Another kerfuffle over Theistic Evolution has broken out in response to PZ Myers' complaint about Mitt Romney [Mitt Romney, theistic evolutionist…and this is supposed to be a good thing?]. I've been reading the comments over at Good Math, Bad Math [Religion != ID]. There are others such as the discussion on Primordial Blog [Theistic Evolution].Update: PZ asks someone to explain to him the difference between Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design Cretionism [Romney redux]. So far nobody's been able to do it. Stay tuned, read the comments over on Pharyngula.
Part of the problem is that we don't have a universally agreed upon definition of Theistic Evolution. The Wikipedia site does a pretty good job of covering all the possibilities [Theistic Evolution] based mostly on the original statement by Eugenie Scott [The Creation/Evolution Continuum] who says ....
Theistic Evolution is the theological view that God creates through evolution. Astronomical, geological and biological evolution are acceptable to TEs They vary in whether and how much God is allowed to intervene -- some come pretty close to Deists. Other TEs see God as intervening at critical intervals during the history of life (especially in the origin of humans), and they in turn come closer to PCs. In one form or another, TE is the view of creation taught at mainline Protestant seminaries, and it is the official position of the Catholic church. In 1996, Pope John Paul II reiterated the Catholic TE position, in which God created, evolution happened, humans may indeed be descended from more primitive forms, but the hand of God was needed for the creation of the human soul. (John Paul II, 1996).As I stated in my essay [Theistic Evolution: The Fallacy of the Middle Ground], the true deist end of the continuum does not conflict with science but most other versions do.
Let's look at the version promoted by Francis Collins in his book The Language of God. This version seems to be closer to the popular versions than the benign deist versions. Collins lists six premises of Theistic Evolution (page 200).
- The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion years ago.
- Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.
- While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time.
- Once evolution got under way, no special supernatural intervention was required.
- Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.
- But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout our history.
Miracles do not pose an irreconcilable conflict for the believer who trusts in science as a means to investigate the natural world, and who sees that the natural world is ruled by laws. If, like me, you admit that there might exist something or someone outside of nature, then there's no logical reason why that force could not on rare occasions stage an invasion. On the other hand, in order for the world to avoid descending into chaos, miracles must be very uncommon.I think points #2 and #6 and the issue of miracles, all impinge on science. This is why Theistic Evolution conflicts with science although we all admit that the conflict is less obvious that the conflict between science and Young Earth Creationism.
What's at stake here is the separation of science and religion discussed by Stephen Jay Gould in Rock of Ages. He proposed that science and religion could be Non-overlapping Magisteria (NOMA). What this means is that religion is okay as long as it sticks to things that do not conflict with science. I'm not a big fan of NOMA but the basic concept is worth adopting as a point of discussion. Does the Collins version of Theistic Evolution respect the NOMA Principle?
Here's how Gould describes it (pages 93-94).
The fallacies of such fundamentalist extremism can be easily identified, but what about a more subtle violation of NOMA commonly encountered among people whose concept of God demands a loving deity, personally concerned with the lives of all his creatures—and not just an invisible and imperious clockwinder? Such people often take a further step by insisting that their God mark his existence (and his care) by particular factual imprints upon nature. Now science has no quarrel whatsoever with anyone's need or belief in such a personalized concept of divine power, bu NOMA does preclude the additional claim that such a God must arrange the facts of nature in a certain set and predetermined way. For example, if you believe that an adequately loving God must show his hand by peppering nature with palpable miracles, or that such a God could only allow evolution to work in a manner contrary to to facts of the fossil record (as a story of slow and steady liner progress toward Homo sapiens for example), then a particular and partisan (and minority) view of religion has transgressed into the magisterium of science by dictating conclusions that must remain open to empirical test and potential rejection.So, what do you think, dear readers? Does the idea that the universe is "precisely tuned for life" involve a transgression of religion into the proper domain of science? Does the idea that "humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation" violate NOMA? Are miracles compatible with science?
I think the Collins version of Theistic Evolution is not compatible with science and therefore Collins has not resolved the conflict between science and religion. I think that most versions of Theistic Evolution conflict with science. The only version that's compatible is one that should be called Deistic Evolution.
45 comments :
I'd have to say that #1 is somewhat odd, in that it specifies "out of nothing". This oversteps the scientific consensus that the universe was hot and dense 14 Gyr ago. I don't see any reason why that means the universe was created "out of nothing", unless someone specifically wants to imply a creator. Doing so rules out some valid hypotheses, such as various cyclical universe models.
As far as the "precisely tuned for life" argument, that's simply playing god-of-the-gaps. The apparent fine-tuning of physical constants is something that physicists are working on, and there's no reason to believe they won't solve those issues. This happened twenty years ago in cosmology, when experiments first found the universe to be extraordinarily flat. That got everyone up in arms over fine-tuning, until Alan Guth proposed the model of Inflation, which provided a natural explanation for the flatness problem. I see no reason why similar advances cannot be made on the other fine-tuning problems.
So overall, I think it's just god of the gaps again, although they picked some new and tricky gaps.
