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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: An old voice.
Message-ID: <1256@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 19:20:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1256
Posted: Fri Jul 19 19:20:08 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 12:31:35 EDT
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Paul neglected to include an important preceding part of my paragraph.
It seems that Paul is upset with the lack of longterm predictivity that
scientific models have; he sarcastically calls the position that "the fittest
organisms will survive" profound because it doesn't "say anything".
---------
[excerpt reproduced here]
This notion of what these models "predict" is most intriguing.  The creation
model is used as 20/20 hindsight, not in any predictive way.  It cannot
be used in such a way.  (Well, it can, when something unexplained happens,
you just say god did it, and that was "predicted" by saying god can and does
do everything.)  What's more, the other models do not "predict" either, they
merely describe what occurs.  You couldn't go back 100 million years and
look at the world and "predict" that humans or any other animals would evolve.
The circumstances that caused those events are so elaborate and intertwining
as to make that impossible.  What natural selection and evolution "predict"
is that, for that set of circumstances that occurs over a period of time, the
organisms that survive that period will be the ones best suited for those
circumstances, and those of course will be the ones that produce the offspring
that follow into the next period.
--------
As I mentioned in a previous article this level of predictivity does not
satisfy some people.  They mock the validity of real science, but in reality
they're upset that it doesn't make wildass predictions just because the
process has too many factors and is too complex to do so.  They prefer an
explanation that just says "God did it" because that's what they want.
Not because there's any basis to it.  Just because that's what they want.
-- 
Life is complex.  It has real and imaginary parts.
					Rich Rosen  ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr