|
Although we seem to be on opposite sides of the fence re: ID, my hat is off to you for enjoying honesty more than the common abandonment of ethics in reporting. |
| |
Written By:
Samuel J Alibrando
URL:
http://www.NatureNeverStopsTalking.com
|
This seems to me, also, a bandwagon argument of the shoddiest sort.
At it’s root is the not so subtle message that "It’s only the brainless types, those conservatives, who think a higher power was involved with our creation."
|
| |
Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitheads.blogspot.com
|
I’ve been trying to level the ID debate... It’s impossible!! The liberal radicals simply fail to realize that is indeed THEY who are closed-minded bigots pushing their religions on other people.
(The religious belief is that we evolved from molecules). |
| |
Written By:
USG
URL:
http://www.tonythejuice.com/projects/automobiles.swf
|
|
Thanks, John. This needs to be trumpeted loud and clear to people like Willis who try to reduce everything to factional politics. This is not a partisan issue. You might like John Hawks’ post on the subject, where he (politely) flays Pharyngula and other Democrats who are trying to turn this into a political battle. |
| |
Written By:
Matt McIntosh
URL:
http://conjecturesandrefutations.net
|
|
I must have missed that part when President Clinton, a Christian, said he thought we should be teaching creationism in science classes. |
| |
Written By:
Oliver
URL:
http://www.oliverwillis.com
|
President Clinton, a Christian That’s pretty funny, Oliver. What type of Christian would he be, other than "in name only"? |
| |
Written By:
Mark A. Flacy
URL:
http://
|
(The religious belief is that we evolved from molecules). That’s not a "faith"; that theory is backed by the empirical evidence. What’s more, "evolution" is not a theory...evolution is a fact. Organisms evolve. It’s been tested, observed and verified. Abiogenesis (and specifics of the larger theory of evolution) are still very much in the theory stage, but that’s a damned sight further on than Intelligent Design.
Note: I’ve no intention of arguing the merits of ID and evolution. If that’s your interest, go read talkorigins, Panda’s Thumb, Pharyngula, etc. |
| |
Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
|
I must have missed that part when President Clinton, a Christian, said he thought we should be teaching creationism in science classes. No, the Clinton White House always dodged the question, simply stating that it was a matter for state and local school boards to address. When directly asked whether they accepted the theory of evolution as valid, the spokesman, again, dodged the question.
You might note that this is precisely the same thing that Bush said. It’s a matter for local districts...and he took no position on the merits.
Moreover, I’d note that every single Democratic Candidate professes a belief in "mythological constructs" like ’God’. Now, perhaps they believe in a god that had absolutely nothing at all to do with creating the universe. Is that something you think they believe? Because, if not, then every Democratic (and Republican) candidate believes in a variation on creationism. |
| |
Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
|
President Clinton speaking about the Human Genome Project, July 26, 2000:Today, we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God’s most divine and sacred gift. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
|
I have to wonder what the responses would look like if the pollsters had added "Evolution, with God" to their three choices. As that poll stands now, I’d wind up in the "Intelligent Design" or "Creationist" camp, even though like a sizable chunk of folks, I believe that "evolution, guided behind the scenes by God" is the proper explanation for the origins of humanity. However, as those terms are used by experts, this belief is not either "Creationism" (which holds that the individual species were specially created by God as a miraculous event in accord with a literal interpretation of Genesis) or "Intelligent Design" (which, when it makes any substantial claims at all, holds that life on Earth as we know it could not have arisen without the intervention of an intelligence of some sort). This poll does not appear to be designed to distinguish between theists who believe in evolution and those who believe in a literal or almost-literal interpretation of Genesis, or in Intelligent Design(tm), the idea put forth by Behe and Dembski. |
| |
Written By:
Tom Ault
URL:
http://
|
|
Here is the way the question was phrased: Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin of human beings?- Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, and God did not directly guide this process.
- Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years, but God guided this process.
- God created human beings in their present form.