Tuning => transgression: No
Super Humans violate NOMA: Yes
Miracles compatible with science: No
I've thought for years that Theistic Evolution was a slippery concept that covered a range of possibel views, some of which are problematic. And I agree that Collins has crossed the line when he appeals to fine tuning, and to human moral (or other) uniqueness.
To me, the essence of creationism (including ID) is not whether you think that God exists and in some sense "runs" the universe, but whether you think his action is detectable -- that there is some feature or phenomenom uniquely (or best) explicable by Divine intervention.
Now, I think it is legitimate to question whether it is meaningful to say that God runs the universe, if you can't point to the places the control strings are attached. However, I am for the moment agnostic on that question, and it's not about science, anyway.
I agree that theistic evolution does not make for great science. And as I've noted before, Collins goes way over the line when he starts babbling about miracles. I'm surprised that a scientist of Collin's stature would make such silly arguments. However, there is a huge difference between scientists and the general public.
The point I was making on my blog is that when religious people (especially politicians) begin to start accepting evolution they will probably feel the need to qualify it somehow with an explanation that they still believe in god. Thus it is an inevitable part of the process that people will turn to "theistic" evolution.
Is it great science? Not really. Is it the final goal? No. But I do see it as a positive first step both to the acceptance of science and of the diminishment of religion, especially of the fundamentalist brand.
It's a fairly specific problem here, too. Romney was explicitly stating that God designed the universe and created human beings; he wasn't just mouthing vague platitudes about a god being somehow involved. Yet we've got people on Panda's Thumb calling it "pro-science". I've heard the NOMA argument often enough (I don't agree with it) that this god-talk is somehow orthogonal to scientific thinking and therefore doesn't conflict with it; this was going a step further and calling god-talk scientific. I am rather appalled that so few of us are protesting this gross violation.
I am also mightily fed up with the argument from political expediency. Over and over, I hear that we're outnumbered by the theists, so we have to suck up to them and cooperate with them and, implicitly, treat them as our betters and the people who will lead the great unwashed public to the joy of science.
Bullshit.
They will be working alongside us, and vice versa, but it should not imply that we have to respect their idiotic ideas about the magic man in the sky. What are they going to do? Stop defending science because there are atheists lurking in the moat?
Miracles compatible with science: No
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-- Arthur C. Clarke
(this seemed poignant somehow)
Besides, Collins advocates a one-off approach to miracles. He isn't talking about recurrent phenomena.
For instance, and I'm playing the devil's advocate here, science cannot sufficiently resolve the origin of life, because the miracle of life was provided by God. However, all current life has evolved by evolution (etc.) from that one spark of life. Thus a miracle coexists with science. !
I think Collins tries to find a compromise in the debate science vs. religion. So he tries to define the smallest possible common ground.
However, I think that his (concious or unconcious) goal is to sneak religion into science. In that he is not much different than all other religious scientists, he just tries to avoid a complete clash. probably merely for tactical reasons.
I agree that Collins can't really tell what science is about.
What would be deistic evolution?
I suggest that we use that to describe someone who believes in god and evolution but understands clearly that god or anything supernatural can never be part of a scientific explanation.
Even if a deistic evolutionist believes in certain miracles, they must ackowledge this is not a scientific belief, but an article of faith.
The participation of supernatural forces in the evolution of life on earth at ANY point can not be scientific.
Collins should acknowledge this openly, that these are not scientific explanations. This is true even if he thinks no scientific explanation is possible for morality.
"Does the idea that the universe is "precisely tuned for life" involve a transgression of religion into the proper domain of science?"
I'd say that conflicts with facts, like most of the universe does not have conditions allowing life, and the fact that most species have gone extinct, etc. It is a controversial statement at best. If they use this statement to imply a god or some supernatural happenstance is involved, they have clearly leapt into non-scientific explanations. Science does not deal with the existence of god.
"Does the idea that "humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation" violate NOMA?"
Yes
"Are miracles compatible with science?"
No
It was enjoyable to get the occasion to read Scott's and Moran's texts again. They were helpful a few years back when I first studied the oxymoron of "theistic evolution".
I still agree that science methods (including "methodological naturalism") are well tested by their success. When creationists in turn imposes creation of the universe, of life, of species, or of minds, they pervert the young sciences of cosmology, abiogenesis, evolution and neuroscience.
This in the face of the latter's proven or considered ability to explain these things, sometimes with outright theories or science programs. That theologists have given up messing with older or neutral sciences such as classical and quantum mechanics doesn't absolve them from being "old perverts".
Accepting NOMA for the sake of argument, what is not antithetical, in one form or other, to scientific theories or methods were applicable? Well, so far I can't argue much with a pantheist that says something to the effect of 'the love of existence shows itself in being' since it is nonoperative. In the words of Pauli: "it isn't even wrong". (Right, I still don't like it much. :-)
Btw, I was surprised to read in Wikipedia on Scott that "NCSE is religiously neutral", since it seems like an interest organization for christian theists and TE's. For example, when Scott writes "evolutionary creationism is actually a type of evolution" she purposefully avoid the problem with conflating ideas outside the set of alternative theories science works on with the later.
"Are miracles compatible with science?"
No.
And since a (devil's) advocate for miracles showed up, I will stress that I think we are discussing a hardcore incompatibility here, not something that can easily be specially pleaded by handwaving.
Specifically, I think that there may be at least three different technical reasons why we can't propose injecting non-physical interactions into the causal web of spacetime without having it blowing up in our faces. So I am quite tired of baseless miracle claims.
Thusly, roundly provoked here and on earlier threads, I will sketch (or rant :-) one - bear with me if you can, and sorry if it destroys the thread.
Let's call it handwaving without special pleading. And I genuinely believe that these types of speculations are different from TE arrogance, since it suggests theoretical no-go results like similar others such as quantum cloning et cetera.
First though, the theological objection "but what if it isn't injection, but wholesale universal manipulation". Yes, what of it? How would it be different from simulation scenarios, last thursdays, or other relations to the dear comfort of untestable solipsism?
It would have nothing to do with current science theory. And it would be bad theology in having lying gods of course. Essentially the old 'goddidit stops all answers' dodge, but with a nasty twist.
So instead, suppose instead that some supernatural agent tries to locally observe or otherwise interact with current physics. It will be looking for all we know as an uncaused phenomena, effectively a completely new kind of physics appearing locally.
(Even as a proposed highly improbable quantum fluctuation, making say first life, because of the need for observations in placing it correctly in spacetime in the first place. No intervention loophole here, lets' move on. :-)
Aha! Today the later is studied in string theory and cosmology as bubble domains, with domain walls occurring. Why not look at thusly nowadays modelable consequences?
Now, it is possible, even probable, that the current construction of domain walls rely on a difference in vacua, who set the different resulting effective physics from an underlying fundamental one. Too many years of studies between myself and a reliable claim here. ;-)
But personally I would want to see someone constructing a realistic unobtrusive interface between our current physics and another one. It must mimic current physics while adding 'a miracle', without a difference in vacuum energy as experienced by our physics.
Domain walls are usually expanding close to the speed of light, since they are supposed to be stabler lower energy vacua resulting from tunneling of our metastable vacua. But we could also possibly have (from our side experienced) higher energy 'miracle physics'.
It would presumably collapse after the interaction is cut. And not nicely too, removing all traces of 'the miracle', of life say, and generally wreaking havoc in a sudden, quite observable, energy release.
At least one of the two remaining reasons I think needs to be taken care of leads to a similar "small bang of miracle theology", which usually is taken as a heartening pointer of something worthwile in the models. Miracles, my ass!
I wish I could understand what you said. Very rantish, congratulations!
I think you mentioned abiogenesis as a science. How is it a science when there is no natural record of it and it hasn't been demonstrated insofar as I know? The stuff in abiogenesis amounts to educated speculation in the right direction, but to call it science is a bit of a stretch, is it not?
People are always going to struggle when they try to support science and also religion. It's difficult to make the two paradigms line up. I think it's a positive step forward when politicians and clergy can accept science, even with some kind of god thrown in, but it's just a step, and not even all that big of a step. There's still a long way to go in supporting science unequivocally.
I agree that the Francis Collins version of TE is not wholly compatible with science. However, he is the exception to the rule as far as TEs go. Most TEs in my experience believe that God acts through natural law, not that you need supernatural intervention in order for God to have a role in the universe.
On the scientific issues, most TEs (again, with some exceptions) are identical to atheists and agnostics in every way. They just throw a God on top of everything, but they're careful to say that their religious beliefs aren't a scientific proposition.
Now if you can't see the difference between that and what the creationists believe, there's something very wrong.
PZ wrote:
It's a fairly specific problem here, too. Romney was explicitly stating that God designed the universe and created human beings; he wasn't just mouthing vague platitudes about a god being somehow involved. Yet we've got people on Panda's Thumb calling it "pro-science".
Has it not occurred to you that when TE's say that "God designed the universe and created human beings", they mean something wholly different than what the fundamentalists mean?
Abiogenesis is perfectly good science, and the only truly scientific approach is to study the origin of life in mechansitic terms, to figure out what were the conditions and sequences of events that lead to the origin of life.
Any other attitude towards the origin of life is non-scientific. Mysterianism" becomes an excuse; if you look into the matter, there are advances in the origin of life that are to walk around proudly with a high chest.
"The stuff in abiogenesis amounts to educated speculation in the right direction, but to call it science is a bit of a stretch, is it not?"
Tell that to the published researchers. Searching the term, I get 613 papers in Google Scholar, and 1025 in PLoS biology alone, for starters.
Steve Reuland says,
Has it not occurred to you that when TE's say that "God designed the universe and created human beings", they mean something wholly different than what the fundamentalists mean?
I think we can separate the true fundamentalist Young Earth Creationists from the Theistic Evolutionists. It's much more difficult to separate Theistic Evolution from Intelligent Design Creationism since they both believe that God had a hand in creating the universe.
