Oh Mr. Wallace

I am working my way through A Devil's Chaplain quite well. The first section had shorter pieces of general interest while the second section which I am currently deep into, contains longer essays on various big-issues with Darwinism which of course means I have to concentrate. I suppose that being a collection of various pieces I could just skip the more tortuous ones but after the "discussion" prompted in our house by Dawkins' programme on Channel 4 last night, I should at least try to understand these issues. I have to say that I was quite annoyed by the fading out of various interviewees (however nutty they might appear) just as they appeared to me about to say something relevant. It might me the case that they were talking rubbish of the highest order but in that case just sum up their arguments and let them stand for themselves. Fading out seems to just be an elegant way of talking someone down. The main point of discussion at home last night was not my own level of agreement with Dawkins but rather whether you expect the world's most high-profile atheist to accept any sort of compromise from religion. Obviously he will say in public that he has no truck with any level of belief in God/Gods/Supernatural phenomena. What did you expect. "Oh yes! I've written a book denying the existence of God but I think for the sake of a quiet life I can accept a woolly compromise which leaves my ideas out in the cold.

My tiny contribution to this is that the 39 percent of people (in the UK) who believe in Creationism or Intelligent design as a better explanation for life on earth (or even the 52 percent who don't believe in evolution) are just plain wrong. They don't understand the concept of evolution and that is because it is not taught properly - mainly I have to say because it takes up a tiny proportion of the curriculum but also because some teachers are failing to teach it to the standard required for fear of upsetting parents who would take offence at the subject. Science and Religion cannot be taught in Science classes just as Science and Religion cannot be taught in pure religious classes. To teach them together needs metaphysics or philosophy and see how many schools offer those in the ever-more-crowded curriculum however much "experts" urge.

For years I have stuck my neck out and said that computer packages with a decent link to the API can allow developers to do anything to any bit in a system; it's just a matter of how complicated you want to make things. I have not yet been proved wrong (though I personally may not have had the nouse to accomplish something). The same thing applies to evolution. Enough thought given to working out how something could possibly arise through natural selection will find a method. Where something in life cannot yet be explained, further investigation and some appliance of intellect will always find the solution. Finding few and small examples where you have to posit intelligent design is "God of the Gaps". Occam's Razor applies to this in what I imagine is it's purest form. Evolution is a single entity however complicated and to suggest that just because we cannot explain something using evolution, we must invoke God to give us a nudge is at best adding complexity to an already-complex system and at worst requiring a meta-complexity to explain ALL LIFE. God Over Djinn etc.
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