1

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. ~ Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p.1

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. ~ Francis Crick

2

Point Six is especially compelling. Until the evolutionary materialists can come up with a mode of thinking that does not default to concepts which are implicitly linked with design, people will go on seeing design in complex arrangements which are not inherent to the properties of their constituent parts.

It is sort of like the moral judgements that moral relativists like to try to impose on others. They still want universally binding morality--only it has to be their morality.

3

#6 By invoking design in non-design explanations. Anyone who wonders why so many people find intelligent design explanations plausible need only to listen to scientific community discuss the evolutionary process.

Indeed there is some confusion but I think it is simply resolved by calling the process of evolution by natural selection unintelligent design if you must.

Evidence for design that requires an intelligent designer? Unscientific nonsense. Evidence for design that requires only undirected, unintelligent processes? An important mechanism for explaining known mechanisms. Even people who have never taken a course in logic can spot the special pleading required to make this argument.

Actually the logical problem is yours. If design requires an intelligent designer then isn't intelligent redundant? In other words if there is no such thing as unintelligent design then by definition all design is intelligent. But you can’t just assert there is no such thing as unintelligent design, you have to back it up somehow.

However whether or not you believe in evolution as being responsible for life as we see it on earth today the fact is ‘unintelligent design’ is very real and can be observed in computer simulations, markets and more.

Since ID theory claims to have a method for differentiating one from the other, we might presume that naturalism does as well.

Actually they both do, they both require you to examine the system in question and determine its origins to tell if it was designed or not. ID has some pretensions of having a algorithm to determine if something is designed by measuring some vague notions of ‘complexity’ but to my knowledge they have never articulated what it is exactly other than to tell us certain things like the flagellum must be designed.

When 94.5 percent of the "scientific elite" has a plausibility structure that rejects the possibility of a Supreme Intelligent Being, it is not surprising that they would reject the very concept of an “intelligent designer.”

Joe has already been caught playing games with surveys. He deceptively tried to claim in the first entry that 60+% of doctors in the UK rejected the theory of evolution when the true number was less than 20% (always double check any of Joe’s links to survey results). Here the study found that only 7% of ‘greater scientists’ believed in God. The first question that leaps to mind is how exactly do you know you are surveying ‘greater scientists’ as opposed to just ‘good’ ones? Here are some problems:

1. The ‘greater scientists’ surveyed were not biology or evolution specialists. While an astrophysicist or geologist may be an atheist the fact is their voices would carry little or no weight in a debate about biology which is what evolution is about. (Interestingly the rates of disbelief in God were actually lower in biological sciences than overall in this study. Explain that considering your trying to assert the closer one gets to the theory of evolution the stronger the scientific orthodoxy demands atheism! The pattern should be just the opposite with biologists having high rates of atheism and those fields where biological theories are of marginal importance, like astronomy, which lower rates).
2. Needless to say, again Joe and others play fast and loose with what ID means. ID supporters have been whining for ages now that the designer need not be a deity. Now we are told being an atheist biases you against the ID theory! What is it? A floor cleaner or a desert topping?
3. In the survey 20+% did not express atheism but ‘doubt or agnosticism’. Granted the majority of these ‘great scientists’ do indeed not believe in God a sizable minority either do or are willing to keep the question open. Smaller minorities than 27% of scientists have been able to overturn accepted dogma when the facts were on their side.

4

But you can’t just assert there is no such thing as unintelligent design, you have to back it up somehow.

How about with the dictionary:

de•sign v. de•signed, de•sign•ing, de•signs
v. tr.
1.
a. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent: design a good excuse for not attending the conference.
b. To formulate a plan for; devise: designed a marketing strategy for the new product.
2. To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form: design a building; design a computer program.
3. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect: a game designed to appeal to all ages.
4. To have as a goal or purpose; intend.
5. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner.

v. intr.
1. To make or execute plans.
2. To have a goal or purpose in mind.
3. To create designs.

n.
1.
a. A drawing or sketch.
b. A graphic representation, especially a detailed plan for construction or manufacture.
2. The purposeful or inventive arrangement of parts or details: the aerodynamic design of an automobile; furniture of simple but elegant design.
3. The art or practice of designing or making designs.
4. Something designed, especially a decorative or an artistic work.
5. An ornamental pattern. See Synonyms at figure.
6. A basic scheme or pattern that affects and controls function or development: the overall design of an epic poem.
7. A plan; a project. See Synonyms at plan.
8.
a. A reasoned purpose; an intent: It was her design to set up practice on her own as soon as she was qualified.
b. Deliberate intention: He became a photographer more by accident than by design.
9. A secretive plot or scheme. Often used in the plural: He has designs on my job.

Joe has already been caught playing games with surveys. He deceptively tried to claim in the first entry that 60+% of doctors in the UK rejected the theory of evolution when the true number was less than 20% (always double check any of Joe’s links to survey results).

You’re either being dishonest or you’re an exceptionally incompetent reader. Let’s look at what I actually wrote: “Even doctors, who are more informed about biology than the general public, overwhelmingly (60%) reject the claim that humans evolved through natural processes alone.”

First, you’ll notice that I never said anything about these being “British doctors.” The reference to the British was about the previous item.

Second, I also didn’t say that the doctors “rejected the theory of evolution.” What I said, as can clearly be seen, is that they reject the claim that “humans evolved through natural processes alone.”

Here the study found that only 7% of ‘greater scientists’ believed in God. The first question that leaps to mind is how exactly do you know you are surveying ‘greater scientists’ as opposed to just ‘good’ ones?

If you’ll notice, I didn’t use the term “greater scientists” but explained exactly which group of scientist were polled. (Do you even read my posts before you start commenting on them?)

1. The ‘greater scientists’ surveyed were not biology or evolution specialists. While an astrophysicist or geologist may be an atheist the fact is their voices would carry little or no weight in a debate about biology which is what evolution is about.

Considering that in the very next sentence you point out that biological scientists were polled, I find it stunning that you could make such a claim.

I see that your reading comprehension problem is not limited to my posts.

5

It's interesting that neither of these categories has anything to do with whether evolution theory is true or not. They're just ways in which people not versed in evolution theory misunderstand or reject it because of the language that is used.

I'm also piqued by the commonness of "teleological" language in biology and medicine, but I regard it as merely offhand sloppiness, the way everyone cuts corners and eschews nitpicky formalism when they're talking to a knowing audience. If it confuses outsiders, that's regrettable, but that says nothing about either the truth of the theory being discussed or the truth of the ignorant opinions of those who are misled by that language.

Atheism strikes me the same way - if anything, that this should be an issue is an even greater indictment of creationists' thinking than the fact that they can't understand metaphor. It's a commonplace that the personal beliefs of an individual are not by themselves proof or disproof of the claims they make. Surely creationists would not agree that creationism is false because it is propounded by religious believers - if they then reject evolution theory because some of its adherents are atheists, they can hardly claim to be making a respectable argument.

Recall that your own examples #s 1 and 2 in this list were that critics of ID don't understand what it really is, and that they keep calling it creationism. You now seem to be claiming that evolution theory is undermined because creationists misunderstand the language it is expressed in, and they keep equating it with atheism. I have no doubt you're right that this does, in fact, present a barrier to correct understanding of the theory by the general public, but that is hardly a black mark against the theory.

6

How about with the dictionary:

Nice try but insufficient and rather pathetic. The dictionary is only what we say it is and it would be a trivial matter to update the dictionary to have a definition that permits design to be unintelligent...if we really must. Sorry Joe, the dictionary might serve as your get out of jail free card if we were playing scrabble but not here.

You’re either being dishonest or you’re an exceptionally incompetent reader. Let’s look at what I actually wrote: “Even doctors, who are more informed about biology than the general public, overwhelmingly (60%) reject the claim that humans evolved through natural processes alone.”

I already called you out on this, the statement that got 42% of support was, "God initiated and guided an evolutionary process that has led to current human beings." I pointed out that this is perfectly consistent with anything you would find in any standard biology or evolution textbook. I challenged any evolution critic to show me that I was wrong and I'm still waiting.

You may think you pulled one over on us by being cute here. You create a series trying to explain why the public supposedly has rejected the theory of evolution but you play word games to get this little factoid inserted. Yes yes I know the survey did NOT show 60% rejected evolution. The problem here is you presented it as if it did.

First, you’ll notice that I never said anything about these being “British doctors.” The reference to the British was about the previous item.

Fair enough.

Second, I also didn’t say that the doctors “rejected the theory of evolution.” What I said, as can clearly be seen, is that they reject the claim that “humans evolved through natural processes alone.”

So then your citation is either deceptive, intending to get the less discerning reader to believe doctors had rejected evolution or simply irrelevant.

Considering that in the very next sentence you point out that biological scientists were polled, I find it stunning that you could make such a claim.

Your right, I mispoke here. I meant to say that the survey included scientists of all types (as far as we can tell at least) while only scientists who work in biological fields would have any relevance to theories regarding biology.

I see that your reading comprehension problem is not limited to my posts.

I see that you have perfected deflecting criticism by honing your nitpicking skills. For example, you've dodged the point that the survey showed the exact opposite pattern of what one would expect if evolution was part of some type of atheist orthodoxy. You also dodged the fact that you should have included 'doubters and agnostics' with the believers in reporting the results of the survey.

7

I think #7 may be the strongest point thus far. Dawkins, Dennet, and Meyers hardly even pretend it's about science anymore; they are full tilt atheist evangelizers, and evolutionists are just along for the ride.

8

No they are philosophers so why should they ignore science? Atheists should express their opinions. If you hate atheists and here comes some atheist telling you that McDonald's food will raise your risk of heart disease you may discount what they say entirely because you hate their atheism but it doesn't impact the truth value of their statements about McDonald's.

Likewise, though, simply because they are right about McDonald's doesn't prove their atheism correct. But that doesn't make the statement some clever ruse to fool innocent people into becomming atheists....which is what you seem to be implying when you right they 'hardly even pretend its about science anymore'.

On the contrary, I find that most of these writers tend to be quite clear that while they find science does not contradict their atheism it doesn't in itself prove it.

9

And another thing, where do you or Joe get off complaining about atheists being evangelizers? For every evangelical atheist there's what, a hundred evangelical theists? If Dawkins and Dennett either toned down their beliefs about religions or pretended they were agnostics or whatnot Joe and yourself would be the first to turn on them and accuse them of being stealth atheists.

What am I saying! Joe already started off point 7 by implying that!

10

One problem we face here is the colloquial use of the term "design". It's clearly as untentional as the use of the phrase "sun rise". It's akin Carl Sagan's use of personal pronouns for the universe.

That said, I don't think Joe is disingenous at all because he is attempting to draw a clear distinction between the evidential matters and the unreasoned, knee-jerk reactions that arise so often.

He is also evidencing (though probably unintentionally) from the agruments presented a great deal of dependence non-science (aka, a particular philosophy of science) in the discussions.

(BTW, over the next year I am planning on studying and evaluating those links in the comments from Joe's last post. Should be fun.)

Collin

http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com

11

If, though, ID was a science its first task would be to present a rigerous definition of what was meant by design (and probably intelligent too but that's another story). Just as relativity provides a rigerous definition of what it means by time so it is clear what it means when it says things like time passes slower on a body that is moving fast relative to an observer.