The two groups overlap to a considerable extent. For example, it's not clear to me that Ken Miller and Francis Collins are different from Michael Denton or even Michael Behe. Both Denton and Behe accept evolution and common descent yet they are lumped in with Intelligent Design Creationism and not Theistic Evolution.
Perhaps you could answer the challenge that PZ (and I) have posed? What's the most significant difference between Collins and Denton?
Why not challenge us to find the difference between Ken Miller and Denton? Collins seems to me a very bad, easy to rebutt theistic evolutionist when compared to Miller. As always PZ can only handle bozos or strawmen
As far as I know from his talks, Ken Miller does offer some "metaphysical" thoughts of what he thinks are consistencies between the evolutionary process and the existence of god...but he has done nothing like advocating a role for the supernatural at any point instead of a scientific explanation; nor will he ever say that he somehow has scientific proof of god. Correct me if I'm wrong, becuase those are the points that I consider to set a clear difference from ID and Collins.
Another thing: Behe and any ID'er expresses doubts about common descent, whih is about as scientific as expressing doubts on continental drift: that is, in conflict with standing scientific knowledge, for which these facts are well-established.
Others in ID, like Dembsky, are flat out against common descent. Common descent IS a huge difference between ID and theistic evolutionists. You will not find someone in the ID crew that will flat out approve transitional fossils, apemen etc. Just look at the trial, the pandas and people book. I was shocked at the unapologetic creationism of ID.
It's much more difficult to separate Theistic Evolution from Intelligent Design Creationism since they both believe that God had a hand in creating the universe.
It is tough to tell the difference. The only difference seems to be that ID'ers believe "design" is obviously detectable in saltationist jumps, whereas Theistic Evolutionists believe it is more subtle. Ken Miller seems to suggest that God uses QM in subtle ways to influence evolution and control the universe.
Think about it: if the ID people stop saying that apemen are a disgusting, unscientific fraud...their social leverage and funding is lost forever. People at church WANT their "scientists" to tell them that evolution is BS. THAT is what they EXPECT from them.
What pZ fears with his ususal paranoid slant is ridiculous: that ID be relabeled evolution. No church is going to go with that. The proposal would be dead at birth. But of course!
The big difference between TE and ID is that TE accepts the possibility of a God lending a hand in some of the stickier issues of universe creation and the formation of life, while ID demands it, and thinks to prove it. I think that is a huge difference in premise.
Alipios says,
Why not challenge us to find the difference between Ken Miller and Denton?
Okay. I challenge you to identify the significant differences between Miller and Denton.
Let me help you out by quoting from Denton's latest book Nature's Destiny.
Because this book presents a teleological interpretation of the cosmos which has obvious theological implications, it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science—that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes.
Good luck.
Larry writes:
Perhaps you could answer the challenge that PZ (and I) have posed?
Um, I did. So have about a dozen other people. The fact that you and PZ refuse to acknowledge the answer doesn't mean that no one has provided one.
To repeat: Most TEs (there are some exceptions) believe that God operates through natural law and that it isn't necessary to believe in supernatural interventionism. IDists believe the exact opposite. They believe that when God does something, it must be a miracle. Although they might grudgingly concede that God could act purely through natural law, they say that this would make God superfluous which allows the perfidious skeptics to run wild (and they're right about that). Therefore they perceive God as miracle maker and magic man.
In practical terms, this means that TEs have no problem with natural evolution, or anything else in science, whereas the IDists have declared jihad against it. I'd say that's a pretty obvious difference. And while no one should feel any obligation to agree with TEs, I think it's silly and counterproductive to declare them the enemy.
P.S. I'm not sure why you chose Michael Denton as the canonical example of an IDist, given that he's almost entirely disavowed his ID affiliations. If you pick someone who is nowhere close to being a representative IDist, then of course it's going to be hard to tell his views apart from that of a TE.
And one other thing before I go and run a gel:
I find it rather ironic that the IDists have in effect issued the exact same challenge, but in reverse. They want someone to tell them how TE is any different than atheism. To them, they can't see a difference. Just read what Phillip Johnson has to say about TE.
Yet we're supposed to believe that the IDists and the TEs are one and the same? How is that possible when the IDists and TEs themselves vehemently disagree that they're the same?
Are you kidding me? Isn't Denton a creationist? I haven't read him, but I understand he is.
A creationist is any one who at any point denies evolution and subsititutes it for an unknown mechanism of sudden appereance of a complex organism (such as humans)
Of course, they do not admit they have escaped reason or naturalism or anything (they have though!). Rather, they will claim to have made a perfectly scientific, faithless demonstration that common descent is impossible. The intervention of a creator is therefore presented as the only "rational" explanation, "making sense".
It is worthwhile, therefore, repeating myself: hails to science, reason,and nature are superficial and vacuous, anyone can make them.
Alipio wrote:
Are you kidding me? Isn't Denton a creationist?
No, not even close. See this review of Nature's Destiny:
http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho29.htm
Of course Denton wrote a previous book that could be called creationist, but he apparently changed his mind.
