Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Promoting a Comment on Science: Evolution and I.D.

I'm going to do something I think will make our blog even more interesting. We had a commenter on the thread about evolution and intelligent design that Jay started who put in some serious effort to moving the conversation forward. So, I'm moving the comment up to the main page for the edification of any who would like to read it.

The identity of the commenter is a secret. We know him only as . . . Bubba.

Here it is:

Ok, since I WAS a Science major, not a Literature or a PolySci major as it appears most of those who post are, please let me ramble on for a minute.

The "Scientific Method" starts with a hypothesis, and tries to systematically go about to prove or disprove the hypothesis. “Science” is publishing your conclusions, along with your methods and materials, so that other “scientists” may review and prove or disprove your work with their own work, thus creating an open debate.

“Science” relies upon “laws” (e.g., Gravity, Thermodynamics, Motion) which have come to be relied upon as fact after multitudes of experiments and an innumerable number of blackboards of mathematical equations seem to be able to describe and predict the outcome of experiments relative to these “laws”.

OK, where am I headed? The statement was made “Scientifically there is no debate about evolution”. Balderdash. Go read some scientific journals. Open up a “Chemistry (or Physics) For Dummies” book. Use some intellectual integrity to subject your beliefs and theories to serious scrutiny.

Evolution is a theory that has been propounded, promulgated, and legislated without the accompaniment of hard scientific experimentation and data. In fact, the theory of Evolution is believable only after one has blinded one’s self to laws of Science which have been overwhelmingly proven and been accepted as fact for hundreds of years, such as Newton’s laws of thermodynamics, and the definitions of Entropy and Enthalpy.

Alternatively, there is no debate about the veracity of Evolution only if debate has been outlawed in the public forum, or the debaters are shouted down or called “religious extremists” by those who are afraid that open, honest SCIENTIFIC debate would not substantiate their pet theory.

Q: Where did the large molecules come from?

A: They were put together from small molecules after having been zapped with solar radiation.

Q: Where did the small molecules come from?

A: Energy fused micro-molecules together.

Q: Where did the micro-molecules come from?

A: Nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms.

Q: Where did the Nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms come from (since “Matter is neither created nor destroyed”)?

A: (no answer)

Q: Where did the solar radiation or the energy required to overcome the laws of Entropy come from?

A: (no answer)

The statement was made: “…I have no problem debating it and even reconciling it, but as tbm says, ID is not science, it's religion…”

It is clear that to believe in the theory of Evolution as though it had been proven factually has become such a matter of complete 'faith', and is no less 'a religion' for its believers than the Evolutionists accuse those who believe in Intelligent Design, or “Heaven” forbid, those who believe in the Bibical account of Creation of having.

57 comments:

Kathy Hutchins said...

“Science” is publishing your conclusions, along with your methods and materials, so that other “scientists” may review and prove or disprove your work with their own work, thus creating an open debate.

You mean like this?

Now that's a debate we need to have in this country.

Hunter Baker said...

Oh, Kathy, you'll derail the flood of ardent Church of Darwin the Secular Messiah believers who are surely planning to flood the board. Give 'em a chance!

They will want to say:

"Religion is not science. The two words share no more than three letters in common."

"Any ideas about the development of species or the origin of man that differ from the Darwinian account (except the many differences from the Darwinian account made by those who still hold the "right" attitude about said account) cannot be science."

"Lots of guys named Steve think I.D. is a crock and a debate over the merits is ridiculous because they are prejudged to be so."

James F. Elliott said...

They will want to say:

"Religion is not science. The two words share no more than three letters in common."

"Any ideas about the development of species or the origin of man that differ from the Darwinian account (except the many differences from the Darwinian account made by those who still hold the "right" attitude about said account) cannot be science."


Wow, way to set up a straw man there, Hunter, and therefore assure that no such debate can occur. Bravo.

James F. Elliott said...

Nonsense. The "theory" of ID is untestable and unverifiable. It cannot be peer reviewed because it exists solely as a thought experiment. In ID, there is no rigorous methododology to be peer reviewed, merely philosophical/theological thought to be critiqued.

As has been pointed out elsewhere: It is one thing to look at things science cannot explain (yet) and to contend that it will perhaps prove a fatal flaw in a scientific theory. It is quite another to claim that it completely invalidates the theory (evolution in this case) and yet another erroneous thought entirely to argue that such a lack of explanation proves your alternative theory. That's just poor logic.

ID isn't science, and it's barely passable philosophy. It could be interesting theology, and has some implications for Christianity that haven't been fully explored - and if they were, enthusiasm might just wane.

The idea that ID proponents are not pushing a certain Judeo-Christian entity as the designer is bunk. To claim otherwise rings hollow and dishonest. It is only among uniquely American Christians that science is held in such poor esteem. You don't see Hindus arguing that ID proves the existence of Vishnu.

"Evolutionists" don't want science to be limited to natural causes, jc; all scientists must limit their explanations to natural causes because they can only observe, measure, and document natural evidence. Your "archaeological" argument is flawed: We can observe or uncover correlary evidence that allows us to infer the designer of the cave drawing. ID offers no such ability to observe or uncover correlary evidence of a biological designer.

Hunter Baker said...

