Doubting Didymus

In Kevin Dorners and Oolon Colluphids thread about suboptimal design, I began a conversation with vanderzyden about the possibility of theistic evolution. This was off completely off topic, so I have moved my most recent post here.

This is not a challenge, nor is it an argument against theism. This is Theistic Evolution, which I hope will be interesting to vanderzyden, as I think it shows that Evolution does not conflict with a belief in god.

I should point out that as an atheist, this is not my personal opinion. I simply wish to show that evolution is not the sole domain of godless people.

All quotes are from vanderzyden.
Not at all! This is not a position I hold, but I am familiar with theistic evolution, and I believe it goes like this:

God did not 'poof' the earth out of nothing in the space of a few days. God painstakingly set up a variety of laws, such as gravity, that the universe was to follow, the end result of which he knew would be for matter to eventually form the earth as he desired it, complete with oceans, continents etc.

Similarly, God does not cause life to leap, fully formed from the void. God envisions a conceptual plan, and engenders in the universe a process by which His creation will come about. To create using this method has a variety of benefits for an all powerful being. For one, it gives his creation the means to adapt to changing environments.

Secondly and importantly, it removes determinism. There would be no point in creating life, if its every move is controlled by him, like puppets on strings. By using evolutionary processes, God could fulfil his plan by such a means that novel features of his creation would arise, not necessarily outside of his control, but also not directly built by his hand, atom by atom.

If I were capable of creating a universe, and I wanted to create beings will their own free will, who cope with life and who are destined to face and overcome a variety of trials in life, Evolution would certainly be my choice for the process of creation. Does this imply that I do not care about my creations? I don't think so.

This is the form of theistic evolution that is embraced by a great many (a worldwide majority?) of christians, and a good set of leading ID theorists. Men like Behe are not (to the best of my knowledge) trying to say "the flagella is irreducibly complex, therefore evolution never happened". They concede the evolutionary history of life, but say "Irreducible complexity shows that God is involved in this process".

For a start, there is no reason that you have to believe that there is no mind behind evolution, any more than a naturalistic theory of gravity means that you have to believe that god is not in any way involved in gravity. Basic chemical reactions are 'mindless' processes, but that does not imply that you are forced to concede that god is therefore playing no part in chemistry at all.

Having said that, a mindless process may not be able to 'design' something, in the sense that it can look ahead and plan results. A mindless process CAN create complexity. Simple examples are: sand falling through a hole 'designs' a cone.

Evolutionary computer programs, that simulate mutation and selection with a pre specified goal, have been capable of producing intriguing effects that were not in any way planned by their human programmers. In nature 'surviving' is the specified goal of the individual organism.

Put simply, a replicating thing that mutates in small ways, and is in an environment that causes some mutants to replicate better than others, will be capable of evolving toward complexity. A naked DNA molecule that mutates a little to produce a cellulose sphere will leave cellulose enveloped children. Those children with slightly larger and more sophisticated spheres leave even more descendants, and you have a bacterial cell after a large number of generations.

Nothing suggests that god might not be behind that process.

In fact, I consider that evolution would be the perfect method for godly creations. God could guide the development of his creations in a variety of ways, to acheive certain goals he has in mind. But the process would be technicaly not fueled by his own personal pushing atoms around. This would be perfect for a god who wishes that his creations not be total automatons, every movement and thought controlled directly by strings in his hand.

I am not a theist, but allowing your hypothetical yes, I agree with you. God might create in that way, but he might also create all species all at once, 6000 years ago in a literal six day week.

You have described yourself as an old earth creationist, so I assume you do not agree that this did, in fact, happen. The evidence just does not suggest that it happened that way. The evidence suggests that species have descended from common ancestors over billions of years (I know you dispute this, so if you will allow it as a hypothetical), so the logical conclusion that a theist draws from that evidence is that that, and not any other means, is how god has chosen to create life.

To turn the question around on you: If the evidence suggests life arose from common descent by mutation and selection, why would it be hard to think that god might have been behind it? Surely he, if he exists, is allowed to create in any way he deems fit.


I hope to impress on you that evolution does not equal atheism. This is testified by the number of christians who accept it. Evolution is accepted by people on both sides of the belief barrier.

I think that if you review your thoughts on the question of evolution with these thoughts in mind, you may reach slightly different conclusions about this branch of science.

Camaban

on another note, with this.

the theistic evolution bit also explains any design faults.

I mean, let's be honest, it's a bit arrogant to assume that we're at the stage where he's finally gotten everything just the way he wants it, isn't it?

