On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 03:36:26PM -0400, Roger Clough wrote: > > > Alfred Russell Wallace developed a theory of evolution about the same > time as Darwin, but his model allowed for Aristotle"end causation", > meaning goal-directed change. > > To the Darwinian materialists of the time, this smacked of the > hand of God controlling evolution, so Wallace's theory > was generally ignored. > > But goal-directed change is another term for the 2nd Law > of Thermodynamics, which holds that energy tends to flow downhill. > This means goal-directed or "end-caused" action, > so that it makes no sense to say that evolution is > merely the product of efficient causes, but -- if I may say so- > is also guided by a larger hand, that of God or entropy. >
Nobody in their right mind would think of the 2nd law as being "goal directed" (teleos). The second law is about increasing disorder - surely the opposite of any goal directed process. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
