Science vs. Religion: (Chapter 4) (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, July 09, 2011, 13:38 (4885 days ago) @ xeno6696

So far, I'm approximately halfway through the chapter. And overall I can safely say that this is extremely well-argued. -The only problem I have is that you do repeatedly make what I consider a strawman of evolution--that chance alone creates new information... and while we've tread this ground before, I think it makes sense to see where exactly our common ground lies. -My (limited) training in molecular biology concentrated heavily on the biochemical process of evolution. As discussed previously, it was part of my curriculum that an organism changes its own DNA, especially under stress. -So when I see a comment like on pages 103 and 107 where you're building an argument using other authors... I get irritated when I see assumptions about evolution being made that suggest its a blindly random process. (Even though Gould seemed to suggest the same thing.) -And then it struck me... what the difference is between what I was taught & learned about evolution vs. what you've learned over the years, and this is a point that I think would be very critical to your book.-I don't think in biology, the left hand knows what the right hand is doing... Gould for example, was a paleontologist, NOT a molecular biologist. And those two fields are BOTH deep enough that it's also NOT fair to think that one should be an expert at both. Purely random changes over timescales makes sense to someone who thinks in geological terms. But not in biochemical terms...-Cells are semi-deterministic. Under normal conditions they churn through their life mechanically. However I keep returning to the point that overall as a process, we haven't observed an evolutionary race happen without some kind of selection pressure... maybe you're going to deal with that somewhere in the book, but to me thus far, I don't see a way to avoid stimulus->response, which to me is truly the underlying mechanism for evolution.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"