Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 21:20:27 -0500
From: howard engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.org>
Subject: Re: BHA: Down with theocracy!


Collier has a brief response to intelligent design arguments which can
extend to the latest variants.  This is in his Defense of Epistemology
article in the Issues in Marxist Epistemology volumes, v.3 (Mepham and
Ruben).  The lesson we take from Darwin is that there will always seem to
be complicity, plan or design between species and their envirnoment because
if the species are ill suited to the environment they die out.  Since we
are the product of subatomic particles with just this fractional spin, and
the smallest percentage difference wouldn't work at all, it will always
seem as if just that spin must be by design.

Howard





At 10:45 PM 1/17/02 +0000, you wrote:
>Tobin wrote:
>
>>This wildly underestimates the vastness and age of the universe.
>
>I don't see why an open structure of possibility wouldn't require an
>immense amount of time to work itself out in the required way. As for
>vastness, I spoke of infinity.
>
>>There are
>>people these days arguing that bodies are so sophisticated, they had to be
>>designed by some greater intelligent being (so-called "intelligent design"
>>theories), and so the theory of evolution is wrong. 
>
>As for myself, I accept the theory of evolution and don't believe I've
>said anything incompatible with it.
>
>>But that doesn't mean
>>each of the tiny events that led to us follows some overarching determinism.
>
>I haven't spoken of an overarching determinism, only of a structure of
>possibility.
>
>>If one of these little events happened
>>to be different, well, life on Earth would be different.  Or not at all.
>>You seem to be saying that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
>>"Just right" indeed....
>
>'Just right' was intended to convey your own meaning that if just one of
>the zillions of necessary conditions were absent, there might well be no
>life at all. It says nothing about 'best of all possible worlds'.
>
>Best,
>
>Mervyn
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus-AT-gis.net> writes
>>Mervyn wrote--
>>
>>> The universe has to be 'just right' in zillions of ways for the
>>> evolution of self-conscious life to occur - consider, e.g. the existence
>>> and position of the large planets which absorb asteroids, preventing
>>> them from hitting the earth. For this and all the other necessary
>>> conditions to happen by sheer chance, and not because there is an
>>> intrinsic structure of possibility, would require an infinity of trial
>>> runs.  So if you don't accept 'God', it's transcendentally necessary to
>>> postulate an infinity of universes to account for the 'just rightness'
>>> of this one.
>>
>>This wildly underestimates the vastness and age of the universe.  There are
>>people these days arguing that bodies are so sophisticated, they had to be
>>designed by some greater intelligent being (so-called "intelligent design"
>>theories), and so the theory of evolution is wrong.  But this flies in the
>>face of the evidence, and procedes as though there aren't zillions of insect
>>species etc (in fact we know about only a fraction of them).  Variety is
>>*everywhere*.  Is there "ubiquity determinism"?  Yup.  But that doesn't mean
>>each of the tiny events that led to us follows some overarching determinism.
>>Most of them are effectively chance.  If one of these little events happened
>>to be different, well, life on Earth would be different.  Or not at all.
>>You seem to be saying that we live in the best of all possible worlds.
>>"Just right" indeed....
>>
>>T.
>>
>>---
>>Tobin Nellhaus
>>nellhaus-AT-mail.com
>>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>-- 
>Mervyn Hartwig
>13 Spenser Road
>Herne Hill
>London SE24 ONS
>United Kingdom
>Tel: 020 7 737 2892
>Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk
>
>
>     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



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