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Mailbox: A reader writes from an island in Mediterraean to ask,

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Don’t you think Evolution excludes God from being the Creator? How can you support it them being a Catholic?

After I got over raging at that guy for living in a place that is actually warm and sunny (how dare he?), I replied:

Friend, thank you for writing, and apologies for any delay in getting back to you.

Essentially, I think God can create however he wants.

He can use direct creation and various types of evolution, including Darwin’s natural selection. Or other methods beyond my ability to imagine.

He’s God. and I’m not. So I don’t worry about whether God can do something, but rather whether evidence suggests that he has.

Indeed, for certain purposes – weeding out losers, for example – natural selection is doubtless an important mechanism.

I use it myself sometimes when I garden. I often just scatter flower seed broadcast – knowing that the losers will die, and the survivors will not need interventions that I can’t afford and don’t have time for.

Where I differ with the exponents of “Evolution” is:

1. I am not an atheist or a “liberal” Christian.

2. Therefore I do not need to prove that there is no design in the universe or life forms.

3. Therefore, I can acknowledge that design is evident in the universe and in life forms.

4. Therefore, I do not need to pretend that my method for weeding out loser plants in my garden actually creates any new information. All it does is distinguish between good and bad examples of the information that already existed.

5. I think that once we get things like that straight, we will be on the verge of another science revolution. But as along as we are stuck with no-design nonsense, we will be stuck with stupid projects about stuff we know that ain’t so.

I do hope this is a help.

Comments
bFast: "the theory that humanity was reduced to 8 in a giant flood just doesn’t hold water." Nice pun, but Noah's flood is not a theory. The flood either happened the way Genesis says it did or it didn't. Jesus thinks it did, as did Peter. bFast again: "theistic evolution becomes quite theologically reasonable." Sure. If you don't care about little things like Adam and Eve, floods, virgin conceptions, resurrections, and the like.riddick
April 3, 2009
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Post #3: "Mutation can “do” anything that it can “undo”. If a chromosomal deletion is a clear instance of loss of information, then a chromosomal duplication is a clear instance of gain of information." Mutation has never been shown to be able to do what it can (easily) undo. That is simply an assumption. A chromosomal duplication is a gain of information only in the sense that currently existing information has been copied. Nothing 'new' has been produced. However, a chromosomal deletion clearly removes information. Once a duplication event has occurred, it is assumed that despite the evidence generally showing silencing and deleterious mutation, the duplicate gene can mutate and be expressed later, coding for a new protein. Ohno was the main proponent of this as a method of evolution, but the possibility is highly disputed and unsupported by empirical studies on duplication events. No strawmen, them's the facts. As for the original post by Denyse, for me, if Darwinian evolution is true, it does exclude the Christian God as Creator. It doesn't immediately imply atheism, but 'theistic evolution' with the Christian God as 'overseer' simply doesn't square with what the Bible says about the most important things it addresses in my opinion.saywhatyouwill
April 3, 2009
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O'Leary, I'm very sympathetic with your views because they seem close to my own. Except that I think that the *imperfections* that we see in nature where what were actually designed, to help guide evolution and increase biodiversity. This statement should not be allowed to stand: Therefore, I do not need to pretend that my method for weeding out loser plants in my garden actually creates any new information. This is not what anyone is proposing. You've forgotten about the mutation step entirely. Mutation can "do" anything that it can "undo". If a chromosomal deletion is a clear instance of loss of information, then a chromosomal duplication is a clear instance of gain of information. Strawman statements like these are what hinder ID as a legitimate scientific movement. It is critical (especially on a major ID forum like this one) that you get your facts straight, if--as I do--you want ID to be taken seriously.AmerikanInKananaskis
April 3, 2009
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Beautiful post, Denyse. And very close to how I'd summarize my own views on these things.nullasalus
April 3, 2009
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Ms. O'Leary, thanks for the post. Again you show that your motivation for supporting ID is not religous, even when you are. It took me a long time to get past the "The Bible is the Word of God inerant" view that I was taught as an evangelical Christian. The young earth view was clearly in error, so I glomed onto the old earth creationist view (a la Hugh Ross). This held for a while, but the theory that humanity was reduced to 8 in a giant flood just doesn't hold water. It is clear that humanity has been around in its current form for at least 50,000 years. Further, I find the scientific case for common ancestry between human and chimp to be very strong. Ie, there was no two orignal human parents. Once one gets to the state of concluding that there is something very human about the Bible, theistic evolution becomes quite theologically reasonable. I see no theological advantage to the ID theory over TE except that ID is incompatible with athieism. Even there, however, it seems reasonable that God would avoid a situation where he forces people to believe in him based upon the evidence. Otherwise for the intellectual, there would be no freedom of choice. Alas, it is the evidence, not religious motivation, that drags me to an ID position over a TE position (though TE is, in a way, ID. It just holds that God went out of his way to make sure that he couldn't be put into a test tube.)bFast
April 3, 2009
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Haha, I hope you won't be too upset with a comment from Okinawa! I think the parable of the mustard seed shows an acceptance of natural selection processes in Christian thinking from the very beginning. Otherwise it is not a good parable. The analogy of free will in the human mind is a free process in the rest of the biological world. That is my opinion anyway.Nakashima
April 3, 2009
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