Things have been evolving guided by his hand this long, why not a while longer, why shouldn't they be a half-finished creation.

and as to what the Bible says. Who's to say that God wanted it to be anything but a guide, and as something to help his early followers through?

I mean, could you begin to imagine attempting to explain genetics to someone from the bronze age?

or the nuclear fission (or was it fusion?) that provides the sun's energy?

Pretty high on the list of things that simply aren't happening. far better to simply give something simple to start, and let our god-given free will and intelligence figure out what he actually did for ourselves.

That's one way of looking at it, at least.

lpetrich

The Sun shines by nuclear fusion:

4H1 -> He4 + 2(neutrino)

Doubting Didymus

Vanderzyden. It seems that over my weekend the various discussions that you are involved in have reached a violent peak of emotion from both sides. I imagine that you feel disgusted with much of this forum, and though I do not agree that this kind of behaviour is justified, I also empathise with those who are upset with you.

I propose that we make a combined effort to wipe the slate clean. I think that 'bad' design arguments are natually conductive to inflamed conversations, as it poses a direct dichotomy between two opposing belief systems. However, I believe that this topic is a different beast. Rather than battling with opposing religious standpoints (atheism and theism), This thread is attempting to find our common ground, to reconcile two veiwpoints that are natural enemies in the name of scientific objectivity.

I do not want to see this thread buried. I think this is important, if I say so myself. I humbly request that you take some time to think about whether evolution really contradicts god, keeping in mind that the vast majority of educated religious people worldwide have reached the intellectual conclusion that there is no contradiction, that if anything, evolution is a wholly godly process.

If I may be so bold, I would also request that you, myself, and other members of this forum put their differences aside for the moment, in an attempt to generate a momentary peace for the facilitation of debate.

If you are interested, I would also like to invite GeoTheo to participate in this discussion. As a Theistic evolutionist studying biology, and who was recently a fairly ardent young earther, his perspective should interest you.

Doubting Didymus

Vanderzyden, please do not let this thread be buried. If you do not want do discuss this issue, could you at least explain why not?

Vanderzyden

Hello DD,

I want to say that I find your approach in this thread very refreshing. It is far and away the most pleasant tone that I have encountered here at Infidels. Certainly you must be on the right track, since humility is one of the greatest virtues. We all would do well to approach discussion of such important matters with the greatest humility. Please accept my genuine and high level of gratitude for your reminder of this important guideline, and for the opportunity to discuss this with you.

I assume, as you do, for the sake of our discussion, that there exists one all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful God who is responsible for the existence of the universe and everything it contains. Now, you indicate that some theists insist that Darwinism is inherently atheistic. Perhaps I have unintentionally misled you in other posts that this is my view. However, this is not necessarily my position. Rather, I think that "theistic evolution" (or "theistic "Darwinism") is almost an oxymoron. The terms are inherently contradictory. Why? Because theism strongly implies purpose. I think it was Phillip Johnson who said that the term "theistic evolution" is nearly equivalent to "purposeful purposelessness". That is because evolution is inherently purposeless. In general, it seems that many people who simutaneously maintain theistic and evolutionary beliefs have not thoroughly considered the implications of the one upon the other.

I should make a note before I continue: As is common, I use the terms Darwinism and Darwinist to be more specific in such dialogues. "Evolution" is very ambiguous, having many meanings. Darwinism is the belief system which primarily holds that all life has descended from a common biological ancestor. Most Darwinists, it would seem, extend this to include natural abiogenesis; that is, life accidentally originated from non-life. Since the middle of last century, neo-Darwinists have emerged. Realizing the terrible inadequacy of the fossil record, they seek to justify their beliefs in universal common ancestry through the study of molecular biology. I presume that this is what you mean when you write "evolution". However, I will respond with "Darwinism"--or its variants--when I am referring to these beliefs.

OK, off we go. Einstein, upon a visit to Princeton University, is known to have said:

"Subtle is the Lord. Malicious he is not."

Although it is unclear what theistic position Einstein actually held, he recognized that the God of the universe, should he exist, must have certain attributes. Although God may not reveal himself directly, it is possible, even likely, that he has left several "clues". However, God would not go to the trouble of displaying some design characteristics in the universe while subsequently attempting to hide or trick the observe with contrary, malicious characteristics.