Joe, though, instead of clarrifying what ID means by design would toss out a colloquial dictionary definition and then have us buy that all design must be intelligent because this definition may imply it.

Notice the 'knee jerk' reaction is coming not so much from science supporters on this list but from its critics like Joe. If we were having a discussion on relativity, imagine if I tossed out a dictionary definition that seemed to rule out time being able to change its speed (but was a general purpose definition and not one specific to the scientific discussion) and then tried to brandy that word play about as evidence relativity was flawed?

12

Seems to me that the very topic "10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design" implies Intelligent Design is not a anything like a scientific theory but rather a religiously inspired doctrine without any scientific evidence to back it up. Otherwise, Joe might offer "10 Ways IDers Actually Do Science in Support of ID" or "10 Peer-Reviewed Arcticles Providing Scientific Evidence of ID." I would settle for "10 Respected Biologists Who Beleive ID to be a Sound Scientific Theory."

With posts like this one Joe proves again he has mastered the art of playing up to his base at the cost of his intellectual integrity. What he offers is wordplay and sarcasm. It is a tradition of long standing about fundamentalists, especially those more interested in fundraising and political power than in offering words and deeds that contribute to the well-being of their communities.

As a pastor said not long ago, "Jesus came to save our souls, not remove our brains."

13

Just after leaving the above comment I stumbled on a relevant article in the SF Chronicle. It is a quite fascinating interview with Dr. Francis S. Collins, a physician-geneticist, who led the Human Genome Project and is now the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

The relevance here is that he was once a staunch atheist but -- after reading "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis -- is now a devout Christian

A quote: "Everything I do as a scientist reinforces my sense of God's presence because every new discovery is, if you believe in his role as creator, a glimpse into his mind."

Now go read the whole interview and see what he has to says about science, religion, and evolution.

Link to the interview in SF Chronicle

14

Andy, that was a interesting read. Thanks for the link.

However, Dr. Collin's belief that the Bible and the theory of evolution can be reconciled is ridiculous. (I'm a Christian, by the way.)

15

So you're all hoping to win this as a result of semantics? The fact is, human languages have to do with humans, so scientists pick analogous words in order to be more easily understood. Leeuwenhoek thought that cork cells looked like monks' cells in monasteries, so he called them 'cells.' Dendrites on neurons look like tree branches, hence the term 'dendrite.' Neither of these (and literally thousands of other terms) have anything to do with what they were named for beyond a superficial similarity. People speak colloquially and use analogies all the time. This type of argument is as intellectually sound as the 'natural selection is a tautology' one.

16

Imagine how poorly ID would fare if Darwinists weren't helping it so much. It's not like it has that much support from the people I look to on scientific matters (scientists). It seems to be a movement springing almost entirely from conservative religious types, who are the LAST people I would look to with regard to science.

17

Oliver: "However, Dr. Collin's belief that the Bible and the theory of evolution can be reconciled is ridiculous. (I'm a Christian, by the way.)"

Why is that? As I recall he said that some parts of the Bible are metaphorical.

18

Well put Joe.

Of course, the reason evolutionists go crazy anytime anyone suggests teaching any criticisms of evolution is that the evidence against evolution is stronger than the evidence for.

Just look at what happened in a secular university when the for and against sides were taught (even without teaching ID or YEC)

http://alangrey.blogspot.com/2006/07/why-evolutionists-dont-want-to-class.html
"The course had interesting results.

Has this class changed your view of evolution? Yes: 72% No:28%
Do you think both sides of the debate were presented fairly? Yes: 97% No:3%

Believe evolution is a fact- Before:77% After: 29%
Believe all plants and animals have evolved from a common ancestor- Before: 71% After: 38%
Believe there is a scientific case against evolution- Before: 71% After: 95%"

19

All fluff and horsefeathers. And semantics.

One of the evolutionists' strongest arguing points is the 98.5% DNA commonality between humans and chimpanzees. We know why that happened. Can an IDer or Creationist explain it?

Why are we so closely related to the apes? Other than the fact that we are a member of that genus?

20

Boonton says: I already called you out on this, the statement that got 42% of support was, "God initiated and guided an evolutionary process that has led to current human beings." I pointed out that this is perfectly consistent with anything you would find in any standard biology or evolution textbook. I challenged any evolution critic to show me that I was wrong and I'm still waiting.

Your wait has ended, Boonton. I am amazed this hasn't come up in the months I have been away, while you battled on here. It's elementary.
First, define God meaningfully and you have to included teleology with foreknowledge. Do the 42% make any logical connections, or are they agreeing with what *sounds* nice or just 'tolerant'?
You have argued for 100% naturalism - just as you require biological textbooks to do. So this god is 100% naturalistic or panentheistic or pantheistic. His attributes, please!?
None of these are the God Joe or I believe in, who is Conscious, Personal and Active..
Gould and others refute the very idea that evolution had any direction, so your 'god' could not foresee or plan or 'lead', he just had to wait and, perhaps, hope irrationally for 'a good outcome'. Much like humans do, only worse.

So what do you mean by 'initiate and guide..led to'? Theistic Evolutionists cannot give this any content. They are simple un-Christian fatalists.
What sort of god would have great power over initial conditions as The Universal Mover, but none thereafter?
You have said merely that your textbook evolutionists are happy to agree that this is irrational deism, and so no threat to them.

21

AndyS:

Well, I can't see Genesis I and II as metaphorical. First, each time God finished a component of Creation the Word says "the evening and the morning were" the 'x'th day. That seems to imply a literal, 24 hour day. I don't know Hebrew but I have heard that the Hebrew word for day in Genesis I and II is 'Yomi'. When proceeded by a number, this word means a 24 hour day.

God rested on the seventh day too, thereby instituting the Sabbath.

22

Barrie: "First, define God meaningfully...

