From Samuel Bolton
The writers of the letter from the Biologic Institute on intelligent design imply that natural selection should be discredited because human engineering is a fundamentally distinct mode of invention (13 January, p 18). They say that evolution provides solutions to problems through mindless accident. They should consider that even human inventiveness is largely only a process of selecting successful ideas and designs over unsuccessful ones, in a manner that is not truly distinct from natural selection.
Inventiveness involves newly generated ideas being tested against a backdrop of previous experiences and/or physics, geometry, chemistry and so on. Minds generate random variants specific to solving a problem, then select after careful consideration of the sum total of experience and intuition, making redundant those variants judged less likely to succeed. Is this not simply an accelerated form of natural selection, in which the mechanism of selection takes place in a mentally simulated environment?
The Biologic Institute is, therefore, wrong to assume that Darwinism insists that these are two fundamentally different modes of invention. It simply asserts that neither case involves intervention from a supernatural or extraterrestrial being.
From Geoff Holister
Advertisement
The Biologic Institute insists that “good science will come”. I could very well make the same promise about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but I am logical enough to know that such a proclamation means nothing. When and if their “good science” is complete, I for one will be happy to read it. Until such time however, it remains nothing more than an unproven hypothesis and they really shouldn’t be surprised or offended when it is treated as such.
Cardiff, UK
