From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Sep 4 20: 9:22 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D907037B400 for ; Wed, 4 Sep 2002 20:09:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jive.SoftHome.net (jive.SoftHome.net [66.54.152.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 45D3E43E4A for ; Wed, 4 Sep 2002 20:09:19 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from yid@softhome.net) Received: (qmail 13702 invoked by uid 417); 5 Sep 2002 03:09:13 -0000 Received: from shunt-smtp-out-0 (HELO softhome.net) (172.16.3.12) by shunt-smtp-out-0 with SMTP; 5 Sep 2002 03:09:13 -0000 Received: from planb ([216.194.4.17]) (AUTH: LOGIN yid@softhome.net) by softhome.net with esmtp; Wed, 04 Sep 2002 21:09:10 -0600 Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2002 23:08:08 -0400 From: Joshua Lee To: "Neal E. Westfall" Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-Id: <20020904230808.4c76a744.yid@softhome.net> In-Reply-To: <20020904154209.D13440-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> References: <20020904085636.2fcba73c.yid@softhome.net> <20020904154209.D13440-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> Organization: Plan B Software Labs X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.8.2claws (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.7) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, 4 Sep 2002 15:43:58 -0700 (PDT) "Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > > > > Terry, William of Occam was a theist. ;-) > > > > > > My uncle, who is names on the patent for microwave ovens, still > > > to this day refuses to have one in his house... your point is? > > > > That it's fairly odd to quote a Franciscan Friar in favor of > > atheism, albeit one that rejected the utility of Medieval scholastic > > proofs in favor of revelation. > > It's because if you supply your own definition of "simple", Occam's > razor can be used to prove anything. No, it cannot be used to prove *anything*; only that which may be reduced to definitions and terms consistent with simplicity and complexity, with the former affirmed and the latter rejected. That having been said, it was a fairly strong early argument against medieval scholasticism. (The only answer the Catholic church seemed to have for it and other arguments against scholasticism was to declare Thomism sacrosanct; until Vatican II partially reversed this position.) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message