All right! Go for it, dude. Lay it out for us. What do you mean when you say "God"?

[crickets]

No, you can't explain it. And if you can't explain what you mean when you say "god," then you don't "mean" anything when you say it. Same goes for ID. What is a "designer"? No explanation forthcoming.

Nothing but a-whishin' and a-hopin' and eyes squinted shut and there must be a something, but whatever it is cannot be put into words or conceptualized because no believer can quantify the term. As long as that's the case, there's really nothing to talk about at all.

So Joe fails yet again. He tosses out a red-meat slab of anti-evolutionary thought, but leaves it undescribed and vague and sticks the "ID" tag out there and for every reader, it means what they personally want it to mean, but ultimately it means nothing at all.

The discipline of science demands that we reach conclusions from evidence, but ID works in the opposite way - it starts from the... not assumption, but from the deeply held belief that there must be a deity, and from that belief all evidence and knowledge are twisted and smashed into a paradigm that makes the assertion plausible. it's the opposite of science, which works the opposite way.

The flaggelum, the iris, each case that purports to "prove" ID has been found to be in error, as we discover the real processes that underlie the development of these stuctures, and when they are taken off the table, the proponents of ID say, "Well, OK, so science explained those, but we still have hemoglobin and... whoopsie doodle! OK, you explained that one too, but then there's..." and so forth.

Give it a rest, Joe. ID fails time after time. So you keep falling back to the next "gap" and each time you fail. A scientist would come to the conclusion that the premises must be in error and take another tack. A devout believer has no such flexibility.

23

Rob Ryan says: It seems to be a movement springing almost entirely from conservative religious types, who are the LAST people I would look to with regard to science.

Funny that. if you bother to read any history you will find that just those 'types' *created modern science* as we know it.

This is the same sort of ignorance that says "We must keep the religious out of our hospitals,schools, universities and all medical decisions".
Yeah, when the hospitals, schools and universities *themselves* were another creation of Christians. [Compare Islam, if you doubt me.]

Gerald Messenger of Gawd says: One of the evolutionists' strongest arguing points is the 98.5% DNA commonality between humans and chimpanzees. We know why that happened.

Another big over-claim, of course. We DON'T 'know how that happened'.
In a rationally-created universe why wouldn't God use His materials consistently? God The Great Economist, that's all.

I predict that those *differences* in the DNA will prove very interesting indeed.
Have you also looked at the interesting comparisons of many other known species' DNA sequences that seem strange, and even anomalous?

24

The Raven: All right! Go for it, dude. Lay it out for us. What do you mean when you say "God"?

You mean, Mr Raven, you've been pecking around here so long and not picked up one orthodox book on the Christian Doctrine of God [Theology Proper]? Tut, tut.
Yet that's what Joe and I are arguing from. Read a few details I added above.

You add: The discipline of science demands that we reach conclusions from evidence, but ID works in the opposite way.

Nonsense. Science has many assumptions, including the utility of maths in learning about the *real* world [read my other earlier post], in the necessity for hypotheses etc.
Your atheism is 'a deeply-held belief' that seems also to be counter-intuitive in humankind. [There's a lot of *evidence* here.]

Your definition of science is woefully incomplete.
So I suggest some good books on the philosophy of science too. You will find the best of these are also intelligently *sceptical* of the moves of the evolutionists too.

The Raven and Antony Flew - now there's a good connection too.

25

AndyS says: ..at the cost of his intellectual integrity. What [Joe] offers is wordplay and sarcasm. It is a tradition of long standing about fundamentalists, especially those more interested in fundraising and political power than in offering words and deeds that contribute to the well-being of their communities.

As a pastor said not long ago, "Jesus came to save our souls, not remove our brains."

Now just how does this spew contribute to any rational discussion on this topic, Andy?
Is it not just 'wordplay', rhetoric, smear and gross insult?

May I suggest that you have deep personal issues, nothing to do with 'intellectual integrity'?
Is there *anything* rational here that I or others can reply to?

26

I thank AndyS for referring me to the site about Dr. Francis S. Collins' religious belief above.
He seems to disprove the idea of Christians being bad at science because they have an Intelligent Designer in mind. Case closed?
Collins also, perhaps unwittingly, proves why his own belief in Theistic Evolution is inadequate.

Quote:
If God decided to create the universe and his purpose was to populate it with creatures in his image, with whom he could have fellowship and to whom he would give the knowledge of right and wrong, an ability to make decisions on their own free will and an immortal soul, and if he chose to use evolution to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that's not how he would have done it? It's an incredibly elegant means of creation. And because God is outside of time and space -- at least, I think that would make sense, given that he's not part of the natural world -- he could, at the very moment of creation, at the instant of the Big Bang, have this entire plan completely designed right down to our having this conversation. And it would seem perhaps a bit random and long and drawn out to us, but not to him.

This is standard stuff, but well-meant. It's at best the Strong Anthrophic Principle.
My problems with it are
1. How can anyone including God 'use evolution' as it is normally defined by Dawkins and Gould et al?
2. An 'incredibly elegant means of creation' seems an over-statement. Gould et al argue just the opposite -that it had many dead ends and unpredictable twists, so that 'man' is just a chance result. If elegant means simple, there's NOTHING simple about evolutionary theories or life's history! The term may well apply to the genetic code in the end, though!

3. "this entire plan completely designed right down to our having this conversation"
Now I as a Calvinist I do believe this is entirely true, but Collins also claims to believe in "ability to make decisions on their own" in the sense of 'free will' which is counter-intuitive for an All-Planning Biblical God, and any evolutionist too.

So I like Collins' [unconscious?] Calvinism, as it is consistent with the Bible's God. [Joe is a Calvinist. Come in, Joe.]
But this is incompatible with 'Theistic Evolution'.
Collins has more integrating to do, of his professional stance with his faith.
PS. This is not the place to argue the meaning of 'free will', as much as I would like to..

