Darwinism

From the NCSE: Congratulations to NESCent

NCSE is happy to congratulate the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) on the renewal of its grant from the National Science Foundation. According to a March 2, 2010, press release, NESCent was awarded a five-year grant renewal in the amount of $25 million, to continue its core programs in evolution research, informatics, and education through 2014.

and NESCent Press Release

This is the second major NSF grant that NESCent has received, which brings the total funding for the Center to $40 million. The grant will enable the Center to continue its core programs in evolution research, informatics and education through 2014.

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— Below is a beefed-up version of a piece I posted here at UD  earlier this year. The version below appeared at the Chuck Colson blog. —

Evolution, Theistic Evolution, and Intelligent Design

By William Dembski

In 1993, well-known apologist William Lane Craig debated professional atheist Frank Zindler concerning the existence of the Christian God. The debate was published as a video by Zondervan in 1996 and is readily available at YouTube. The consensus among theists and atheists is that Craig won the debate. Still, Zindler presented there a challenge worth revisiting:

The most devastating thing, though, that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people, the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin, there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation, there is no need of a savior. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity.

Zindler’s objection to Original Sin and the Fall is the subject of my just-published book The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World (see www.godornot.com, which includes a $5,000 video contest connected with the book). What interests me here, however, is the logic that is supposed to take one from evolution to the death of Christianity—and presumably to the death of God generally.

By evolution Zindler means a Darwinian, materialistic form of it, one that gives no evidence of God and thus is compatible with atheism (this is, in fact, what is meant by evolution and how I’ll use the term in the sequel). But Zindler is not arguing for the mere compatibility of evolution with atheism; he is also claiming that evolution implies, as in rationally compels, atheism. This implication is widely touted by atheists. Richard Dawkins pushes it. Cornell historian of biology and atheist Will Provine will even call evolution “the greatest engine for atheism” ever devised.

To claim that evolution implies atheism is, however, logically unsound (even though sociological data supports the loss of faith as a result of teaching evolution). Theistic evolutionists such as Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, and Kenneth Miller provide a clear counterexample, showing that at least some well-established biologists think it’s possible for the two to be compatible. Moreover, there’s no evident contradiction between an evolutionary process bringing about the complexity and diversity of life and a god of some sort (deistic, Stoic, etc.?) providing the physical backdrop for evolution to operate.

The reverse implication, however, does seem to hold: atheism implies evolution (a gradualist, materialist form of evolution, the prime example being Darwinian). Read More ›

A debate which took place last month at the Imperial College of London concerning the documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (following a screening of the film) is available for your perusal here. Film Screening and Debate Details: “Unbelievable?”, a  Premier Christian Radio program (hosted by Justin Brierly), screened the film at Imperial College London, February, 2010. Participants: Against the film: Atheist Prof Susan Blackmore (Psychology, Plymouth) & Theistic evolutionist Prof Keith Fox (Biology, Southampton). For the film: Prof Steve Fuller (Sociology, Warwick) & Dr. Alastair Noble (Former Inspector of Schools). Panellists on both sides of the ID debate give their reactions to the film’s claims that scientists are not free to question Darwinian evolution and the link the film Read More ›

I would like to encourage ID supporters that can attend a conference in Boston’s North Shore this summer to attend the following conference being offered by Biologos: BioLogos-Gordon College Conference 2010: “A Dialog on Creation” The BioLogos Foundation will offer summer courses in science-and-religion starting in the summer of 2010. These courses provide short 1–3 week overviews of the key ideas in developing a sophisticated and mature understanding of life’s origins in an explicitly Christian context. Participants will have the opportunity to interact with leaders in the field of science-and-religion who will lead discussions of these core concepts. The BioLogos-Gordon workshop provides a unique opportunity to explore questions at the intersection of science & faith. In this inaugural BioLogos workshop, Read More ›

Will Provine is scheduled to do two debates at Grace Community Church. The first debate will be March 12th, and the second March 13th.

Description:

DEBATE 002: “Flight in birds and bats: Is evolution or creation the best guide?”

(Provine vs. McIntosh)

Birds and bats have very specialized characteristics that make the phenomena of flight possible. What is the ultimate source of those physical characteristics? Is naturalistic evolution the best guide for understanding flight, or does flight indicate the design of a Creator?

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Dr. Dawkins would be happy to debate a bishop, cardinal, Pope, but he won’t debate creationists. What does he think that bishops, cardinals, and Popes are? They are overwhelmingly creationists. And he does debate creation in his books, he just won’t do it in person with the object of his debate in the form of an actual person in William Lane Craig. His word processor doesn’t talk back when he debates creation in writing his books. But He did debate John Lennox, who is, at least, an advocate of Intelligent Design (which he considers to be another form of creation).
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Darwinians are likely to explain this “India Pakistan Wagah Attari Border Closing Ceremony” as an example of sexual selection. Does this explannation even make sense here?

