Jerry Coyne Preaches at University of Alabama

_{Cornelius Hunter

September 10, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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Jerry Coyne visited the University of Alabama last week to explain why evolution is true. Of course the “truth” of evolution comes from religious conviction. With religion one can say that evolution is as much a fact as is gravity. The claim makes no sense from a scientific perspective. It is not that evolutionists have made an error. They did not make a mistake in their calculations or misread a scientific observation. Their claim that evolution is as obvious as gravity is not really a mistake at all. It isn’t even wrong–it simply is not scientific. Evolution is as obvious as gravity just like astrology is as obvious as gravity. These people clearly are playing by a different set of rules. Read more

Comments

All of those examples seem to be about biologists arguing that creationism is wrong because God wouldn't design things they way they are. While the argument makes certain religious assumptions, it does so by taking creationists' claims on their own terms: "Assuming that what you assert is true, X must also be true..." More importantly, none of that is really an assumption of "evolution." Classes in evolutionary biology don't talk about design, or creation, or the intentions of God. You've identified elements of an argument against creationism that make religious assumptions; what are the elements of modern evolutionary biology that make such assumptions?Learned Hand_{September 10, 2009
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But without positive evidence isn't tha design inference also a matter of faith? Especially when the limitations of evolutionary processes are not completely understood and somewhat contested?ellazimm_{September 10, 2009
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"What are they?" Here are some examples: http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/06/evolutions-religion-revealed.html http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/06/sober-rebukes-evolutions-religion.html http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/07/sermon-by-jerry-coyne-on-biogeography.html http://www.darwinspredictions.com/#_6_The_factCornelius Hunter_{September 10, 2009
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Evolution, OTH, entails religious premises. What are they?Learned Hand_{September 10, 2009
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"If evolutionists and ID proponents are both looking at the same evidence but coming to different conclusions then is ID a religious view as well?" No. ID says this: 1. We know something about the properties of designed objects, from our own experience. 2. We know something about natural laws, processes, and outcomes from observations of nature. 3. We can make a design inference. People have always done this, and we can formalize methods to do this. As you can see, there are no religious premises in ID, and it is telling that this is the evolutionist's main argument against it. Evolution, OTH, entails religious premises. For more thoughts on design, see this: http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/08/sympathetic-view-of-intelligent-design.htmlCornelius Hunter_{September 10, 2009
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Well, evolutionists have been saying strange hyperbolic things about evolution for a long time. For example:
"By evolution, as the word is now used, we mean the universal process of orderly change. It includes cosmic changes in suns and planets and organic changes in living creatures, called organisms because they are made up of cooperating parts, or organs, which by fitting into one another constitute organization. And from the fact that all these changes -- whether instantaneous, daily, yearly, or consuming centuries or aeons, in the individual or in generations of individuals -- are orderly, never random nor accidental, we derive our definition of evolution. Moreover, as this process occurs throughout all that we know, evolution becomes another name for Nature." -David Starr Jordan
Vladimir Krondan_{September 10, 2009
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When you talk about metaphysical claims and belief are you thinking of things like the rear legs of whales? If evolutionists and ID proponents are both looking at the same evidence but coming to different conclusions then is ID a religious view as well?ellazimm_{September 10, 2009
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