[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Case]

> [Platt]
> > Like I asked, how does what you say, if true, move evolution towards
> > betterness or indicate the arrival of a new life form on the planet?
> [Case]
> The notion of "betterness" has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is
> a biological theory of how species and populations find balance in the
> environment. "Betterness" is a value judgement that you can make if it
> makes you feel "better" but it has no place in biology.

[Platt]
Of course, to science there are no values or morals. Just the facts. But to
Pirsig, the force behind evolution is a moral force. "When inorganic
patterns of reality create life the Metaphysics of Quality postulates that
they've done so because it's "better" and that this definition of
"betterness"-this beginning response to Dynamic Quality-is an elementary
unit of ethics upon which all right and wrong can be based."
But, as Pirsig points out, science's declaration of freedom from value
judgments is phony. Is it OK for a biologist to fake his observations or
measurements?

[Case]
Science is replete with value, positive and negative, attraction and
repulsion. But then, I always tend to read Pirsig's use of the term "value"
in a quantitative rather than a qualitative sense. Pirsig sense of
betterness and preference is at least for me nothing more that a bit of
minor anthropomorphism. If taken in a metaphorically I am cool with it.

I have in the past responded with horror to his chapter on evolution. I
standby that. My horror stems from the fact that there is a way of reading
it that seems to imply betterness in the sense of superiority and teleology,
which is the sense I am assuming you mean. Yet even in my state of horror I
do not take Pirsig's use of the terms, "better", "prefer" or "value" to be
jumping of points for chauvinism and jingoism. But if you really mean
"better" in the sense of "more balanced", "more harmonious" then we are on
the same page... maybe.