Hmmm after checking a little, Denton is not against common descent... but curiosly enough, that is no enough to make a sound evolutionary deist, and he is still clearly distinguishable from Miller. In fact, it is not difficult to see why Denton is loved by creationists, whereas Miller smells to them like the lake of sulphur.
Denton centers his "scientific" basis on criticizing evolutionary theory, yet rather than coming up with alternative scientific explanations, he treats those weaknesses as support for godly intervention!! This is not constructive criticims within science; this is not an attitude compatible with science at all. Even if he accepts common descent, he is implicating that what we do not understand must be filled in with an non-scientific explanation.
This line of argumentation is used exactly the same way by creationists. it is another failed attempt of "scientifically proving" that god exists (regardless of the fact Denton accepts common descent).
In other words, the main difference is that Denton fosters the notion that criticism of evolutionary theory equals scientific evidence for godly intervention.. common descent,
Does Miller attempt to prove "scientifically" that god exists? The difference could be as simple as that.
To Torbjorn, I just searched PLoS Biology with abiogenesis, and I came up with zero. I think their search isn't working now, but I think I can address Google scholar: many of the hits are like abiogenesis of organic chemicals. Not precisely something like the RNA world or whatever when a scientist talks about the origin of life. The paucity of articles proves my point that much of it is speculation.
Of course there is lots of speculation surrounding the origin of life, as in many scientific topics, but ifg you actually STUDIED the topic you would know that importnata advances have indeed been made, both conceptually and empirically, and further, you could weed out the less satisfactory hypotheses ( I do not accept the RNA world but prefer the concept of the heterotrophic origin of life of Gunter Wachterhauser) Have you ever heard about "biochemical retroduction", for instance? That is a great approach. More information is available than what you think.
50 years ago we knew appallingly little in comparison to what we know today, yet then, as today, it was unscientific to propose anything supernatural could have happened.
sorry, not heterotrophis, AUTOTROPHIC origin of life, that wactherahuser's hypothesis.
I tend to think of "theistic evolution" as "evolution and theism". Basically, someone is a "theistic evolutionist" if they are a theist and an evolutionist.
By evolution, I mean conventional scientific evolutionary biology.
To the extent that someone introduces modifications to conventional evolutionary biology as a way for God to be involved, they are not being a "theistic evolutionist". To the extent that they can see God in the workings of conventional evolutionary biology, they are being a theistic evolutionist.
I agree with much that has been said here about Collins. He strikes me as making a lot of silly statements about evolution. He thought evolution had "stopped" for humans, and that morality needs some kind of non-evolutionary account. Neither of these are theistic evolution, as I understand the term.
Whether TE is a sensible way to think of God is of course debatable, and should be debated. But with a genuine TE, this is a theological debate. You can't do a thing against a TE by establishing the kinds of facts that are part of evolutionary biology. You rather have to address the consistency of their reconciliation of that with God.
For myself, I'm an atheist and materialist; I don't think there are any Gods involved anywhere anyhow anywhen.
Larry concludes by suggesting that the only truly compatible version should be called Diestic Evolution -- that is, God set it up and has been hands off ever since.
There is another version, however, that is more consistent with traditional Christian theology. John Polkinghorne seems to represent this kind of view. This is the notion that God (somehow) continually maintains the cosmos; not in the sense of tweaking or directing it, but in the sense of continuously sustaining it.
Whether this view makes any sense is, of course, something on which there will be strenuous disagreement. There's no good empirical reason to postulate any need for such a sustaining activity. It seems to be a convenient fiction that allows a theist to think of God active today while also recognizing that this "action" has no measurable consequence.
But it is, nevertheless, another way in which a theist can be an evolutionist. Here's a sample, from God in Relation to Nature (1998):
"… One way of meeting the second need, and one which is common to all Christian thinking about God's action, is the recognition of the timeless and transcendent role of the Creator in holding the creation in being, moment by moment of its existence. In Hebrew terms, this is described by the uniquely divine word, bara; in theological terms, it corresponds to the concept of general providence. It makes God party to each event to the extent of the exercise of the divine permissive will in allowing that event to happen, but it does not imply that God actively desires that this should be so. Such sustaining activity has no conceivable human analogue and so it is a clear mark of divine uniqueness."
If evolutionists want to end the arguments all they need do is, get their brilliant heads together and assemble a 'simple' living cell. This should be possible, because today they certainly have a very great amount of knowledge about the contents of the so-called 'simple' cell.
After all, shouldn't all the combined Intelligence of all the worlds scientist be able the do what chance encounters with random chemicals, without a set of instructions, accomplished about 4 billion years ago, 'according to the evolutionists,' and having no intelligence at all available to help them along in their quest to become a living entity. Surely the evolutionists scientists of today should be able to make us a 'simple' cell.
If it weren't so pitiful it would be humorous, that intelligent people have swallowed the evolution mythology.
