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Hello all, I am doing my RS AS level this year, I am having difficulty understanding the contents of the course, i am opening this thread for those familiar with the contents to help me understand them better. I am an adult learner and returning to learning after a lot of years so please be patient Please can you help with the following: ' Even if a Darwinian theory is coherent (that is non-contradictory as opposed to true) My question is can someone expound on the three words: Coherent Non contradictory True Many thanks
Hi there! What exam board is it? And would you be able to finish the sentence please!
Original post by junaidullah1989
Hello all, I am doing my RS AS level this year, I am having difficulty understanding the contents of the course, i am opening this thread for those familiar with the contents to help me understand them better. I am an adult learner and returning to learning after a lot of years so please be patient Please can you help with the following: ' Even if a Darwinian theory is coherent (that is non-contradictory as opposed to true) My question is can someone expound on the three words: Coherent Non contradictory True Many thanks



(Thanks, whoever moved the thread; my phone was laggy and I couldn't!)

Hi! Best of luck with your self-study; if you need help with anything else, don't hesitate to ask :h:

A coherent theory is a theory whose different elements and suggestions all make sense together; e.g. if a theory proposes that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, calling this theory "coherent" means that God can be all of these things at once without it being unreasonable or any aspect of the theory going against/making untrue any other aspect of the theory. If one aspect did go against another or make it untrue, we would call this a contradiction or a contradictory statement; the excerpt you quoted is explaining that a coherent theory does not have contradictions, so there is nothing in the theory/implied by the theory which means that anything else in/implied by it is false. Not every coherent theory is true; I could argue that it is theoretically possible for a god to have the three characteristics I mentioned, but that doesn't mean that this god exists. It only means that the idea of this god is coherent and that all its parts make sense together. A theory being coherent tells you it can be true, but not that it is true.
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by laurxnxdavixs00
Hi there! What exam board is it? And would you be able to finish the sentence please!

hiya sorry for the incomplete sentence:
if a darwinian explanation is even coherent (that is non-contradictory as opposed to true ) then it provides a logically possible explanation for how the end directedness of the operations of living beings in this world might have come about.
Original post by Sonechka
(Thanks, whoever moved the thread; my phone was laggy and I couldn't!)

Hi! Best of luck with your self-study; if you need help with anything else, don't hesitate to ask :h:

A coherent theory is a theory whose different elements and suggestions all make sense together; e.g. if a theory proposes that God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, calling this theory "coherent" means that God can be all of these things at once without it being unreasonable or any aspect of the theory going against/making untrue any other aspect of the theory. If one aspect did go against another or make it untrue, we would call this a contradiction or a contradictory statement; the excerpt you quoted is explaining that a coherent theory does not have contradictions, so there is nothing in the theory/implied by the theory which means that anything else in/implied by it is false. Not every coherent theory is true; I could argue that it is theoretically possible for a god to have the three characteristics I mentioned, but that doesn't mean that this god exists. It only means that the idea of this god is coherent and that all its parts make sense together. A theory being coherent tells you it can be true, but not that it is true.




Hiya thank you for your reply 😊
so its basically saying that even if all the aspects of darwinian theory do confirm with one another (which doesn't mean that Darwinian theory is true) then....
Original post by junaidullah1989
Hiya thank you for your reply 😊
so its basically saying that even if all the aspects of darwinian theory do confirm with one another (which doesn't mean that Darwinian theory is true) then....


Even if Darwinian theory isn't true, being coherent is enough for it to provide a logically based explanation...etc.. All it needs to do to provide such a logical explanation is for all its different elements to make sense when considered as a whole, or not to contradict each other. It doesn't even need to be true.
Hiya many thanks for both replies,
I am struggling to understand the Darwinian theory in these words :
"According to this explanation, such operations evolve through a process by which random genetic mutations are naturally selected for their sdaptive value: organisms that have evolved some system that performs a fitness-enhancing operation are more likely to survive and leave offspring, other things being equal, than organisms that have not evolved such sustems. "

Can anyone simplify explain to me the follewing:
"Such operations evolve through a process..." what does it mean by 'operations'?
I have had a look at adaptive value's definition but struggle to understand it.
And the rest of the sentence has just gone above my head☺️
Original post by junaidullah1989
Hiya many thanks for both replies,
I am struggling to understand the Darwinian theory in these words :
"According to this explanation, such operations evolve through a process by which random genetic mutations are naturally selected for their sdaptive value: organisms that have evolved some system that performs a fitness-enhancing operation are more likely to survive and leave offspring, other things being equal, than organisms that have not evolved such sustems. "

Can anyone simplify explain to me the follewing:
"Such operations evolve through a process..." what does it mean by 'operations'?
I have had a look at adaptive value's definition but struggle to understand it.
And the rest of the sentence has just gone above my head☺️


"Operations" in this context would mean the processes/actions carried out by organisms; a fitness-enhancing operation is an action which would improve fitness, which organisms are capable of carrying out due to their evolution. From what I can tell, the "adaptive value" of a mutation is how useful the mutation is for helping organisms to survive in a certain set of conditions. The excerpt is describing how the Darwinian account of evolution suggests that organisms and their specific processes evolve as organisms which have characteristics with a higher adaptive value (i.e. characteristics which are more useful to survival) have a better chance of surviving and reproducing, and then passing on their characteristics to their offspring.
Hi Guys!
I am stuck on the next part of my course;

Re David Hume's challenge against the design argument, he says that
"The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance, of human designs, thoughts, wisdom and intelligence. Since, therefore,the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; And that the author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work he has executed. By this argument a posterior i and by this argument alone do we prove at once the existence of a Diety and his similarity to human mind and intelligence?

I understand from the above that Hume is questioning the analogy that just the way human can create something for a reason, so has the universe been created and the cause of creation must be same as the effects of creation are same. Can someone please explain the underlined words. Also what exactly is Huume questioning here?

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