Richard Dawkins has defined biology as the study of ""the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose". Why should he say such a thing, if he really had convincing evidence that would demonstrate such appearances utterly illusory. What amazes me is the ignorance, or categorical rejection, of design and purpose from biological development and propogation, despite so many strong evidences to the contrary. How can the Darwinist fail to seriously consider intention as an intrinsic part of the existence and flourishing of life? Whatever evidence may exist to support theories of natural selection, I must say that it is difficult to fathom that there is a good (and I do mean good) reason for such rejection. Certainly, there must be another motive.

Nothing that has a purpose can originate with non-mind. Mind--i.e. the human mind--itself cannot come from non-mind. Each species has a proper function, a purpose. The existence of the diverse, highly complex life is not analogous to a cone of sand. The cone is produced by the effects of gravity and the interaction of the shapes of the sand particles. Rather, the existence of a particular species that is highly suited for its environment must be the direct work of a careful designer. Such a designer may design and employ processes to manipulate matter that was previously created, thus relieving himself of the tedious job of placing each finite element in its proper place. However, the process and the material will be used to a specific end. Each will be constrained by parameters. A process--if it is to be called a process--cannot be inherently random. Furthermore, the complexity and elegance of the process is must be superseded by its designer. That is, the designer must have more power, more complexity, more elegance than the object (process, creature) that is the subject of design. This is how a designer works. A better analogy is the design of an engine for a particular application.

The evidence does not suggest common descent. Not in the fossil record. Not in genetics. No plausible mechanism has been advanced. The best that the Darwinist can point to is homology. But then, the same Darwinist cannot account for homologous structures that originate from completely differently developmental pathways.

However, if substantial inconvertible evidence were to emerge that all life descended from a common ancestor by means of numerous sucessive accidents of mutation and natural selection, then I would have to rethink God entirely. For today, I remain convinced that there is precious little justification for the Darwinian position. When I combine this understanding with my observations concerning the reliability of the Bible, the anthropic qualities of the universe, and my human intuitions, my creationist beliefs stand well justified.

You didn't really address my question in the OP, so please don't mind if I articulate my inquiry a bit differently. What is more amazing, creation ex nihilo, or species instantation from common biological building blocks? If the theist will admit that God creates the universe from nothing, or life from non-life, then why is it difficult, and/or unsatisfactory, to admit the possibility that he created separate species? This is especially puzzling in light of the ever-mounting evidence which serves to repudiate the fundamental tenets of Darwinism. If God wanted to accomplish certain ends, and he has the power to do so, why would he perform his creation in a seemingly random, elusive, indirect fashion?

So, while I do not equate atheism with Darwinism, my experience shows me that the theistic Darwinist must surely hold some or all of her key beliefs unjustifiably. In attempting to reconcile scientific "discovery" with her theism, she fails to take the time to carefully examine the inherently materialistic philosophical foundation that underlies the scientific views that she adopts.

Yes, I certainly welcome the responses of GeoTheo, and anyone who will take this subject seriously.

John

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Doubting Didymus

Now, right from the start I want to make it very clear that I am playing devils advocate as a Theistic evolutionist. I will express the general concensus among theistic scientists, that no contradiction exists between God and Evolution. For the sake of healthy debate, I would like you to imagine that you are speaking with a fellow theist.

Now, you suggest that evolution is purposeless. This is a more complex issue than it seems. From an atheistic perspective, that is the impression certainly, but to a theist nothing has to be purposeless. Is gravity purposeless? an atheist would say yes, gravity does not exhibit any directed purpose. To a theist, is gravity accidental? Does it serve a purpose? If you believe in god, then it must be that he has a reason to use gravity.

The same can be said of evolution. Does it have a purpose? If you do not believe in a higher being, then it looks like a random process. To a theist, however, nothing is beyond god's reach and random processes can easily be considered a part of god's plan.

How should a theist interpret this statement? You sound as though you are claiming that most theists have an incorrect interpretation of god. How is it possible that god would allow so many of his believers to get the wrong idea? Surely you are not invoking the involvement of satan, which would serve to offend most of the theistic community.

Actually, this is a bad use of the terminology. 'Biological evolution' is the appropriate term here, and it comprises common descent, natural selection, a host of other genetic processes. 'Darwinist' does not equal common descent at all, but refers to a general agreement wioth darwins interpretation of common descent. Remember that common descent was around for a long time before darwin. 'Neo darwinist' refers primarily to the wedding of natural selection with mendelian genetics. 'common descent' was first proposed by lamark.

No, you do not seem to have a very good knowledge of the theistic perspective on evolution. Most theistic evolutionists have a distinctly non-natural interpretation of abiogenesis. They place that event as the beginning of gods plan for life. If it is 'natural', as in not directly performed by god, then god created the natural world specifically with the advent of abiogenesis in mind.

