Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 02/17/02 9:24am
In reply to:
ozboy
's message, "Hey Wade!! ... with cut & paste!" on 02/17/02 4:07am
>originally from me: To look at monkeys and say that
>they are not related to us… seems quite ridiculous!!!
>
>>>>Wade... the above is the thing that most irks you I
>think!
It irks me in that I think you’re making a hasty conclusion for not giving any reasons why evolution is a better explanation when making such a strong claim.
>Am I wrong in applying Occams Razor? ... that is to
>say that monkeys and apes look and act so much like us
>... that they must be related to us
I think you need to elaborate on this. Creation says that a designer created monkeys and humans. Evolution says they evolved from a common ancestor. Exactly how does Ockham’s razor favor evolution over creation?
You claimed that Ockham used it to:
>1. to dispense with relations which he held to be
>nothing distinct from their foundation in things;
>
>2. with efficient causality, which he tended to view
>merely as regular succession;
>
>3. with motion, which is merely the reappearance of a
>thing in a different place;
>
>4. with psychological powers distinct for each mode of
>sense;
>
>5. and with the presence of ideas in the mind of the
>Creator, which are merely the creatures themselves.
Are you referring to item #5? If so, I think you should keep in mind that creation in and of itself does not claim what the ideas are that were present in the mind of the designer. In any case, it is clear that mere similarities + the claim of Ockham’s razor do not imply common descent. Forks and knives are similar to each other, but I would be wrong in using Ockham’s razor as valid justification in claiming that they evolved from a common ancestor.
One thing you could do (or at least try to do) is find some specific data in this category that you think evolution explains better than creation, plus reasons why evolution is the best explanation. One thing that might work is if one can extrapolate the directly observable changes we see to evolve new types. (If one can demonstrate the possibility, and perhaps more accurately the necessity of nature evolving humans and monkeys from a common ancestor, I suspect you would then be right in applying Ockham’s razor, for in this case a designer would clearly not be necessary.) What is a type? Groups of organisms can be recognized as the same type if they possess alternate forms of the same genes. However, there are some problems with such simple extrapolation that are too often overlooked. For example, exactly what do we see happening when a mutation occurs? The gene has to be their first, before the radiation can hit it and mutate the gene. What do you get afterwards? The same gene, just a mutated form (allele) of it. As far as all observations go, mutations have only produced new alleles in genes that already exist. That’s why simply extrapolating these changes can’t create new types. If that’s all mutations can do (create new alleles in already existing genes), then they can’t possibly create any new types because they do not create new genes, only different alleles within pre-existing genes. As an analogy, picture a slot machine. The windows represent genes, and the alleles (one of two or more varied forms of a gene) as different pictures (lemons, cherries etc.) in the windows. No matter how many times you pull the lever (representing a mutation) you’ll never create a new window, even though you get different pictures (alleles) within a window (gene). Whether evolution is right or wrong, one cannot simply extrapolate the directly observable changes we see in living organisms to evolve new types. I have yet to be convinced that such extrapolation is reasonable.
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