'News' at Uncommon Descent From Wolfgang Pauli, on Darwinism
“In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” (pp. 27-28)'News' adds, "For the Darwinist (or Christian Darwinist) natural selection is, quite simply, magic. It is not and never could be anything else."
As Pauli put it, "the concept of ‘natural selection’ [is] more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’ " -- Exactly: what 'Science!' fetishists hate about miracles (or alleged miracles) is not they the supposedly "violate the laws of nature" -- they're quite willing to assert that there are no "laws of nature" in the first place -- but rather that, definitionally, a real miracle is intentionally caused and for a purpose. A (real) miracle is not a random and inherently meaningless event -- that is what they hate about suspected miracles, for their whole worldview requires that *everything* be utterly meaningless.
6 comments:
Why did I not have you on my blog roll? I hate myself. I will wear sackcloth and ashes the rest of the day.
I thought you did at one time and then removed me.
Still, I will much appreciate being added to your blogroll.
And, no need to hate yourself. We all do silly things, or forget to do important things. ;)
Darwinists often retreat into a certain circularity whenever they are pressed on how natural selection took place, and on how improbable such a scenario would be. "We're here, aren't we?" they chortle.
Hi, Greg. Welcome to my little blog.
Yes, DarwinDefenders are an interesting, by which I mean frustrating, sub-species. I think this circularity comes of their dedication to saying 'A' and 'not-A' simultaneously.
For example, when they're on their 'Science!' high-horse, they'll insist that *real* scientific theories -- by which they mean the only statements worth consideration -- make testable predictions. But, ask them for any predictions of "evolution", and the best they can come up with is a cicrular-definitional (*) "prediction" such as that "no rabbit fossil will ever be found in Cambrian strata". But, them, if *you* offer them a real testable prediction (**) that "evolution" would make if there were enough substance to the so-called theory for it to make them, and they mock you for your "ignorance" of how "evolution" "works".
(*) by definition, a layer of fossils containing a fossilized rabit is not from the Cambrian.
(**) my example was that dandelions can be expected to evolve -- should already be found to have evolved -- to a flowerless state. My reasoning belmg that dandelions (at any rate, the "northern" sub-species) not only don't need to be pollinated, but *can't* be pollinated -- the plants expend huge amounts of energy to produce flowers, complete with pollen and nectar to attract pollinators ... and then ignore the pollen should the flowers get pollinated.
Seed creation (also self-pollinatio) without flowering can take place in cold summers.
In Europe, asexual varieties often have viable pollen. When this fertilizes a sexual variety, the result is, of course, an asexual plant, possibly a new strain. Which is why the US varieties produce pollen.
Were we to assume that all the US dandelion varieties are asexual, and thus the above does not happen in the US. It would take a 'miracle' for a random event to induce permament 'non-flowering' behaviour in a variety's genetic structure. Similarly, another 'miracle' is required to inhibit pollen production.
And, were these two miracles to occur, the new variety would have to gain a significant competetive advantage from its 'no-flowering, no pollen' traits to become the new norm.
Controlled laboratory experiments, where the subjects are simple 'bugs', have demonstrated evolution through natural selection to meet the challenges of changes to their environment.
"As Pauli put it ..."
You are misrepresenting Dr.Pauli.
He is merely stating that Biologists who hypothesized mutation via random events must be able to prove that such an event could have occurred within the geological timescale in which the mutation took place.
If they could not establish that as a mathematical probability, then the mutation would be the result of a 'miracle' (i.e., a hugely improbable event, mere 'chance'). Any such hypothesis being unscientific and irrational.
But this is 2014, not 1956, and things have moved on since you were a teen. Physics (thank you, Dr. Pauli, et al) has provided the means by which Molecular Genetics and Genome Sequencing can show that inherited change is far from random; physiological function and the environment influence the rate (and nature) of change, which is often far from gradual.
But, random, physiological, or environmental, all changes can be shown to be possible within their allotted geological timescale. No 'miracles' (or miracles) are required.
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