These are musings/artifacts from the wanderings of a distracted visionary developing his trigger finger. Think of them not as the dictations of a man with it all together, but rather, communications tapped out in half-remembered morse code, from a Jonah in a whale, not sure where he is headed, but assuming there's a destination. Hence, like a Jonah, I send out a nice mix of insights from the inside and cries for help. andrewmwhaley@gmail.com.

Aristotle Hugged, but not Ayn Rand

What Church did Aristotle belong to?

I happened along this article on the official blog of The Objective Standard about the new Ben Stein documentary “Expelled.” Now, I have yet to see Mr. Stein’s film and I do have a problem with anyone attempting to check their mind at the door and posit religious beliefs, based on revelation alone, as science, in the modern sense of the word. But, the following quote kind of set me off.

“But the truth is: there is no evidence supporting their theory. Intelligent design is completely devoid of any positive scientific content, and consists of nothing more than a religiously motivated attack on evolution. To the extent intelligent design advocates are facing obstacles in academia it is because they are not doing real science: they haven’t been ‘expelled’ they have flunked out of the scientific community, just as a faith healer would flunk out of medical school.”

This is typical rampant recasting of anyone who believes in teleology as a slobbering religious zealot, ready to cast all non-believers into a fire, set with their books and white papers. The core principle of intelligent design is the reason’s acquisition of the evidence of a level of order in the natural world, that is too complex to be accounted for by mere chance. Just for the record, many of those inclined toward this view have no problem with evolution, qua natural selection, as the mechanism used to implement this design. These are not “Old Earth” creationists, denying natural selection, and blaming the devil or the Jews for the dinosaur bones or carbon dating. Some of these types may jump on the bandwagon, but one can’t be blamed for the kooks that show up to your party.

As for this supposed complete lack of evidence, the chances that the chemicals would emerge at all, and at the same time, and end up in the pattern to make up the human genome, are 1 in a number substantially larger than the theorized number of particles in the universe. So, if you made every neutron, proton, electron, etc. in the universe into a monkey and a typewriter, you would still not get this Shakespearean sonnet, or rather, more accurately, the entire corpus of Western literature in chronological order. Anthony Flew, the godfather (pun intended) of modern atheism recently converted to Theism and sighted this figure as an example of order that has no reasonable explanation other than design. He converted to the god of Aristotle, the same way Aristotle did, on the basis of reason alone.

Getting back to the article linked. It seems Rand and her followers have read the Nichomachean Ethics and applied it thoroughly, even ruthlessly to man. Might I suggest they have a look at the Metaphysics as well. There just may be a God lurking out there- objectively.