Turns out Random is Better (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 23:10 (5384 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: Throwing out teleological notions of a creator simplifies the number of objective criteria, but leaves me in the position I hate being: The one in which I can find no purchase. I don't know how to argue for or against a creator in this line of thought.-I think we have different starting-points, and different demands. You want something clear, testable, determinate, absolute, functional, quantifiable. Perhaps that is the hallmark of the mathematical brain. Your very next point illustrates the differences between us:-Assumption 1: God has no goal for his creation. Is this assumption valid?-"Assumption" doesn't come into my approach. Nor does your question. We're not dealing here with evidence or facts or validity, because teleology is only the second stage of our argument, and has nothing to do with "for or against a creator". The first stage is: does God exist? The second stage is: if he exists, what is his nature? That is when we can start speculating ... but not making assumptions or seeking validity ... about teleology. IF God exists, I speculate on what image fits in best with the only world we know. Well, one possibility is the artist who sets out with no particular goal. You say: "even a painter has the goal of putting paint on canvas". That would be the equivalent of God mixing the chemicals in order to create life. But like many artists, he might start out with a blob and then see how his blob develops. He might. I don't assume that he does. I would find that more convincing than the image of God determined to create man but working his way through millions of other creatures first. Maybe it's a mixed process ... God fiddling around with all kinds of life before he's able to get the form he's after. These are all speculations on which you don't need to get a purchase, because they're not what decides whether God exists or not. That for me is a separate subject. -This brings us to your next line of approach, which I think concerns the existence (not the nature) of God: "If you're making a claim of randomness, you need to be able to demonstrate that the random pattern is truly random or that the creation of life absolutely requires intelligence." You sometimes confuse David's arguments with mine! I make no claims, and I don't need to be able to demonstrate anything. But I'm going to stick up for David here, because if I've understood his arguments correctly, he doesn't believe one can reach the stage of "truly" or "absolutely" which you demand. One can only go so far, and the rest is faith, which he openly acknowledges. You say we need to "quantify the randomness ... which is a job for a mathematician", but unless you know precisely what led to life, including the conditions at the time, you can't do this. You are therefore compelled either to suspend your judgement (agnosticism) or take the leap of faith (design v. chance).-You write: "If God is concealed from us, and doesn't want us to find it, what better way than to devise a mechanism for randomness?" I have never mentioned concealment ... again that's David's argument ... but for me the idea works when applied to evolution, though consciousness remains a problem. Only your conclusion goes too far for me: "In this light random vs. designed are the same, and the division you seek is a false dilemma." Again you seem to me to be merging abiogenesis and evolution, and are too preoccupied with a need for absoluteness all the way through the process. From my standpoint, the division only applies to the mechanism. Do I believe it assembled itself by random processes, or do I believe that it was designed? To both questions my answer is no. I'm an agnostic. Do I believe that once the mechanism existed, it operated/operates at random? My personal preference here would be to say it's a mixture. Randomness is built into the general system (e.g. environmental changes, innovation through chance mutations) but the mechanism allows for adaptation and improvement, which brings in the non-random process of natural selection. What we see after life has started is exactly the same process whether it's been designed or not, so the only point at issue is whether we think the mechanism which allows for heredity, adaptation and improvement could have ORIGINATED by chance. I would argue that here the dilemma is real, and yet again that brings us back to the limits of our credulity, i.e. to personal faith in chance or in a designer.