Non-Negotiables of Darwinism:My question is for any scientist who defines themselves as a Darwinist. Do you agree with these non-negotiables? Are there any you would like to add or modify?
- (D1) Common Descent: All organisms are related by descent with modification from a common ancestor.
- (D2) Natural Selection: Natural selection operating on random variations is the principal mechanism responsible for biological adaptations.
- (D3) Human Continuity: Humans are continuous with other animals, exhibiting no fundamental difference in kind but only differences in degree.
- (D4) Methodological Naturalism: The physical world, for purposes of scientific inquiry, may be assumed to operate by unbroken natural law.
Non-Negotiables of Christianity:Decide for yourselves. Is Christianity compatible with science? Are there Christians who are prepared to abandon one of more of these "non-negotiable" in order to make science and Christianity compatible? Are there accommodationsts who think that Dembski's version of Christianity is compatible with science? with evolution?
- (C1) Divine Creation: God by wisdom created the world out of nothing.
- (C2) Reflected Glory: The world reflects God’s glory, a fact that ought to be evident to humanity.
- (C3) Human Exceptionalism: Humans alone among the creatures on earth are made in the image of God.
- (C4) Christ’s Resurrection: God, in contravention of nature’s ordinary powers, raised Jesus bodily from the dead.
What is this thing called “evolutionary theory,” which theistic evolutionism is able to encompass consistently? It includes the origin of life from nonliving materials by physical processes, the branching genealogical process whose upshot is that current organisms are connected to each other by relations of common ancestry, the random origin of new mutations, and the processes that govern trait evolution within lineages, such as selection and drift. Among these several propositions, the idea that mutations are “random” may seem to be a sticking point.This is not what I think of when I use the term "evolutionary theory." I don't think the origin of life is a part of evolutionary theory. I don't think that the random origin of new mutations is part of evolutionary theory. As far as I'm concerned, the discovery that mutations occurred preferentially in hotspots or that there was a base composition bias—which there is—would not refute evolutionary theory. I think my understanding of evolutionary theory is closer to that of the majority of evolutionary biologists and it's troubling to me that philosophers seem to use a different definition.
Although evolutionary theory is silent on the question of whether there is a God, it is not neutral with respect to logically stronger hypotheses about God. Consider, for example, the statementThe Young Earth Creationist statement is inconsistent with all available scientific evidence on the age of the Earth. This evidence is so overwhelming that it is a scientific fact (sensu Gould) that the Earth is billions of years old. Why does Sober think that "evolutionary theory" plays a role here?
Life appeared on earth about 10,000 years ago due to divine intervention.This statement is inconsistent with evolutionary theory.
1. I'm looking for more posters. Please let me know if you find something appropriate.
What is wrong with "dancing in the DMZ" between intelligent design (as articulated by Michael Behe and others) and neo-Darwinism? Are these two positions the only alternatives? I doubt it. That is why my 1997 article in Boston Review on evolution debates was called "A Third Way." What Dembski calls the "DMZ" (i.e. a zone free of futile conflict) is the place where the real evolutionary science is taking place. I am proud to be there, and I see that an increasing number of people are joining me when they realize that natural genetic engineering, horizontal DNA transfer, interspecific hybridization, genome doubling and symbiogenesis provide solutions to problems recognized to be intractable under the limitations of conventional evolutionary thinking.Now Susan Mazur has gotten into the game of trying to figure out James Shapiro. You may recall that Susan Mazur has made a minor career out of touting the upcoming revolution in evolutionary theory. Here are some excerpts from her interview with James Shapiro on a website called Counterpunch: The Evolution Paradigm Shift.
Suzan Mazur:... Are Coyne and his pal Richard Dawkins, by not publicly recognizing that a sea change has occurred, milking lucrative performances and book deals? And if so, isn’t this a disservice to science?This appears to be a typical accommodationist position, assuming that Shapiro is an atheist. I just wish he'd be a little more up front about his stance.
James Shapiro: Well that’s a loaded question.
I’ve gone on record in my blog as saying that I thought that Dawkins and his ill-conceived atheist crusade hurts science education and hurts evolutionary science. I’ve criticized Jerry Coyne for making statements that he can’t support. Both Coyne and Dawkins have been characterized as having a neo-atheist agenda in attacking religion. And it is true that many of the comments on my blog reflect a deep reservoir of anti-religious sentiment. I’ve noted in the blog that we should get out of the business of attacking supernaturalists. It’s not in science’s interest to make a war with religion or religious belief.
Suzan Mazur: And get on to the science.