James, let's take an example. Michael Behe isolates different mechanisms in very simple lifeforms that appear to be nonfunctional at any simpler stage. Sort of like if you remove the spark plugs from an engine, the engine is dead. He concludes that the notion this mechanism evolved via random selection doesn't make any sense.

What exactly about that is religious or philosophical? It sounds to me like he is making an argument via scientific reason.

James F. Elliott said...

What if the archaeologists do not uncover corroborating evidence? Suppose only attributes of the image itself suggest the existence of an artist. We might still infer an artist.

This is the same argument that leads people to "Well, if science can't recreate the conditions for something, it mustn't exist." That doesn't even make sense. That's like an IDer saying: Oh, but the Roman Arch requires man to build it - without all of the structures working together, the arch fails to function. Only problem: Arches occur in nature, too. It requires the acceptance of the conclusion - that there is an intelligent designer - as the initial premise to support all the other reasoning.

ID and macroevolution are both theories about the past; in a sense, they are more "history" than "science."

That's sheer sophistry.

Scientifically, the hypothetical designer might not be the Judeo-Christian God; ID does not address the question of "who."

So's this.

Hunter, you are referring to Behe's oft-refuted "irreduceable complexity." For Behe's logic to follow, neurotransmitter/receptor or DNA activation/deactivation sites also would never occur without "intelligent design." Essentially, he ignores the idea of systems developing together or of tandem evolution. Behe's argument reduces to "I can't think of any evolutionary mechanism that explains it, and we can't observe it now, so it must not exist." Balderdash. Not only is the argument logically unsound, it's been biologically refuted many times, including in studies BEFORE Behe wrote "Darwin's Black Box."

Hunter Baker said...

James, Behe as an actual biochemist (in good standing with the union for many years until he came out of the closet) would have a better idea of what the literature provides. In Black Box, he claims that no satisfactory explanation has been given and that the one's that claim to be satisfactory are easily shown not to be.

Hunter Baker said...

Kathy, I honestly don't care whether the theory of evolution is an accurate description of reality or not. I really don't. I basically have always felt similarly to the way you describe yourself feeling.

What frosts me is the the attitude I see from the hardcore Darwin group. I think it is appalling that you can have a perfectly brilliant scientist (and there have been many, though they don't usually come out until retirement like Fred Hoyle) and that person becomes instantly anathema if they doubt the theory at all. That's utter B.S. There's no other way to see it. The theory is being protected from critique and I think that is largely where the religious issues emerge.

James F. Elliott said...

Okay, so he "refutes" the studies from before, like A. Graham Smith's. Not having read the book, I'll give the benefit of the doubt and hope that his argument is really more involved than yours.

That said, how does he contend with the people who refute him after? It's easy to say that his theory stands up. But does it? We've got scientists like Matzke, Thornhill, Dawkins, and Schneider who have convincingly refuted his thesis. Oh yeah, and tens of thousands more who remain unconvinced.

You're right. It's all a scientific "faith" conspiracy. That makes loads of sense.

Jay D. Homnick said...

Connie mentioned as a tangent that the earth revolving around the sun was not conceived of in ancient times. This is based apparently on some history occurring between the Catholic Church and Galileo.

However, students of the Talmud (published 1500 years ago) know that it specifically refers to this matter. It mentions that the Greek scholars believed that the earth revolved around the sun while Jewish scholars believed that the sun revolved around the earth - and that the Jewish scholars backed down after a debate.

The great Jewish thinker, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746), explains in an essay that certainly the Jewish sages knew all along that the Greeks were right as a matter of physical science. They only argued from a spiritual standpoint that if God created the visual sensation for us that it is the sun that moves, then the spiritual reality is that the sun is rising in the morning and setting in the evening. Even if the physical mechanism to arrange that perception works on an inverse system to create a mirror image.

Another thing that the Talmud had right well before popular science did was the fact that the world is round.

Hunter Baker said...

James, I'll say it again to help you understand the reasoning. Read Thomas Kuhn, read Thomas Kuhn, read Thomas Kuhn.

He'll make it perfectly clear why scientific establishments resist new approaches for far too long.

Hint: There are careers, research dollars, reputations, relationships, etc. at stake.

Francis Beckwith said...

Why is everyone so obsessed with the label "science," unless the label carries with it some cultural power? At the end of the day, either one's arguments work or not. If they work, and they defeat what you call "science," so much the worse for "science" since such a view of science excludes possible defeaters to its deliverances by some epistemological litmus test. But why would anyone who thinks the truth is important want to engage such an intellectually depraved practice?

Let me highly recommend Ernst Mayer's book ONE LONG ARGUMENT: CHARLES DARWIN AND THE GENESIS (Harvard University Press, 1993). It's a wonderful and clearly written presentation of Darwin's research project. Mayer, one of the leading Darwinists of the 20th century, notes in this book that Darwin's engine for biological change--natural selection--made the design inference superfluous. All of Darwin's teachers invoked design, and Darwin understood his non-teleological theory as a better account than, and thus a defeater to, the position held by his instructors. Consequently, Mr. Elliot is wrong about design's testability. For Darwin's theory implies that one its rivals--design theory--has been tested and shown to be wanting in comparison to natural selection. Darwinism's correctness depends on the inadequacy of a design inference. This seemed obvious to Darwin, as it did to Mayer.

