I began this discussion a few days ago by questioning the purpose of some common philosophical arguments. The example I selected concerned the claim that evolution is unguided. A prominent philosopher, Elliot Sober, tells us that even though there’s no evidence that evolution is guided it is still possible to imagine a supernatural being who could control evolution by tweaking molecules at the level of quantum mechanics. If this being was clever enough, and wanted to leave no trace of his activity, then one could imagine a situation where evolution was guided without anyone realizing it. Thus, theistic evolutionists need not despair because the scientific way of knowing can’t legitimately say that evolution is unguided.
I used the analogy of The Flying Spaghetti Monster Steals Meatballs to poke fun at this spurious way of reasoning.
Read more »
Blog Archive
Popular Posts
-
Biology concepts – hydrogenosome, FeS cluster protein, loricifera, erythrocyte More than one way to skin a cat seems to be a newer versi...
-
My next door neighbor used to be the chair of the Immunology Department but Immunology recently moved to another floor of this building. The...
-
As someone interested in linguistic recursion, I gotta join in... the below blog post has been getting a fair amount of attention around the...
-
Lab Times is a magazine that reports on news for life scientists in Europe. Their current issue (Sept. 14, 2011) has an "analysis...
-
Kevin O'Leary is one of those people who think that the world revolves around entrepreneurs and making money. He's well known in ...
-
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1905 "for his investigations and discoveries in relation to tuberculosis" Robert Koch ...
-
Halloween is a time when fear is invited. The rush of adrenaline in a controlled environment is life- affirming. Not much else to comment on...
-
Biology concepts – gravitropism, plastid, chloroplast, chromoplast, amyloplast, leucoplast, malaria parasite Believe it or not, the way plan...
-
Biology concepts – compartmentalization , organelle function , cellular biochemistry This chart represents a portion of the cellular reactio...
-
Biology concepts – pollination , single pollinator , co-evolution , co-divergence What’s bugging her, it’s supposed to be a party! Imagine t...