lew@ihuxr.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (02/13/84)
There has been some discussion about "compact intervention" and whether it's meaningful to talk of scientific evidence for such events. I think it is quite meaningful, in principle, but it is difficult to talk about because such evidence is conspicuous by its absence. Suppose for example, that the earth were discovered to have a layer of dirt and rock some hundreds of feet thick, but that under that it was a perfect solid crystal of diamond. This would be prima facie evidence of a special creation. Of course, people actually believed that the moon was such an object before its surface had been viewed telescopically. Farmer's Riverworld also comes to mind. This planet's surface is entirely taken up with a LONG winding river, whose entire length is guarded on both sides by sheer cliffs fronting high mountains. The residents of Riverworld have no doubt whatsoever that the world is an artifice. Other such arbitrary configurations can be dreamed up. What if the northern hemisphere were land and the southern hemisphere were sea, with a beach along the equator? Or what if all the continents were square or circular? This sort of thing is not far from medieval cosmologies that were centered on the Mediterranean (note the name!) with the habitable world encircled by a cosmic ocean, which played a similar psychological role for them that space does for us. (Heaven was more familiar.) Actually, all this is very reminiscent of Paley's "watch in the wilderness" argument, or "argument from design". The point being that if one were to find a watch in the wilderness, one would presume that it was an artifice. Similarly, the world itself must be an artifice since it shows purposeful design. It occurs to me (I'm sure I'm not the first!) that this argument contains its own refutation in the distinction between the watch and the wilderness. Of course one would presume that the watch is an artifice, but precisely because it is so much DIFFERENT than all the trees, and grass, and bugs and so on that one accepts as part of nature. I would summarize this difference by noting that the watch doesn't grow or reproduce. Anyway, that's beside the logical point, which is that Paley is asking us to draw the same conclusion about nature that we drew about the watch, when we drew that conclusion because the watch stands in such vivid contradistiction to nature. Finally, I think Gentry's polonium halos constitute the assertion that just such a "watch" has been found. That is, there is no way to account for such a thing naturally. I think it's fair to say that most scientists are disinclined to take his claim seriously for precisely this reason. Conversely, it's incumbent on Gentry to pursue the matter until he gains his point "in the arena". Naturally, he thinks he has fulfilled what should be necessary to at least have some one attempt to verify his measurements. I really wish someone would, for my part, but his case isn't regarded by others as nearly strong enough to justify the considerable effort required. Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihuxr!lew