The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism

First Things ^ | Phillip E. Johnson

[Hajman]

It is just that Darwinism is a "religion", and it is exceptionally difficult to argue someone out of a religious stance; oh they will say it is based on science and all that foolishness but it has reached religious fervor among followers. Have a Merry Christmas.

Personally, I find it fun to debate on here. And I learn a great deal doing it, even if I don't agree completely with the other side. You have yourself a Merry Christmas, also :)

-The Hajman-

[supercat]

I do admit that is an interesting theory. However, God (Creationists' God) is defined as infinite. But He could still accomplish much the same task. However, Historical Evolution, as it stands alone, has too many flaws in it for me to consider it a very valid theory. It is interesting, but I don't put much trust in it.

Actually, I find that the view of God as being an entity whose powers reach far beyond those of mortal men and yet are not totally boundless is the one in which the universe makes the most 'sense'. If God's power were truly limitless it wouldn't matter what people did or believed, as he could make his will be done regardless.

As to the subject at hand, my personal view of the universe is that God does make occasional 'nudges' to steer things in His desired direction, but that for whatever reason He tends to use such power sparingly. Given even a tiny amount of input from a deity, evolution which would otherwise have a negligible probability of success becomes quite plausible.

To me, the theory of evolution and the theory of divine creation need not be contradictory; evolution could well be a means by which a divine entity could create a vast diversity of life with minimal expenditure of effort.

[edsheppa]

GAs are perfect examples of Micro Evolution...not Macro.

I guess you'll have to give me your definition of "macroevolution." I generally take it to mean the creation of new structure or function. This is what is observed in GP work. In Koza for example, you start with a handful of basic functions (e.g. addition, subtraction, comparison), generate an initial population of random Lisp algorithms using these functions, breed them by crossing randomly chosen subalgorithms, and select the most fit individuals. To simplify, suppose you have in some step algorithms AB and CD where each letter is a subalgorithm and concatenation is composition. Breeding might produce algorithms AD and CB which are novel functions assuming B!=D. I'd argue that is reasonable to consider this analogous to what I mean by macroevolution.

They're also strictly defined

And you aren't "strictly defined?" Is life not "strictly defined?"

They're allowed to evolve, but only within specific, tight boundries.

Biological life is also constrained by specific boundaries. I think I see what you mean by "tight" and you have a point. However, again I think it is you who have the responsibility to investigate this "tightness," quantify it and show why it leads to qualitatively different outcomes. I don't see any a priori reason for it to be different.

[Hajman]

Actually, I find that the view of God as being an entity whose powers reach far beyond those of mortal men and yet are not totally boundless is the one in which the universe makes the most 'sense'. If God's power were truly limitless it wouldn't matter what people did or believed, as he could make his will be done regardless.

What one can do and what one does are two seperate things.

As to the subject at hand, my personal view of the universe is that God does make occasional 'nudges' to steer things in His desired direction, but that for whatever reason He tends to use such power sparingly. Given even a tiny amount of input from a deity, evolution which would otherwise have a negligible probability of success becomes quite plausible.

To me, the theory of evolution and the theory of divine creation need not be contradictory; evolution could well be a means by which a divine entity could create a vast diversity of life with minimal expenditure of effort.

True, but the way I see it, Historical Evolution isn't all that strong a theory, so I don't believe it's valid enough to count as truth. That's just my personal opinion.

-The Hajman-

[Aquinasfan]

Berkeley no less. Surely these are the end times when creationists quote Berkeley professors of law!!!

There's something going on that you don't know about at ARN

[edsheppa]

It is possible to predict the probability that a particle is in any of a number of states, but impossible to tell which state a particle is in without knocking it into some different unknown state.

Suppose the state may be A or B and you have a measuring apparatus that will couple with A but not B. If the particle is not detected you know it is in state B but "without knocking it into some different unknown state."