Amy and Jordan said...

It is clear that to believe in the theory of Evolution as though it had been proven factually has become such a matter of complete 'faith', and is no less 'a religion' for its believers than the Evolutionists accuse those who believe in Intelligent Design, or “Heaven” forbid, those who believe in the Bibical account of Creation of having.

You may find it interesting to read what Herman Bavinck has to say on the fundamental place of "faith" with respect to knowledge:

Believing in general is a very common way in which people gain knowledge and certainty. In all areas of life we start by believing. Our natural inclination is to believe. It is only acquired knowledge and experience that teach us skepticism. Faith is the foundation of society and the basis of science. Ultimately all certainty is rooted in faith.

A little later he writes:

Clement of Alexandria in many places uses πιστις to denote all immediate knowledge and certainty and then says that there is no science without belief, that the first principles, including, for example, the existence of God, are believed, not proven. Especially Augustine highlighted the significance of belief for society and science. Those who do not believe, he says, never arrive at knowledge: “Unless you have believed you will not understand.” Belief is the foundation and bond uniting the whole of human society.

This of course makes sense when you parse the definition of knowledge as justified (or warranted) true belief. But it also impacts the importance of being explicit about our principia, or first principles, which natural scientists no less than theologians possess, those things we belief completely without evidentialist or foundationalist proof.

Matt Huisman said...

Connie, I think Darwin bothers people because of statements such as the following:

"'[Evolution is] a theory in a special philosophical sense of science, but in terms of ordinary laymen's use of language, it's a fact,' said Richard Dawkins, a biologist from Oxford University, in a recent radio interview. 'Evolution is a fact in the same sense that it's a fact that the Earth is round and not flat, [that] the Earth goes round the Sun. Both those are also theories, but they're theories that have never been disproved and never will be disproved.'

These theories are hardly on the same evidential playing field. We actually have evidence that the earth is round and revolves around the sun; we can 'see' it. Macro-evolution is a really good guess that works with some assumptions about what we know happens on a small scale with materials we are familiar with. But it still has some 'issues', and the reason no one wants to speak of them is because there is an underlying worldview behind the theory that is just as (if not more) important to its purveyors than being candid.

Macro-evolution is not usually taught as a work-in-progress, with some uncertainties here or there...it is a 'fact'...it explains the origins of the universe...and therefore anyone can see that there is no longer any need to believe that there must have been a creator.

To the extent that scientists do not recognize the promulgation of their worldview in the teaching of evolution, creationists have grounds for opposing it.

Amy and Jordan said...

connie, you just articuled in nuce the reason that government is uniquely unqualified to provide education. It is never "value-free." You don't believe in the Scriptures, you should be free to send your child to a school that teaches naturalism. But I should be free to send mine to a Christian school. And neither of us should receive government subsidies or be forced to pay for the other.

Either you agree that we should have a system of real educational choice, or you just want the government to indoctrinate people into what you admit is a "minority" position.

Barry Vanhoff said...

I however want my children educated, not indoctrinated.

Connie ... you can do better than that. With my apologies to the thread police ...

You are implying many things, none of which are proven to be true:

1) the public school system does an adequate job of educating our children;

2) the public school system does not indoctrinate;

3) home-schooling (or private religous schools) do indoctrinate.

You're 0 fer 3 ...

Matt Huisman said...

From a recent Phyllis Schlafly column (I don't know if I necessarily agree with her take on the case):

The appeals court decision stated that "there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children" and that "parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed."

Say what you want about whether the school went overboard or not, but you can't deny that the court here (in the Fields v. Palmdale School District case) recognizes the right of the school district to indoctrinate as it sees fit.

Amy and Jordan said...

tbmbuzz, it's simple HTML. You can look it up.

Matt Huisman said...

tbmbuzz...easy there pal...here's a link...look at the second row.

Matt Huisman said...

Article #1 recap:

Mr. Than starts out by assuring us that Darwinism is strictly materialist science, and makes no claims regarding morals or worldview. Then he slips in the following:

Perhaps most troubling of all, Darwin's theory of evolution tells us that life existed for billions of years before us, that humans are not the products of special creation and that life has no inherent meaning or purpose.

This sounds an awful lot like a worldview to me.

Mr. Than then goes on to attack the motives/schemes of the ID crowd. This reminds me of when we used to play cards in college. The first thing we'd do is accuse the other side of cheating, so that they'd spend all of their time defending themselves while we cheated (never for money).

I'm not that enthusiastic about the whole ID approach, but it seems a bit odd to me that those promoting one worldview under cover of science would accuse others of doing the same.

James F. Elliott said...

Amy Chai,

Thank you for such a thoughtful comment. I will endeavor to respond as thoughtfully and politely as you.

The third reason for antipathy towards Darwinism has nothing at all to do with science. This is really where I stand at this point in time. I am not intellectually threatened by challenges to my belief system. In fact, I welcome challenge and debate. Unfortunately, many within the educational system do not. I think that "scientists" are more open minded than "educators" and that is what disturbs me the most. Educators are using science (just take a look at editorial cartoons to see what I am getting at...) to ridicule and discredit the worldviews of people of faith. I am speaking of social Darwinism, humanism, eugenics, and all the socio-political ramifications of the above. Christians are bright enough to perceive this hostility and a very big part of the ID issue is a backlash against this subtle to not-so-subtle intellectual discrimination.

