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The trouble with Darwin (Bush's I.D. comments changed Australia's Educational Landscape)
Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 24 Sept 2005 | Damien Murphy

Posted on 09/24/2005 7:20:09 AM PDT by gobucks

The brawl between evolutionists and religious neo-conservatives over how life began is coming down to the survival of the slickest.

For about 150 years Charles Darwin's evolution theory has held sway. But a new American theory, intelligent design, is getting a lot of press as scientists and intellectuals rush to the barricades to dismiss intelligent design as little else than "creationism" rebadged.

Already a DVD featuring American scientists claiming intelligent causes are responsible for the origin of the universe and life has become Australia's biggest-selling religious video and intelligent design is starting to permeate school courses.

Next year, hundreds of Catholic schools in the dioceses of Sydney, Wollongong, Lismore and Armidale will use new religious education textbooks that discuss intelligent design. At Dural, year 9 and 10 students at Pacific Hills Christian School have begun learning about intelligent design in science classes.

The chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, Stephen O'Doherty, says it is inevitable other schools will follow suit. Until last month, few Australians had heard of it. But debate broke out internationally on August 1 when the US President, George Bush, told reporters he supported combining lessons on evolution with discussion of intelligent design. "Both sides ought to be properly taught," Bush said.

Last month, the federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson, gave intelligent design ministerial imprimatur, telling the National Press Club he thought parents and schools ought to have the opportunity - if they wished - for students to be exposed to intelligent design and taught about it.

Nelson's office said his comments were unplanned.

But his interest had been pricked by a parliamentary visit on June 20 by Bill Hodgson, head of the Sydney-based campus Crusade for Christ, who left a copy of a DVD Unlocking the Mystery of Life with Nelson.

The DVD featured a US mathematician, William Dembski, and other leading American intelligent design proponents claiming the complexity of biological systems is proof of an organising intelligence.

"ID is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence," Dembski said.

The DVD is distributed in Australia by a Melbourne-based Christian group, Focus on the Family. Its executive director, Colin Bunnett, says until Nelson's comments only 1000 copies had been sold over four years. "But it's taken off. We've sold thousands in the last few weeks," he says.

The intelligent design debate has more resonance in the US, partly because teaching about the beginning of life is problematic. A Harris poll in June found that 55 per cent of American adults support teaching evolution, creationism, and intelligent design in public schools yet many who favour a literal interpretation of the Bible found it difficult to accept Darwin's The Origin of Species.

One teacher, John Scopes, was convicted for violating a Tennessee ban on teaching evolution in 1925's famous "monkey trial". It was not isolated legislation. In 1968, when the US Supreme Court struck down similar laws, some states began pushing the teaching of "creationism" alongside evolution.

In Australia, the issue has been less hard-edged. The last tussle was in 1978 when Queensland's Bjelke-Petersen government bowed to creationists' opposition to social science courses. Of late, leading scientists have rebuffed intelligent design. The Nobel Prize-winning scientist Peter Doherty says it has no place in a science curriculum and the physicist Paul Davies rejects it as creationism in disguise.

Dembski, an associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University in Texas, the world's largest Baptist university, said it should be taught with evolution in schools but not be mandated.

"Evolutionary theory and intelligent design both have a scientific core: the question whether certain material mechanisms are able to propel an evolutionary process and the question whether certain patterns in nature signify intelligence are both squarely scientific questions," Dembski says. "Nevertheless, they have profound philosophical and religious implications."


TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: allcrevoallthetime; anothercrevothread; crevolist; crevorepublic; darwin; enoughalready; evolution; intelligentdesign; scienceeducation
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To: gobucks

Well, the US is now outsourcing something else: Scientific Illiteracy.


301 posted on 09/26/2005 12:44:46 PM PDT by blowfish
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Comment #302 Removed by Moderator

To: gobucks
Gobucks,

Sorry it took me a while to reply to you earlier. If you don't mind, I'd like to continue our discussion.

You claimed that if evolution is true, there is no sin. I asked you why you think that follows, for I don't see it.

You then asked me if I believe if sin. I answered yes.

Would you mind, then, explaining to me why you think evolution implies there is no sin? I'd really like to know the basis of your reasoning.

303 posted on 09/27/2005 7:41:44 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: curiosity

First off, what is sin ... to you? To me, it any deviation from the will of God, as so thoroughly discussed in the Bible. Sin in short is akin to asking the question: what is God's preference as I weigh my options, and then doing what God has previously defined as sinful.