4. I have no problem with 'long and drawn out' and planned creation, just with fitting in progressive evolution by Collins''random' chance mutation events.

He has the same choice as all of us do - an active, creative God-in-time OR a deistic, passive, fatalistic god-out-of-time, helplessly watching evolution unfold.

27

Gerald
'One of the evolutionists' strongest arguing points is the 98.5% DNA commonality between humans and chimpanzees. We know why that happened. Can an IDer or Creationist explain it? Why are we so closely related to the apes? Other than the fact that we are a member of that genus?'

Don't you mean 96%? This is what, 120 million differences in the DNA. Probably around 40 million different mutational events. In 4 to 6 million years. Do you really want to argue that around 200 mutations are fixed in population every generation, especially with the mutational rate of around 3 to 4 mutations per generation has been measured.

How about YOU explain how the evidence can possibly fit evolution.

28

No they are philosophers so why should they ignore science? Atheists should express their opinions. If you hate atheists and here comes some atheist telling you that McDonald's food will raise your risk of heart disease you may discount what they say entirely because you hate their atheism but it doesn't impact the truth value of their statements about McDonald's.

Not all of ‘them’ are philosophers (though, one wonders why we care what philosophers think about the biological sciences) but they all purport that science backs their metaphysical beliefs, while simultaneously arguing that we shouldn't conflate scientific arguments with metaphysical ones.

Likewise, though, simply because they are right about McDonald's doesn't prove their atheism correct. But that doesn't make the statement some clever ruse to fool innocent people into becomming atheists....which is what you seem to be implying when you right they 'hardly even pretend its about science anymore'.

I never said it was a ‘clever ruse’; they openly opine on the superiority of atheism as a metaphysical belief wholly supported by science.

On the contrary, I find that most of these writers tend to be quite clear that while they find science does not contradict their atheism it doesn't in itself prove it.

Considering Dawkins is about to release a new book called the God Delusion, I find that assertion to be absurd.

29

Barrie,

Now just how does this spew contribute to any rational discussion on this topic, Andy? Is it not just 'wordplay', rhetoric, smear and gross insult?

No, it is not. I'm reporting exactly my evaluation of Joe's post in light of having read many of his posts on this topic. Like Dr Collins says, evolution is as strong and as well supported as any scientific theory. That's the evaluation of someone who is both an Evangelical Christian and a scientist. Collins goes on to say ID is not a viable theory.

What are Joe's qualifications for evaluating evolutionary theory? What scientific training does he have, what peer-reviewed articles did he write, in order to offer this sarcastic post which is void of any rational argument yet full of empty rhetoric?

May I suggest that you have deep personal issues, nothing to do with 'intellectual integrity'? Is there anything rational here that I or others can reply to?

Of course I have deep personal issues — I'm a human being. But I do not let those issues drive me to post pure propoganda on a widely read blog.

You don't really think Joe is finding mistakes in evoluntionary theory that have been missed by the thousands of scientists who have worked on it for the past 100+ years, do you?

30

“1. How can anyone including God 'use evolution' as it is normally defined by Dawkins and Gould et al?”

After years of reading the complaints of ID supporters, this concept continues to baffle me. Why do some assume that a naturalistic process, in the case of evolution, excludes God? Does God fail to control the weather because it follows natural laws? Does God have no control over an earthquake because plate techtonics is a natural process? Does God have no control over disease because bodies follow natural laws? How does defining a process exclude God from it?

31

First, define God meaningfully and you have to included teleology with foreknowledge. Do the 42% make any logical connections, or are they agreeing with what *sounds* nice or just 'tolerant'?

Well we have no idea what those 42% meant. Perhaps they have thought about the subject deeply, perhaps not, and perhaps they were just trying to sound nice in order to not look like they were intolerant.

As I stated this is not inconsistent with what any standard textbook has written. If by definition God has infinite knowledge then he knows who will win tonight's lottery...in fact knew the winner before there even was a lottery or a universe to hold it in. Nevertheless, the probability textbook also correct in stating that the lottery is a result of a random function whose exact outcome is unpredictable.

You have argued for 100% naturalism - just as you require biological textbooks to do. So this god is 100% naturalistic or panentheistic or pantheistic. His attributes, please!?

Errr no I haven't. In fact I've been one of the few people on this list who have made a serious effort to be clear about the distinction between science and naturalism as a philosophy.

Gould and others refute the very idea that evolution had any direction, so your 'god' could not foresee or plan or 'lead', he just had to wait and, perhaps, hope irrationally for 'a good outcome'. Much like humans do, only worse.

Indeed, likewise who will win the lottery is random (assuming the game isn't fixed, of course). However if your mom won the lottery would you call her a fool if she thanked God? If not do you go into rages at the sight of standard probability textbooks?

jhudson
Not all of ‘them’ are philosophers (though, one wonders why we care what philosophers think about the biological sciences) but they all purport that science backs their metaphysical beliefs, while simultaneously arguing that we shouldn't conflate scientific arguments with metaphysical ones.

Indeed but anyone can 'do philosophy', I don't think it's worth getting into a nitpicky debate over whether someone like Dennett is a philosopher, a philosopher of science, a essayist, a popularizer of science or just a writer. I purposefully use the phrase 'consistent with' rather than 'backs' when I talk about the relationship between naturalism (a philosophy) and science. Believing in Newtons laws of gravity is also consistent with atheism (despite the fact that Newton himself was not an atheist). If the theist said to the atheist "if you don't believe in God then explain how the moon keeps going around the earth", the atheist would calmly answer that the moon obeys the laws of motion as approximated by Newton. This is consistent with his atheism but it doesn't 'back it' up or prove it. The theist as well will agree that the moon is obeying the laws of motion.

