Replies

betty boop: "Dear BroJoeK, who's quote is this? It doesn't "sound" like C. S. Lewis' language at all."

FRiend, I have no idea, merely quoted from the article above.
I share your admiration for CS Lewis, but have not by any means read all his works, and so assume he may have said some things I'm not familiar with.
So I would invite you to contemplate both sides of the question: first, what if the article's quote is more-or-less accurate and Lewis did intend to mean what it says?
And second, what if the quote is highly distortive of Lewis' real outlook on science in general and evolution theory in specific?

If the quote is accurate (which I rather doubt) then it means Lewis blamed science for problems which I think have other roots.
But if the quote is inaccurate, then what does that tell us about the article's author?

betty boop: "Would you kindly give me the cite for the above statement?"

I simply copied and pasted those words from the above article, 5th paragraph from the bottom.

betty boop: "The Darwinian claim that Christians find objectionable is that evolution is fundamentally a random process.
This is not to say Christians deny that there is a certain amount of randomness in nature."

Exactly, and I refer you to "chaos theory" with its "butterfly effects" and "strange attractors".
What these tell us is that even scientifically, what appear to be "random" events are in fact, not so "random" after all.
But that's all science itself can say.
Theologically of course, we believe that even in those cases where it seems that "G*d plays dice", G*d's "dice" are always loaded to produce the results He intends.

betty boop: "Darwin's theory is not a theory of the origin of biological beings (i.e., the origin of life); it is a theory about how existent beings change morphologically, or speciate, over time."

Darwin's book is titled, "Origin of Species", not "Origin of Life", and indeed, so far as I can tell, we are not really any closer to unraveling the origin of life today than was Darwin himself 150 years ago -- lots of interesting hypotheses, no confirmed theories.

betty boop: "Thus we are left with the squishy proposition that the natural environment, which is itself ever changing, acts on a random flux of biological possibilities, for the purpose of — selecting for reproductive fitness.
How banal a final cause could there be than that?"

But, really, that is all that science itself can tell us, because once you begin positing that G*d intends this or that, now you have left the lowly realm of science and climbed up to the upper reaches of theology.
And that's the point I've been hoping to make here all along: by definition of the term, "science" is restricted to natural causes for natural processes, period.
Once you climb above that, it's not "science" any more, but theology, philosophy or one of those other big words. ;-)

betty boop: " 'Survival of the fittest' is a final cause, though a rather puny, paltry one.
I doubt many Darwinists would ever admit this, of course.
Just as they reject out of hand the idea there could possibly be "design" in nature, even if it very much looks like there IS design in nature."

First, I'm sure you know that Darwin himself did not coin the term "survival of the fittest", and when he finally did use it, it was as a synonym for "natural selection".

Second, any scientist worth his or her salt should be both humble enough and informed enough to know precisely where the scientific enterprise ends, and theological (philosophical, religious, etc.) beliefs begin.

To see a purpose in nature is simply beyond the scope of science, and I have argued and will argue: that's the way it should be!
If you doubt me, then just imagine for a moment that somehow or other science comes up with "proof of G*d", but it's not our G*d, it's Thor or Zeus or Zarathustra!
Obviously, that cannot happen, it will not happen, and that's just one reason why science must stay the h*ck out of religion.

betty boop: "So they say this is just "apparent" design.
Which is like saying that nature is engaged in a full-time job of fooling us; and yet Darwinists still place their faith in natural selection, even though nature itself has no lawful principle to stand on that Darwin's theory bothers to elucidate; and which seems to play the jokester in this "apparent design" business."

Once again, you must imagine that there are strict boundaries to "science", and indeed picture a cage all around science, and now make it a small cage, and now imagine that cage ever day is getting smaller and smaller.
And the scientists cannot get out of it!

But you can, and I can, and really so can they, if and only if they abandon the word "science".
That's the deal.

betty boop: "Notwithstanding all of the above, a whole lot of people out there think Darwin's theory is the sine qua non biological theory!
Worse than that, they believe it is a theory of man."