#1 can allow for God as a creator who allowed evolution to proceed on its own. Evolutionary theory teaches that mankind would not necessarily exist if evolution were to proceed again from scratch. #2, which is a rare form of ID, says that mankind was destined to appear. #3 represents most forms of ID and the original teaching of "creationism." Most forms of ID do not allow for changes from one species into another, but they do allow "microevolution." These days, "creationism" generally means "young earth" while ID means "old earth." But there are many variations. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
I simply don’t understand why the 2 can’t co-exist. Yes, evolution is a fact. Absolutely. Yet who’s to say that the entire evolutionary process isn’t in fact, part of the Creator’s grand design?
If god created the universe, then he also created all the processes that take place in that universe. |
| |
Written By:
shark
URL:
http://
|
|
Speaking of "amazingly backwards," either God or evolution or some other massive FUBAR appears to have occurred in Oliver Willis’ case. After reading some of his writing and looking at his picture, it becomes apparent that his ass is where his head would be on any other human. Maybe God does guide this process and he has a really nasty sense of humor. |
| |
Written By:
JorgXMcKie
URL:
http://
|
It really is a pointless argument by people arguing past each other. Science speaks to that which can (at least hypothetically) be examined, predicted, and tested. It makes no claims to what happened ’before’ we can examine, i.e., where did it all come from. It also makes no claims to being omniscient (all-knowing—funny about those root words, eh? scient, meaning to know, as opposed to "taking on faith"), and admits readily to having holes, although, in general, attempting to fill the holes.
Faith, or belief, in the religious, sense means to believe without the need for evidence or testing or any of those other things so necessary to science.
I readily admit that many atheist and/or agnostics are anti-pathetical to religion. I find that unfortunate, since Western science would probably not have occurred without a firm belief is a "created" universe; i.e. one with regular rules, which held most of the time (i.e. unless interfered with by God), which meant that you could understand the whole better by closely examining a part of the whole. Why do you think the Chinese, obviously every bit as intelligent as those in Western cultures and with even better resources, never developed a Western-type science on their own. It looks to be due to their embrace of a faith in the Tao, in which wholes had to be examined as a unit, and therefore breaking a thing down to its constituent parts wouldn’t tell you much about the whole, just the parts. So, no science.
Equally interesting is how ID appears to share some of this Taoistic belief system, in that looking at the parts is no help if what you see is "irreducibly complex."
Anyway, I have no religious faith, and I’m not even smart enough to ask good questions, but I certainly see the benefits, both to themselves and to me, of others having faith. I would never denigrate that. |
| |
Written By:
JorgXMcKie
URL:
http://
|
Yet who’s to say that the entire evolutionary process isn’t in fact, part of the Creator’s grand design? You’re right. The problem is how do you design a scientific test to establish that it is part of God’s plan? If you can’t, then you ignore it within the scientific realm (and in science class) and leave it for other philosophical areas to discuss. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
Sure Intelligent Design and Evolution can coexist in schools. Evolution = Science, Intelligent Design = Philosophy. Lemme give ID proponents a few explanations they are clearly lacking:
Theory: Set of principles/laws designed to explain a phenomen. It doesn’t mean unproven like many of you think.
The way a theory comes about:
Scientific Method
1. Observe Event
2. Create a hypothesis
3. Draw logical deductions from hypothesis
4. Experiment (once the experiment has been verified it’s usually published in a scientific journal so that other scientists can recreate the experiment and verify the results)
Step 4 is very important as it verifies steps 2/3, now how do you create a falsifiable and recreatable experiment for intelligent design. You can’t, therefore it’s not a scientific theory. We have created new species in labs, look at the difference between domesticated animals and their wild counterparts, look at how well animals are adapted to their local environment. Sure us liberals/independents are open to debate and new ideas but first you have to back your claim up with fact. Simply stating that life is too complicated on a molecular level therefore it must’ve been created by a higher force is no argument whereas any evolutionary expert can expound in detail about the theory. Not to mention we look for patterns in chaos (forgot the name of the mathmetician who came up with this theory). Who’s to say that it’s too complicated and therefore must have been created, who can judge that? Intelligent Design is simply creationisms way of keeping up with what science has established.
Hey i’m an independent and i’m all for teaching intelligent design, in a philosophy class that is.
|
| |
Written By:
Greg
URL:
http://
|
Yet who’s to say that the entire evolutionary process isn’t in fact, part of the Creator’s grand design? If god created the universe, then he also created all the processes that take place in that universe. Absolutely, that is a possibility. But, in the absence of actual evidence to support it, it’s nothing more than Faith.