I never said it was a ‘clever ruse’; they openly opine on the superiority of atheism as a metaphysical belief wholly supported by science.

Opining about the superiority of one's metaphysical belief is hardly unusual. If they say that science proves their belief then show me and I'll agree with you that they are wrong about that.

On the contrary, I find that most of these writers tend to be quite clear that while they find science does not contradict their atheism it doesn't in itself prove it.

Considering Dawkins is about to release a new book called the God Delusion, I find that assertion to be absurd.

Why so? Why should theists be the only ones with strongly held beliefs that in themselves cannot be proven or disproven by science?

32

Barrie said: "Another big over-claim, of course. We DON'T 'know how that happened'.
In a rationally-created universe why wouldn't God use His materials consistently? God The Great Economist, that's all.

I predict that those *differences* in the DNA will prove very interesting indeed.
Have you also looked at the interesting comparisons of many other known species' DNA sequences that seem strange, and even anomalous?"

Posted by Alan Grey: "Don't you mean 96%? This is what, 120 million differences in the DNA. Probably around 40 million different mutational events. In 4 to 6 million years. Do you really want to argue that around 200 mutations are fixed in population every generation, especially with the mutational rate of around 3 to 4 mutations per generation has been measured.

How about YOU explain how the evidence can possibly fit evolution."

All I ever get on this question is a brush-off. That tells me I'm onto something. Now we find that God is not only an engineer,an architect, and a chemist, but an economist as well.

Many yar ago, when Watson and Crick unraveled the code, it was hailed as the discovery of "the building blocks of life". There you go. Everything has been built on the previous. We certainly don't share 98.5% of our DNA with any other animal, though we do share some. (98.5% is the latest estimate, not 96%) That 1.5% is where humanity lies, and yes, probably is very interesting.

Proving that the Creation was rationally-created would be the subject for a whole nother argument.

I don't know about your math or the source of your other statistics, but I propose that it would be possible to have upwards of thousands of mutations per generation, if the circumstances were right. Because it hasn't been measured doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

As my religion says, "With evolution, all things are possible." That's my explanation of the evidence fitting the "theory"; if you need more, just ask about 98.5% of the world's biological scientists.

33

Barrie quotes me, then puts his not-so-unique spin on it:

"Rob Ryan says: It seems to be a movement springing almost entirely from conservative religious types, who are the LAST people I would look to with regard to science.

Funny that. if you bother to read any history you will find that just those 'types' *created modern science* as we know it. This is the same sort of ignorance ... [blah, blah, blah]"

Acutally, Barrie, I read quite a lot of history. The advancement of science in the western world, since Christianists like yourself like to downplay the significance of pre-Christian science, was led by progressive religious types, They were impeded frequently by conservative religious types. Ask Galileo. Ask Cotton Mather, whose house was firebombed when he dared support the smallpox innoculation (a Muslim advance, thought by many conservative Christians to circumvent the will of God). It's pretty bad when even witch-hunters like Mather are scientifically progressive compared to conservative, isn't it? In your zeal to claim for Christianity credit for modern science, you totally ignored my qualifier, "conservative". You know, those who resist change.

Before you toss out charges of ignorance, you might try a closer reading instead of launching into another canned rant.

34

Heh Gerald. You have yet to tell me how the observed evidence fits with the theory of evolution. This isn't side-stepping, it is asking you to back up your claim that the 96% match supports evolution. You keep thinking it is such a great argument, but can you back it up? I doubt it strongly. Besides, your entire argument is based on the assumption that common descent explains genetic similarities, but design doesn't. Yet what support have you given for this assertion? none...

So I'll ask again...how do you explain that for common descent evolution to be true of chimps and humans, the mutation rates have to be a couple of orders of magnitude higher than they are?

How about you read
The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium 2005. “Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome,” Nature 437:69–87

Then you will stop making the out of date 98.5% claim.

35

Rob Ryan, I have never 'downplayed pre-Christian science'. My point is that 'modern science' dates from 16thC Europe, in which most creators were what we would call orthodox conservatives today in basic belief, including Galileo. This belief did not stop them being enquiring and systematic, because they believed in a God who was consistent, purposeful and orderly. Most students now admit that these qualities of Christian thinking greatly aided their early scientific thought.
Cotton Mather may have been a 'radical' but this man [your own example!] was a conservative theologically in my sense, as were hundreds of famous scientists after him - Newton, Boyle, Cavendish etc.
So you have not justified your sweeping slur against people like me in 2006 who believe many of the same things in theology. Polls show that scientists if anything are MORE religiously conservative than the general population.
I have written elsewhere that the 'liberal/radical' Christian today loves Theistic Evolution, but cannot make sense of it as a coherent Christian argument.

36

Boonton: I think we should continue to clarify our arguments, as I sincerely don't want to misrepresent you. We are, happily for me, getting into some heavy theology areas [or philosophy if you prefer]. You write:
"If by definition God has infinite knowledge then he knows who will win tonight's lottery...in fact knew the winner before there even was a lottery or a universe to hold it in. Nevertheless, the probability textbook also correct in stating that the lottery is a result of a random function whose exact outcome is unpredictable".

Collins seems to hold this view too. BUT can both statements be true from God's point of view? 'Unpredictable' by Him would mean out of His control. Despite the problems, orthodox theology says God predestined all things, as you imply, as well as foreknowing all.
These two together give Him creative power, over any time scale. Gould et al, in contrast, argue that there is no pre-ordination [or anthropic idea] possible in the process of evolution, so if there WAS a God [he was an atheist only until he died!] even He would have had no idea what he was 'creating', no foreknowledge of any outcome.
That in essence is why I find 'Theistic Evolution' incoherent, unless it points to some 'process god' or panentheistic 'god in all' which has almost none of the Biblical God's attributes.
How could God have a preview of the Universal Film if the plot and characters were unknown, and it was not ready to run until time itself ran out?
I hope that is clearer now.

