[lit-ideas] Re: small addendum to Matrix as philosophy
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 12:55:51 +0000 (GMT)
> Dawkins in _The Blind Watchmaker_ offers a pretty convincing refutation
> of the argument from design.
Defenders of 'Intelligent Design' are indeed attacking neo-Darwinian
orthodoxy, but as a metaphysical claim it is undisproveable - we can always
say that there was some purpose or 'intelligence' behind what might otherwise
be explained as randomness. Nevertheless I tend to accept the orthodoxy,
which is based on the fact we can explain everything without recourse to
'design' [a fact that does not itself disprove the existence of design].
> Main impression I got from the book is NOT that people don't perceive
> the wonderful design and beauty of the natural world (and consequently
> how it "must" have been designed).
Exactly - afair I recall Dawkin's tries to explain the lure of the design
argument in terms of our evolved disposition to see 'design' in things rather
than 'randomness', a disposition quite central to our survival.
It may be stressed that Darwinism does not rely on a notion of absolute
randomness: that is, it is perfectly feasible that only mutations with some
kind of controlling-form [in the form of controller genes that limit the kind
of mutation that can take place, thus removing the scene of 'hopeful
monsters'] will proliferate *in the long run*. But the origin of these
mutations will ultimately be 'random' in the sense of 'blind' and even when
there is a controlled mutation we need not appeal to 'intelligent design',
which is a kind of optical illusion produced by the fact that many mutational
variations are highly adaptive [an illusion that ignores that many are not,
and have been wiped out]. To give a simple example drawn from Popper's
'spearhead' theory: we might agree that if we built a plane with greater and
greater capacity for speed but without corresponding capacity for 'control'
of direction, that we would be building a plane likely to crash: equally, we
might agree that mutations that increase 'power' would likely prove lethal
unless they went hand-in-hand with mutations that controlled the 'power'.
This is one simple example where we can give a Darwinian rationale to why
mutations, if they are not to be lethal, must be often be kept under some
'control'. But such apparently 'intelligent' control is itself a product of
'blind' variation. It may be better to talk in terms of blind variation
rather than random variation, since mutations are not 'random' in some
absolute sense [the eye does not, and cannot, mutate at random into a wing in
one step etc].
> Rather it is that people don't understand how effectively random
> mutations can produce wonderful design and beauty (and consequently how
> it need not have been designed).
This seems right - as Geary's post, for example, shows.
Donal
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