Today’s Fox News website had this little story, entitled Climate Scientists Plan to Hit Back at Skeptics. In the article, Stanford University climate researcher Paul R. Ehrlich had this to say about global warming skeptics:

“Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules,” Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.

Its worth noting Ehrlich’s use of the phrase “merciless enemies”. In other words, challenge the preferred dogma, and you’re not just ignorant – you’re an enemy, and thus, by extension, deserving of any and all ad hominem attacks hurled your way. One can almost hear “let me assure you, we haf vays to make you accept the dogma!” Read More ›

When Britain’s Guardian newspaper first introduced its “evolutionary agony aunt”, this writer thought – a spoof for sure. But where evolutionary psychology is concerned, it can be genuinely hard to tell. No spoof. The Guardian burbled proudly, “A mere 150 years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, we are proud to introduce our very own Evolutionary Agony Aunt” in the person of Carole Jahme, author of Beauty and the Beasts: Woman, Ape and Evolution and star of comedy Carole Jahme is Sexually Selected, described as a combination of Charles Darwin and Charlie Chaplin. We were told that her column will shine the “cold light” of evolutionary psychology on readers’ problems, in sharp contrast to the glossy magazines. Carole Read More ›

Apparently, according to an article in Current Biology,

Polyandry [a girl gets married to a bunch of guys at once] can regulate the frequency of a sex-ratio-distorting meiotic driver This can prevent extinction in populations and potentially species Reduced extinction risk may help explain why polyandry is so widespread in nature

I hold no brief for fruit flies, whose behaviour the authors purport to explain, but in humans, polyandry is almost always a result of extreme hardship.

I am told that, in former times, polyandry sometimes happened in the Far North in Canada. Due to famine, girl babies mysteriously found their way through a hole in the pack ice.

Whodathunkit? … and 15 years later …

Most human cultures think marriage should be Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

But very, very few human cultures have EVER thought that marriage should be Adam, Louie, Luigi, Sig, Syed, and … (organ music) Here comes the bride, here comes the bride!! … one little Eve for all of them.

Try selling that in the locker room … so long as you do not share a health insurer with me.

Most guys still want their own Eve, in the end.

Anyway, here’s the official stuff: Read More ›

Richard Dawkins, so he says, wants to improve the forums on his website by implementing some new changes. He wants to keep it “scientific” and “rational”. The forums had, apparently, become a safe haven for Darwinians and atheists to post whatever uninteresting and vile subject matter their atheistic and Darwinian philosophy saw fit. So Dawkins posted a letter announcing the changes to the forums:

Starting a new discussion will require approval, so we ask that you only submit new discussions that are truly relevant to reason and science. Subsequent responses on the thread will not need approval—however anything off topic or violating the new terms of service will be removed…We know some of you will be against this change. We ask that you respect our decision and help make this transition as smooth as possible.

The reaction he received from some of his own Darwinian and atheistic followers was heinous, so he responded:

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A famous theism-vs.-atheism debate between William Lane Craig and Frank Zindler took place in 1993 at Willow Creek Church and was published as a video by Zondervan in 1996 (under the title Atheism vs. Christianity). The debate is available on YouTube here (in 15 parts). It is available in full here. In that debate, Zindler, taking the atheist side, made the following remark:

The most devastating thing, though, that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people, the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin, there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation, there is no need of a savior. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity.

I’ve addressed Zindler’s objection to Original Sin and the Fall in my book The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World (check out the book as well as a $5,000 video contest promoting the book at www.godornot.com). What interests me here, though, is the logic that’s suppoed to take one from evolution to the death of Christianity — and presumably also to the death of any other brand of theism. Accordingly, evolution — a Darwinian, materialistic form of it — is supposed to imply no God and thus atheism. Simply put, (DARWINIAN) EVOLUTION implies ATHEISM. This implication seems widely touted by atheists. Will Provine, for instance, will call evolution an “engine for atheism,” suggesting that the path from evolution to atheism is inescapable.

Now this implication, though perhaps underscoring a sociological phenomenon (people exposed to Darwinism frequently become atheistic or agnostic), is logically unsound. Theistic evolutionists like Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, and Kenneth Miller provide a clear counterexample, Read More ›

Michael Ruse is not happy with Jerry Fodor’s new book (described here at UD). As Ruse begins his review in the Boston Globe: “What Darwin Got Wrong is an intensely irritating book….” . Here is the conclusion of Ruse’s review: The Darwinian does not want to say that the world is designed. That is what the Intelligent Design crew argues. The Darwinian is using a metaphor to understand the material nonthinking world. We treat that world as if it were an object of design, because doing so is tremendously valuable heuristically. And the use of metaphor is a commonplace in science. Why then do we have these arguments? The clue is given at the end, when the authors start to Read More ›