"dkomo"  wrote in message
news:bnkq7c$2qrt$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> "Peter F." wrote:
> >
> > "dkomo"  wrote in message
> > news:bn7cci$28m2$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> > > I ran across a new book at Barnes and Noble this afternoon.  It's
> > > called _Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent
> > > Life Is the Architect of the Universe_ by James N. Gardner:
> > >
> > > 2-4679039?v=glance&s=books
> > > or
> > >
> > > http://tinyurl.com/rtfz
> > >
> > > The Amazon web page shows that this book could have interest for some
> > > on
> > > sci.bio.evolution.  The book does not appear to be a work of
> > > pedestrian
> > > crackpottery, nor to spring from a hidden religious agenda.  The book
> > > jacket features favorable blurbs from quite few well known people in
> > > the arena of public science, including one glowing endorsement from
> > > the arch skeptic Michael Shermer (much to my surprise), and others
> > > from Paul Davies, Sir Martin Rees, and John Casti.
> >
> > Just a short skEPTic (so not just skeptic) comment:
> >
> > I don't feel like aligning myself with your *perhaps ignorant* assertion
> > that these people do not have a religious agenda.
>
> Of "these" people (Michael Shermer, Paul Davies, Sir Martin Rees, John
> Casti), which of them do you think has a religious agenda and why?
>
> Shermer is a columnist for Scientific American, writing the monthly
> column "Skeptic", and is also a well known creationist deflator.  He
> is also the publisher of _Skeptic_ magazine.  Casti has written a
> number of books, some of which I've read, and I don't recall him even
> indirectly expressing religious sentiment.  Martin Rees is a
> cosmologist and Britain's royal astronomer (whatever the hell that
> is).  He's quite agnostic.  The only one who might even remotely have
> a religious agenda is the physicist Paul Davies, who wrote the
> acclaimed book _The Mind of God_.  He has expressed some sympathy with
> the thesis of intelligent design.
>
My alarmbells are ringing! An agnostic (*if* that is what he is) - is a
'border-line Baptist (or Bahai, for that matter)'. That is, that guy is not
skEPTic (or EPT, or does not hsve enough of a FOOT-hold) enough IMHO. %-}

> Besides, the main idea in the _Biocosm_ book, that the universe
> continually reproduces itself and evolves by creating intelligent
> life

[N.B. "AEVASIVEly intelligent life" would have been more EPT %-}]

> , is not something a religious believer of the Western variety
> would normally accept.  Standard religious dogma holds that there is
> One Creator who designed One Universe -- this one -- which was
> carefully tuned and designed to support Man.  It says so in the Book
> of Genesis.
>
> > But sight unseen I AM
> > prepared to under-rignt the possibility of the book not being a work of
> > _pedestrian_ crackpot(s). ;-)
> > I hope you are prepared to be warned and to consider that
(metaphorically
> > speaking):- Even in some very fine crockery there are almost invisible,
and
> > so not always spotted, hair-line fractures.
> >
>
> If crockery ships with hairline fractures, it's often because the
> Chief Inspector is absent.  The Chief Inspector is, of course, a
> metaphor for verifiability in science.  Any theory, no matter how fine
> on the surface, may be seriously defective unless it can be
> empirically verified.

Until one thoroughly rationally realizes that empirical verifiability also
depends on our capacity to experience, and that this capacity is normally
circumscribed (euphemism for constrained) by us having evolved into a most
distincly AEVASIVE species/direction, then even a clever and well-considered
comment such as yours can be classified  somewhat inEPT.
>
> There are those that think that the fine crockery known as
> evolutionary psychology is an example of such a plausible sounding,
> but largely unverifiable theory.

If unverifiable by mental and/or mechanistic means for ultimately realistic
and thoroughly understood (entirely in alignement with by science thoroughly
established principles and theories) reasons, then that is an entirely
accEPTable (i.e. an in a sense "effectively philosophy terminating")
situation.

I trust that you are prepared to
> take your own warning seriously.
>

I'd be damned if I don't. %-}

Regards,

P
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