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Carey: . . . you didn't even attempt to understand the general point of my example, which was that we can make very clear, testable predictions about many aspects of wild populations under the framework of evolution by natural selection. Additionally, you have once again neglected the point I made about non-circularity of selection vs. circularity of any historical explanation of life.
Carey: In this sense, Fred, EVERY possible explanation of life MUST be circular. If we agree that evolution happened, what remains to be explained is the mechanism by which it happened; this leads us to the central issue of natural selection.
**We've accepted that evolution, as a form of history, contains an element of circularity . . . we're now moving on to the different potential mechanisms by which evolution may have occurred.**
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Well Carey, if you’re saying that the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are always going to, well, survive and reproduce at higher rates, and that therefore we can always predict that, well, the individuals/traits having higher survival and reproduction rates are always going to, well, survive and reproduce at higher rates—unless something changes where those individuals/traits no longer have the higher survival and reproduction rates, in which case other individuals/traits will have higher survival and reproduction rates, well then, yes, I’d say that’s a slam-dunk . . . although I still find the circularity less than satisfying.
OTOH, I doubt that you could persuasively argue that, say, Newton’s laws of motion/gravity and/or Einstein’s general relativity explanations are circular. Plus there is always the nagging problem of how it is that a universe with low entropy ever began in the first place (14 billion years ago), providing the opportunity for life to evolve, but perhaps that is beyond the scope of this discussion.
Regarding smart guys supporting deism, I don’t know that your charges of any supposed circularity are terribly relevant—those guys, and I, more or less acknowledge that our deism is a belief, although a belief by those who have studied and understood the mathematics and the science and evidence involving the more profound mysteries of the universe; whereas you are denying what Dawkins, the credentialed Oxford zoologist (and raging atheist), readily acknowledges—that natural selection is a belief that can’t be proved.
And regarding my appealing to authority, well, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea frigging culpa. But then I’d say that we all, more or less, appeal to some sort of authority, and perhaps argue what we perceive to be the most credible/persuasive/convincing points and conclusions made by such authority.
So it boils down to this: Although you seem to acknowledge, to some degree, the circularity of natural selection, you temper that by asserting (unconvincingly IMO) that all explanations of life must be circular; and additionally you refuse to acknowledge, as Dawkins acknowledges, that natural selection is a belief that can’t be proved. Fine, I understand—natural selection is your baby, and no one likes admitting that their baby is ugly.