Faith is fine. But faith is not science. (if it were, then it wouldn’t be called "faith")Hey i’m an independent and i’m all for teaching intelligent design, in a philosophy class that is. As I wrote on the Neolibertarian blog...
"Being exposed to alternate ideas is fine. We ought to come up with some sort of non-federally funded means of exposing people to these alternate ideas. Perhaps a place they could go voluntarily. Maybe every Sunday.
We could call it "Church".
Science class, however, is not a place for "diversity". It’s a place for, you know, science."
|
| |
Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
|
Absolutely, that is a possibility. But, in the absence of actual evidence to support it, it’s nothing more than Faith.
Heh....reminds me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the little paragraph Adams put in there about the scientist who was able to prove the existence of God, but since actual proof means the end of faith, and god can’t exist without faith, he wound up destroying god instead...
|
| |
Written By:
shark
URL:
http://
|
|
Here’s an idea: it’s perfectly capable, nay, quite logical for one to believe in a Supreme Being (God, for instance) and still understand that "Intelligent Design" is bull. Look, just because Bill Clinton does run around screaming "GOD GOD GOD" like George W. Bush, doesn’t make him not a Christian. In some circles, it would actually make him a more honest one. |
| |
Written By:
Oliver
URL:
http://www.oliverwillis.com
|
it’s perfectly capable, nay, quite logical for one to believe in a Supreme Being (God, for instance) and still understand that "Intelligent Design" is bull. Indeed. But one wonders just what, exactly, he thinks "God" is if the universe came into existence without any assistance from God at all. That’s quite a queer "god" you’d have there.Look, just because Bill Clinton does run around screaming "GOD GOD GOD" like George W. Bush, doesn’t make him not a Christian. In some circles, it would actually make him a more honest one. I believe Bill Clinton did go around talking about "God" quite a bit. I find 5,620 references to "god" in the Clinton Foundation archives. Would you like me to start listing them, or would you just prefer to disappear quietly? |
| |
Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
|
President Clinton, a Christian That’s pretty funny, Oliver. What type of Christian would he be, other than "in name only"?
God, I hate coming to the defense of Bill Clinton. I feel I must however.
Who are you to question Clinton’s faith? How do you know what is in his heart?
God, I hate quoting scripture. I feel I must however.
John 8:2-11
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.Indeed. But one wonders just what, exactly, he thinks "God" is if the universe came into existence without any assistance from God at all. That’s quite a queer "god" you’d have there. I see your point Jon, but there are many major deity’s that came after the existence of the Universe.
Zeus, for example, was born to the Titans Kronos and Rhea. Therefore coming after the existence of the Universe. And I would be careful to call Zeus a queer and then venture out into a thunderstorm. ;-)
|
| |
Written By:
PogueMahone
URL:
http://
|
I see your point Jon, but there are many major deity’s that came after the existence of the Universe. Not in any conventional sect of Christian religions. Clinton, iirc, is a Southern Baptist. |
| |
Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
|
1. Why is it important to know/teach how we were ’created’, from a political context? See 3 below.
2. Given today’s bandwagon Christian politician, why would you NOT expect politicians to profess their love to the Right Wing God who decides where the money goes, thereby which dogma emerges to utilize the government pulpit? Indeed, how many ’free thinkers’ would be portrayed as ’Satanists’ by their good Christian Political Opponents? A candidate would be a fool to not do what businessmen have done for years: "dragged their rich asses out of bed to go network at church with all the other rich asses." Church is networking to most.
3. Call a spade a spade. The only reason for fighting against 1. Above is to prevent slippery slope Creationism being the ONLY theory, er, ’fact’, legislated into reality, and taught to unsuspecting school children.
If medical marijuana is effectvely argued as a slippery slope to legalization of heroin, then Creationist theory in kind is a slippery slope to a Theocracy.
Make mine Constitutional Republic, please....
|
| |
Written By:
Rick D.