From my atheistic perspective, I can already see that this is a perfect reconciliation between naturalism (NOT metaphysical) and theism. The natural world is as pleases god. His methods are as he chooses them.

The fossil record is not inadequate to most theistic scientists. This will be my main point: Scientists are not all atheists. The scientific concensus is reached by just as many theists as not.

Please do not use the term 'darwinist' when you mean 'common descent', It is too confusing. If you want to say 'common descent' just say it. The same goes for natural selection and other biological terms. 'Darwinism' is nowhere near specific enough a term for these concepts.

Are you saying that evolution is inherently contrary to gods nature? I must disagree. I think evolution is the perfect method of life creation.

This argument will get you nowhere. God has set up the world so that it is possible to become an atheist. For whatever reason, God has allowed Dawkins to become one. To an atheist, no being capable of creating life exists, so he reaches the conclusion that the appearence of design is illusory. That is quite simple.

To a theist, the same argument does not apply. Remember please tha topic of this discussion, which is how evolution is interpreted by theists.


You are diverting the topic. Theists are also 'darwinists', and therefore naturally conclude that there is a purposefor which life has flourished. The only question left is how did god create that life?

Let me put it this way: the scientific regection of ID theory is not the regection of purpose in life. ID is regected simply because it claims evidence that evolution hit 'bumps' in its history, that god had to help it over. This evidence does not exist, and the theory should be equally offensive to theists. If god has chosen an autonomous processs that operated outside of his direct control, but can be guided to acheive his ends, then it would be silly to suggest that that process might be limited in some major way. Certainly, gods method of creation would not be so shoddy.

Please do not divert this topic to atheistic evolution. Atheists regect that god drives evolution simply because they do not think god exists. There is no alterior motive.

God can create minds by guiding evolution. QED.

If god wishes a cone of sand to be, he may create one by pouring sand through a hole in a rock. It would look like a natural occurance, but it makes a lot more sense then creating what look like small pieces of animal shell from nothing. Sand already exists. If god can create a cone of it using the natural processes he has engendered in the universe, he would surely do so rather than blink it out of nothing, complete with the appearence that it was formed naturally. It makes more sense to simply use the natural method he designed in the first place. You will see my point soon.

Ah, but evolution is not inherently random at all. The process of mutation and selection has been adopted by humans to our own ends, has it not? An extremely powerful example is our use of artificial selection to create breeds of dogs that serve our intended purposes. By selecting those animals who have the most desirable features, we have created many breeds to fulfill many of our purposes: hunting, companionship, rabbiting, defending us, and we have even bred dogs simply to look the way we want them to.

Another example is the banana. Banana fruit were originally small, black and with seeds the sise of peas. it is humans, breeding those trees for desirable characteristics, who are behind the development of the large soft, nearly seedless fruit we have today.

This demonstrates that evolution can easily be used to fulfill design purposes. If we mere humans can acheive such things by manipulating evoltuionary processed, imagine what god, in full control of natural selection, can design using such a process. I seems to me that a theist should veiw the process of evolution and decide without hesitation that evolution seems almost as though it were meant to design things.

None of this contradicts an evolutionary perspective on design. If fact, human programmers today are using programs that simulate small program mutations to design new programming code through artificial selection. It seems that there are more and better methods to design something then just drawing a blueprint and building it. Evolutionary design processes are efficient, exiting, and they are capable of producing results that are not directly intended by the designer. Thus, they are the perfect choice of method for a deity, for whom simple 'concept-&gt;creation' methods may well hold less interest.

First let us determine if it is plausible that god might use evolution to create, then discussions of evidence will make more sense. Discussing the evidence will get us nowhere if you are entrenched in the position that it is impossible or wrong for god to use evolution to create.

No, I really don't think you would. The many other theists who accept evolution as part of gods plan did not have to. Using evolution does not mean that god does not care about us, any more than using evolution to breed new kinds of dog implys that we humans do not care about our dogs.

I can not comment with any authority about the bible. That is for other topics. However, Anthropic principles apply just as well to theistic evolutionism. Human intuitions are also very fallible, so you must at least agree that they may not neccesarily give you a full and complete picture of god? Surely there are things about god that you do not know or guess at?

What is more amazing to humans? Ex nihlo obviously, but that may simply be that it is something we cannot fathom. However, why do you suggest that gods method should be amazing to us? If god gives us the ability to understand his method, who are we to argue?

