The Philosophical implications of Darwinism/ID

I answered 'yes' almost reflexively before I read your inference and I am most definitely an evolutionary biologist.Humanity is definitely more than the sum of its physical parts.
In the collective, it comprises political, intellectual and cultural constructs that, facilitated by language and communication, far exceed the intellectual accomplishments of any individual.On an individual level, a human is also more than the sum of his cells and organ systems. Because of the integrated behavior of these systems, he/she is capable of thought, abstract reason, emotions etc. etc. This is something Mayr refered to as the 'emergent properties' of biological systems in his book "Toward a New Philosophy of Biology" in which he argues convincingly that a simple reductionist approach can never adequately account for the complexity of life. In essence, it says that if you could calculate and 'know' all the laws governing chemistry, you would still know nothing about how a cell operates. Going up a level, you could know everything about how a cell functions, but nothing about the behavior of the organism it resides in. This can be extended from individual behavior to population dynamics to ecosystem dynamics. Each level has emergent properties unique to that level that require a whole new set of rules to describe.Your inference seems to imply that evolutionary biology ('Darwinism', if you wish) somehow renders life devoid of meaning. I submit that nothing could be further from the truth. The evolutionist would argue that life itself holds ALL the meaning. Nature IS the creator and chance events (accidents, if you will) appear to play a big role in the process of life, even though various biological forces determine whether chance events have transient or lasting influences on evolutionary trajectories. The element of chance is only anathema to those who are determined to look for 'purpose' in life in the sense of a creator's purpose. I submit that there is plenty of purpose in nature created by a wonderful 'godlike' force called adaptation. It is perhaps our intuitive desire / need to understand a 'final purpose' that drives us to postulate that some sort of omniscent entity is guiding life, particularly our life. The problem is that the laws of nature, despite producing phenomenal beauty and complexity through both guided and random processes, have no need for a final purpose. That is a distinctly human need.Edited to add title. EZThis message has been edited by EZscience, 05-17-2005 03:35 PM

None of the above. We 'evolutionary biologists' (since you seem to be groping for a label of some sort and 'ontological naturalist neo-Darwinist' is just not going to cut it) disagree with ID as 'science', specifically. We are entirely indifferent to its continued existence in any other discipline. Methinks thou doest extrapolate too much.
Because scientists speculate on the evolutionary origins of rape (and it is a frequent phenomenon in many animal species) they are somehow condoning the act? Givning licence to human beings to engage in this behavior. Come ON. I think you defeated yourself here.
If ID is on ANY political side AT ALL, it cannot be... A SCIENCE !
Does that make any sense ? That's just fine with us.
The only problem is your side doesn't have a methodological approach for testing anything, or making any assertions or predications about biological phenomena. So unlike our theories, its unfalsifiable.
I have already demonstrated this here.

Ned, you might be interested in this story. But of course you are right - where are the ID scientists when it comes to solving biological problems for everyone?
They're having coffee, speculating on telological origins.Edited for formatting only. EZThis message has been edited by EZscience, 05-17-2005 10:06 PM