Yikes, Agamemnon! I, too, have questions and observations regarding the statements that Paradox has put into the record here.
Paradox self-identifies as an "evolutionist," and so is teaching her kids "about Evolution." The problem there, to my mind, is Darwin's evolution presupposes that "everything supervenes on the physical." That is to say,
Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis.... The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.Instantly, a certain problem seems to arise here: If everything that exists is either "physical" (or "supervenes" on the physical) or "material," then how do we characterize mathematics? Scientific theories? The laws of Nature (the presupposition of which is absolutely essential for the conduct of science itself)? Has anyone ever seen any of these things running around on (physical) legs, so to speak?
No! They are non-physical, immaterial, and moreover universal.
Darwin's evolution theory is absolutely premised on the doctrine of physicalism, sometimes called materialism. As Jacques Monod put it, biological speciation is the product of "pure, blind chance." "Blind" here definitely connoting the idea that nothing in nature is purposeful. (Yet try to explain a biological function without the idea of a purpose to be achieved. As to biological functions, Darwinists at this point grudgingly admit an "apparent" purpose, in this context meaning not a really real purpose. To me, them be "weasel words!")
Darwin's speciation is the product of ceaseless, directionless change. Every now and then, natural selection will "freeze" a particular manifestation of this random change; and voila! We have a "speciation event!"
But this expectation begs a few questions. (1) What is inherent in physical matter that can lead to the emergence of non-physical mind? (2) If things are ceaselessly changing, how can they ever BE anything at all? (3) If nature is not purposeful, how can it be the way it is, why not some other way than what we actually see with our own eyes? (4) If nature — including human nature — has no purpose, what is the point of the exercise?
On this thesis, it would appear that all natural, biological, and specifically human existence IS a pointless exercise....
Yet as the distinguished evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould has pointed out, even more remarkable than biological change is biological stasis:
Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome ... brings terrible distress.... They may get a little bigger or bumpier. But they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, it's not evolution so you don't talk about it.Jeepers, even Richard Dawkins recognizes this "stasis" in more honest moments:
...[T]he Cambrian strata of rocks ... are the oldest in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.How does one reconcile such insights with what Darwin's evolution theory "predicts?" I personally do not see how it rationally can be done.
So home-schooler Paradox is filling up the young minds of her kids with this "junk," while disparaging any possibility of explanation of the natural world that are not premised in physicalism, materialism. But how can DNA be understood on such a premise? DNA is usually described as "a physical molecule." Okie-dokie, I can accept that premise and still insist that the "purpose" of this physical molecule is to mediate information processing — and that which it mediates — information — is not a physical quantity.
Dear Agamemnon, you wrote that "Darwinism is the lynch-pin of liberalism." True enough, to my mind. But more to the point, it seems to me it is the lynchpin of a materialist, secular religion explicitly promoted as a substitute for any view of the Universe that is not exclusively premised — that does not "supervene" — on the physical.
It is, in short, the great MYTH of our time — but unlike the great historical myths of mankind from the past, it is inauthentic, in that it is a revolt against the common experience of mankind as evidenced by human history, as captured by the arts and sciences of mankind from the dawn of history.
I'm grieved that Paradox equates "creationism" with "Intelligent Design." "Creationism" is the thesis that the universe had a beginning, which entails an end in time; that it had a creator (a First Cause, which is an uncaused cause, a "prime mover") — God. Creationists believe the universal Logos of God (Alpha to Omega) is what structures the natural world, such that it is intelligible to the thinking mind. On this definition, I am a "creationist."
But ID does not engage the "question" of God — at all. It remains "agnostic" on that point. It only seeks to discover the structuring principles of the universe, which it assumes (rightly, I think) are the result of the (intangible, immaterial) information loaded into it, as the "guides to the system."
Another thing that Darwin's theory does not explain is this: Either the universe is one, single, integrated, living being reflecting aspects of rational mind (as Plato thought) or at the very least, it is a system primed for life.
Darwinism doesn't have to say a single thing about Life, or how it came to be in our cosmic system.
Yet Paradox condescends to teach her kids "a little about Genesis, although I don't endorse it."
My question for Paradox would then be: How can you endorse or not endorse something you don't even understand? A person who closes his or her soul to God will never understand a word of Genesis....
Of course, certain folks nowadays propose that with advances in modern science, all the old "superstitions" and dumb "religious ideas" will evaporate into the fictional nothingness they always were.
But what I am finding, instead, is that the greatest advances in modern science of our era, rather than dispelling these foolish notions of a superstitious human past, are actually confirming the insights presented in Genesis.
For example: That the universe had a beginning in time; that though man has a material body, he does not reduce to physicalism (he was a spiritual creation before he was "incarnated" as a material body); the discovery of the Singularity; the inflationary expansion of the Universe; the common physical basis of all living and non-living existents in Nature (a major takeaway from quantum theory, IMHO); and so forth.
Well, just some thoughts, FWTW. Thank you ever so much for writing, dear Agamemnon, and for the ping!
WoW just read your essay in #71...
You are a thing to behold once “they” get you goin’..
I knew a preschool kid of a friend that knew all 50 State Capitals how to spell them and a little bit about what makes them special.. Home-schooled..
on a visit I taught the twins the Algebra game.. They loved it.. played it back at me..
1) If A + B = 10 and A is equal to 3 what is B?—>..
2) If A + B = 10 what is A AND B.?.. (like that)... (many answers)
Those girls are very smart kids today..
What does that have to with evolution?. EVERYTHING..
Nothing from nothing leaves nothing..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ5-BTdcqjk
Oh my betty, you really dont know me, nor what or how much I know about the subject matter at hand. Ironically, you sound much like Bill Nye there. My kids are fine, more than fine, but thanks for the concern. God bless you.
No! They are non-physical, immaterial, and moreover universal.