Posted on 09/01/2003 5:46:19 PM PDT by Tribune7
Generations of American schoolchildren have been taught that Darwin's theory of evolution is the explanation for the origin of life -- regardless of what they might have learned in Sunday school. Yet according to law professor and author Phillip E. Johnson, this modern-day mantra of science classes is little more than a dogma of materialism. In his books "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds," "Darwin on Trial," "Reason in the Balance" and others, Johnson defends the truth with the intellectual clout that earned him a prestigious seat at the University of California, Berkeley, yet with a humility that can only come from knowing the Creator one-on-one. Here, he talks candidly with "Decision" on the topic he is most passionate about -- dismantling Darwinism.
Q: The Ohio Board of Education recently ruled that public schools in that state can now discuss controversies surrounding the theory of evolution. Why do you think so many leading educators fought to keep such debate out of the classroom?
A: It's a good question. You would think the Darwinists would be glad to teach the controversy as a matter of educational policy. According to public opinion polls, most of the nation has serious doubts about the truth of the evolutionary theory. Why don't the educators want to address those doubts seriously? They are afraid to acknowledge that there are any doubts that matter. Real scientists, they say, believe without any doubt in the theory of evolution. But in Ohio we had petitions signed by dozens of well-credentialed scientists saying that this area of study should be opened up to freedom of thought. Science should not be committed to a dogma -- much less a dogma that is in serious trouble with the evidence -- but should freely acknowledge areas of doubt and should address them honestly.
Q: Through your books and lectures, you've become known as someone who has worked hard to bring together different factions of the creationist movement.
A: My policy is to concentrate on the first issue: What scientific evidence points toward or away from the need for a Creator? Does the evidence of science really show that Darwin's force of natural selection is so powerful that nature can do its own creating and that there is no need for God? That's the philosophical doctrine the Darwinists propose, but my colleagues and I have shown that it is not true. The evidence, as opposed to the scientific imperialism, points to the fact that natural selection has no creative power and that the Creator is very much needed. So if we concentrate on that issue first, then we can get to other issues that are somewhat divisive within the Christian world. I have done that by saying, "Let's be careful that we start with the correct Scripture."
(Excerpt) Read more at billygraham.org ...
It's that fortunate mutation that lets them generate a headache whenever it's convenient.
Pair bonding favors females, especially ones who bond with good providers and protectors but mate with good sperminators.
The jerks pay the bills, the bad boys get the thrills. Another gripe against the intelligent designer.
Yes, A-G -- I think emergent behavior is absolutely key. This is behavior that reflects self-organizing processes internal to the organism that seem to be responsive to the survival needs, not only of the individual specimin, but of its whole community, or species. It implies intraspecies cooperation, synergy, mutuality -- and an ability to process information, from both external (environmental) and internal (DNA informational) sources, which requires memory. Some type of consciousness is in the thick of it in some way, regardless of the "evolutionary level" of any given, particular biological organism.
And I think (FWIW) that the scientific observation of emergent behavior is the the reason why Darwinist "orthodoxy" needs to be reconsidered. The key threat to its integrity and thus, its "tenure of respectability," is not coming from the religious Right (as many Darwinist adherents seem to suppose), but from microbiology, which is ultimately premised on chemistry, quantum physics, and (increasingly these days) information theory.
But then maybe my understanding of emergent behavior is running out too far in front of what has been claimed for it. Ernst Mayr defined it as a property of living systems that "almost always" has the "peculiarity that the characteristics of the whole cannot (not even in principle) be deduced from the most complete knowledge of the components, taken separately or in partial combinations. This appearance of new characteristics in wholes has been designated emergence."
How is this relevant for problems in biology? Well, the point to bear in mind is that all complex biological entities are "wholes" comprised of parts -- organic, microbial, cellular, molecular, atomic, subatomic -- and this is without even considering the "field properties" of these parts and the wholes they constitute. And even the biological "wholes" that we are here considering are themselves, in their turn, "parts" of a larger whole -- species, biosphere, world, solar system, universe.
These relations, microcosmic and cosmic, imply (to my mind at least) consciousness, or intelligence -- all the way up and down the great chain of being, to each creature according to its own "degree of freedom" to evince the property(ies) of consciousness peculiar to its nature.
But I'm giving you "ontology" here, not "science!" Oh well. Still, maybe my little suggestion might yet serve some scientist as an "absolute postulate" that can be shot down in flames at some point. Would love to see science try to "draw a bead" on my little speculation -- i.e., take aim at it -- just to see what would happen.
I probably don't need to tell you this, A-G; but Grandpierre, Bauer, Kafatos, Nadeau, Margulies, D. Sagan, Hontela, and Mayr have been the ones stimulating my thinking along these lines....
Worth repeating.
