Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!unc!mcnc!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-lymph!arndt From: arndt@lymph.DEC Newsgroups: net.religion,net.origins Subject: To Lew Mammel, Jr. re Popper/Evolution Message-ID: <1027@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Sat, 9-Mar-85 22:53:10 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.1027 Posted: Sat Mar 9 22:53:10 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 11-Mar-85 07:23:47 EST Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 108 Xref: watmath net.religion:5943 net.origins:826 Lew: So glad you read and responded to my posting. I have great respect for your mind and opinions on science as I have read with interest your contributions in other nets on other topics. I would like to respond to your points. You said, "Ken Arndt posted a set of quotes to net.religion on Feb 3 which were intended to show the unscientific nature of evolutionary theory." Then you referenced Popper's famous quote characterizing evolution as "a metaphysical research programme". (It is from his book, The Unended Quest, 1976. Have you read it?) By the way, Popper goes on to say that evolution has great value to science as a 'research programme'. Then you go on to quote Feynman about Newtonian mechanics, as "a good PROGRAM FOR ANALYZING NATURE, it is a SUGGESTION . . .", the law, F=ma. You are not the first and no doubt will not be the last to complain about Popper's statement. However, it seems to me that he carries the field as I will show below from your own posting. I stand by my point, that as Popper says, evolution is not a 'scientific' theory, but a metaphysical one! Now that is NOT to say that it is untrue!! But only to say that it is not something we can 'prove'. Popper is not saying the evolutionist is not a scientist, any more than Feynman is saying that about one who believes in Newtonian mechanics. Both are saying that the 'facts' are based upon an organizing principle from which one can derive predictions that in MANY cases can be tested. But not in ALL. You know, the 'law' of motion would have to be observed (tested) literally EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME to be proved to be a law!! So when we say 'law' we don't really mean absolutely, but as an organizing principle or in Feynman's term a "suggestion". One of the quotes said as much. Evolution per se is not testable. Let's be clear about what it is that we are talking about here. Evolution in the broad sense, from molecules to man, is not absolutely testable! So what! Neither, as you so helpfully point out by quoting Feynman, is Newton's mechanics!!! The law, F=ma is an organizing principle. Even the prince of punctuated equilibria, Jay Gould, says as much in a quote of his that I have at work - I'm at home now. He says something to the effect that the way we organize things into catagories affects what we will see. You say, "have at 'em Ken!" But why? Feynman agrees with Popper and I agree with him! Who do you agree with??? Please understand, the postings were not meant to 'debunk' evolution per se. Only those who don't understand the place of science and metaphysics in scientific effort. Remember I quoted from Medawar's book, THE LIMITS OF SCIENCE? Well, many believers in evolution don't understand the limits of the theory of evolution. It is SO broad a theory in its metaphysical form that it can't be tested! Falsified. Everything can be explained within it. What's that you say, horse prints next to T. Rex??? Silly, of course not. Can't be, doesn't fit! Must be some new animal. How exciting. Well maybe, sez me. I'd be interested in knowing just what you mean by "quote attack". As if to explain what you mean in the words of men in the field were somehow second rate or suspect. Isn't MOST of what we know basically second hand?? We learned it from someone else. I have a great book called, SECOND HAND KNOWLEGE, unfortunately it is at work. Just printed, look it up. It seems to me evolution is based upon naturalism/materialism. That is, there was a time when there were no mammals so they HAD to come from the reptiles, there was a time when there were no reptiles, so they HAD to come from the fish, etc. Personality/consciousness MUST be explainable by chemicals in the brain because there is NOTHING else TO explain it. But what are the foundations of the metaphysical choices here?? Remember, materialism IS a metaphysical choice. With all the 'goodness' and limitations of a metaphysical choice. We all HAVE to make them, the opposite of having a metaphysical framework is not no framework but merely an unexamined one. I wouldn't say Newtonian mechanics is the "hardest of hard sciences", rather that math/logic is. But even that, as far as we can currently tell is based upon assumptions about reality - a metaphysic. Read Morris Kline, MATHMATICS: THE LOSS OF CERTAINTY, 1980. He identifies FOUR maths. I find it interesting that you quote the book of Ecclesiastes: "And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know folly and perceived that in this also was madness and vexation of the spirit." What about the CONCLUSION the writer comes to!!!!!! "When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: . . . Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt have no pleasure in them; . . . . . . : of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good or whether it is evil." Ecclesiastes 8:16,17; 12:1,14 I'd be very interested in your comments, Lew. Warm regards, Ken Arndt