I must respectfully disagree. Polls and studies consistently demonstrate that nearly 92% of Americans either do not believe in Darwinian evolution or believe that a Creator had a hand in it. This is consistent across social, ethnic, and educational strata, with a slight dip for scientists. Social Darwinism is a uniquely Western creation with deep roots in Protestantism, especially Calvinism, nor is it an aspect of education today, except in the results-oriented sense of today’s American culture. Eugenics, likewise, is a long-discredited theory once practiced by great numbers of this country – i.e. miscegenation laws – unless one is referring to the practice of investigating genetic variation among certain ethnicities (such as the African-American’s propensity for hypertension perhaps being due to an innate hyper-sensitivity to salt retention; a propensity that was the result of natural selection during the slave trade). Why religionists feel the need to reject humanism, I’ll never comprehend, except in that it removes a focus from the Creator. Again, education does not exactly focus on humanism, but is returning to a recognition of the importance of communitarian activity and behaviors. Religionists view - erroneously - secularism as the attack. I believe a pastor in Pennsylvania said it best when he said, “We are under attack from the intelligent, educated portion of this country.” Indeed. If being a humanist, intelligent, and educated means I’m at odds with people I have no real animosity towards, so be it.

The recent rant by Pat Robertson is a rather over-the-top expression of that pent up frustration. When you couple this with the re-writing of history texts to show Christians in a bad light (I won't go there, but I could give example after example) and sex education texts that say you are a "hateful bigot" if you think gay sex is immoral, you just have this huge blow up ready to happen. ID is simply the flashpoint.

Now, I don’t know where you live, but as someone who is involved with education policy in California and especially the “ultra-liberal” Bay Area, I’d be really shocked if you lived anywhere where this was the actual case rather than a reactionary perception. To point out the negative, along with the positives, of Christianity – or to hold a commitment to secular, non-religious education – is not an attack on Christianity. I would be shocked to find the words “hateful bigot” in a text that must pass a school board review – demographically speaking that school board should be packed with Christians - for inclusion into the curriculum. The difference between viewing gay sex as immoral and prohibiting people to make that decision for themselves (which is what secular education is addressing) is beyond night and day, and any reasonable person should be able to see that. I suspect that you do.

My solution? Yank the children from the hands of the bigoted educational system and do it better at home. I teach my kids "traditional" science, including evolutionary concepts. I present it in a way that respects our belief system. I teach "traditional" history books, but I deconstruct them, unspin them, and point out biases. I also encourage evaluating primary sources to refute the outright fallacies. Most parents can't do that. Most parents don't have the resources. They are simply angry, and they are losing their children. More power to them in the fight.

And herein we see the crux of the matter: Parents are frightened that their children are receiving contradictory information. Basically, parents don’t want to take the responsibility to discuss and reconcile their worldview with the other points of view their children will receive. Instead of being parents themselves, they demand that society as a whole validate their world view and their world view only, something that is impossible in a secular society (regardless of what that view is). Obviously, this doesn’t apply to yourself, since you have clearly taken up that responsibility. Unfortunately, you are in the minority.

There is a really interesting article in The Atlantic for December on the subject of religion in the brain. A very smart psychologist from Yale, Paul Bloom, is doing research into the Cartesian duality (the mind/body “split”). Basically, he believes that we are hard-wired to be dualists, not just socially conditioned. This makes us, in the words of Pascal Boyer, prone to a "hypertrophy of social cognition." We are conditioned to perceive purpose, intention, and design even - perhaps especially – when there isn't any. Stewart Guthrie of Fordham University conducted a series of experiments to show that humans are hypersensitive to signs of agency, seeing intention where there is only artifice and accident.

This explains why something like 92% of Americans don't believe in evolution without God. Even Richard Dawkins wrote, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” He also said "...it's almost as if the human brain is specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism."

Basically, Darwin is hard for these people to grasp because it isn't intuitive. It all comes back to "the gut." People don't like Darwinism because it feels wrong. We don't like the way its randomness makes us feel small and insignificant. So we zealously guard our perception of design, of specialty, of intent in our existence. We prefer the Creator because the Creator prevents us from facing the finiteness of our own mortality. We can imagine Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. We can imagine ghosts, separate dimensions, and an afterlife. We can’t imagine oblivion. We can’t imagine the brain being the source of the conscious mind rather than another agent of it, like our fingers, hearts, and tongues. People fear evolution because evolution brings up the possibility of ceasing to exist in more than fond memories.

Evolution feels wrong because it implies the possibility that there is no design agent at work, and so the fearful lash out against it, they deride it as a theory or an orthodoxy despite the fact that we can both see and model it in action. Even if you ignore evidence such as the oft-replicated Galapagos finches experiment, ask a scientist specializing in infectious diseases whether or not evolution is easily observable – our exponentially increasing Cold War against them is a frightening example of Darwin’s insight.

Think intelligent design through to its logical conclusion: If it is true, then our Creator is either all-knowing or all-moral. S/He cannot be both. In order to reconcile the Judeo-Christian faiths to intelligent design, you will need, as Tom Junod wrote, to create the Cult of the Really, Really Smart God. But s/he can’t be infallible. If science is not ready for intelligent design, an even better question might be: Is religion?