Sorry, but the simple fact is that evolution theory is absolutely, positively essential to biology, and is confirmed by findings in virtually every other branch of science.
In short, if evolution (and all it implies scientifically) is wrong, then all of science is "junk science", and I doubt highly that is the case.

And sorry again, but I've never heard of a scientific "theory of man".
Yes, in history we have a "great man theory", but that's as close as I've ever seen.

betty boop: "Contrast the characterization of man as a "vicious predatory animal"

The fact is that our ancient ancestors were quite proud and sang long songs about their prowess in both hunting and warfare.
They needed no excuses beyond hunger to go hunting and very little more for war: Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships.
Sure they could be tender and gentle, as wrathful Achilles doubtless was to his war-trophy Briseis -- he considered her his wife and she regarded Achilles as her husband, even though she had no doubt been originally abducted and raped.

betty boop: "It is just on that point that I aver that Darwin's theory is a very great lie, in that it falsifies not only the order of nature, but the order of man and society."

But that's the point you must grasp: it's not a "lie", but simply the working assumption of the scientific enterprise, which assumption strictly defines the dividing line between what is and what is not "science".
Of course, anyone including scientists are perfectly free to ask and answer questions beyond the limits of science, just don't pretend those are science.

betty boop: "Generally, Christians do not believe the universe is a random development."

"Generally?" No, no... absolutely.
If you cannot bring yourself to believe that G*d created the Universe, seriously, how can you call yourself "Christian".
I'd call that a first principle.

betty boop: "I could wish that modern-day biologists were so "open-minded."

As I've pointed out now many times, many scientists are also devout Christians, Jews or other religions which accept a Creator.
They don't have the problems you identify here.

BroJoeK: If the quote is accurate (which I rather doubt) then it means Lewis blamed science for problems which I think have other roots.
But if the quote is inaccurate, then what does that tell us about the article’s author?

Spirited: If evolution is the gradual linear and cumulative change of one kind of organism into another kind (macroevolution), the fossil record itself illustrates that evolution has not occurred. Nor has anyone ever observed it happening. Thus it is not difficult to see that evolution has achieved the status of a religion in western society.

The British moral philosopher Mary Midgely agrees. She described Evolution as a powerfully seductive creation myth, a religious experience on an escalator that begins at the bottom and smoothly progresses ever upward to Teilhard’s Hindu-pantheist Omega conception. Midgely asserts that the theory of evolution is not just an inert piece of theoretical science but is also a powerful folk tale about human origins.

Charles Darwin received this folk tale—the idea of evolution—from his grandfather Dr. Erasmus Darwin, a pantheist known to attend séances. As master of the famous Masonic Canongate lodge in Edinburgh he had close ties with both the Jacobin Masons, the organizers of the bloody revolution in France, and with the infamous Illuminati, whose diabolical cause was overthrow of the Church and destruction of Christendom. Thus Erasmus Darwin was an important name in European Masonic anti-religious organizations (where Lucifer was called the seething energy of evolution) engaged in revolutionary activism. Erasmus Darwin mentored his grandson Charles:

“Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was the first man in England to suggest those ideas which were later to be embodied in the Darwinian theory by his grandson, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who wrote in 1859 Origin of Species.” (Scarlet and the Beast, Vol. II, John Daniel, p. 34)

It is more than obvious BroJoeK, that the essay under discussion not only offends your sensibilities but deeply disturbs them as well. So desperate are you to persuade yourself and betty that CS Lewis surely did not mean what he said that you are trying to cast aspersions onto the author and lead betty into joining with you in your unholy enterprise.

But why stop at Lewis, BroJoeK? Why not persuade yourself and others that Jonathan Tennenbaum, T. Rosazak, Henry Osborn, Michael Ruse and Mary Midgely didn’t mean what they said either?