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I was wondering though if some or many of them may believe that there were forces beyond evolution at work sometime in the past. You know for things like the creation of the first living organism, or complex organs, or the human brain, or the soul. What I was considering is whether these two beliefs are really mutually exclusive. You may say, "why believe God did anything if evolution is sufficient to explain the diversity?" It seems that if you are going to believe in God then He ought to be doing something. You know like creating the universe, and life.
They are kinda exclusive in the context of how the research is done but the field remains open as to how "a force" may under study lead one to see that that both are acceptable. People doing normal science research dont want to be bothered with what appears to be philosophical.
There is however an issue that could make the notion of "force" NOT applicable here. That is what I struggle with. This distinction of evolution from physics forces was made transparent by G.S Carter in "A Hundred Years of Evolution" in 1959. On a more metaphorical level Sober in recent times presents "evolutionary theory" as a 'theory of forces.'
Because of Mach and arguments against absoulte rotation (relative to the stars) Russell felt certain enough to link perception and physics in such a way that the relation of force to life can not occur except in the exclusionary way. The only way it seems possible to think back from evolutionary 'force' to origins through absolute space and time is to find a way to think of physics of Russell and the biology of Poincare as one.
This is what I do. It seems very chimerical to some. I think it is a new scientific way however.
I mention this here.
Edited by Brad McFall, : fix link
Edited by Brad McFall, : fixed