Matt Huisman said...

Nice post James...lots of material to wade through.

Think intelligent design through to its logical conclusion: If it is true, then our Creator is either all-knowing or all-moral. S/He cannot be both.

(I'm not sure why you make this claim. Maybe you could develop this a little further or provide a link.)

I wonder what happens, though, if you think Darwinism all the way to its logical conclusion. Don't you end up with a determinist (or probablist) position in which none of us has free will?

Tom Van Dyke said...

Mr. Huisman writes:

...goes on to attack the motives/schemes of the ID crowd. This reminds me of when we used to play cards in college. The first thing we'd do is accuse the other side of cheating, so that they'd spend all of their time defending themselves while we cheated...


Ah. The president's critics on Iraq must have gone to the same school.

Matt Huisman said...

tbmbuzz, I agree that ID has some really significant issues to overcome. But while picking on ID, it's important to recognize that Darwinism (while still the only naturalistic game in town) has a few leaks itself AND that it is not uncommon for the leading Darwinian proponents to stray a little further than the facts take them without letting the viewer/reader know that they've done so.

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

--Richard Dawkins


It's 'science' like this that cause Christians to bang their spoons on their high chairs shouting "Indoctrination! Indoctrination!"

Barry Vanhoff said...

I wonder what happens, though, if you think Darwinism all the way to its logical conclusion. Don't you end up with a determinist (or probablist) position in which none of us has free will?

Excellent question Matt. How could any concept of morality get any traction under this paradigm? What about justice?

James F. Elliott said...

Matt, thanks for the kind words and the TCS link. They usually have some good food for thought.

I'll elaborate. The line of thought has its roots in the writings of Tom Junod (a devout Christian) and Leon Weiseltier (a devout Jew). I included it because I hear lots of whining about a scientific orthodoxy not meeting its own standards (creating “epistemological litmus tests”) while the religionists clearly fail to practice what they preach, so to speak. If the ID-proponents would insert what is essentially a philosophical thought experiment into scientific curriculum, they should carry that thought experiment to its logical philosophical and theological conclusions as well.

It’s a non sequitur, but it’s my favorite Junod quote on the matter: “Religion can't change science because it can't change the terms of creation, and science is creation's handmaiden. Can science change religion? Of course it can; everything can change religion, which is one of the reasons religion is so pissed off.”

One of the many philosophical sticking points of Judeo-Christian philosophy is how could God have created such an incredibly messed up world? How can nature be so fickle, so avaricious, so downright hostile and evil if God is all-good and all-moral? Why is man so sinful? Because He installed the gift of consciousness in man – a beast capable of both virtue and predation. How is it He designed a creature in his own image – man – that is capable of such evil and exists in a natural world dependent upon sins such as avarice and violence for its very existence?

Man’s fall from Eden has always been the apologists’ answer: The world is bad to punish man for his sins. Yet God is innocent of creating such a malicious entity because it is our punishment; it’s not God’s fault, it’s ours. Evolution gives God a pass in this sense: It’s not God’s fault the world sucks, it’s just the nature of the randomness of natural selection. God is unsullied because the world just is the way it is. The untold suffering of billions of creatures is the result of mutation and natural selection, not God’s will.

Intelligent design calls Genesis into question in a way Darwin never did by seeking to reconcile the mechanisms of evolution with creationism. It doesn’t seek to explain anything – rather, it seeks to excuse that which we cannot yet explain by saying we never will be able to. Its adherents seek out “evidence” of intelligence in all places and then, rather circularly, contend that only intelligence can explain their existence. They then sophistically dance around just who this Creator is supposed to be. By doing so, however, they define the Creator solely by means of its intelligence, and only its intelligence. The Creator is unknowable scientifically – that’s how we know He’s there (an argument a freshman philosophy student should be able to poke holes in!).

Unfortunately, and here’s the crux of the matter that both Junod and Wieseltier have pointed to, this means that the Creator must be morally limited. He can either be super-intelligent in how he designed this world, or he can be innocent of the brutality of mutation and natural selection. He cannot be both.

In particular, intelligent design calls Christianity’s very hallmark into question: Without Man’s fall from Eden, there is absolutely no need for God to put his Son on the cross. Evolution and intelligent design destroy the internal consistency of Judeo-Christianity’s death-instinct (the sci-fi camp ending that is the Apocalypse, an apotheosis (I’d call it a nadir) of the human bloodlust). The real problem, as Junod says, isn’t that we’re descended from monkeys; it’s that we might not be descended from Adam. Without Adam, there is no need for Christ. Without Adam and Christ, there is no Calvary.

If man has been designed, what does he need to be redeemed from? The only answer is, as Junod says, that Christ’s crucifixion was God’s apology for (and to) his flawed creation. But if God is omnipotent – all-intelligent and all-moral – what does he need to apologize for?

Darwinism leads to agnosticism. Intelligent design really leads to something different – a repudiation of Paul’s cult, the roots of modern Christianity – and the requirement for Jews to reconcile the rift between intelligent design and Genesis. All they have in common is that they say there is a Creator. Belief must be supplanted by something else entirely – the acknowledgment that faith has no physical, rational basis. The faithful will have rely upon their feeling of God’s love, not the fervent belief of God as fact. In the end, intelligent design leads to Gnosticism, not a confirmation of religion.