The reason I said w/ evolution, there is no sin is as follows: it denies an entry point for sin. Sin's entry point into the Human world is via Adam. Evolution makes a claim about the origin of "Adam", which contradicts what the Bible says about his origin. Without Adam, you have no sin. You may of course have lawlessness. But not sinfulness.


304 posted on 09/28/2005 3:38:00 AM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: ml1954

I didn't know you liked it so much you refer to it elsewhere...; but at the least you should ping me when you do so.

It indicates you understand basic Freeper ettiquette.


305 posted on 09/28/2005 4:24:37 PM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: gobucks
First off, what is sin ... to you? To me, it any deviation from the will of God, as so thoroughly discussed in the Bible.

That's a reasonably good definition.

The reason I said w/ evolution, there is no sin is as follows: it denies an entry point for sin. Sin's entry point into the Human world is via Adam. Evolution makes a claim about the origin of "Adam", which contradicts what the Bible says about his origin. Without Adam, you have no sin. You may of course have lawlessness. But not sinfulness.

I don't see how your logic follows. Science tells us humanity did not always exist. Thus, there had to be a first man. That was Adam. This is true whether or not evolution is true. If there was an Adam, God could have endowed him with a soul and revealed Himself to him. Adam could have rebelled against God and sinned. I don't see how evolution rules any of this out. Science can't address the question of a soul, divine revelation, or morality.

The only theological difference between a creationist and and a theistic evolutionist, as far as I can see, is that the theistic evolutionist believes God used evolution as his tool to make Adam's body.

I honestly don't see why this distinction has any theolgoical importance. Why does the specific manner in which God shaped man matter? Why do you care whether God gradually shaped man, using various intermediate forms, before reaching the final product of Adam? Theologically, all that matters is that the end product is a rational being with free will capable of knowing and loving his Creator (or rejecting him). Why do you find that the process of shaping man matters?

306 posted on 09/28/2005 4:51:13 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: gobucks

Please accept my apology. I'm still learning.


307 posted on 09/28/2005 5:17:11 PM PDT by ml1954
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To: curiosity

"The only theological difference between a creationist and and a theistic evolutionist, as far as I can see, is that the theistic evolutionist believes God used evolution as his tool to make Adam's body."

If Adam had sprung out of the earth via a process that unwinds over time, then the Eve part of the story has serious, serious problems, doesn't it? And rationally, doesn't it make the eve part fully deniable, regarding her origin? I'll answer your other questions after your response...


308 posted on 09/28/2005 5:20:24 PM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: ml1954

Although folks would disagree ... I'm still learning too...
no problema..


309 posted on 09/28/2005 5:21:52 PM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: gobucks
If Adam had sprung out of the earth via a process that unwinds over time, then the Eve part of the story has serious, serious problems, doesn't it?

And rationally, doesn't it make the eve part fully deniable, regarding her origin?

Not necessarily. If the story is taken literally, it would only necessitate a one-shot miracle to create Eve. I don't see how any scientific evidence could rule it out.

That being said, I don't think the Eve story is meant to be taken literally. However, I don't see how it makes any theological difference whether it is literal or not.

BTW, aren't we getting off track here? I thought we were talking about whether evolution rules out sin.

310 posted on 09/28/2005 5:51:09 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: curiosity

Scientific evidence doesn't rule out I.D. either...but that doesn't lessen the protest against it.

In short, if Adam was created as the first man, along w/ Eve, then sin has an entry point. But if the 'evidence' states that they both 'evolved' together and just 'appeared' then the how of how they got here is no more valid that the hopi creation story.

This means sin as a concept is associated w/ biblical myths and is not a bon fide concept. That is how evolution taken as is 'rules out' sin...(and by extension, rules out the reason'd'etre for the Reconciler)


311 posted on 09/28/2005 6:21:17 PM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: gobucks
Scientific evidence doesn't rule out I.D. either...but that doesn't lessen the protest against it.

That's because the ID people are claiming that ID is a scientific theory. If they simply asserted it as a theological point, there would be no controversy.

In short, if Adam was created as the first man, along w/ Eve, then sin has an entry point. But if the 'evidence' states that they both 'evolved' together and just 'appeared' then the how of how they got here is no more valid that the hopi creation story.

What's the "how" got to do with sin? It seems to me that as they are there, sin has an entry point, regardless of how they got there. What am I missing?

This means sin as a concept is associated w/ biblical myths and is not a bon fide concept.

Again I don't follow you. If the Bible uses symbolic and allegorical language to convey truth, why does that make the truth any less "bon fide?"

312 posted on 09/28/2005 6:43:07 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: curiosity

I was thinking about this earlier comment you made:

"Theologically, all that matters is that the end product is a rational being with free will capable of knowing and loving his Creator (or rejecting him). Why do you find that the process of shaping man matters?"