Of course your point still remains, it's conceivable that some deity is intervening undectably. Hard to imagine evidence for something that's undectable though and I usually need at least some evidence before I give credence to an idea.

[Hajman]

And you aren't "strictly defined?" Is life not "strictly defined?"

Not according to Macro Evolution.

Biological life is also constrained by specific boundaries. I think I see what you mean by "tight" and you have a point. However, again I think it is you who have the responsibility to investigate this "tightness," quantify it and show why it leads to qualitatively different outcomes. I don't see any a priori reason for it to be different.

Actually, a tight boundry for change could be though of as output <= input. This is what Micro Evolution falls under. However, Macro Evolution falls under more of the output > input variety. A function is necessary in this case to explain how the first converts into the second (as the first will always be such, no matter how many iterations it goes through, unless something can alter it). As for the 'tightness', it's an inate property in GA algorithms. It's an effect of how the GAs work.

-The Hajman-

[week 71]

I must say, you sound like a regular sequipedalian! :-)

[supercat]

It would be quite possible for a deity to manipulate the states of these particles without such manipulations being detectable in any way ...

Yes. But if this divine interference were undetectable, and if the effects were explainable as natural phenomena, how would science be able to determine that things were amiss? And how would anyone be able to make any rational statement about such hidden miracles?

They wouldn't. That's somewhat my point: science and religion need not be contradictory. As long as there are certain phenomena whose exact behavior is not understood (and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says there always will be) there is room for a deity to work miracles without violating the laws of nature.

Of course, recognizing whether any particular event was a miracle or lucky chance may also be impossible, but there's nothing wrong with that. If someone flips a coin 100 times and gets heads every time, he might suspect divine intervention [well, maybe a loaded coin]. But even if he decided there was divine intervention, if he gets heads on the 101st time he wouldn't know whether that was divine intervention or if God had stopped intervening but he got lucky anyway.

[rdb3]

"God of the gaps?"

The burden of proof is on you.

My faith has instructed me on what I need to know. You may not like it, but, that's the way it is. You have to go and fill in your own "gaps."

[Aquinasfan]

Ah, so it was correct for previous generations of scientists to use the naturalistic assumption, but today we shouldn't?

Actually, modern science was born out of the Christian worldview. Stanley Jaki makes a convincing argument that the development of Newtonian physics followed from the promulgation of the dogma of "creation from nothing," and the Christian idea of an orderly universe reflecting the ordering Mind of its Creator.

Materialistic reductionism hamstrings natural science unnecessarily. Bad philosophy makes bad science (i.e. 'vestigal organs').

[Binghamton_native]

You are quick to assign a lack of scientific qualifications to Professor Johnson. What, precisely, are your scientific qualifications?

[VadeRetro]

1. First, I am not a Creationist. . .

2. Second, there is no evidence of a transitional form of any kind.

BAAAAAZZZZZZZZT!

Sir, you're setting off the BS detector. Please let go of one of the above statements and go through the detector again.

[VadeRetro]

First, I am not a Creationist. -- Exnihilio

Not to mention that your screenie refers to the creation of the universe "from nothing." It's also the title of a creationist journal. What would be the big deal about admitting where you're coming from, since it's obvious anyway?

[edsheppa]

Not according to Macro Evolution. (i.e. life isn't strictly defined according to ME)

Well that's a novel definition as you seem to be saying that Macro Evolution == unconstrained. That's not what I mean by the term and I doubt many others mean it either. My definition is the advent and preservation of novel function. By your definition ME isn't necessary for the biological life we see since that is constrained by natural physical law.

However, Macro Evolution falls under more of the output > input variety.

You'll need to explain what you mean by input and output. Are you saying there's no conceivable sequence of small genetic changes that could lead from the genome of a unicellular organism to yours? It seems evident to me that there is. The input is the original genome and the small changes and the output is your genome. In what way is the output greater than the input?

