theistic evolution

Originally written by uoflcard. I’d rather not distract from the main point of the other thread: HGT. So I created a separate thread for this topic, duplicating this info.

There is ‘Design’ in Nature, Biologist Argues

It is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read. A biologist says that the ID movement garners attention because it is appealing to believe there is design in nature. “To fight back, scientists need to reclaim the language of ‘design'”, he says. What the article and the biologist don’t explicitly say is basically they completely misuse the word “design”. Listen to his personal definition of design: Read More ›

In this instalment, I begin to address both Andrew Sibley’s and Timaeus’ (see post 33) questions concerning my interest in reviving a full-blooded (i.e. early modern) sense of theodicy, especially as part of the ID agenda. I will need another post to complete this task because more assumptions about theodicy in its original robust form need to be put on the table. My apologies if this does not seem blog-friendly but hopefully we’ll able to continue discussing in this medium issues that show the essential unity of concern among theologians, philosophers and scientists.

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This post originally began as a response to Andrew Sibley but the issues here may resonate with others wanting to reconcile science and religion, coming at it mainly from the religious side. My concern here, as an interested bystander, is that apologetics tends to be much too apologetic. Christianity, in particular, has a much stronger hand to play with regard to the support of science.

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 I will be opening the 2009 series of lectures on ‘Darwin Reconsidered’ at the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture on Tuesday, 20th January, at 5 pm. My topic is ‘Darwin’s Original Sin: The Rejection of Theology’s Claims to Knowledge’. You can find out more about the series here. The talk will deal with the issues of theodicy that I have been raising in this blog.  

In this instalment, I try to make the connection between theodicy and ID tighter, not only to provide some deeper intellectual grounding but also to make quite plain why even religious people have not been rushing to support ID.

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In response to an earlier post of mine, DaveScot kindly pointed out this website’s definition of ID. The breadth of the definition invites scepticism: ID is defined as the science of design detection — how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. But is there really some single concept of ‘intelligence’ that informs designs that are generated by biological, human, and possibly even mechanical means? Why would anyone think such a thing in the first place? Yet, it is precisely this prospect that makes ID intellectually challenging – for both supporters and opponents.

It’s interesting that not everything is claimed to be intelligently designed. This keeps the phrase ‘intelligent design’ from simply collapsing into ‘design’ by implying a distinction between the intelligence and that on which it acts to produce design. So, then, what exactly is this ‘intelligence’ that stands apart from matter? Well, the most obvious answer historically is a deity who exists in at least a semi-transcendent state. But how can you get any scientific mileage from that?

Enter theodicy, which literally means (in Greek) ‘divine justice’. It is now a field much reduced from its late 17^th century heyday. Theodicy exists today as a boutique topic in philosophy and theology, where it’s limited to asking how God could allow so much evil and suffering in the world. But originally the question was expressed much more broadly to encompass issues that are nowadays more naturally taken up by economics, engineering and systems science – and the areas of biology influenced by them: How does the deity optimise, given what it’s trying to achieve (i.e. ideas) and what it’s got to work with (i.e. matter)? This broader version moves into ID territory, a point that has not escaped the notice of theologians who nowadays talk about theodicy.

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Wikipedia’s Intelligent Design article was recommended for review on continuing as a Featured Article on Oct. 15. See the Discussion on Intelligent Design on whether it reaches Wikipedia’s Featured Article Criteria See the previous FAR of 24 July 2007. Specific Suggestions from FAR have been added to the ongoing Discussion on ID. This provides for outside “eyes” to help bring objectivity to the discussion. Note that: “FARs may run as long as several months if work is progressing, so there’s no need to consider “temporary delisting.”” Further constructive comments and editing effort would appear to be welcome. The editor Marskell is now asking for official comments on FARC status. Note the distinction between comments in the FAR section and whether Read More ›

The Vatican apparently seeks to understand biological evolution, as long as speakers do not address the issue of origins whether advocates of Intelligent Design, Creationists, or Evolutionists. That appears to a priori exclude the foundational issue of causation. It also appears to assume that papers on “biological evolution” do not have any unstated assumptions on mechanisms or causes. It will be interesting to see the papers and results from this conference. See following articles and Dembski’s previous post: The Pope Circling Around ID:
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“Intelligent design” not science: Vatican evolution congress to exclude creationism, intelligent design

Speakers invited to attend a Vatican-sponsored congress on the evolution debate will not include proponents of creationism and intelligent design, organizers said.