I don't think man was shaped. I think he was created. And I think he was created first, from direct materials from the earth.

I think Eve was created directly out of a man.

I think these things are directly impacted by the presentation of what T.O.E states: that woman was not originally sourced from a man. T.o.E fundmentally affects the sequence of how we got here. So, if that is accepted, then all other aspects of the Bible are reduced to myth, not just 'symbols and allegories'.

And that is how 'sin' as an idea is no longer a revealed truth, but just part of a particular myth.


But all that said, I found your selection, theologically, of 'all that matters' very odd. You coupled the word rational with the concept of free will - and you 'reasoned' that 'theologically', that was 'all that mattered'. I don't know quite how to describe why I know this outlook is flawed ... but I'm pretty sure it has major flaw.

For example, Free will - it is just amazing how much time the Calvinists and Arminians argue over this one point. When I was your standard rational materialist, btw, the free will stuff was obvious. I made decisions, consequences followed, wa la, proof that free will was 'real' was always there ... I didn't bother to think about it. It was like gravity.

Now, 4 years after the big change, I'm beginning to have very grave doubts about my ability to defend the central theme of 'free will'. Calvinists reading this would say 'duh', but I've not been able to fully leap into that camp, either.

Let me ask you a question ... do you know how to make God feel loved? (and I ask your patience, for all this does connect quite thoroughly to evolution - for in the end, evolution - sex - God/Christ - sex are intracately linked).


313 posted on 09/29/2005 4:19:33 AM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: gobucks
I don't think man was shaped. I think he was created.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. God created man (Gen. 1:27) by shaping him (Gen. 2:7). The word usually transalted as "shape" or "form" is the same word used to describe the act of shaping a pot out of clay. Like a potter shapes a lump of clay into a pot, God shaped slime into man.

I think these things are directly impacted by the presentation of what T.O.E states: that woman was not originally sourced from a man.

Sorry, but that's just not true. It's true that the TEO states that the first man was born of a subhuman mother. However, there is no scientific way to rule out the possibility that God then, with a miracle, created the first fully human woman so that he would not have to mate with subhumans.

So, if that is accepted, then all other aspects of the Bible are reduced to myth, not just 'symbols and allegories'.

I don't see how that follows. Just because one part of the Bible is allegory and symbol does not mean that all of it is such. Furthermore, just because something is symbolic or allegorical does not mean it is untrue or not to be taken seriously.

For example, sin is not symbolic. It can't be. It's metaphysical, not physical, and symbols are by definition physical things. The whole point of the Garden of Eden story is to teach about sin and the consequences of sin, original and actual. Just because the story contains symbolic or allegorical elemnts (I reject the claim that it is entirely allegorical) does not make the reality of original sin and its consequences, spiritual death among other things, any less real.

But all that said, I found your selection, theologically, of 'all that matters' very odd. You coupled the word rational with the concept of free will - and you 'reasoned' that 'theologically', that was 'all that mattered'.

You misunderstand me. I do not believe rationality and free will are the only things of theolgoical importance. My point is that they are all that is necessary for there to be sin. Why? Because sin occurs when a rational creature freely chooses to reject the will of God. Okay, so you need one other thing for sin: God and His will. So the only things necessary for sin to exist are 1)rationality 2) free will and 3) God with a will. Okay, okay. YOu need a fourth thing: the willingness of a free creature to reject the will of God.

I was pointing out things necessary for the existence of since because you were claiming that evolution made the concept of sin impossible. I believe I have disproved that claim.

Now, 4 years after the big change, I'm beginning to have very grave doubts about my ability to defend the central theme of 'free will'.

Why? It is a central theme of the scriptures, as well as the Church Fathers.

Calvinists reading this would say 'duh', but I've not been able to fully leap into that camp, either.

Good. Calvinism is a vile, unscriptural heresy with a perverse view of God. I would rather burn in hell than worship the god of Calvin. Thankfully, the one true God is not Calvin's god.

Let me ask you a question ... do you know how to make God feel loved? (and I ask your patience, for all this does connect quite thoroughly to evolution - for in the end, evolution - sex - God/Christ - sex are intracately linked).

By giving Him glory.

314 posted on 09/29/2005 6:31:02 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: curiosity

"Good. Calvinism is a vile, unscriptural heresy with a perverse view of God."

So I keep hearing. But somehow, what Calvinists say, even if I don't like how they say it, is making more and more sense to me. Just why is this?

It also looks like somehow you are relying on something your average scientist would say is unacceptable: that since we can't 'disprove' Eve was outright created by a miracle, the possibility it happened is acceptable ... on a rational basis. By this logic, I.D. is fully acceptable, scientifically, yes?