Design is not new, but rather an old, old philosophical line of thought. As Wieseltier wrote, “The "argument from design," the view that the evidence for the existence of God may be found in the organization of the natural world, is an ancient argument, but philosophers have grasped, at least since the sixth section of the third chapter of the second book of the Critique of Pure Reason, that it may establish only the wisdom of a creator, and not the existence of one.” Or, as he says elsewhere, it is “…a psalm, not a proof.”

As Junod says, and I agree, “Should intelligent design be taught in schools? Hell yes, but not as science, because it's not science. It's theology, and should be taught as such—as an attempt to fashion a new understanding of God from the persuasive challenge of evolutionary theory. Evolution not only creates; it keeps creating.”

Matt Huisman said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
James F. Elliott said...

Matt, I think that Max Borders (The TCS writer) is well-refuted by Paul Bloom's article in the latest Atlantic, which I referenced in a post above. Cartesian duality, it appears, is not so easily dismissed as a mere thought experiment, but may exist, hard-wired, into our brains. It is a conundrum that I do not believe science is up to addressing quite yet.

I do not believe that evolution leads to determinism: Mutation enters a constant variable into the physical realm, and neuronal elasticity and the subjectivity of consciousness and perception would seem, to me, to inhibit such a conculsion. It is entirely possible to have agency while still being bound to the physical limits of nature.

CLA, let us assume, for the moment, that determinism is so. Perhaps then what we call morality and justice are simply nature's ways of reconciling conscious human action with homeostasis - a return to equilibrium? I don't pretend to know, I'm just engaging in a thought experiment.

Kathy Hutchins said...

James,

If you have correctly characterized Junod's arguments, then I can only conclude that he is either the worst-educated "devout Christian" of the past four centuries, or he is not a Christian at all. The theology he proposes is a complete and utter hash. "The world is bad to punish man for his sins" is the most asinine account of The Fall I have ever heard.

If you are sincerely interested in the Christian explanation of pain, you might try any number of actual Christian writers, including the current Pope, in lieu of a shallow Esquire journalist.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Ditto Kathy above. The Christian narrative is one of mercy, not of justice, which is insufficient for man's needs. If man actually got what was coming to him...

Better to read St. Anselm on Divine Attributes than Mr. Junod if you do seek an understanding of Christian thought. (Anselm is called "the second Augustine," or so the internet tells me.)

You offered a nicely crafted essay, though, JE, and I did want to thank you for it.

Matt Huisman said...

It is entirely possible to have agency while still being bound to the physical limits of nature.

Really? Where does agency come from? What is the mind? How do we become conscious? If all we are is a collection of particles bouncing around according to probabilistic natural laws (brain neurons and all), where does the control enter in? Where do I end and the rest of the unvierse begin?

I still don't see any good explanations here, but I'll have to look up Bloom. If you have a link, I'd appreciate it.

Barry Vanhoff said...

Perhaps then what we call morality and justice are simply nature's ways of reconciling conscious human action with homeostasis - a return to equilibrium? I don't pretend to know, I'm just engaging in a thought experiment.

Why the need to reconcile? Why the need to explain? Why argue (or discuss)?

Do each of us have a little box, and we want everything to fit nicely inside? Do we simply lop off the stuff that won't fit and move along our merry way?

James F. Elliott said...

Kathy, in the interest of intellectual curiosity, any chance of a link where I don't have to send the man in the big pointy hat some of my money to read what he says?

Matt, unless you're a subscriber to The Atlantic, I think you're SOL on Bloom. If you happen to be in a local bookstore, you can find the article I reference in the latest issue. It's about eight pages or so, but well worth the read.

James F. Elliott said...

It would appear that the Christian answer to suffering is to revive the old "absolute versus relative morals" debate. In the end, we return to the same circular logic problem as with intelligent design. We must accept the conclusion - the premise that God is there and all-powerful (all knowing, all moral) - in order to start along the path that reaches that very conclusion. The answering articles that I can find available all seem to point to the same direction - that human sin is the origin of pain - and this still raises the thorny issues I reiterated above.

Barry Vanhoff said...

James, in your worldview, can there be good without the existence of evil? Could we experience pleasure without understanding pain?

The idea of suffering seems to rely upon the absence of suffering.

I can see how one would come to the conclusion that God cannot allow suffering. However, what would be the point of a creation that does not allow pleasure, good, etc?

Forgive me if this is obvious, calling me a neophyte philosopher would do a disservice to the word neophyte!

Tom Van Dyke said...

Connie Deady writes:

"I would, however, welcome changes to high school curricula to teach philosophy classes in some manner which introduce students into critical thinking about the nature of the world and its origins."

Eureka.

James F. Elliott said...

I can see how one would come to the conclusion that God cannot allow suffering. However, what would be the point of a creation that does not allow pleasure, good, etc?

You'll pardon me if I don't see why you need a Creator for these things to exist at all. Their existence does not a Creator imply.

