<[log in to unmask]> rebuts:

> But more importantly, Jim repeats a common mistake, saying that: "Life
just
> began by pure, blind chance.  Not only that, but each step up the
> evolutionary ladder was also the product of pure, blind chance." It's not
> that the essence of what Jim writes is wrong, but that it is only half the
> story.
>
> Evolution is a process of variation *and* selection. The processes are not
> separable. While random variation is the necessary propellent of
evolution,
> it is selection that is editor of that variation, measuring what is good
or
> bad, and is thus the creative force of evolution. But even more than that,
it
> is the process of selection that imbues purposivity into the evolved
> structures.

Jacques Monad, 1965 Nobel Laureate in Medicine for their (along with
Francois Jacob and Andre Lwoff) discoveries concerning genetic control of
enzyme and virus synthesis, said the following:

"We call these events [mutations] accidental; we say that they are random
occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of
modifications in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the
organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone
is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere."

He also said the following:

"Pure chance, absolutely free but blind chance, at the very root of the
stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology
[evolution] is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable
hypotheses."

He also said:

"The ancient covenant is in pieces: man at last knows that he is alone in
the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he has emerged by
chance. Neither his destiny nor his duty has been written down."


Anyway, I just don't see how you can attribute motivation, "measuring what
is good or bad", nor creative force, to a physical process.  Isn't this the
Intelligent Design Theory dressed in different clothes?


On the other side of the coin is an interesting book called "God, Chance and
Necessity" by Keith Ward, who is a colleague of Peter Atkins and Richard
Dawkins.  See http://www.onecountry.org/oc93/oc9316as.html for a review.


Jim Phillips                           Information Systems Manager
Email: [log in to unmask]     Therm-O-Link, Inc.
Phone: 330-527-2124                         P. O. Box 285
Fax:   330-527-2123                           10513 Freedom Street
Web:   http://www.tolwire.com          Garrettsville, OH  44231

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