You are leaving room for 'miracles'. Within scientific rationalism, I don't see this as a rule - the possibility of miracles is expressly excluded. So, I confess, I am a bit confused by what you are meaning here:

"Sorry, but that's just not true. It's true that the TEO states that the first man was born of a subhuman mother. However, there is no scientific way to rule out the possibility that God then, with a miracle, created the first fully human woman so that he would not have to mate with subhumans."



315 posted on 09/29/2005 7:26:53 PM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: gobucks
So I keep hearing. But somehow, what Calvinists say, even if I don't like how they say it, is making more and more sense to me. Just why is this?

I find Calvinism insidious because of its doctrine of double predestination and the denial of the universal salvific will of God. But let's not get off topic. We can come back to this later.

It also looks like somehow you are relying on something your average scientist would say is unacceptable: that since we can't 'disprove' Eve was outright created by a miracle, the possibility it happened is acceptable ... on a rational basis. By this logic, I.D. is fully acceptable, scientifically, yes?

Sure, so long as it remains a theological point and it is not claimed to be a scientific theory.

You are leaving room for 'miracles'. Within scientific rationalism,

I'm not sure what you mean by "scientific rationalism."

I don't see this as a rule - the possibility of miracles is expressly excluded.

Not at all. It is true that when a scientist seeks to explain a phenomenon, he tries to find natural explanations. However, this in no way implies that must believe miracles never happen. Indeed, many scientists are Christians, which means that they must believe that miracles occur sometimes.

316 posted on 09/29/2005 7:50:26 PM PDT by curiosity
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To: curiosity
"It is true that when a scientist seeks to explain a phenomenon, he tries to find natural explanations."

Now we are getting closer. We both agree with this statement. The question is this: why, exactly, is he biased to find 'natural' explanations? I would argue that within the grounds that train scientists, one is taught that they MUST evaluate evidence, and MUST do so exclusive to any other forms of inquiry.

Your average scientist would, gently, point out that evidence for miracles does not exist, has never existed, and all scientific investigations of miracles have produced inconclusive evidence at best, and proof of fraud the vast majority of the time. Miracles can't be disproven, yes. But evidence for them doesn't exist at all - given the premise of how one defines the scientific method is agreed upon, and I speak in that general sense.

Unless I miss my mark, two types of science exist: that kind exploring stuff that is happening now. And forensic science ... stuff that happened then, but the cause is no longer present. I.D. is forensic science ... they don't credit God. I'm comfortable with I.D., b/c I'm full aware that the Universe is a big place. And I.D. doesn't EXCLUDE God either.

But, I think I can now see where we are going, for I had said:

"By this logic, I.D. is fully acceptable, scientifically, yes?"

And your reply:

Sure, so long as it remains a theological point and it is not claimed to be a scientific theory.

This connects to a thread I posted earlier:

Why scientists dismiss 'intelligent design' - It would ‘become the death of science’ .... "...if it became part of science" .... to finish Provine's comment.

When I posted this thread, what I was really looking at was how weak the MSM sounded regarding the position of the scientists. Now, I'm actually relooking at the 'death' of science ... and what does that imply happens to the 'scientists'? I had thought the death comment was ridiculous hyperbole. But now I am not so sure.

It is one of the few times within the fight the MSM sounds alot like a religion I practice - born again Christianity. There, death as a word is used a lot. But being born again is spoken of too...; but the scientists don't see that part. That is why many of the sidebars of the major news outlets have 'Science', 'Sports', 'News', 'Entertainment' ... but not 'Religion'.

Faith and Reason were decoupled, curiosity, when roughly? Mid 1800's? Your comment about what a scientific idea tangibly is is based upon the recent idea that the decoupling was VALID.

You have fully accepted the arguments about what science actually should consist of, and what it should exclude. How did this happen to you exactly? (and for my own frame of reference, I am asking myself what exactly happened that I overrode my own decoupling, and recoupled them? That happened in July 2001 - for if on a rational basis, all that happened was that I suffered a mental collapse into irrationality, well then some clever scientists should have written about what 'causes' that too...; and I'm open to looking at that).

Anyway, I think we're getting into positivism and neo-positivism now, btw; but maybe not.

In short, it seems to me I.D. simply cannot be called 'science', as 'science' is currently defined, according to you.

So, the ID/Evo fight seems to me to be a political fight over who has sovereignty over what the word 'science' means, in the end.

It is going to be interesting, very interesting to see what the courts say about that sovereignty. But I can guess ... they'll apply the same rationale they applied in RvWade.