James Shapiro: And get on with the science. And also to have a little bit of humility. Science never provides ultimate answers.
Both Coyne and Dawkins are doing well for themselves by being vitriolic and vehement in their campaign against religious belief and against some of the more foolish things that religious fundamentalists do. But I suspect ego gratification is the major driver more than financial gain. Obviously it’s nice if you make money at the same time.
James Shapiro: ...The moth cover was ultimately chosen because the kind of exquisite mimicry it represents is an evolutionary puzzle.I wrote the review that will soon appear on the NCSE site. I can assure him that I'm well aware of many exciting developments in evolutionary theory. The ones that are important (population genetics, random genetic drift, Neutral Theory, punctuated equilibria, speciation) are ones that Shapiro doesn't understand or mention in his book. (Gould isn't even in the index!) The ones that are trivial and were dismissed as minor embellishments decades ago are the ones that, in his mind, are going to cause a paradigm shift.
How does that come about? I think gradualist explanations are difficult to sustain in the case of mimicry. Recently it’s been discovered that there are master control regions, sort of like Hox complexes but more complicated, that control wing patterns in butterflies. I suspect as people analyze those we’ll know more about how the mimetic patterns evolved.
The book hasn’t been reviewed by any of the major journals yet. Nature and Science have not reviewed it. The National Center for Science Education is reviewing it in June. I’m interested to see whether they want to show that evolution science is alive and doing novel and controversial things.
As I said in my blog, science is not doing very well in this evolution vs. religion dispute. I think part of the reason why we’re doing poorly is that the most recent and exciting science is not being presented to the public. Clearly, the issues are not being presented in a way that shows evolution science isn’t stuck in ideas from the last century and the last century before that.
Imagine that there are evil aliens who want to destroy human life on this planet and take it over for themselves. These are very patient evil aliens and, furthermore, they don't want us to recognize what they're up to.We all recognize, I hope, that the argument is silly. It's just as silly if you substitute some kind of God in place of evil aliens.
They have chosen to manipulate evolution by gradually introducing mutations into our genome that will lead to destructive behavior and by inserting mutations that cause diseases. They do this in a very subtle manner so that we can't distinguish between random mutations and a very small number of directed mutations. The bad alleles are indistinguishable from those that are occasionally fixed by random genetic drift so that, over the course of millions of years, we don't notice anything unusual.
Since science is incapable of detecting the actions of these evil aliens, it follows that science is perfectly compatible with the existence of evil aliens who want to destroy us by manipulating our genome.
For the year of Witness, the students at Neil McNeil Catholic Secondary School have created a travelling cross, which will journey across the school system throughout the year, with each school having an opportunity to spend a day with the cross.I'm not a big fan of the American system of government but there's something to be said for separation of church and state. We do an excellent job of keeping religion out of politics but every now and then I am reminded of government support for religious schools. That's why I've come around to the position of supporting One School System.
Schools will be able to submit photographs from their day with the cross, including pictures from their prayer services and Masses which will be documented on this website.
The Board hopes that these moments with the travelling cross will provide an opportunity for our students, staff and families to reflect on what it means to bear witness to our Catholic faith. Faith development is integral to every part of Catholic education, as students are called to respect the dignity of all human persons in a caring community. Our journey with the Year of Witness cross will bring this message to our young people in a very tangible way.
OneSchoolSystem.org is a non-governmental human rights organization and education advocacy group seeking the amalgamation of Ontario, Canada's public and Catholic school systems into a single, secular school system for each official language.
The Ontario government currently funds four overlapping school systems: English public, English Catholic, French public, and French Catholic. Not only is this wasteful and inefficient, but the exclusivity of funding for Catholic religious schools gives rise to significant inequities between citizens of different faiths. Ontario's truly public school systems are open to all students and teachers without discrimination, while the publicly funded Catholic systems often deny admission to non-Catholic students and are essentially closed to non-Catholic teachers. We seek to eliminate religious discrimination in admissions and employment in all of Ontario's publicly funded schools while simultaneously ensuring better stewardship of the financial resources committed to the education of our children. A move to a single school system for each official language would achieve both aims.
[Hat Tip: Veronica at Canadian Atheist: A Gift from Ontario Taxpayers]
Welcome to the 47th edition of the Carnival of Evolution. We have had our science reporters out in force hunting down the best of the blogosphere on evolution and related subjects, and here they are for your delectation and delight and other d-words.
1. I watched Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol on a recent flight from San Diego to Toronto. You should only do this when you've exhausted all other options.
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