Clearly my contention is not understood - willingly or unwillingly I dare not guess. The problem is not that suffering exists. The problem is that God logically cannot create a world in which good and evil, pain and suffering and pleasure and joy exist and remain universally moral. He cannot be all-knowing and create a mechanism such as mutation and natural selection - a mechanism reliant upon avarice and ruthlessness and reckless abandon - and remain innocent of that creation. That is the quandary raised by intelligent design.

Matt Huisman said...
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Matt Huisman said...

Their existence does not a Creator imply.

I don't think CLA said they did...he's just responding to your earlier post saying that a good God couldn't allow pain.

Matt Huisman said...

One of the many philosophical sticking points of Judeo-Christian philosophy is how could God have created such an incredibly messed up world? How can nature be so fickle, so avaricious, so downright hostile and evil if God is all-good and all-moral? Why is man so sinful? Because He installed the gift of consciousness in man – a beast capable of both virtue and predation. How is it He designed a creature in his own image – man – that is capable of such evil and exists in a natural world dependent upon sins such as avarice and violence for its very existence?

Man’s fall from Eden has always been the apologists’ answer: The world is bad to punish man for his sins. Yet God is innocent of creating such a malicious entity because it is our punishment; it’s not God’s fault, it’s ours. Evolution gives God a pass in this sense: It’s not God’s fault the world sucks, it’s just the nature of the randomness of natural selection. God is unsullied because the world just is the way it is. The untold suffering of billions of creatures is the result of mutation and natural selection, not God’s will.


It’s hard for me to see how evolution gives God a pass. Either God created and allowed the evolutionary process (which puts us back to your original questions) or it is beyond God’s control, and he is therefore not omnipotent. Christians, Junod excluded, state that God is responsible (regardless of mechanism), and deal with the consequences of this understanding.

Which brings us back to the problem of how could God allow so much pain. I’ll leave you with two thoughts, and then refer you to C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain. The first thought has to do with the purpose of pain. Pain lets us know that something is wrong, and it does so in a way that makes it hard to ignore. The second concept is the difference between kindness and love. Kindness is satisfied with pacifying someone’s immediate concerns; love is a complete care for someone that seeks to enable the beloved to reach their full potential and is willing to suffer to see it.

What if ‘sin’ is more than isolated disobedience…what if it’s a rebellion from the way things should be (assuming your best interest in mind)? Would you prefer blissfull contentment or pain, kindness or love? Christianity says that pain has a specific purpose that is for our benefit, not merely to satisfy some notion of justice.

(Side Note: It also says that gifts and talents, pain and trials will not be distributed equally, but that we will all be judged according to that which we have been given.)

James F. Elliott said...

I don't think CLA said they did...he's just responding to your earlier post saying that a good God couldn't allow pain.

But that's not what I said at all. I said an innocent God, an all-moral God, cannot. It's not the same thing. God can still be good; after all, intent and responsibility are two far different things. Intelligent design, taken to its logical conclusion, means God takes responsibility for both the good and the bad in his Creation, something both Judeo-Christianity and Darwinism have given Him a pass on.

Barry Vanhoff said...
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Barry Vanhoff said...

With all due respect James, you opened a bodily orifice, reached in, and pulled out:

an innocent God, an all-moral God, cannot [allow pain]

This requires you to make an assumption about the nature of pain.

I don't get it...

Matt Huisman said...

Just looking to clarify here James…

You are saying that God cannot be innocent or moral because:
1) He set up a system that allowed the possibility for suffering
2) He set up a system knowing that the possibility for suffering would be triggered
3) The suffering mechanism is too severe
4) The suffering mechanism is too randomly (unfairly) distributed

Are any of these on track?

James F. Elliott said...

Let's try this, for the sake of argument:

To be innocent of the cause of suffering - and again, you're reducing my contention rather simplistically, but it works for now - one (i.e. God) must not know that suffering (a broad, catch-all term, not merely physical pain) will result from your actions, thus absolving responsibility for those consequences.

The act of creating a system (i.e. natural selection and its accompanying mechanisms (predation, etc.)) or a creature (and its accompanying abilities such as free will, predation, etc)is an action.

According to intelligent design, the Creator designed the creatures and their mechanism for survival and adaptation: natural selection.

Natural selection mechanically relies upon acts of predation, suffering, bloodlust, etc. to complete its designed function.

According to Judeo-Christianity (and most ID-adherents), God is all-knowing, all-intelligent and all-moral (this is where some IDers will have to part ways).

If God is all-knowing, he must have had foreknowledge of the mechanisms he was putting in place and their concomitant results and consequences.

If God knew what he was doing, then he cannot have failed to know that consequences like suffering (i.e. predation, bloodlust, etc) would result.

If he knew this, then he cannot remain innocent (i.e. shed responsibility) of such results.

If he is not innocent, he is not all-moral.

Suffering in this context does not mean merely a physical sensation - the reductionist argument of C.S. Lewis et al. does not work here. Neither am I arguing (in this case) against the existence of God. I am pointing out that for adherents of intelligent design who also wish to remain faithful Judeo-Christians, they will have to reconcile the logical conclusions with their faith, which will result in the end of the assumption that God is omnipotent (hence Junod's Really, Really Smart God) in order for God to retain the greater part of his moral standing. Whether God is "good" or not is a question of intent, and has no bearing on his innocence in this regards.

Barry Vanhoff said...

James ... I *think* I understand your point, but aren't you implicitly stating that suffering is a negative consequence?