[week 71]

Actually, modern science was born out of the Christian worldview. Stanley Jaki makes a convincing argument that the development of Newtonian physics followed from the promulgation of the dogma of "creation from nothing," and the Christian idea of an orderly universe reflecting the ordering Mind of its Creator. Materialistic reductionism hamstrings natural science unnecessarily. Bad philosophy makes bad science (i.e. 'vestigal organs').

I agree with the above 100%. I know Newton wrote more commentary on the book of Daniel then about science. Could you expound more on what you ment regarding vestigal organs

[edsheppa]

I assume you mean sesquipedalian? I admit to finding a certain amount of precision helpful. Perhaps you could point out which words in my post you found overlong?

Also, I find your point amusing considering your post of the Behe extract wherein:

Trans-retinal eventually falls off of the rhodopsin molecule and must be reconverted to 11-cis-retinal and again bound by opsin to regenerate rhodopsin for another visual cycle. To accomplish this trans-retinal is first chemically modified by an enzyme to transretinol, a form containing two more hydrogen atoms. A second enzyme then isomerizes the molecule to 11-cis-retinol. Finally, a third enzyme removes the previouslyadded hydrogen atoms to form 11-cis-retinal, and the cycle is complete.

[Hajman]

Well that's a novel definition as you seem to be saying that Macro Evolution == unconstrained. That's not what I mean by the term and I doubt many others mean it either. My definition is the advent and preservation of novel function. By your definition ME isn't necessary for the biological life we see since that is constrained by natural physical law.

Actually, since we were on the subject of GAs, I was refering to the structure and the information in the organism to get modified.

You'll need to explain what you mean by input and output. Are you saying there's no conceivable sequence of small genetic changes that could lead from the genome of a unicellular organism to yours? It seems evident to me that there is. The input is the original genome and the small changes and the output is your genome. In what way is the output greater than the input?

Perhaps a GA explination could provide more light. In a GA program (such as AL), certain structures are pre-defined, and the evolution they can follow are also define (with these definitions, they're useless). However, even in good AL programs, the information and structures in evolved organisms remain either equal to, or less then, the structures and information that one started out with (there's just more of them). However, if you take bacteria, there's structures in humans (such as the brain) that have no equal in bacteria. Completely new structures, completely new information (and if you figure out how to simply that down to basic information iterations, I'm sure there's a math award somewhere out there waiting for your name on it. Information theory would be far simplier if you could do this). This is what I mean about output and input. In AL, the evolved creatures follow the concept output <= input. I haven't seen one yet that breaks out of that concept (and I've looked). Though I have come across some pretty darn good programs (such as Framsticks. This AL program will start with simple, basic structures and give you some complex organisms, some walk on land, some swim, others crawl or 'slither'. But one point I'll make to you: The structures and information never increase themselves. At least, not in type, but only in quantity, which produces apparent complexities. Macro Evolution requires Evolution to go beyond this, Micro Evolution, doesn't.)

-The Hajman-

[edsheppa]

Materialistic reductionism hamstrings natural science unnecessarily.

To the contrary. Reductionism has been a supremely useful constraint. The world is simply too complicated to analyze all at once.

[PatrickHenry]

That's somewhat my point: science and religion need not be contradictory. As long as there are certain phenomena whose exact behavior is not understood (and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says there always will be) there is room for a deity to work miracles without violating the laws of nature.

That's not quite what the uncertainty principle is all about, but anyway, you have provided an interesting way to reconcile science and religion. I believe there are two problems with this. First, whenever science gets around to explaining something which was previously not understood, many religious folk become outraged at the "transgression" of science into an area which is claimed to be none of its business. This reaction is inevitable when the scientific explanation is different from the pre-scientific religious viewpoint. The whole evolution debate is an example of this, and the Galileo affair about the solar system was an earlier example. Second, many religious folk come to depend on such unknowns as their "proof" of God, and they become furiously anti-science whenever progress is made.