Reluctant Cannibal
Posts: 36
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Hello AFDave,
Rather than answer your original question as asked, I will step back and address a more fundamental point. What is an explanation, and why are some explanations more satisfying than others? My apologies if I appear to be wasting your time on something so basic and obvious, but it is usually the unexamined background ideas that give rise to such different views of the world.
You may not be a scientist in a formal way, but all of us act as scientists as we seek explanations in our day to day lives. A good explanation explains why something is the way it is, and more importantly, why it is not different. A truly satisfying explanation fits together logically, gives a deeper understanding of the thing explained, and sometimes illuminates things that might have appeared unrelated. In nature there are alway deeper levels of explanation -- for example, you can understand aerodynamics in terms of fluid mechanics, and fluid mechanics in terms of the physics of molecules. A satisfying explanation leads to more explanations at the deeper level, and suggests new avenues of investigation. An unsatisfying explanation is sterile -- it leads nowhere.
People who accept the evolutionary explanations for the complexity and diversity of life, and who have thought them through and understood them, find those explanations the most satisfying. To them, the alternatives are too simple and superficial, and don't really function as explanations at all.
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