Beyond doubt, the main reason people believe in evolution is that sources they admire, say it is so. It would pay for these people to do a thorough examination of all the evidence CONTRARY to evolution that is readily available: Try answersingenesis.org. The evolutionists should honestly examine the SUPPOSED evidence 'FOR' evolution for THEMSELVES.
Build us a cell, from scratch, with the required raw material, that is with NO cell material, just the 'raw' stuff, and the argument is over. But if the scientists are unsuccessful, perhaps they should try Mother Earth's recipe, you know, the one they claim worked the first time about 4 billion years ago, so they say. All they need to do is to gather all the chemicals that we know are essential for life, pour them into a large clay pot and stir vigorously for a few billion years, and Walla, LIFE!
Oh, you don't believe the 'original' Mother Earth recipe will work? You are NOT alone, Neither do I, and MILLIONS of others!
THe demand of making a cell is like demanding Rome be built in a day. Already we can synthesize basic components of the cell, and other not so basic ones, too. Chemical spheres have been made that uptake "food", grow and replicate.
And of course, the current hypothesized system for the origin of life is not a claypot stirred for billions of years, haha
An actual proposal is that chemical polimerization occurred on surfaces,with catalytic metals suchas iron, in a reductive environment with chemical and thermal inputs of energy, conditions like those currrently observed in sub-oceanic vents, where the most ancient surviving life forms dwell in nowadays.
And, there was no such thing as waiting billions of years. Actually, we know from fossils that life happened almost as soon as the earth was cool enough, so no long waiting for something incredibly improbable was involved.
But all of this can be irrelevnat if we have philosophical clarity, of what is and what isn't a scientific explanation. No matter how crappy were the state of our knowledge (which it isn't), god is not the scientific way of explaining our origins.
Notice this does not imply that god does not exist, Some people get confused and think evoution refutes god. Maybe becuase of this, they feel the need to say that current evolutionary knowledge is BS. But if we keep it to scientific explanations, evolution is an inescapable conclusion.
Beyond doubt, the main reason people believe in evolution is that sources they admire, say it is so.
Maybe they believe it because it's the only explanation that makes any sense.
All they need to do is to gather all the chemicals that we know are essential for life, pour them into a large clay pot and stir vigorously for a few billion years, and Walla, LIFE!
"In the beginning was the Word." What word? AbraCadabra? We just need to figure out what word God used, and we can save ourselves alot of time.
Why does life have to be a cell? Cellular chauvinism, I say!
Steve Reuland says,
To repeat: Most TEs (there are some exceptions) believe that God operates through natural law and that it isn't necessary to believe in supernatural interventionism.
I'm not aware of any prominent Theistic Evolutionists who deny miracles and deny that God intervenes in nature. Can you give me some of the examples you're thinking of? The most prominent versions of Theistic Evolution are the one esposed by the Roman Catholic Church and the leading Protestant Churches. Do they fit into your characterization of Theistic Evolution?
Imagine that one believes in a God who sends his "only son" down to Earth to save humanity. Is that kind of God an interventionist God?
IDists believe the exact opposite. They believe that when God does something, it must be a miracle. Although they might grudgingly concede that God could act purely through natural law, they say that this would make God superfluous which allows the perfidious skeptics to run wild (and they're right about that). Therefore they perceive God as miracle maker and magic man.
There are many versions of Intelligent Design Creationism. The category even includes some Young Earth Creationists who prefer to disguise their true beliefs. I'm interested in the area where Intelligent Design Creationism overlaps with Theistic Evolution. It's the region on the continuum where we find Ken Miller and Michael Behe, for example.
What I'm trying to find out is whether there's a significant enough difference between Theistic Evolution and the mildest form of IDC to warrant all the fuss.
If we are supposed to grant Theistic Evolution a special privilege that we do not grant to Intelligent Design Creationism then I expect to see a good reason. So far I haven't seen any logical reasons for thinking that Theistic Evolutionists deserve to be protected from criticism for their beliefs while, at the same time, allowing for Intelligent Design Creationists to be criticized.
I'm somewhat amazed that this just does not seem to be getting through.
The idea of "special privilege" is a strawman. No-one is proposing "privilege" as far as I can see. Everyone gets held to the same standard; everyone from YEC to strict naturalist.
If you are evaluating the quality of people's work on science, you look at their science work. It doesn't matter if they are idiots in some other field; just look at the science. Ken Miller, for example, has a biology textbook, which I gather is considered to be pretty good as biology textbooks go. Miller is also a theist. Ergo, it is possible for a theist to write a good science textbook.
Only a bigot would insist that the book is no good because the author is a theist.
Theodosius Dobzhansky did pretty good work in science. Only a halfwit would dismiss his science simply because Dobzhansky was a theist. He is an example that a theist can do good science.
Likewise: if you are evaluating someone's metaphysics, then look at their metaphysics. Just because Miller writes a good science text book, or just because Dobzhansky did some good scientific research, it does not follow that their metaphysics is justified. Only a philosophical ignoramus would evaluate their metaphysics exclusively on the basis of their scientific work.