The evidence suggests to most theists that he chose to use evolution. Its as simple as that. I suggest to you that evolution is the perfect creation method for any deity. It gives life resilience, the capacity for free will and it is one of the only methods where it is possible to watch the creation happen without putting parts directly into place.


The process may only look random to us.

To analogise: if god wanted to design something like an old gramophone, would he create one with a turning handle, that needs his constant attention and his hand on the lever the whole time, or would he create one that is loaded with some kind of spring device, capable of fulfilling its function on its own. I suggest the latter.

Saying that god should prefer to create each species from nothing every time when he could instead choose to engender self sustaining processes that he can guide and watch over is like saying that god should choose to create the gramophone with a lever rather than a spring.

If we come across the spring loaded gramophone, we would say that it is working by itself. If, however, we already knew about god, we would conclude that god has made it specifically to sustain its own purpose.

I hope to have demonstrated that the philosophy that natural processes generally work by themselves is not neccesarily the philosophy that god did not make them in the first place, nor is it the philosophy that god does not influence them. Methodological naturalism is simply acnowledging the fact that we can not directly detect god or his influence, and so science can not say anything about him. That is a far far cry from metaphysical naturalism. The theistic scientist and the atheist scientist will say the same things about gods gremophone: it works by itself with a spring mechanism, it produces sound by vibrating molecules etc. Neither scientist can speculate about god's purpose for the gramophone unless they stop using scientific methods. In this way the theist has no problems reconciling science and religion.

scigirl

Vanderzyden,

Thank you for your post.

I think this statement of yours is at the crux of the issue, and why we rarely get anywhere in all of our debates here, with creationists:
I have always maintained that creationists are skeptical of evolution for that reason alone - their belief in God would have to be modified. It has absolutely nothing to do with science, or fetal hearts, or genes, or anything else. You stated it much more clearly than I could have.

It is clear from your other posts that you are not currently qualified to make a statement like "there is precious little justification" for accepting evolution. In addition, your claim that there is no mechanism is purely false, as we have shown you in several threads.

Therefore, rather than argue evolution with you,
I would rather have you attempt to understand the evidence you are so quick to dismiss. I applaud your efforts - and purchase of the Lodish text. Maybe there is "hope" for you yet! If we can just get you to say once "ok maybe there's a teensey weensie bit of evidence for evolution" instead of that "precious little" phrase you are fond of saying, than we were successful here.

One question I have is this: Either God made the world with all its quirks and diseases and parasites, or evolution did. What difference does it really make which theory you believe - if they both have the same outcome? I've heard creationists say time and again, "oh well god wanted the foramen ovale" or "god wanted us to have the same pseudogenes as chimps" etc etc. But if God made us this way, what difference does it make if he did it using evolution?

scigirl

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

Doubting Didymus

Good point, scigirl.

Whatever we discover was gods method, his end result is the same, so there is no need to change our opinion of him at all.

GeoTheo

I must admit I kind of skimmed over the previous posts so if this has been adressed already I apologize. Creation, in my opinion has no purpose that can be easily discerned.
This does not mean however that it is purposeless. It just means that we are finite in our understanding of it. Just think about for that a minute, Vander, as well as you atheists/agnostics.
It is quite possible that there can be purposes behind things of which we are unable to understand. Why would that not be the case? What reason do we have for thinking man on earth will one day know everything about the universe there is to know? There is no reason to believe this. Atheists don't have one, nor do Theists.
We discovered how limited we are when we came across the problem of quantum indeterminancy. All we can do is make probabilities. Life on a quantum level does what it will, an the best we can do is make educated guesses. Therefore we will never posess ultimate knowledge. Otherwise We would be able to say "This particle, will do this 100% of the time." We can't.
Looking at just the evidence We have, we can piece together that life evolved. We can put together the basic mechanism of evolution. But showing the purpose behind it, or proving that there is no purpose behind it, is beyond our ability.
The Theist relies on special revelation that there is a purpose. The atheist posits their various metaphysical arguments that there is not.
Neither one can prove their case using the scientific method.
Theistic evolution is not an oxy-moron however.
It can actually reflect a great awe and respect for God, that his ways are so above us and past finding out. We believe God created us individually. We could imagine that We were clay in his hands but we know the actual process of embryonic development. Despite this knowledge we believe God in some mysterious way superintends over this process. There is now point at which we could say "Ah, there it is there is God's hand!" Yet, we still firmly believe God knew us and had a plan for us before the foundation of the world. It would never be possible for us to trace all of the variables that went into the event of our birth. It is beyond our ability to comprehend.
That is how Theistic evolutionists view creation.
With awe and humility and trust in God.