Is this a poetical article about science, or a scienc-y article about philosophy? Doesn't work for me either way - not grounded in basic science, or defined well enough as a philosophy.

some processes of mind are obviously transcendant of the material world

Not necessarily. You're assuming others share in your limitations. It is much more likely that the processes of the minds of others will transcend yours, and that they will succeed in figuring it out where you have failed.

Perhaps you have given up too easily. The caution I directed to "Steele" also applies to you.

Now, I ask you - how was my argument flawed?

It is not necessary that the world began by the act of a being you could identify as a creator. It is not obvious that we can understand the world at such a fundamental level.

On the contrary - if there were no Creator, then whence that which is acted upon by evolution?

Look at what you're doing here. You go as far as you can with evidence and reason and then conclude by saying "and then something magical happens".

It doesn't work. You're invalidating your otherwise valid inquiry and denying the possibility of additional inquiry for no good reason.

Invoking supernatural causes does little more than allow you to avoid admitting the limitations in your facts and your logic. Worse, you're relieving yourself of any responsibility to try to overcome your limitations. You would be far better off saying that you simply do not know, avoid the fig leaf, and keep looking.

Resort to deities is dishonest and unnecessary. And more than a little foolish.

Not a trick question - would really like to know; Kircher states "Too little disturbance and the competition among species will eliminate some species and reduce the diversity". Is that really true? My understanding is that Australia, with arguably least disturbance of all the continents has the greatest diversity of plants, insects, birds all of which have evolved to fit small ecological niches. Is that statement wrong?

Also - Sleeps with Cats - why "yawn - that's a pretty complex statement...

This whole idea that the equilibrium concept in ecology is somehow related to creationism is pure BS. Arguments about "equilibrium" (AKA balance) vs. dynamic disequlibrium (AKA imbalance) have been going on among ecologists for the last 100 years, with current theory favoring dynamic disequilibrium.

By the way, I'm a professional ecologist and have met prominent advocates of both views. All are staunch evolutionists, and include Christians, Jews, and atheists.

took the words right out of my mouth.

Living organisms adapt over generations to changes in the environment (unless the changes are so extreme that they become extinct). The new balance will remain until other changes happen that require further adaptation.

It is a dynamic equilibrium.

So the balance of nature is complexly metastable instead of simply stable.

Yawn.

65,000,000 years ago Nature was beautifully balanced on Earth; a gorgeous, vibrant variety of flora and fauna covered everything. Dinos of every size and shape balanced themselves on giant ferns, and mammals were -- deservedly -- mice-sized critters which ran around for their chickenshit lives in the (balanced) undergrowth. Then came an unbalanced rock from space, and carved out the Gulf of Mexico, elevating a few gigatons worth of matter into the (previously well-balanced) atmosphere... and temperature dropped like a lead balloon, unbalancing the lives of T. rex and its buddies to the extent that they dropped dead (the ultimate act of imbalance). Mammals had the cheekiness of shrugging off the colder climate and entering ecological niches like crazy... eventually leading to that most unbalanced device, Homo sapiens sapiens.

I want back my Cretaceous!

The problem exposed in the article is essentially that "balance" and "harmony" are value-laden and culturally-loaded words which say more about the dialectical relationship between the natural world and Homo sapiens' attempts to talk among themselves about the natural world than about the natural world itself. Specifically, as a philosophical issue, we can never say whether the natural world is, at any given moment, in balance or out of balance unless we project, as a reference, to a specific point in time in an infinitely receding future and make judgments about what we think the endgame should be--keeping in mind that we are making a purely human value judgment. What science can do is study ecosystems and sub-systems and determine if they are in stasis of in flux and try to determine cause and effect--and hope that becomes the basis for policy decisions for governments as relates to the environment. But given that nature is made of a nexus of systems enfolded in systems with the aforementioned cascading and feedback features and constantly adjusting set points, making a judgment about whether nature is "in balance" or "out of balance" at any given moment is an absurd proposition. Biologists extol the virtues of bio-diversity and "healthy" ecosystems as if evolution in that direction is inevitable, and any perturbations in that process is some unnatural interference. But evolutionary pressure is constant and inexorable and comprised of every manifestation of human enterprise in addition to the more "natural" interactions. So, if in 2050 we have lost a measurable and significant number of species, can we say that evolutionary pressure was somehow suspended over the last four decades? Of course not. We may lament the outcome; we may say that the outcome of "nature out of balance", vis-a-vis human impact, is lamentable. But we will be doing little more than making a judgment based on cultural values and admitting that our true understanding of natural systems was incomplete.

I can't really tell from reading it.

creationist stupidly dismiss evolutionary theory and scientists cling to their own non-theist views, regardless of the "scientific" facts. some processes of mind are obviously transcendant of the material world but scientists can't believe in anything non-material it's against their religion. the fundamentalist "thinkers" imagine they know what God is and can and cannot do. They laugh at theories they have no ability to evaluate on the basis of a theology they really don't grasp.

between these two relgions the westrn world is being torn to shreds. stupid materialism and stupid theology. beyond it all lies all the wonders of nature and the universe.