Some people have a metaphysics which includes theism and which does not prevent them from doing perfectly good work in science. This can even be true if they believe in miracles! As long as they don't bring the miracles into the scientific work that they do, the science remains okay EVEN IF they invoke miracles in some other context.
Such people are not immune from all criticism just because they are scientists. Feel free to be as critical as you like of any aspect of their belief systems. If in the process of doing this, you make up things that just ain't so, then you can expect to be criticized in turn.
I have said "you", but as far as I can tell Larry is not particularly at fault here. Paul Myers, on the other hand, has frequently descended into the outright irrationality in his rhetoric on such folks. This gets a lot of reaction, because his blog is so widely read, and because he is so entirely reasonable on most other topics.
Does Miller invoke miracles? It would not surprise me; but to be honest I've not seen this spelt out. But in any case, it makes not a blind bit of difference to his work in evolutionary biology. You guys may find that strange; but there it is. I was the same, many years ago... a theist who accepted in principle the possibility of miracles but in practice tended to think that the world worked in the way it was created to work. See also my comment above on this kind of belief.
There's another point that people confuse here all the time. Science does NOT presume there are no miracles. Science has (so far) discovered that the world works without any identifiable supernatural input; and science is able to do this because if does not presume the answer in advance.
Science investigated the notion of a miraculous supernatural flood -- and disproved it. Science investigated the notion of a miraculous creation of the universe 6000 years ago -- and disproved it. Science has been able to examine the work of all kinds of prophets, healers, dowsers, psychics, etc. And has disproved them. Gould was certainly wrong about non-overlapping magisteria as a general rule. Religion frequently addresses questions also addressed by science, and invariable comes a cropper. NOMA is a wholesale retreat of religion from where it has consistently failed.
All of this is only possible precisely because science does not presume the answer in advance. To refute the powers of a psychic, you need to actually investigate the powers of a psychic, and that means being in principle open top the possibility that they really are psychic -- and then falsifying it.
Some folks confine miracles to events that cannot be examined. For example: a creation event before the big bang, or a healing or two in history that cannot now be tested, or the virgin birth of one man a bit over 2000 years ago.
I don't know what miracles Miller invokes; but I do know that I used to be a Christian who disbelieved in that particular miracle. The virgin birth is irrational, in my view, because there's simply no good reason at all to think Jesus was born of a virgin. But hey. Science is not the presumption that there can be no miracles. It's a way of trying to test for miracles, which cannot actually be applied to that one event.
What makes the IDists into scientific cranks is not that all theists are scientific cranks. It is because IDists make trivially fallacious statements about discoveries of science. What makes Miller acceptable to any reasonable person as a colleague in good standing in the fight for science education is not some kind of special privilege for a theist. It is that he measures up by exactly the same standards that Larry or Paul or any other science educator needs to attain.
That's theistic evolution, in my view. If you hold to conventional scientific evolutionary biology, then you are an evolutionist. If you believe in God, then you are a theist. If you do both, then you are a theistic evolutionist. It's not a different form of evolution, so theistic evolution is a bit of a misnomer. It's theistic evolutionist; evolutionist who is a theist.
You and PZ don't seem more interested in the similarities than the differences of Miller and Behe, as if these could somehow invalidate the differences.
The difference is crucial.
There are those who argue a "scientific necessity" of concluding supernatural intervention.... and those who don't.
Miracles cannot be commonplace. People can choose to belive in a miracle or two out of faith, if they wish. This does not imply that they believe 1) that god can be scientifically proven or 2) that the supernatural can be part of scientific explanations.
These bad mixtures of science and religion is what
people like Denton, Collins and Behe differ in that from Miller.
I myself am interested in the lionk between these last three, and rationalists "a la Dawkins". They feed on each other the notion that they have a scientific disagreement. They both think that god can be scientifically tested, they "simply" disagree on the "results", drawing opposite conclusions.
I think the Dawkins view provides conceptual foothold for "scientific" supernaturalism.
There's another point that people confuse here all the time. Science does NOT presume there are no miracles. Science has (so far) discovered that the world works without any identifiable supernatural input; and science is able to do this because if does not presume the answer in advance.
No, but science does assume consistency. That's why you'll encounter the phrase "repeatable observation" in scientific methodology. I don't know what is meant by the word "supernatural", but if it's not consistent, it's virtually impossible for science to say anything about it.
Anonymous notes that science assumes consistency.
That is subtly wrong. We do not assume consistency. We test for it. It is not an assumption that the speed of light is consistent. It is a discovery. It is not an assumption that radioisotopes decay as the same rate in the past as they do now. It is a model that has to be tested. And it is tested, and confirmed. In principle, it might not have been consistent. But we have discovered that it was consistent.
In applying scientific models, we do of course presume that the model applies consistently to the situations where we apply it. But in principle, a science is always open to the possibility of exceptions, and in practice they test for this when evidence is available to make some kind of check on consistency.
"Ken Miller seems to suggest that God uses QM in subtle ways to influence evolution and control the universe."
