Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id OAA26347 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 11 May 2000 14:35:09 +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk> Organization: Reborn Technology To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Fwd: Did language drive society or vice versa? Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 14:20:35 +0100 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.0.21] Content-Type: text/plain References: <391A5E4C.A93575FB@mediaone.net> Message-Id: <00051114314905.00619@faichney> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Thu, 11 May 2000, Chuck Palson wrote:
>Robin Faichney wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 10 May 2000, Chuck Palson wrote:
>> >Robin Faichney wrote:
>> >
>> >> So you're a creationist?
>> >
>> >No. I am not saying things come of nothing, only that the results are unpredictable.
>>
>> You're shifting your ground -- our argument was about whether human evolution
>> was improbable. I'm very happy to accept evolution is unpredictable. But if
>> you still hold to the former, then what causes these improbable things to
>> happen, if not God?
>
>It seems to me that you are phrasing the question in such a way as to force the answer, -
>i.e., a loaded question. The loading comes when you force cause into it. True accidents
>don't first look for a cause before they happen.
Sorry, I don't believe in "true accidents". Everything has a cause. In fact,
most things have more than one. So there's no forcing, and no loading: the
question is perfectly straight and above-board. (And see my reply to Wade.)
>Or, look at it another way. Hyperreligious people (Wilson wrote recently that they have
>discovered the gene for "hyperreligiousity") tell us that the normal curve doesn't by
>itself constitute an explanation because it doesn't answer the question of what caused
>events to happen in that distribution. Do you buy that question?
I'm mystified as to why you ascribe that attitude to "hyperreligiousity".
Yes, I do buy it. And I'd say that anyone who DID think that any distribution
curve constituted an explanation, would make a very poor scientist or
philosopher. "Oh, it's a bell-curve. Good, that saves us the bother of
working out what causes it." Sheesh! On that basis, there's no need to
investigate what lies behind IQ, because it has a normal distribution. Crazy!
-- Robin Faichney===============================This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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