URL:
http://
|
|
These threads are always really fun. Just once I would like to see someone define their terms before using them though. For instance the uses of Intelligent Design and Creationism seems to be applied to a wide swath of territory here. The truth is that the three divisions in the poll are pretty arbitrary. For instance there are a lot of people who believe in something that is often termed Theistic Evolution. They believe that god created life as we know it through the process of evolution. This is probably Bill Clinton’s belief system. Where do these people fit in? Maybe with the ID folks, maybe with the Creationists, depending on the definition of those terms. Certainly not with the athiest evolutionists. No way to tell really because "evolution with god involved" wasn’t included as an option. What’s more, "evolution" is not a theory...evolution is a fact. Organisms evolve. It’s been tested, observed and verified. The creationists/ID advocates generally don’t say evolution doesn’t happen on some level. What they say is that the observed forms of evolution are not generally sufficient to account for the generation of new species (the definition of which is being incapable of interbreeding with the old one and producing fertile children). This is why they use the macro- and micro- prefixes. No one is going to dispute examples like the Peppered Moth, but creationists would call this microevolution because no new species were created. |
| |
Written By:
Jeff the Baptist
URL:
http://jeffthebaptist.blogspot.com
|
No way to tell really because "evolution with god involved" wasn’t included as an option. Er, see poll question #2. My post above which lists the actual question and options might help. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
|
Unfortunately, whether through error or dishonesty, QandO misrepresented the survey results in the table above. The middle column shouldn’t read "Intelligent Design"—it should read "guided by God". Intelligent Design was never mentioned in the survey. ID is a hypothesis that contradicts evolutionary theory, while one can believe evolutionary theory completely and say that all of it was guided by God. (The latter seems to be the position Clinton takes.) I go into this in further detail in a trackbacked post. |
| |
Written By:
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
URL:
http://ethicalwerewolf.blogspot.com
|
one can believe evolutionary theory completely and say that all of it was guided by God Nope. A "complete" acceptance of evolutionary theory would be to believe that the appearance of mankind was due to chance. According to current evolutionary theory, if the world were to start again, mankind would not appear.ID has many variants, from just believing that God preordained mankind but created it through evolutionary stages (rare ID) to God creating all "kinds" of organisms without "macroevolution" but allowing "microevolution" (more common). What’s not explicitly stated, but contained within answer #1, is a belief that God created the universe and its laws, but allowed evolution to proceed on its own without any preordained result. No mainstream Christian theology that I’m aware of would agree to this proposition (even though many allow for the fact of evolution). Ultimately, evolutionary theory must pursue #1 under our current understanding of scientific philosophy, since we don’t have the ability to scientifically test for God’s guidance. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
A "complete" acceptance of evolutionary theory would be to believe that the appearance of mankind was due to chance.
I don’t see that evolutionary theory implies anything like this. Start the universe with the exact same initial conditions under the same laws, and you’ll get exactly what we have now (modulo quantum indeterminacy, but that’s not part of evolutionary theory anyway).
Here’s how God can guide things consistently with evolutionary theory: At the first moment of the big bang, he sets the initial conditions of the universe and all the laws, knowing everything about the outcomes that will result, and out of a desire that creatures like us come about. After some billion years, organic macromolecules come together in the primordial soup on earth, and things proceed exactly as the biology textbooks say.
Biology isn’t cosmology, and it makes no claims about how the fundamental physical laws got set as they are. Saying that the fundamental physical laws were set up by divine will doesn’t contradict anything in biology. |
| |
Written By:
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
URL:
http://ethicalwerewolf.blogspot.com
|
After some billion years, organic macromolecules come together in the primordial soup on earth, and things proceed exactly as the biology textbooks say. Not that we’ve seen or replicated the tiny step of organic macromolecules coming together to form life. As far as I know, that hasn’t happened in any experiment to date. |
| |
Written By:
Mark A. Flacy
URL:
http://
|
I don’t see that evolutionary theory implies anything like this. Start the universe with the exact same initial conditions under the same laws, and you’ll get exactly what we have now Then you don’t understand and are not reading evolutionary theory. It is not even implied; it is stated quite frequently. One obvious point you miss is that a lot happened between "the exact same initial conditions" and the appearance of man-like organisms. I can think of quite a few extinction events for starters. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
Not that we’ve seen or replicated the tiny step of organic macromolecules coming together to form life. As far as I know, that hasn’t happened in any experiment to date.
