Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Why I Am Not A Darwinist

Author: James Barham, Independent & Published Scholar

This article is a farily quick read and, at times, seems to summarize a large amount of the content from the other authors in this collection. Barham's main point of discussion is the "normative" or emergent purpose inherent in both living beings and living matter. He tells briefly of his own upbringing; how he lost his traditional southern baptist faith in favor of metaphysical darwinism and how he lost this latter faith in favor of new system acknowledging purpose and teleology as inherent properties of the organic world.

He makes some very poignant and trenchant observations into metaphysical darwinism. The most satisfying for me was his stunningly effective, though surprisingly simple, demonstration of darwinism's religious and faith-requiring nature.

As for his theories into a purposeful universe, he explains in some detail how simple observations into the behavior of organisms demonstrates a degree of purpose inexplicable by natural selection. He continues by illustrating the nature of purpose in all living matter and why metaphysical darwinism can not make sense of it.

I have treated his work briefly only because his arguments are so well articulated that they are easy to summarize. This is a great article, especially in terms of metaphysical insight and clear argumentation.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home