Definitions (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, April 06, 2008, 17:10 (5862 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George is "a bit fed up with being castigated as being an 'atheist'". - There has clearly been a dreadful misunderstanding. The trouble is, you have always staunchly defended the atheist position and have never at any time given the slightest hint that you were in fact an "atheist/agnostic". When for example, you memorably announced that "the postulation of a designer to guide these processes [origin of life] is just so over-the-top in improbabilities as not to be worth considering", little did I dream that you were in fact keeping an open mind ... or at least half an open mind. - Your beliefs are based, you say, on "evidence and logic". There is no evidence that the chemical components necessary to create life combined together by chance, and indeed the odds against them doing so are "stupendously enormous" (David Turell), but if logic tells you that they did so, and therefore the alternative can be dismissed, it's not altogether surprising that you are "accused of having faith in chance". - The golfing tragedy ... the golfer mishit the ball which sailed over the fence, hit a walker on the head, made him lose his footing, and sent him tumbling over the cliff ... was described by me as an accident. You say I've missed the point, because the only two chance events were the club contacting the ball and the ball hitting the walker. "The rest of it was inevitable." Without the chance combination of all the different factors, the tragedy would not have occurred. George: "It seems that dhw does have faith in chance, since he describes the golfing tragedy as an accident." There is no faith involved in explaining the golf tragedy. All the circumstances are perfectly credible. And yes, of course I described it as an accident. Would you call it murder, predestination, suicide? The point of your story was to support your faith in the theory of abiogenesis, as you struggled to minimize the importance of chance in the process. I can only repeat that the golfing tragedy depended on a chance combination of events, and so does abiogenesis. The first chance combination is well within my bounds of credibility, and the second goes well beyond my range. - "Dhw and the theists also have 'faith in chance'. Or is it part of the agnostic or theist belief that nothing whatsoever happens by chance? That everything is deterministic?" Belief in God, of course, can range from deism (no divine interference) to Calvinism (predestination), but personally I have no doubt that many things happen by chance. That doesn't mean I have to believe in unlikely coincidences. In the context of our discussions, however, you should know, George,as a semi-agnostic, that the whole point of agnosticism is its lack of belief. It either = the impossibility of knowing or the inability to decide. Personally, I would like to think that I base my beliefs on "evidence and logic", which I am told by an expert is the hallmark of rationalist empiricism. For example, I find the theory of natural selection wonderfully logical, and I think there is sufficient evidence for me to believe it. But if there is no evidence for a theory which requires me to believe something against "stupendously enormous" odds, and if the alternative theory seems to me equally unlikely, I will not be able to believe in either and will preserve my agnosticism. Theists will take the plunge and opt for design. Atheists will take the plunge, ridicule theists, and opt for chance. Perhaps that will help you to understand my dreadful blunder in thinking you were an atheist.