Correct, we can generate amino acids from the primordial soup, but getting from there to a life form capable of reproduction while passing its traits down via a DNA-compatible form of inheritance is still a vast step.
A "complete" acceptance of evolutionary theory would be to believe that the appearance of mankind was due to chance. According to current evolutionary theory, if the world were to start again, mankind would not appear.
Current evolutionary theory says that if the world were to start again, mankind might not appear. The evolutionary process operates by using selection regimes on "random" mutation. If mankind (or something essentially similar to man) is an optimal form for some given condition, the same sort of life form could still occur. Or might not depending on what mutations happened where, etc.
I’ve worked with evolutionary development algorithms for problem solving. If you have the same or similar initial conditions and similar selection criteria, the simulation basically ends up in the same place.
The question is how random are the mutations, etc. If you started the universe (not just the world) over with everything exactly the same down to the sub-atomic particle, is the universe so deterministic that things would progress identically? I don’t know and haven’t studied the relevant theory enough to tell. It has been my experience that we use words like "random" to describe events that are so complex as to be difficult to model. The radar cross section of an aircraft is deterministic, but so complex we model it statistically. |
| |
Written By:
Jeff the Baptist
URL:
http://jeffthebaptist.blogspot.com
|
Current evolutionary theory says that if the world were to start again, mankind might not appear. I’d use a stronger phrase than "might not appear." From the PBS series Evolution:According to Dr. Stephen Jay Gould: "Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again." Interviewed for Evolution, Dr. Gould comments on natural selection, the Darwinian Revolution, and evolution as an amoral process. Gould was not the final arbitor on evolutionary theory, but he was a reasonable authority within the field. Do you have some someone else in mind who claims a more deterministic outcome for evolution? |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
Now that’s odd...
I get to > So I’m not going to let this pass...< and I click on the link, and I get >This account has been disabled. Please contact support.< What could have happened?
|
| |
Written By:
Dave Loney
URL:
http://
|
JWG, I don’t think Gould’s quotation helps you. "replanted from seed" is ambiguous between suggesting an exact, every-particle-in-the-same-exact-position reconstruction of the universe, and a universe ~1 billion years ago that looks the same on the macro level but is slightly different in the small. If Gould meant the former, you’re right. But then he ends up being committed to some force other than physical laws affecting the world—how else do you get 2 different outcomes under the exact same initial conditions and the same laws? Are you going to say that Gould believes in events caused in a way that lies outside physical law?
Likewise, it’s not "predictable" where a roulette wheel will end up, or who will win the World Series in 2030. But this is no objection to determinism, which is all I need. Basically, the position you have to defend here is that evolution entails the rejection of determinism, and that’s what I don’t think you can hold.
Set up the exact same initial conditions, keep the same laws of nature, and barring some kind of magic that violates laws of nature (again, leaving out quantum indeterminacy) you’re going to get the exact same outcome. The extinction events will happen exactly the same way, since you started with the same initial conditions and the laws will dictate transitions into the exact same subsequent states. |
| |
Written By:
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
URL:
http://ethicalwerewolf.blogspot.com
|
|
I should mention also that Daniel Dennett, who pushes selectionism in evolutionary theory much further than I’m comfortable with, accepts determinism and spent a good deal of time arguing that free will is compatible with determinism. |
| |
Written By:
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
URL:
http://ethicalwerewolf.blogspot.com
|
According to Dr. Stephen Jay Gould: "Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again." Interviewed for Evolution, Dr. Gould comments on natural selection, the Darwinian Revolution, and evolution as an amoral process. Gould was not the final arbitor on evolutionary theory, but he was a reasonable authority within the field. Do you have some someone else in mind who claims a more deterministic outcome for evolution?
The way I see it, Gould’s arguments about the importance of contigency in evolution can be seen in two very different contexts:
In the first place, Gould is arguing against what could be called a scientific idea—the idea that there is something about the mechanisms of evolution that means more complex organisms, intellegence, etc, will always be advantageous in all contexts, thus leading to the idea of the "evolutionary ladder" from bacteria to humans. Scientifically, there is no guarantee that more complexity will always arise. Evolution is dependent on mutations, and mutation is random, in the sense that we cannot predict what mutations will occur next. So in this sense, evolution cannot be predictive, and evolution does not inevitably lead from bacteria to humans.