In other words, God's innocence is tied directly to your definition of suffering.

Perhaps God's definition of suffering has nothing to do with yours; might he be more concerned about one's soul?

James F. Elliott said...

So then you're saying that it all comes down to semantics and therefore subjectivity?

It's rather refreshing to hear a religionist argue for relativity.

Barry Vanhoff said...

James ... as usual semantics has nothing to do with it.

You make a presumption of what God would be like, then draw conclusions.

Christians believe that God made man in his image, not the other way around.

If you want to claim that there is "relativity" in that God thinks different than humans, I agree.

James F. Elliott said...

You make a presumption of what God would be like, then draw conclusions.

Poppycock. I use the very same reason and rationality that Christians are so "famous" for and prove a point. So far the refutations have consisted of nothing more than endless parsing, misinterpreting, and circular reasoning.

If you want to claim that there is "relativity" in that God thinks different than humans, I agree.

That's the ultimate cop out. "God is wholly other therefore we cannot understand Him." If that's the case, the entire Judeo-Christian tradition of claiming it is rational and reasoned is merely pretention. You can't have it both ways without tacitly admitting that there is no basis, merely faith. The entire response to my logic has been a Clintonian "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is."

Barry Vanhoff said...

James ... you are using Universal Morality to make your argument when you make the assumption that God would not create bad.

Are you claiming that for me to refute your argument I would have to refute Universal Morality?

I really am trying to iunderstand your logic.

Matt Huisman said...

If God is all-knowing, he must have had foreknowledge of the mechanisms he was putting in place and their concomitant results and consequences.

If God knew what he was doing, then he cannot have failed to know that consequences like suffering (i.e. predation, bloodlust, etc) would result.

If he knew this, then he cannot remain innocent (i.e. shed responsibility) of such results.

If he is not innocent, he is not all-moral.


I think we’re going to have some trouble here. The problem with arguing with (most) Christians about the origins is that we believe that creation was morally perfect until Adam and The Fall. We believe in an omnipotent God, that has ‘presto’ abilities, and so while the topic is interesting, our faith does not require that we have a workable creation model beyond that. [This is not as lame of an answer as it may seem; materialistic origin explanations have their own ‘presto’ issues.] To me, ID and evolution are only possible tools in the hand of God, and they cannot overrule the pre-Fall story.

The story of The Fall puts the blame on Adam, and the offer of Christ is a redemptive act of love from the creator. It is not an apology born of moral guilt. Any reading of the concept of atonement in the Old Testament makes this perfectly clear. Junod’s faith may be sincere, but it’s well outside the bounds of orthodoxy, and should be treated accordingly.

If you want to argue with a Christian about how a good God could allow the kind of suffering we see in the world, you have to do it on a post-Fall basis, because we don’t believe it existed prior to then.

Suffering in this context does not mean merely a physical sensation - the reductionist argument of C.S. Lewis et al. does not work here.

Where do you get the idea that Lewis regards suffering as only physical pain?

James F. Elliott said...

I really am trying to iunderstand your logic.

No, CLA, you're playing a gigantic semantic game in order to avoid cognitive dissonance. My logic is very clear and straightforward. You are very, very clearly deliberately misunderstanding a very clear argument vis a vis innocence and responsibility, not good and bad.

James F. Elliott said...

The problem with arguing with (most) Christians about the origins is that we believe that creation was morally perfect until Adam and The Fall. We believe in an omnipotent God, that has ‘presto’ abilities, and so while the topic is interesting, our faith does not require that we have a workable creation model beyond that...

...The story of The Fall puts the blame on Adam, and the offer of Christ is a redemptive act of love from the creator.


Yes, this is my point. ID calls all that into question. Again, the logic is pretty straightforward here. You're putting the cart before the horse in order to avoid it. And to be frank, I'm done with your idiot semantic games.

Matt Huisman said...

James, I'm sorry that this conversation went on too long. There were a couple of instances where I thought you were extending your argument to address naturalistic conditions and suffering post-Fall, and I wanted to pursue those thoughts.

As for 'idiot semantic games', that wasn't my intent. I was assuming you understood my side's limitations (we believe things were good until The Fall), not realizing that Tom Junod exists, and that he might now be perceived as having mainline/orthodox Christian thoughts.

James F. Elliott said...

(we believe things were good until The Fall),

Yes, Matt, I did get that. I got it a long time ago. The whole point is that intelligent design, taken to its logical conclusion, is wholly and completely incongrous with that line of thought because it never questions the mechanisms of natural selection and random genetic mutation. I apologize if my irritation makes me snappish, but I really feel like it's a basic, simple point (not making it correct - I mean, who can really say?) in a logical thought experiment.

James F. Elliott said...

From the article: "Newton's religiosity was traditional. He was a staunch believer in Christianity and member of the Church of England"

He was also a homosexual and all messed up on mercury poisoning most of the time, but hey, those are just details.

Hunter Baker said...

My understanding is that Newton was not classically orthodox, but that he would be classifiable as a Christian. He had a great interest in the Bible and was a serious student of Bible prophecy.

I haven't heard the stuff about having a chemical problem. That's probably in the area of disputed stuff, but has gained a lot of currency like the Thomas Jefferson - Sally Hemmings love story.