Posted on 07/08/2002 12:26:11 PM PDT by Khepera
Could it be the evolutionists who are being irrational?
About a year and a half ago, I gave a response to an article in the L. A. Times about a book called The Moral Animal--Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright. This response resulted in my commentary called " Did Morals Evolve? " There are some interesting things in this book I want to comment on. Wright's argument is that it is possible to explain all of man's mental and moral development in terms of evolution, "survival of the fittest," and natural selection. One thing he acknowledges is essentially the same point of view held by one of the world's most famous evolutionists, Richard Dawkins. Dawkins makes the point in his watershed book, The Blind Watchmaker , that the world looks designed. He asserts it looks designed--but isn't. He believes natural selection can be invoked to account for all of the things that appear to be consciously design.
Robert Wright unabashedly makes the same point. He uses design language in his descriptions all of the time. He talks about nature wanting certain things and natural selection designing particular things, but then is careful at different points to add the disclaimer that this design is just a manner of speaking because Mother Nature doesn't actually design anything. Natural selection doesn't design anything. There is no mind behind this, no consciousness. It just looks that way. However, since it looks designed, he feels comfortable using design language to describe natural selection as a designer, which is no conscious designer at all.
I think his work might be more honest if he didn't use design language, but it's interesting that he is at least willing to acknowledge that nature does look designed.
Incidentally, I am one who believes that natural selection is a legitimate explanation for many things. I think we can see natural selection at work in the natural realm that does influence the morphological distinctives of populations. The shape of the body is ultimately going to be determined by the genetic makeup of the creature, but whether that phenotype gets passed from generation to generation will be determined by environmental factors--natural selection. And that will then begin to characterize larger groups of the organism.
Basically I believe in what is known technically as the Special Theory of Evolution, or micro -evolution, because it has been demonstrated without question to have occurred. We can observe it happening. This doesn't go against my Christianity or my conviction that God created the world. Darwinian evolution requires macro -evolution, or trans-species evolution.
Any design creationist of any ilk, whether old-earther or young-earther, can hold to this. For example, a population of mosquitoes can be almost entirely wiped out by DDT, except for those few who may be naturally and genetically resistant to that strain of DDT. Then they reproduce a whole strain of mosquitoes that are resistant to that strain of DDT. But this is unremarkable. When I hear these kinds of descriptions of minute changes and small variations within a species attributed to natural selection, I have no problem with that in itself.
The so-called scientific argument is sustained simply by a bald assertion that nature did it, and not by evidence that God could not have done it.
I do have another question regarding the assessment, or acknowledgment, that the world looks designed. If it looks designed, it could be equally explained by either the unconscious "design" of natural selection, as the author argues, or the conscious design of a Creator. If someone looks at the natural realm and observes that it looks designed but thinks that it can be accounted for by natural selection, then they are identifying empirical equivalency between two different explanations. Empirical equivalency means the observable data can be explained by two alternatives equally. In this case, the observation of design can be attributed to natural selection or conscious design. The evidence is equal for both. That's what it means to say that the world looks designed but natural selection can account for it. My question is, why opt for the evolutionary explanation if there are two different explanations that will equally do the job? When you have a question that needs resolution and two empirically equivalent solutions, you must look for some other information to adjudicate between the two. Is there something that can be said for one system over the other that would cause us to choose it as the paradigm which better reflects how the world came to be? What is the compelling evidence that would cause us to opt for a naturalistic explanation over some kind of theistic explanation? Frankly, I know of none. There is only a predisposition to look for a naturalistic explanation that leaves God out. If that is the case, then it needs to be acknowledged.
Why go for natural selection rather than for God? Because God is religion and natural selection is science. Science is seen as fact--and religion as fantasy. If we have a set of physical facts that can be accounted for by a theistic explanation, then you have to have some other information that may cause you to want to dismiss the theistic option. I'm asking "where is the evidence that makes the God option an intellectually untenable one, without bringing in a mere philosophic assumption (namely naturalism)?"
One might rightly ask, where is your evidence that God did it? I can give lots of it. I could give independent evidence that is unrelated to religious authority claims. I can give other evidence why it is reasonable to believe and would be intellectually and rationally compelling to believe that there is a conscious mind behind the universe. I could give cosmological and moral arguments that God is the best explanation for the existence and nature of the universe. Many of these rely on scientific evidence.
Given two options to explain the apparent design features of the universe, one seems to be a bald-faced authority claim -- the non-religious, so-called scientific one.
We have two options--one scientific and one religious--that equally explain the observation of a designed universe. The so-called scientific argument is sustained simply by a bald assertion that nature did it and not by evidence that God could not have done it. However, the design claim that I am making can be further substantiated by other evidence for the existence of God. When push comes to shove, if you are rational, it is more reasonable for you to adopt the conscious design explanation--the God claim. Most people are not going to do that because it is not scientific.
Why does that matter? Because science knows the answer. How do they know the answer? Because God doesn't exist. How do they know that? Because nature did everything. But how do you know that?
That is the question we are trying to ask and there are no rationally sustainable answers forthcoming.
I hold that evolution does not / cannot rule out the existence of God. Evolution has nothing to do with a creator but has everything to do with speciation.
....yet any scientific evidence that supports His existence they emphatically deny and chastise the scientist as being a religious fundamentalist, whether or not it may be true.
Show me some scientific evidence of His existence. Let the scientific community test and weigh this evidence, let me test and weigh this evidence (as I consider myself fairly objective). That is how you get your point across in the scientific community. I understand that any supposed evidence of a Creator will be met with howling and jeers from the SC but as they say..."extraordinary claims must be backed up with extraordinary evidence".