In the second place, Gould is a proponent of what could perhaps be called a religious idea—the idea that the diversity of life that we see on earth, including ourselves, is a chance byproduct of a random process. Many atheists see a certain beauty in this idea, as it sometime seemed like Gould did (i.e., in Wonderful Life). Unfortunately, it is this idea that is often mistaken for "evolution." However, consider the following: the whole argument behind evolution being random is that mutations are random, and since we cannot predict what mutation will occur next, we of course cannot predict how organisms will evolve. Scientifically, there is no way to know what part of the genome will mutate next. Of course, it would be ridiculous to propose that God, if God exists, could not control completely what mutations arise, or at least guarantee that the necessary mutations to allow humans to evolve from the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees occur. Thus, an theistic evolutionary theory can easily exist, completely consistent with all scientific facts regarding evolution and yet still allowing God to guide the evolution of humans. |
| |
Written By:
Tim
URL:
http://
|
According to Dr. Stephen Jay Gould: "Humans are not the end result of predictable evolutionary progress, but rather a fortuitous cosmic afterthought, a tiny little twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life, which if replanted from seed, would almost surely not grow this twig again." Interviewed for Evolution, Dr. Gould comments on natural selection, the Darwinian Revolution, and evolution as an amoral process. Gould was not the final arbitor on evolutionary theory, but he was a reasonable authority within the field. Do you have some someone else in mind who claims a more deterministic outcome for evolution?
The way I see it, Gould’s arguments about the importance of contigency in evolution can be seen in two very different contexts:
In the first place, Gould is arguing against what could be called a scientific idea—the idea that there is something about the mechanisms of evolution that means more complex organisms, intellegence, etc, will always be advantageous in all contexts, thus leading to the idea of the "evolutionary ladder" from bacteria to humans. Scientifically, there is no guarantee that more complexity will always arise. Evolution is dependent on mutations, and mutation is random, in the sense that we cannot predict what mutations will occur next. So in this sense, evolution cannot be predictive, and evolution does not inevitably lead from bacteria to humans.
In the second place, Gould is a proponent of what could perhaps be called a religious idea—the idea that the diversity of life that we see on earth, including ourselves, is a chance byproduct of a random process. Many atheists see a certain beauty in this idea, as it sometime seemed like Gould did (i.e., in Wonderful Life). Unfortunately, it is this idea that is often mistaken for "evolution." However, consider the following: the whole argument behind evolution being random is that mutations are random, and since we cannot predict what mutation will occur next, we of course cannot predict how organisms will evolve. Scientifically, there is no way to know what part of the genome will mutate next. Of course, it would be ridiculous to propose that God, if God exists, could not control completely what mutations arise, or at least guarantee that the necessary mutations to allow humans to evolve from the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees occur. Thus, an theistic evolutionary theory can easily exist, completely consistent with all scientific facts regarding evolution and yet still allowing God to guide the evolution of humans. |
| |
Written By:
Tim
URL:
http://
|
Basically, the position you have to defend here is that evolution entails the rejection of determinism Then you most certainly have not read or understood Gould’s positions. Let me give you another quote from The Book of Life (page 10):the worst and most harmful of all our conventional mistakes about the history of our planet - the arrogant notion that evolution has a predictable direction leading toward human life Here is TalkOrigins’ explanation in their Evolution and Chance section:Gould has written that if we could rewind the "tape" of evolution and replay it, the result would not be the same (Gould 1989). Among other things, humans are almost certain not to re-evolve. This is because the number of contingent causes (asteroids hitting the earth, continental drift, cosmic radiation, the likelihood of significant individuals mating and producing progeny, etc) are so high that it is unlikely they would occur again in the same sequence, or even occur at all. If an asteroid hadn’t hit the Yucátan Peninsula 65 million years ago, for example, mammals probably would never have diversified, as they didn’t in the 100 million years before that. From Berkley’s Understanding EvolutionExperimental data do not support directed mutation.
