shadow71 writes:I am of the opinion that he is a an evolutionist whose theory is one of intelligent, organized response to nature and the enviroment. He is not one who agrees with Darwin's or the MS's position that all changes, ie. mutations, et. al are random w/o reagard to fitness.
That's about what Shapiro says. The intelligence he is talking about is in the cell. However, he does not clearly define intelligence, and most people find the claim of intelligence a bit implausible. He is probably using intelligence to refer to what most biologists describe as teleonomy.
On the mutation part, he does say that mutations are not random. However, when he gives details, he does say that you don't only see mutations that will be useful. So he isn't actually disagreeing with other biologists on mutations, except that he is using his own non-standard terminology.
On Darwinism, he does not think that natural selection is a satisfactory explanation. I don't think he is actually claiming to see something that other biologists don't see. It's more a matter that he does not like that way of explaining.
I have not talked to Shapiro, so I'm not sure if I am getting him wrong. There's an interaction between biological populations and the environment. Darwinists describe this with language that, in effect, puts the environment in charge selecting what should survive. I think Shapiro wants to describe it with the biological population in charge, exploringthe environment to find ways to survive.
We often find that there are two ways of describing things. We can say that the dogs wags its tail, or we can say that the tail wags the dog. Both are describing the same thing, but changing what is considered in charge.
My take is that Shapiro would prefer a different explanation, but he isn't disagreeing about what happens in biological systems. That is, he wants to describe it as the biological population redesigning itself, rather than as the environment redesigning it.
shadow71 writes:In re Larry Moran, I am of the opinon he has a secular naturalism bias.
That may be a correct assessment. However, most scientists try to keep their science secular.
The neo-Darwinian account is mechanistic, and I think that's what Shapiro doesn't like about it. However, scientists like mechanistic accounts, because those give a better guide to the researcher.
Jesus was a liberal hippie