Saturday October 12th 2:00 PM -

Coexistence of logically contradictory chance theories
by Philip R. Page

The skeleton of theories of chance as opposed to theories of regularities is investigated. Theories of chance are shown to be composed of both a chance hypothesis and a mode of explanation, while theories of regularities are composed of only a detailed deterministic map. Theories of chance admit the possibility of both design and chance as rational probabilistic modes of explanation. It is possible for these two logically incompatible modes of explanation to coexist for prolonged periods, and hence for both to be sustained in tandem by the scientic community. It is argued that this is in fact the current situation when chance theories of the origin and structure of life are considered. We give an explicit example of how Darwinian polyphyletic evolution (the chance explanation) can coexist with a version of theistic evolution (the design explanation) within a simplied evolutionary chance hypothesis.

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