the frequent comments that all or much of our scientific progress including drugs, and high tech rely on darwinian evolution and not on, e gintelligent design is simply not true.
the issue of the “Origin of the Species” simply never arises, nor is it considered in any context but the highly non-scientific but fun debates. on both sides, as to how we arose from the amoebas which were the only living things 8o million years ago on this Rock on which we live.There are some misconceptions about the positions of the prominent debaters.I have read most of what has been written from both sides for many years.No one, from Gould to Shockley to Berlinski to Aristotle denies that evolution has taken place. To claim otherwise is to argue that there is no difference from our current status as non feathered rational bipeds than from the amoebas crawling around the pre-Cambrian swamps.The essential debate is about the mechanism which acted on these earlier life forms to create our current status.The Stephen Jay Goulds and Richard Dawkins arguement is that the physical records and our scientific knowledge establish the mechanism of “natural selection”.I suspect that they are right,but the problem is that the evidence is simply not there and requires a leap of faith, and a pretty substantial one at that,to go from the scanty evidence on fairly simple issues such as the changing color of birds or moths, to acceptance of the way ribosomes work with RNA as the result of Darwinian evolution .The evidence is just not there.Berlinskis arguement is that a belief in intelligent design is a kind of Occams razor, the simpler explanation is usually right.The discussions of Quantum Mechanics are simply not part of this arguement.Whatever mechanisms are at work at the quantum level were always there from the first instant of the Universe and will not evolve, and if they do, we will never know it.Einstein did not believe in Q M, and while it is fun to talk about it and read the latest theories, they will be superseded. Most of the scientists involved in QM (Feinman, Weinberg, Higgs) have said that it may be that our brains are simply not capable of understanding what is going on. For those who doubt this, try thinking about the nature of “Time” and how it works, and are there quantum levels of time and if so what purpose do they serve.Let me know when you have the answer.Personally, I believe in some sort of Darwinian evolution, but the detailed mechanism doesn t have much evidence to support it, and I really don t see that it needs to make atheists out of we who do believe in a Darwinian type of evolution. A God who can create the Universe shouldn t find much of a problem in creating a system which relies on Darwinian type evolution to people the Earth, if that was his intention. In the meantime Dr Berlinski s articles are fun to read,and he serves us all by destroying the guesswork on the other side. Enjoy the debates, they are fun, and have no effect,absolutely noe, on science or its progress.
gpulds