No known mechanism supports directed mutation. and Referring to evolution as progress, or improvement, or getting more sophisticated, implies that the story of life has a directionality, which it does not. Additionally, one of Jonathan Well’s (author of Icons of Evolution) criticisms of evolutionary textbooks is that they use terms like "evolution works without plan or purpose" and "evolution is not directed toward a final goal or state."It is certainly possible that God set up the universe toward a specific goal. However, until you can figure out a test to demonstrate this, it is not scientific and not part of evolutionary theory. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
Set up the exact same initial conditions, keep the same laws of nature, and barring some kind of magic that violates laws of nature (again, leaving out quantum indeterminacy) you’re going to get the exact same outcome. Are you trying to argue that the same reproductive events and mutations are going to occur to create the same genetic information? I’d like to see where that would be supported in modern evolutionary theory. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
Are you trying to argue that the same reproductive events and mutations are going to occur to create the same genetic information? I’d like to see where that would be supported in modern evolutionary theory. I think he’s trying to say that, from a deterministic POV, Effect A will always lead to Cause B. If you set up a pool table with 10 balls in a certain position, hitting them with the cue ball will distribute them in a certain manner. If you recreate precisely the same positions and hi the cue ball in precisely the same manner, the balls will distribute again in precisely the same manner.
Of course, a lot of that depends on whether causation and such breaks down at the quantum level, on whether there really is such a thing as "free will", etc.
|
| |
Written By:
Jon Henke
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
|
|
I should mention also that Daniel Dennett, who pushes selectionism in evolutionary theory much further than I’m comfortable with, accepts determinism and spent a good deal of time arguing that free will is compatible with determinism. |
| |
Written By:
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
URL:
http://ethicalwerewolf.blogspot.com
|
Jon Henke correctly describes the kind of deterministic view I’m describing. Let me also say that JWG is right that determinism isn’t implied by contemporary evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory is neutral on the question of whether determinism of the sort Jon and I are talking about is correct. But I don’t need the claim that evolutionary theory implies terminism. All I need to make the Deistic, Jeffersonian, guided-by-God position work is for evolutionary theory to be compatible with determinism.
I agree that there is no such thing as directed mutation. There are no biological systems that aim at generating favorable mutations in organisms. This doesn’t, however, mean that determinism of the kind Jon describes is false.
(Apologies for the duplicated post that precedes this one.) |
| |
Written By:
Neil the Ethical Werewolf
URL:
http://ethicalwerewolf.blogspot.com
|
If you recreate precisely the same positions and hi the cue ball in precisely the same manner, the balls will distribute again in precisely the same manner. The analogy breaks down when you talk about living organisms which are capable at some level of "making" choices. Dennett clearly separates fate from determinism. The billiards example demonstrates fate; once the cue ball is set in motion all other events are fixed. Dennett does not see evolutionary outcomes as fixed (a living ball can change positions, for example). He is explaining that certain pathways are determined by the available conditions, but one specific pathway is not guaranteed (if a ball decides to change its position, there will be a different outcome...that new outcome, if it occurs, must follow a specific course - it’s determined course - based on the new conditions). "Determinism" in the way you seem to be describing it (fate) isn’t just "not implied" by evolutionary theory, it is rejected based on available evidence. I agree that doesn’t make it false, but it is definitely at odds with current evolutionary theory. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
As a science teacher I am always amazed by the number of students who are quick to arrive at a belief based on "not knowing". They are pretty much like those in the dark ages that believed gods threw lightening bolts from mountain tops (because they didn’t know what lightening was). As man became more enlightened, he threw off many of his beliefs but still hangs onto god/creationism out of ignorance of what really happened. There is no logic in moving from "I don’t know so it must be......"
Maybe one day man will become totally enlighened but I doubt that I will ever see it. |
| |
Written By:
Jack
URL:
http://
|
Can I sidestep the "we were predermined by big bang Creation" issue by suggesting that God may not have cared what form we took as long as He knew that consciousness would inevitably evolve? Do we have to be as literal about "in his image" as some are about "on the Nth day"?
More importantly, can I also dispute that faith and science must be reconcilable? Despite the appeals of many atheists to science, science is not atheistic. By rigorous self-definition, science is tentative, incomplete, essentially vulnerable to disproof and confined to natural phenomena. How can such a discipline confirm or deny the supernatural? And a faith that seeks scientific validation is a puny faith indeed. Faith existed before science got going.