37

Barrie,

Now we are approaching heavy waters so let's go carefully:

Collins seems to hold this view too. BUT can both statements be true from God's point of view? 'Unpredictable' by Him would mean out of His control. Despite the problems, orthodox theology says God predestined all things, as you imply, as well as foreknowing all.

Good question, it seems to be along the lines of the old child's question of 'can God make a stone so heavy he couldn't pick it up?' If God wanted some excitement could he make the lottery winning truely random so he could be surprised? To say yes implies God's power can be limited. To say no also implies God's power is limited. I'd go with the former, God can limit his power if he chooses too. This seems consistent to me with Christian doctrine since God's choosing to become man was a much more dramatic form of reducing his power voluntarily than simply permitting his universe to have true probability.

I suppose another view is that both can be true for God at once. Just as you know your drunkard uncle will spend the $20 you just gave him on whiskey doesn't mean you have taken away his free will, he has the freedom to spend it as he pleases but you still may know what his decision will be.

These two together give Him creative power, over any time scale. Gould et al, in contrast, argue that there is no pre-ordination [or anthropic idea] possible in the process of evolution, so if there WAS a God [he was an atheist only until he died!] even He would have had no idea what he was 'creating', no foreknowledge of any outcome.

Gould, though, was arguing from the human POV. Since he didn't believe in God any attempt to argue about what God's POV looks like would just be academic. Even if he did believe in God, though, he still would be limited to our, the human, POV. We are, after all, just guessing what things look like from God's POV.

How then would you proceed if you were asked to write a textbook chapter on lotteries and other games of chance? Wouldn't you proceed with the standard tools of probability which assume no pre-ordination? From the human POV your mom winning the lottery was entirely a random function that has no meaning in itself. We don't know what God was thinking about it so we can only guess if God had some purpose in mind and made it so your mom won the lottery.

Now its an open question whether evolution is entirely random or if it has patterns. Gould felt it was random but other thinkers in the field have argued that just as water will seek its level evolution will push towards greater complexity until intelligent beigns result. Since we only have a sample size of 1 so far this debate is still up in the air iMO.

That in essence is why I find 'Theistic Evolution' incoherent, unless it points to some 'process god' or panentheistic 'god in all' which has almost none of the Biblical God's attributes.
How could God have a preview of the Universal Film if the plot and characters were unknown, and it was not ready to run until time itself ran out?

Well I always thought pantheism meant believing 'God is everything'. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism). I'm not sure how that follows from simply believing that God created the universe knowing its natural laws would produce humans and whatever else is in it.

I'm also unsure of what Biblical attributes God would be lacking in this view? He would reserve the right to intervene and become part of human history if he wanted too so supernatural events such as feeding the Jews with manna while they were wandering or becoming Jesus would still be possible.

When God interacts with humans in the Bible he doesn't seem to act like a person who has perfect foreknowledge. Well that's only to say he doesn't annoy people by finishing their sentences before they speak them like the 'Oracle' does in the Matrix but that may just be because he is more polite...not that he lacks knowledge.

38

"Rob Ryan, I have never 'downplayed pre-Christian science'."

I never said you did; I said "Christianists like yourself like to downplay the significance of pre-Christian science." I've seen it many times from people who advance your exact argument. The Greeks, the Chinese, and even Muslims are responsible for enough advancing of scientific knowledge that I feel safe in assuming that science would have developed much as it has regardless of whether or not Christianity had been the dominant worldview. But that is really beside the point. Whatever the role of Christianity vis a vis science was in the past, at least some of its current practitioners are acting as impediments.

I used "conservative" in a political, not a theological, sense, by the way. I thought that was obvious. I hardly see it as a "sweeping slur" to note that conservative Christians are IN GENERAL more hostile to science than the population as a whole. These anti-science folks may still be a minority within the group (I hope so), but they are present in numbers sufficient to mislead millions of the uninformed. When you see an ad in the paper that misrepresents anthropological history ("Only ONE PARTIAL Neanderthal skeleton has ever been found! Scientists now acknowledge that Lucy was a chimp!"), there is a conservative Christian group proudly taking credit for it. When you see a book about how the Grand Canyon was suddenly formed a few thousand years ago, there is a conservative Christian behind it. When you see a "Creation Museum" or a "Dinosaur Adventure Land" that presents fiction as science, you find conservative Christians behind it.

I stand by my statement, with no modifications.

39

"Design" is indeed an unfortunate term to use in discussions of adaptations arising from Natural Selection. Now, we can't be sure from the NY Times article that Dr. Segal actually used the term "design" in his explanation, since the author of the article, Nicholas Wade, was paraphrasing what Dr. Segal said and did not enclose the paragraph you cited in quotes (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/science/25dna.html?ex=1155355200&en=78765aefcb824dc3&ei=5070).

Nevertheless, Natural Selection does in a sense design, albeit in a non-intelligent manner, biological organisms to adapt to their environment. Only someone who has little regard for evidence and reason would stubbornly deny that life on Earth came into being and developed just fine without any need for supernatural intervention. Such a person, desperate to support his own flimsy belief system, is unfortunately compelled to ridicule scientists and science with spurious semantic arguments.

40

Alan,
I don't have to do the research, you do. As I said, if you will consult 98.5% of the world's biological scientists, you will find that they, and I, am right. You are wrong, or pursuing some fundamentalist agenda. The whole ID thing is a pack of lies and propaganda, and what's sad is that it is gaining ground because of the abysmal ignorance of the average American when it comes to genetics and evolution. You can cite one or two papers, usually by some Discovery Institute fascist, to go up against a thousand qualified and well researched studies showing the truth of evolutionary theory. I have already done the research; I refuse to do your work for you.