The Pontifical Council for Culture, Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana are organizing an international conference in Rome March 3-7 2009 as one of a series of events marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.” Read More ›

Dear gentle reader, As someone who has had an ongoing struggle with the Anglican Communion his entire adult life, and to whom the current, obvious, and slow-motion destruction of the entire historical Anglican Church brings no joy, I have a few comments on the anticipated apology of the Church of England, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to Charles Darwin.  Despite indications to the contrary, this clearly has had some thought put into it, as evidenced by the Darwin section of the Church of England and website:  “Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. “ Read More ›

In the Face of an Aspiring Baboon: A Response to Sahotra Sarkar’s Review of Science vs. Religion?

Introduction

Some will wonder why I expend such great effort in responding to Sahotra Sarkar’s negative review of my Science vs. Religion? I offer four reasons: (1) The review was published in the leading on-line philosophy reviews journal (which offers no right of response). (2) Word of the review has spread very fast across the internet, especially amongst those inclined to believe it. Indeed, part of the black humour of this episode is the ease with which soi disant critical minds are willing to pronounce the review ‘excellent’ without having compared the book and the review for themselves. (3) The review quotes the book sufficiently to leave the false impression that it has come to grips with its content. (4) Most importantly, there is a vast world-view difference that may hold its own lessons. Sarkar and I were both trained in ‘history and philosophy of science’ (HPS), yet our orientations to this common subject could not be more opposed. Sarkar’s homepage sports this quote from Charles Darwin: ‘He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke’. I take this to be wishful thinking on Sarkar’s part.

My response is divided into 4 parts:
1. The Terms of Reference: Start with the Title
2. What to Make of the Philosophical Critique of ID?
3. Sarkar’s Particular Criticisms I: The More Editorial Ones
4. Sarkar’s Particular Criticisms II: The More Substantive Ones

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Recently, I have been reading Warwick U sociologist Steve Fuller’s Dissent over Descent: Intelligent Design’s Challenge to Darwinism, and was intrigued by his comments about “theistic evolution”, as understood by members of the American Scientific Affiliation and promoted by Francis Collins in The Language of God:

Theistic evolutionists … simply take what Collins calls ‘the existence of the moral law and the universal longing for God” as a feature of human nature that is entrenched enough to be self-validating. But is their dismissal anything more than an arbitrary theological intervention? If humans are indeed, as the Darwinists say, just one among many species, susceptible to the same general tendencies that can be studied in the same general terms, then findings derived from methods deemed appropriate to animals should apply to us as well. Collins’ own comprehensive but exclusive training in the hard sciences may explain why he believes in a God who communicates straightforwardly through the natural sciences but appears less willing to cooperate with the social sciences, including such biologically inflected fields as sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Instead Collins finds intuition, anecdote, theology and sheer faith to be more reliable sources of evidence. Why God should have chosen not to rely on the usual standards of scientific rigour in these anthropocentric matters remains a mystery. (p. 104-5)

Collins is unlikely to understand the problem Fuller raises – why should anyone take Collins’s faith as anything more than an evolutionary glitch?

I am glad that a sociologist is researching the debate, because ASA-style theistic evolution makes sense only as sociology. It doesn’t make sense intellectually. As I have said elsewhere, it is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist (= how you can continue to believe in God even though the universe shows no evidence of design). But everyone realizes that the universe shows evidence of design. Design theorists must explain it, and materialists must explain it away.

The other, less benign role of theistic evolution is to confuse traditional religious people by implying that, for example, “you can believe in Darwin – and Jesus too!” Well, Darwin didn’t.

The way you believe in Jesus and Darwin too is by keeping yourself in a permanent state of confusion about the basic issues, or, Collins-style, not really understanding them. Some clergy are happy to help.

A friend alerted me to this article which nicely illustrates the muddle in progress. The article features the efforts of the Vatican to address the current Darwin cult. My friend asked me for a comment, and I replied, Read More ›