This means, in the court rooms at least, scientists have little to fear about I.D. being taught as 'science' in the public classrooms of the USA. These 11 'parents' are going to win this fight. Roberts himself said it: his 'faith' is decoupled from his reason, so the good Democratic senators have nothing to fear. And look at the votes he got! (I think I'm in the minority in my concern about him ... for now.)

317 posted on 09/30/2005 8:10:25 AM PDT by gobucks (http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/classics/students/Ribeiro/Laocoon.htm)
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To: gobucks
This means, in the court rooms at least, scientists have little to fear about I.D. being taught as 'science' in the public classrooms of the USA.

Let's hope so! Kids have enough crappy teaching to wade through without having to deal with things like ID, Phrenology and Astrology in their science classes.

318 posted on 09/30/2005 8:15:33 AM PDT by blowfish
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To: gobucks
The question is this: why, exactly, is he biased to find 'natural' explanations?

Because finding the natural explanations of natural phenomena has proven extremely useful. Inovking the supernatural is, in a sense, giving up on finding a natural explanation. This is dangerous, however, because you can't ever rule out the possibility that there is a natural explanation you haven't thought of. If you simply throw up your hands and invoke the supernatural, you risk missing an important discovery.

I would argue that within the grounds that train scientists, one is taught that they MUST evaluate evidence, and MUST do so exclusive to any other forms of inquiry

I agree, expect with one proviso: this only applies to knowledge about the physical world. Metaphysics is an equally important area of study, to which the scientific method is wholly inapporpriate.

Miracles can't be disproven, yes. But evidence for them doesn't exist at all - given the premise of how one defines the scientific method is agreed upon, and I speak in that general sense.

I don't know if that's true. There are plenty of phenomena that have occurred in the past (Lanciano, Lourdes, etc) that have some scientists convinced they are miraculous.

But in a sense, I see the point you're getting at. A scientist should never simply accept a supernatural explanation and should continue searching for a natural one.

However, I would argue that this attitude is only there for pragmatic reasons, not metaphysical ones. You want scientists to only look for natural explanations because you never want them to give up. It is very much possible that a phenomenon thought to be miraculous will turn out to have a natural explanation which has lots of practical applications. On a personal level, however, when considering whether to accept a religion, I think it is wholly appropriate to take seriously the fact that certain phenomena do appear to be miraculous, though it would be dangerous to make them the sole basis of one's faith.

I'm comfortable with I.D., b/c I'm full aware that the Universe is a big place.

Are you comfortable with the fact that IDers accept common descent of man and apes and a Universe billions of years old? The ID models proposed by Behe, Dembski, and Denton are no more compatible with a literalist reading of Genesis than is standard evolutionary theory.

And I.D. doesn't EXCLUDE God either.

Neither does Darwinian evolution. Note, I say Darwinian evolution, because most ID models postulate an evolution of sorts as well.

Faith and Reason were decoupled, curiosity, when roughly?

I don't think they were ever decoupled, at least not among Catholic and non-fundamentalist Protestants.

You have fully accepted the arguments about what science actually should consist of, and what it should exclude. How did this happen to you exactly?

I see that the modern definition of science produces results, and I see how introducing supernatural hypotheses like ID into science can discourage research.

BTW, I think I was a bit imprecise about the scientific acceptability of ID. The IDers do make some claims that are scientifically invalid, such as their claim that an irreducibly complex biological system cannot evolve in a Darwinian fashion. This assertion has in fact been disproven in the lab.

I would say that science cannot disprove (indeed, can never disprove) the proposition that the unvierse is designed, or that God guided the process of evolution.

I'll leave you with just two thoughts:

First, don't confuse methodological naturalism with philsophical naturalism. Scientists only seek out natural explanations in their methods simply for the pragmatic reason that it's always useful to keep searching for one. This does necessarily imply that the supernatural does not exist. At most, it merely implies that supernatural events are rare enough so that a natural explanation is very likely to exist for the vast majority of the phenomena we see, and hence it is always worthwhile to continue searching for the natural explanation.

Second, reason and faith cannot be decoupled and cannot be in opposition. Yes, science and faith are decoupled in the sense that the scientific method cannot investigate supernatural phenomena. (Of course, they are not decoupled in the sense that scientists must adhere to certain ethical standards, which faith has a great deal to say about). However, it is essential to note that science is not the sole means by which we use reason. For example, metaphysics and moral philsophy are extremely important areas of inquiry for which the modern scientific method is wholly inadequate. These are areas where both faith and reason are required and cannot be decoupled.

319 posted on 10/02/2005 8:37:25 PM PDT by curiosity
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