motorcycle Mama

Jaki, to the best of my awareness, started this argument in the publication of his Gifford Lectures several years ago. I read that, as I have read most of his other things on the topic. It is not easy sledding and I'm sure there are subtleties I've missing. But Jaki is a scholar although as a Benedictine obviously has a biased view.

Saying that, I shall offer some opinions. If you define science as the study of the natural world for its sake alone then I would ask if any pre-Christian (Islamic, Chinese, Indian, aboriginal, etc.) science fit that definition or were they more concerned with technology, i.e., usefullness? Some may not like that characterization of science and the inference it carries for ancient science but that is what science seems to be when you prune the excess verbiage from around it. If you can accept that defintion of science then it may be possible to argue that it is only with the existence of Christ that God indicated He had a special interest in the material items on the earth since Christ, as a human, fit that definition. Once that was established then one could study the material world since God had a special interest in it and there was no longer a need to be concerned only with technology.

Do I agree with that? Not sure but it is an interesting idea and there is some historical evidence that what is now called modern science did originate in the Christian world. I should also tell you that Denis Lamoureux, an evangelical Christian and evolutionist, thinks I'm full of shit in considering that Jaki's argument has some merit.
Motorcycle Mama

Motorcycle Mama

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rbochnermd:
[QB]

Couldn't capture the quote I wanted so request your forebearance on my attempt to accurately paraphrase.

It was stated that evolution is absolutely necessary to understand not only biology but all other aspects of the living world. It is statements like this that prompted my comment that there is confusion about evolutionary theory. The confusion exists because there is a one should distinguish between certain patterns of similarities and differences, what I call comparative biology, and what those mean, I would submit they mean there has been evolution. What is necessary to understand in the living world is not that evolution has occurred but the patterns of similarities and differences from which evolution has been inferred.

Oh good grief. That reads like some posts that have advised sciteach on the only moral and ethical choices he must make. Oh well I can always blame my mother, she was a school teacher.
Motorcycle Mama

Wyz_sub10

Pre-Chrisitian Europeans and North Africans certainly fit that definition. Early attempts at classification of matter and life, for example, was not based on utility, but on trying to understand their surroundings.

Are you saying that science began when god indicated that it was time for science to begin? I don't think Jesus was the first "material item" that man wanted to understand, and I see no indication that this connection is made anywhere in scientific history (i.e. "because Jesus was of this world, then things of this world are now worthy of study")

Correct me if I am misrepresenting your position.

The Chinese and Greek usually lumped science in with philosophy, which is why philosophers like Aristotle were also seen as being among the first scientists. They weren't concerned "only with technology", but wanted to understand the working of the world. That line has ben more clearly drawn today, but it's evident that an interest in the science of the world predates Jesus by hundreds of years.

Again, I cannot comment on specific arguments without reading the book, but it sounds *on the surface* that his theories are likely contrived to fit a desired position, rather than a position flowing from the evidence that exists.

Dr Rick

There is no reason to arbitrarily divide evolution into these three components. In very simple terms, the theory of evolution began as a hypothesis that arose from observations, and has been and continues to be re-affirmed by many more observations. There is so much evidence supporting evolution now that it is as much a scientific fact as solar heliocentrism is.

...and the shape of the earth and that mammals need air. So?

Rick

MOJO-JOJO

[quote]Originally posted by Motorcycle Mama:
<strong>[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: MOJO-JOJO ]</p>

Motorcycle Mama

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MOJO-JOJO:
[QB]Thanks Ergaster, my best regards to Toronto btw, hope to bring the family for a visit someday.

Mo-Ma, just remembered this essay at the Kiosk. I think you would do yourself well to read it before siding with sciteach.

<a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=230" target="_blank">Evolutionary Theory - Some Thoughts</a>

Checked out the essay. It's very similar to things I've read many times. If you would like specific comments I have two. First, natural selection seems inadequate to do little more that perform minor adjustments to populations. If you want to read more on the inadequacies of natural selection read Gould and Lewontin "The spandrels of San Marcos." Also it was Gould who criticized Darwinian just-so stories. Second, there are at least four levels of creationism, or the belief in divine intervention, young earth creationism, what Lamoureux calls progressive creationism (periodic acts of intervention to make new types - consistent with the pattern called punctuated equilbria and Darwin's view of the origin of life), evolutionary creationism (the universe is God's creation following God's plan [which we cant' know] but carried out by God using natural laws) and dieism (spelling suspect) (God started the physical world with the big bang but since then is up in the grand stands with a celestial six pack and tamale dispenser watching events unfold [Lamarck's view]). These ideas of the leves of divine intervention have come from reading Christian theologians talking about science, one of the best is Lamoureux.That's the standard I'm look for. So far I've yet to see it in what I've read in these posts. Am I defending sciteach? Hell, I don't know. Ask him (or her).
Motorcycle Mama