Some (like me) may sincerely reconcile science and faith but that is our own personal synthesis neither necessitated nor justified by either faith or science.
Many think that if ID were to enter science curricula it would appear in biology class beside evolution. If so, that would mean that science education had already failed because ID should first have appeared alongside the teaching of the scientific method - as an example of non-science (but not necessarily non-truth) claiming to be science but failing on two of the limitations noted above -
1. not vulnerable to disproof
2. not confined to natural phenomena
Science only works because of its self-imposed limitations. Of course it should admit those limitations when biology is taught, as when any other branch of science is taught. But guessing what goes beyond those limitations, or using faith to go beyond those limitations is not science—unless those guesses make testable predictions about the natural world. ID makes no such testable predictions.
The undeniable power of science derives from its strict self-limitation - its essential modesty. ID is way too immodest to be science. By calling God some unknown "intelligent designer" it’s also way too modest to be faith because it denies the Lord; or else its denial is a nod and a wink, in which case ID is both immodest and dishonest - nothing more than a confused ideological scam.
All science is "only a theory" - not just biology. The absolute certainty of core faith is safe from all science for all time, but one can’t say the same for idolatry of sacred texts, the belief in their inerrancy, the view that they are devoid of allegory and metaphor, the notion that mere human language is up to the task of exactly recounting the work of God.
Much of this controversy is pseudo-scientific overreach v pseudo-religious overreach - powered by ignorance, credulity, arrogance and self-deception. To be fair to science though, I don’t see it storming Bible class the way pseudo-religion is storming science class.
|
| |
Written By:
AlanDownunder
URL:
http://
|
Can I sidestep the "we were predermined by big bang Creation" issue by suggesting that God may not have cared what form we took as long as He knew that consciousness would inevitably evolve? As long as God had no ongoing hand in evolution, then that point of view seems entirely compatible with poll answer #1, since evolutionary theory ignores any roll of a creator. As I wrote previously:#1 can allow for God as a creator who allowed evolution to proceed on its own. Evolutionary theory teaches that mankind would not necessarily exist if evolution were to proceed again from scratch. The idea of humans not being the ultimate plan for God is a huge sticking point for fans of ID, though. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://
|
Getting back to the politics of the post ...
The survey results quoted are no surprise. Among developed nations with a Christian heritage, the US exhibits the highest percentage of wacko non-mainstream brands of Christianity as well as one of the highest percentages of self-professed Christians.
In that context, the broad distinction between GOP & Dems is that Dems tend to poorly and fitfully talk wacko religion because they are forced to by political considerations (eg Gore 2000) while the GOP tend to brilliantly talk wacko religion because they actually believe in it, because they are exploiting with relish a natural demographic advantage and because their cronyist energy and environmental policies are only achievable with an anti-scientific dumbed-down electorate.
When Gore sided against science, he was playing defence. When Bush sides against science he is playing offence.
The GOP’s attempted Schiavo exploitation is way beyond what Dems could ever stoop to.
So not a fair critique of Oliver etc. Not even close.
|
| |
Written By:
AlanDownunder
URL:
http://
|
The GOP’s attempted Schiavo exploitation is way beyond what Dems could ever stoop to. Wow, you didn’t see any prominent Democrats trying to keep Teri alive?not a fair critique of Oliver He called belief in ID/creationism "amazingly backward," did he not? So is he calling a majority of the democrats "amazingly backward" for believing in ID or creationism? Oliver had no idea that so many democrats do not accept evolution theory. He screwed up. |
| |
Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://www.qando.net
|
JWG:
A majority of the US are dud biologists because shades of literalism pervade a large slice of US religion. Naturally that majority includes a ridiculous number of both Republicans and Democrats.
The big difference I was trying to get at is the number of Republicans who want to gate crash science class with religion through government instrumentalities. Relatively few Democrat religious extremists want to participate in the gate crashing. This, like much about the Bush administration, rather turns the historic libertarian-GOP nexus on its head. |
| |
Written By:
AlanDownunder
URL:
http://
|