Interesting. Now here comes the very predictable PH response:
Do you have any suggestions as to how a scientist, wretchedly limited as he is with his merely material instruments, could observe and measure this proposed "consciousness, or intelligence -- all the way up and down the great chain of being"? Because as you know, as long as science lacks the means to study it, it's going to remain a philosophical concept. And I literally leap to state that neither I nor anyone else would claim that this cosmic consciousness doesn't exist, but only that it's apparently not -- at this point -- a subject for scientific study.
Would biodiversity be better or worse explained without the unassailable axiom that all life descended from the same group of post-abiogensis cells?
I suppose, dear PH, that such remains forever a "philosophic construct" -- as long as science can say that logic has nothing to do with scientific business. But science cannot, nor would ever, say such a thing. For it can't say that -- without cutting itself off at the knees. Or sawing off the branch on which it, itself, sits. So we have a genuine "paradox," from a certain point of view -- that seriously needs to be penetrated and explained. IMO. What we want is for science to take a whack at the paradox.
IMHO, that's why it's time to get back to "epistemological fundamentals" -- knowing already that epistemolgy can only take you so far. Epistemology needs concepts to test that epistemology itself cannot supply. Otherwise, epistemology has "nothing to do."
But your real question seemed to invoke the problem of how science can design an experiment to test this thesis. It will take a scientific mind, not a philosophic mind (like my own), to construct the details of such an experiment. I hope some scientist will do so, in due course.
Did all life descend from "the same group of post-abiogenesis cells?" Or is there a more ultimate, fundamental principle at work in biological diversity -- of which abiogenesis itself is the first result?
How can you have an "unassailable axiom" without going to the "first (uncaused) cause" problem?
I tend to think that DNA is some kind of complete cosmic information set or code that specifies the minimal conditions of all of life, regardless of life's particular special manifestation in "concrete" biological entities. In my view, abiogenesis could not take place without such a code -- which is an intelligent specification of what is possible in living creation.
What do you think, Tribune7?
I think I would like to see the scientific community not treat this as an axiom.
I think if you if you invoke God -- the existence of whom should be considered an unassailable axiom -- anything's possible.
DNA is common to life. Are you saying this means all life descended from a common ancestor? Or are you saying that life needs cytosine, thymine, adenine, and guanine et al in the same way water needs hyrdogen and oxygen whether it's in the tail of a comet or your bathtub?
There are quite a few reasons why life could not exist without an intelligent Creator. DNA and its functional requirements are one of them. Another is the problem that DNA is useless without the living thing and vice versa, a chicken egg problem. A third is the deciphering of the code. It requires intelligence to both write and read a code. A fourth would be the 'will to live' inherent in all life but not in matter.
Once one understands that we are creatures, not the happenstance of some cosmic accident, one realizes that we are not the descendants of some bacteria, but of our Creator.
In some animals this is true. Who wants to risk their lives to protect someone else's kids? I don't know if there's a plant example.
But again it's about reproductive success. In species where the females are not so much smaller physically than the males, this doesn't occur, because they are the females' offspring and she'll defend them.
So you're right. It does occur. It's just not universally true. This would be an interesting subject to study.
Not quite. That is the evolutionist line, but science does not quite think so. One must realize that what we often hear and read is not what scientists say or think but what some reporter says or thinks about what science is doing. This is quite different. The most famous recent advocates of evolution, Gould and Dawkings never were scientists but paleontologists and story tellers.
Science nowadays divides single celled life into 3 major divisions - the bacteria - which lack a nucleus, the archaea - which can withstand abnormal temperatures, and the rest which have a nucleus and are most like our own cells. The divisions between the three are so large that most scientists do not believe that any could have descended from any of the others.
There are probably more instances than that. The change from single celled organisms to multiple celled ones required the invention of programming how an organism develops which is seen even in just about the simplest multi-celled life (C. Elegans) a little worm with less than a thousand cells.
Actually, the only way to reject this consideration, would be to reject the possibility of the existence of God.
While correct, I would put it a different way. To consider abiogenesis to be even a remote possibility one must totally reject the possibility of the existence of God.
If DNA can pass as "the common ancestor," then I'd speculate that all of life descends from "this" common ancestor.
But that does not suggest to me the necessity of human descent from a simian ancestor.
It has been observed that the higher apes share something like 98% of DNA with humans. One can say that the higher apes are relatively complex and sophisticated organisms (compared to, say, your ordinary amoeba, which also "reads" DNA). As such, they express a huge part of the "code" in common with humans.
But from this it does not necessarily follow (it seems to me) that the human line of descent must come through ape progenitors. Just because two seemingly similar creatures drink at the same fountain does not necessarily make one the father of the other. (Though perhaps they might be "cousins.")
So having said that, the next thing to say is "life needs cytosine, thymine, adenine, and guanine et al in the same way water needs hyrdogen and oxygen whether it's in the tail of a comet or your bathtub."
Seems like a really good way to put the problem, Tribune7!
Yes, yes, yes and yes. If there is intelligence in this world -- as seems perfectly, abundantly clear to me -- then you have to assume there is Mind at work. Maybe humans contribute to its propagation in some way.
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