KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA31 (vanFraassen / Feyerabend)

Commentary 16 (to McCaffrey, C14)

( CONSTRUCTION AND AGREEMENT )
by Philip Benjamin
1 October 2003, posted 7 October 2003

[McCaffrey writes]

"The defence that RC type thought views itself not as claiming 'the truth', but as exemplifying the functional fit criterion shows only that it, and it alone, conforms to the standards it has set for every other world view. This is not dissimilar to Christians who counter the theory of evolution by saying that 'mankind can't have appeared on Earth in that manner because that's not what is said in the Bible'."

[Philip Benjamin :]

Steven J. Gould of Harvard is no fundamentalist, rightwing radical. He admitted the skeleton in the cupboard of Pale-ontologists. He had no alternative but to come up with the scheme of punctuated equilibrium, which is clearly synonymous with Designed Order. Every punctuation is a design. Every equilibrium is an order. I wonder if SJG was not plagiarizing Moses ! Except the Moses punctuations and equilibrium are clearly defined as space, time, matter (including water and dark matter), energy, plants, animals with genes (male/female) and Humans with genes (male/female). At least there is more logical order here than SJG’s equilibrium. Unless SJG was incoherent, he was perhaps wishing that design can evolve just as matter can !

Fundamentalist rightwing radicals quoting the Bible is not the problem for un-falsifiable speculations. They quietly mind their business, pay their taxes to support every liberal whim. They are law abiding LAMBS, not terrorizing wolfs. They cannot impose their faith or invoke the God of Moses into this Forum, nor will they take that Name in vain like that into this Forum.

By implication, is there such a group as the anti-fundamentalist, leftwing, irreligious liberals? Darwin is on trial in their court. Evidences are mounting to convict him of fraud deliberately foisted on an unsuspecting free society. I am sure this forum is fully aware of that. It is only a distraction to blame the innocent for that development. It is any thing but fundamentalism which is questioning evolution. By a strange irony, more and more of the fundamentalists, so called, are accepting evolution.

[McCaffrey, quoting from Muller]

" If we consider religions (and science too) as instruments for humanity rather than as dispensers of truth, communication and eventually agreements might become easier. What do you think of truly global ecumenical efforts ? My own opinion is that such undertakings are essential. Consider for instance the recent conference in Berlin where the Dalai Lama praised the wishes of Catholics and Protestants (and others) for unification. This kind of movement could help humanity, I would say, and it is entirely compatible with 0- D."

[Philip Benjamin]

Blind mind, not blank mind, is congenital. Tibet was never known to be a tolerant society. The Communists simply replaced their version of intolerance on the Tibetan Society. I doubt if Dalai Lama will have any success in Ireland. When the rubber meets the road, the blind eye manifests itself. One man's deity is another man's dainty meat. To merge the two into one is a cowardly refusal to accept the reality of blind mind. There is an oriental saying that the cow on a book page will not eat grass !

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Philip Benjamin, Ph.D