However, your suggestion that I look into this link reveals something interesting.

First off, the whole article (from the Darwinist subversives over at Nature magazine)constantly refers to the descent of man and chimp from a common ancestor. Did you notice that?

Then there's this quote:
"Genome-wide rates. We calculate the genome-wide nucleotide divergence between human and chimpanzee to be 1.23%, confirming recent results from more limited studies12, 33, 34. The differences between one copy of the human genome and one copy of the chimpanzee genome include both the sites of fixed divergence between the species and some polymorphic sites within each species. By correcting for the estimated coalescence times in the human and chimpanzee populations (see Supplementary Information 'Genome evolution'), we estimate that polymorphism accounts for 14–22% of the observed divergence rate and thus that the fixed divergence is 1.06% or less.

HMMMM.........1.06% or less.

But, then I must say, 96% or 98.5%, what's 2.5% between friends? Suppose I give you the old figure of 96%. I'll keep to 98.5. So you are 96% chimpanzee and I am 98.5%. I guess you've made a monkey (or rather an ape) out of me. My point being, WE'RE BOTH APES!

Did Gawd make us apes? No, my friend, Gawd merely lit the fuse for the Big Bang and went off to create other Universes, leaving us here to our own devices.

Evolution is real. Get over it.

41

Now, now, Rob, I have just become 'a Christianist who likes to..' instead. I don't answer to that new slur [though 'Islam-ist' used to be neutral until recent decades]. Call me just 'Christian', please, like those I named, who ACTUALLY were the first great modern scientists, despite all your fears about our 'obscurantist' faith.
As for certain Christians who argue badly and believe nonsense, what else is new in the world?
Please answer my arguments, instead of labeling me, including politically.
Was it Christians who caved in to Stalinist Lamarkian nonsense? Is it Christians who run all the Magic Crystal, Astrology and New Age shops and write myriad books that are so unscientific?
Let's get back on topic..

42

Boonton: A few responses to your thoughtful words, which include some theological confusions.
"If God wanted some excitement." There is no evidence in the Bible for your proposition. The attributes of foreknowledge and predestining power are not qualified at all, difficult as it is for us humans to fathom that. We are told 'He knows the End from the Beginning, the Alpha nad the Omega.'
You see, I take the Bible as accurately revealing God's attributes. 'Modern' theologians, by contrast, make up their own authority and return to paganism.
So I find this quite incoherent: "simply permitting his universe to have true probability",
and this just incorrect:
"We are, after all, just guessing what things look like from God's POV".
If He tells us then we do know!

Quote: "How then would you proceed if you were asked to write a textbook chapter on lotteries and other games of chance? Wouldn't you proceed with the standard tools of probability which assume no pre-ordination?"

I would do more. If I found sequences and complex data that went far, far beyond randomness working alone, I would agree with the Alien Intelligent searchers that that's good evidence of intelligent design, [or fiddling the wheel in a casino if you prefer].
Why don't the evolutionists take these respectable statisticians seriously? I say because they don't like the results they produce.

Now for your last part: "When God interacts with humans in the Bible he doesn't seem to act like a person who has perfect foreknowledge."

True, and false. The Bible includes a few anthropomorphic epiphanies as illustrations. Jesus Himself didn't have perfect foreknowledge, but only as Incarnate Man. 'Seems to' proves nothing in the face of many very clear statements that God is NOT man, in His essence.
But your point fails to answer my point about God not knowing the Universal Film's ending until it ends. You can't have it both ways, nor can a 'process God'.
'Process theology' is a technical term. It points towards pantheism ['God' IS Everything, or will be], and panentheism [not a spelling error] is ['God' is somehow IN Everything and *indivisible from it*, so can evolve with it, much as pantheism holds too.]
When the Bible says 'God is All and is in All' it is not saying either of these things. The Christian God is omnipresent WITH His creation and sustains it, but is not indivisible from it.

So you see, neither of these describe the Christian-Judaic God, whose first attribute is that He is NOT His Creation, but intrinsically independent of it. He created because He wanted to love it, not out of any known necessity.

I hope that helps you undertand where Christians are coming from who have problems with undirected, directionless evolution [the standard theory.]

43

"If God wanted some excitement." There is no evidence in the Bible for your proposition.

It follows logically if you consider God's power infinite. To say he does not have the power therefore to create a surprise for himself is to say he has limited powers which I don't think is theologically orthodox. Now I'm not saying he did do such a thing, only that it follows logically that he must have the power to do such a thing if he wished.

I would do more. If I found sequences and complex data that went far, far beyond randomness working alone, I would agree with the Alien Intelligent searchers that that's good evidence of intelligent design, [or fiddling the wheel in a casino if you prefer]. Why don't the evolutionists take these respectable statisticians seriously? I say because they don't like the results they produce.

On the contrary, they do take the statistical arguments quite seriously and have been found wanting. One of the best posts I ever read here was, I think, Raven's take down of Gordon's probability argument.

I hope that helps you undertand where Christians are coming from who have problems with undirected, directionless evolution [the standard theory.]

I think we are talking past each other here. When scientist speak of gravity it too is directionless in the sense that we can detect no purpose to it other than things tend to fall down. This is not to say, though, if a rock falls on your head tomorrow it happened independent of or in defiance of God's will. By definition it could not have but nonetheless gravity is 'directionless' in the sense that we cannot determine, just by studying gravity, that its purpose was intended to give you a knock on the head.

44

"...your fears about our 'obscurantist' faith."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/12/wleakey12.xml

As if on cue, the evangelicals strike out at science yet again.

45

*chirp* *chirp*

I didn't think so. I rest my case.