EBUCK
EBUCK
Well, cut it out, and try thinking happy thoughts for once.
You are being disingenuous. My complaint is about the methods of reasoning. Religionists base their beliefs on circular reasoning; i.e., because I can imagine a God exists, there must be a God who put the idea in my mind." Such arguments helped carry Christianity through the Middle ages. The Church lost it's grip over Europeans when Renaissance men began looking at the world from the view of inductive reasoning as a means to make generalizations about the world in which they live. This is the same as the Scientific method. We look at physical evidence and we then postulate ideas to explain the cause of the evidence. We test our ideas by experimenting with the variables in our hypothesis. Eventually our experiments help to confirm or deny the validity of our ideas.
All religions set themselves up as a faith based belief. If they attempted to use science, someone would shortly find a flaw in it. However, religion is safe when based upon a circular argument. The premise is usually the testimony of some prophet to whom God revealed the truth. It can’t be tested, but it can be said over and over as true. You may find Darwinists funny, but I don’t find humor in the use of circular reasoning as used by religionists to attack credible science. It’s about as funny as watching fundamental Islamics blast historic statues of Buddha off the side of an Afghanistan mountain. If you want to be useful in the realm of science as it conflicts with religion, maybe you could spend time searching for valid physical evidence and proofs of historic religious miracles to support your faith.
It is mighty extraordinary! That is why there is still so much debate over the issue. But there is a mountain of evidence backing up the ToE that all points towards speciation of an original life form. I like to compartmentalize the three biggies, the origin of life, the origin of species, and the big-bang/universe creation. The three are not dependant on each other unless you are a full blown creationist.
The origin of species (evolution in it's entirety...period) deals exclusively with the speciation of existing life (how it came about is not evo's concern). And I think has been well defined even if not completely proven. I'm not even sure that evolution can be completely proven. But the basic mechanism seems sound to me.
The other two are certainly "out there" in the realm of the unknown. Repeated scientific attempts to explain them have failed as far as I'm concerned and I'm open to evidence explaining either.
My question for you is which claim is more extraordinary, that all things came from nothing, or, that all things came from something (i.e. God)?
I'm not sure where it all came from. A singularity that exploded seems shakey at best because what is the source of the original singularity? Do I think that life can spontaniously erupt from chemicals? Yes. But where did the chemicals come from? I don't know and don't hazard a guess lightly.
A question for you....Have you actually talked to God? Do you have personal proof of a higher Intel?
EBUCK
If I may....Darwinists should use this line of reasoning...."Because evidence shows the appearant machinations of evolution to be true the God, or ID, (both supernatural) theories are no longer valid in the explanation of species".
The same process can be used for any number of natural pheonomena formerly proscribed to God....i.e."Since we now know that the Earth is round, spinning, and is in Orbit around the sun we can throw off the old idea that God (or the Gods as the case may have been) does not ride in his chariot pulling a curtain over the sky. Nor is/are He/They punnish/ing us my making it winter..."
EBUCK
It usually is.
Many Experts Quoted on FUBAR State of Evolution
"If a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all came from slime. When we died, you know , that was it, there is nothing..."
Jeffrey Dahmer, noted Evolutionist
Given standard theories wrt the history of our solar system and our own planet, nobody should be finding cities and villages on Mars, 2100 feet beneath the waves off Cuba, or buried under two miles of Antarctic ice.
I respectfully and firmly disagree! To think that things like novae, the human mind, and mitochondria are all made of the same basic building blocks is an INCREDIBLE feat of engineering! I remember reading about all the processes that take place within the human body in response to a simple paper cut and can't help but be impressed. "Adequate" hardly does it all justice. I for one am honored, awed, and appreciative of the opportunities that the Almighty gave me by the simple fact of my existence.
EBUCK
Wellllll... A sufficiently powerful & intelligent being could indeed magically create all the fossils in the world and place them in such a way as to make things look like it had all evolved. He could also have created the whole universe Last Thursday, complete with our false memories of time before that, etc. etc. ad absurdum. The Invisible Diabolically Subtle Trickster hypothesis is always an option, in any scientific question.
That, of course, explains nothing. But Koukl then claims he has independent evidence that there really is such a magical God-person out there. Unfortunately he forgot to actually tell us what that evidence was. Must've been an oversight.
Like I said before, Show me proof. Got Links? I'd love to take a look. I expect that you can direct me to information that is presented in an open and non-biased format so that I, the objective peer, may review it.
My real problem with Darwinism is not the theory itself, but, the theorists. On the one hand they claim open mindedness and say that God may exist side-by-side with Darwinism, and, on the other hand they emphatically deny or suppress any scientific evidence that might support his very existence as "junk science".
If everyone is calling it junk science then you are going to have to find a way to prove that it isn't. You can't jsut say "here is my proof....it's a human baby destined for an inteligence the world has never before known" because scientists already have an accepted theory as to how that child came about. For scientists to take you seriously you are going to have to give us His Footprints and be able to prove that those footprints are not those of some common earth dweller. I think you would have to actually produce God in order to convince most of them. But all I would require is observable evidence of a genuine higher power. AKA a miracle. Supposedly, they take place pretty regularly but I have yet to witness one and to tell you the truth I don't trust "beleivers" testimony as unbiased.
EBUCK
And how do you suppose God came to be? I'm sure it must be very, very extrordinary.
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