Yes, the quantum woo of Miller. That ties directly into another technical difficulty with 'miracles', the absence of local hidden variables in a consistent QM description of observed physics. (Which is a direct answer to Miller.) Enforcing it by interleaving with what effectively is 'other physics' again results in some disturbing effects. :-)
"Basically, someone is a "theistic evolutionist" if they are a theist and an evolutionist."
That would be a definition differing from common usage, since many called TE are messing with some of the sciences. There seems to be a gliding scale from DE to YEC, with TE in between.
Dunbar:
"many of the hits are like abiogenesis of organic chemicals"
It could be, I am not a specialist in locating biological papers. But I have seen enough (by using Wikipedia's references and astrobiological articles) to know that there are research and research programs.
You can do that too, go to Wikipedia's article "Origin of life" and you will find a link to the category itself. There you find 30 wiki articles - I perused some and they have typically ~ 10 references each.
My point is that since there is research you can't call it "speculation". Speculation is what we do in absence of any knowledge.
What you possibly could mean is that we don't know yet. But that is a different suggestion, and nothing uncommon in science.
Duas:
"Paul Myers, on the other hand, has frequently descended into the outright irrationality in his rhetoric on such folks."
I wasn't aware of any irrationality of Myers, though he has certainly said things I don't agree with. Can you give a specific example of such irrationality?
We do not assume consistency. We test for it.
If the universe was inconsistent, you would not be able to test anything reliably in the first place. If the speed of light or radioactivity were inconsistent, any other physical parameters related to them would also be inconsistent, and would likely affect any testing apparatus you could devise. Consistency could only be tested for in physical entities that do not interact much with the rest of the universe.
I don't see there being an issue here at all. Theistic evolution is exactly what the pope says it is. That's why it's theisitc evolution.
If the Lutherans or somebody wants to argue with the Pope, that's entirely their problem!
Belief in miracles is for religious purposes, not scientific. They do not aim for a reformation of science; the validity of the regularities of science itself reaffirms the "miraculous" nature of the alleged event.
If we are not being told that belief in that miracle is scientific or rational; If belief in god and miracles is transparently acknowledged to be based on faith, not science; then I don't see a reason to get all pissed at that persons belief.
When do the problems begin? When anyone, such as a Dawkins, or a Behe, start making "scientific arguments" over the existence of god. This is by definition, a violation of what I think is the basic idea of NOMA: That the existence of god (and miracles) cannot be proven or disproven by science.
PZ repeatedly accuses NOMA people of being Neville Chamberlains, fencesitters, sucking up to the majority, appeasers, and such. I am sorry if he has encountered many people like that, but he should know there are better reason to uphold noma. Perhaps PZ has got himself stuck in some kind of moralistic war-trench before he could fully understand the true reasons for upholding noma.
Denton, Dawkins, Behe, PZ, Collins, Dennet would all be on one side: They openly disagree with noma. They all agree that the existence of god can be approached and resolved scientifically.
On the other side: Gould, Miller (as far as I know), and meself...anyone else?
Torbjörn asks
I wasn't aware of any irrationality of Myers, though he has certainly said things I don't agree with. Can you give a specific example of such irrationality?
Good point on distinguishing disagreement from irrationality, Torbjörn.
In my view PZ has said a couple of very silly things. Such occasions are unusual; they go beyond merely saying something I disagree with. I am content to leave to you to decide your own reaction.
The worst, in my view, were in some diatribes last year against Ken Miller. Note that these are old, and that PZ did shift his original account somewhat, and also posted some replies prominently from Miller in the blog.
But the original statements that I would call irrational are still there to be read, at Ken Miller, creationist. He refers to a talk in which Miller says creationists should not be attacking evolution, because evolution is not against religion. Rather it is the non-scientific philosophical interpretations of some humanists that should properly be the target of creationists.
Have a read of PZ's reaction; it is the kind of thing I am talking about. It was weird.
PZ took a mild and contructive call for Christians to direct their argument at philosophical ideas (like mine, for what it is worth) rather than at science itself; and described it as if it was a call to a witch burning, as if it was saying atheists were wicked, as if by "target" Miller meant aiming a machine gun rather than directing an argument that we atheists should welcome enthusiastically and engage with better insight than PZ managed to show.
A couple of days later he continued to misunderstand the obvious at More on that Miller guy.
In the comments, at comment #14, I explained where I thought PZ was wrong; and PZ replied at comment #19. I liked PZ's reply in the comment; that was not irrational at all. It gives insight into why he might go a bit weird at other times. PZ seemed to recognize what I was proposing with respect to Miller and said why he has a hard time hearing that. I think PZ does have a hard time hearing what Miller is really saying. Read the two comments, see what you think. The whole comment thread is interesting.
There are a couple of other examples where PZ lets his silly side show; but I'll leave it here for the time being.
Note that you can also go on to read Conversations with Ken Miller, where PZ clarifies after a one on one discussion with Miller by email; and later At Ken Miller's request, where Miller passes on a passage from his bookl to try and explain his perspective on miracles. I think (hope) PZ may have recognized that his first responses were silly.
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