[Alamo-Girl]

Wow. What a beautiful essay-post, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you!!!

In short, biological functions (which are by definition purposeful, in that the function exists to secure a biological end or goal) that depend on successful communication of information (which seems to be all biological functions, including those at the level of single-celled entities) cannot be the product of an evolutionary development based on random mutation/natural selection (i.e., a gradualist, step-by-step process). Rather, evolutionary development is “drawn” from an information source, e.g., Williams’ concept of inversely-causal meta-information. If there is an information source, then it follows that its “information” is purposeful.

Precisely!!!

Behe: The end result of stubborn adherence to a simplistic division of nature into discoverable mechanics and undiscoverable purpose, I say, is nothing less than the official divorce of science from reason.

That's a great quote. And the examples he gave (wings, eyes) drove the point home. It is hardly coherent to speak of biological functions while at the same time denying purpose.

Just a couple observations. It is only by denying all consideration of teleology in physical nature that can man be “fully integrated” into the Darwinian biological picture. Of course, the denial of teleology in nature also means that man as a part of nature cannot be a self-conscious, goal-directed, intelligent actor in nature. And thus an extraordinarily important distinction regarding the actuality of the human person is lost thereby. And with it any recognition, let alone justification, of human free will.

So very true. Should an atheist take the exclusion of purpose from the boundaries of scientific inquiry as "proof" that purpose does not exist, I'd have to consider that reasoning as a symptom of some underlying mental illness.

It's funny that folks who would say that purpose in nature is only illusory could be so very confident about the definiteness and actuality of purpose they ascribe to their "adversaries," i.e., anyone who advances the proposition that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific hypothesis. (As if Darwinists never have purposes of their own.)

Great catch!

But I think the “real battle” is about whether final causes ought to be reintroduced into scientific thinking or not. Obviously, the Darwinists are saying “absolutely not.” The IDers are saying, “if you don’t, science becomes increasingly irrational and counterproductive.”

The irony of course is that the Darwinists have determined the purpose of ID is to be a Trojan Horse for Young Earth Creationism and therefore befouled and to be utterly condemned. If however some politically correct arm of the science establishment were to point out that biologists cannot speak of certain things (e.g. wings, eyes) without invoking their actual purpose - then perhaps they'd reconsider.

Also, your insights to Fr. Coyne’s discussion of the distinctions between “creation” and “origin” are very engaging. Certainly, the initiation of successful communication in living things is not a one time event.

Again, thank you so very much for your wonderful essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

[betty boop]

Oh, thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your kind words of encouragement!

I came across something in my reading yesterday that I thought you might enjoy. I found it hilarious. It's an excerpt from David Berlinski's Deniable Darwin that I found on the Access Research Network web site. In it, he has the eminent novelist Jorge Luis Borges apply Darwinian principles and reasoning to literary theory.

On the Derivation of Ulysses from Don Quixote

I imagine this story being told to me by Jorge Luis Borges one evening in a Buenos Aires cafe.

His voice dry and infinitely ironic, the aging, nearly blind literary master observes that "the Ulysses," mistakenly attributed to the Irishman James Joyce, is in fact derived from "the Quixote."

I raise my eyebrows.

Borges pauses to sip discreetly at the bitter coffee our waiter has placed in front of him, guiding his hands to the saucer.

"The details of the remarkable series of events in question may be found at the University of Leiden," he says. "They were conveyed to me by the Freemason Alejandro Ferri in Montevideo."

Borges wipes his thin lips with a linen handkerchief that he has withdrawn from his breast pocket.

"As you know," he continues, "the original handwritten text of the Quixote was given to an order of French Cistercians in the autumn of 1576."

I hold up my hand to signify to our waiter that no further service is needed. "Curiously enough, for none of the brothers could read Spanish, the Order was charged by the Papal Nuncio, Hoyo dos Monterrey (a man of great refinement and implacable will), with the responsibility for copying the Quixote, the printing press having then gained no currency in the wilderness of what is now known as the department of Auvergne. Unable to speak or read Spanish, a language they not unreasonably detested, the brothers copied the Quixote over and over again, re-creating the text but, of course, compromising it as well, and so inadvertently discovering the true nature of authorship. Thus they created Fernando Lor's Los Hombres d'Estado in 1585 by means of a singular series of copying errors, and then in 1654 Juan Luis Samorza's remarkable epistolary novel Por Favor by the same means, and then in 1685, the errors having accumulated sufficiently to change Spanish into French, Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, their copying continuous and indefatigable, the work handed down from generation to generation as a sacred but secret trust, so that in time the brothers of the monastery, known only to members of the Bourbon house and, rumor has it, the Englishman and psychic Conan Doyle, copied into creation Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and then as a result of a particularly significant series of errors, in which French changed into Russian, Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina. Late in the last decade of the 19th century there suddenly emerged, in English, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and then the brothers, their numbers reduced by an infectious disease of mysterious origin, finally copied the Ulysses into creation in 1902, the manuscript lying neglected for almost thirteen years and then mysteriously making its way to Paris in 1915, just months before the British attack on the Somme, a circumstance whose significance remains to be determined."

I sit there, amazed at what Borges has recounted. "Is it your understanding, then," I ask, "that every novel in the West was created in this way?"

"Of course," replies Borges imperturbably. Then he adds: "Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote."

Evidently, not everybody appreciates Berlinski's sense of humor. Jeffrey Shallit trashes him here, calling him "king of poseurs."

But then again, stuck pigs have been know to squeal....