Theology at BioLogos: An Invitation to Drs. Falk and Venema

_{Thomas Cudworth

June 15, 2012

Intelligent Design}

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Dr. Dennis Venema, lead geneticist over at BioLogos, whose evasiveness regarding divine action in evolution we thoroughly documented here, here, here, and here, appears to have noticed our efforts.

In his latest column over at BioLogos, he writes to Bilbo (70458):

“I’ve appreciated your work to hold the feet of certain ID folks to the fire over at UD.”

I guess I must be “certain ID folks,” because Bilbo’s recent extensive argument was directed at me.

But let’s be clear: Bilbo’s argument was focused wholly on my claim that there was tension between neo-Darwinian evolution and the traditional Christian understanding of divine providence, governance, and sovereignty over nature. He disagreed with me over that. But he did not at all discuss — in fact he refused to discuss — the main concern of my article, which was to show that Drs. Venema and Falk were so evasive on the question of divine action in evolution that it was impossible to be sure whether their position was orthodox or not. So nothing in Bilbo’s discussion with me gets Dr. Venema off the charge of deliberate dodging and obfuscation.

In any case, why should Bilbo have to hold our feet to the fire, when Dr. Venema can do that himself? He is completely at liberty to write a series of columns on BioLogos clearly answering the questions which he systematically ducked when they were asked of him by Crude, and thus dispel the charge that he continues to be vague and evasive. Or, if he wishes, he can write an extensive answer here, under this column, and even (gasp!) engage in conversation with us. We are happy to have BioLogos people responding here, even if they disagree with us.

One of the ongoing frustrations that ID people have had with BioLogos is, of course, that many of the theological positions taken there appear to be somewhat unorthodox, but are stated so elliptically, allusively, and sporadically (scattered here and there across the site, in various columns and comments), that it is hard to determine exactly what the BioLogos writers actually believe. This is the perfect opportunity for Dr. Venema to remove this continuing communications problem, by stating clearly, in one place, his own personal view of how (if at all) God is involved in the evolutionary process.

For example, he could state: “I believe that, given laws of nature created and sustained by God, that a bacterium could easily evolve into a human being without any special divine action (steering, directing, nudging, etc. — whether at the macroscopic or at the quantum level). I believe that random mutations plus natural selection are sufficient causes for the transformation. Therefore I would not speak of ‘guidance,’ and I could have, and should have, said that to Crude.” Such an answer would do quite nicely.

Or, if he holds a different view, he could state, for example: “I believe that evolution proceeds exclusively through laws of nature which are created and sustained by God, but I also think that, in order to get life started in the first place, God had to create the first cells by special divine action, and I think that in order to turn a prehuman hominid into man, another special divine action would have been needed.”

Or, if he is of a different opinion, he could state: “I believe, along with Robert Russell, that evolution is directed by special actions of God which, though not capable of detection by scientific means, cause evolution to produce different results than it would if God did not perform those special actions.”

Or, if he is more inclined to a Dentonian scenario, he could state: “I believe that evolution was programmed into the first cells by God to produce a whole series of pre-determined outcomes, including man, by purely natural processes, without any special divine intervention needed after the process began.”

Or he could state anything else that reflects his true position.

And on the question about evolutionary outcomes, he could state: “I believe that every single species that was produced by the evolutionary process, was intended by God, and that God did not leave anything to chance, but made sure that the evolutionary process produced exactly those species.” Or, “I believe that God did not intend any particular outcome of evolution, not even man, but intended only the general process, leaving it up to contingency to determine the specific outcomes.” Or, “I believe that God intended certain very specific outcomes of evolution, including man, but I also believe that he left a number of evolutionary outcomes (e.g., the color of the blue jay, or the existence of unicorns or legless lizards) to chance.”

And on the question of God’s love of “freedom” he could state whether by that he means only that God leaves the human will free (to accept or reject God), or whether he means that subhuman nature is also “free”; and in the latter case, in what sense a rock or a solar flare or a protein molecule is “free.”

On more general theological questions, he might indicate to us what denomination he belongs to and/or what theological school he subscribes to. We know that Dr. Falk thinks of himself as a “Wesleyan”; does Dr. Venema have the same self-identification? Or would he call himself “Arminian”? Or something else?

Answers such as these would greatly facilitate ID/TE dialogue. If we knew where Drs. Venema and Falk stood on the question of divine involvement in evolution, as clearly as we know where Dr. Coyne stands and where Dr. Denton stands and where Dr. Behe stands and where Dr. Russell stands, we would be much less likely to impute to them views which they do not hold, and to criticize them for such. But as it stands, we have to guess, from hints and ambiguous statements and evasions, what our TE friends probably believe, and it’s inevitable that we will sometimes guess wrongly. We’re not mind-readers — and in a serious academic discussion of theology and science, we shouldn’t have to be.

So I turn it over to Dr. Venema and Dr. Falk. Would either of those gentlemen care to drop in here and present a coherent, articulate account of his personal view concerning divine involvement in evolution? We are open to any and all explanations of how God is connected with evolution — we request only that we not be subjected to another repetition of the Wesleyan Maneuver.

Comments

Nick Matzke- We deserve a clear answer- in what way is evolution non-random? Or are you too afraid to answer?Joe_{June 19, 2012
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Darrel Falk's now posted on Dennis Venema's thread at BioLogos, saying that Thomas AND Bilbo both got the BioLogos position wrong. He refers them back to previous posts. "Mine to know, yours to find out."Jon Garvey_{June 18, 2012
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Is anyone guiding the dice rolls at a casino?
Yes, the person who rolls the dice. The dice should go where that person rolls them. Have you ever seen the game being played?Joe_{June 18, 2012
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Is anyone guiding the dice rolls at a casino? In lightning strikes? In earthquakes?
The simple answer is 'yes': all things are foreknown by God and part of His plan, and hence guided by Him toward fulfilling his purposes (most purposes of which are beyond our ability to know much less measure statistically).
Or are they statistically random?
That's a false dilemma and a red herring. The question here is not about "statistical" randomness. Statistical randomness is relative to the particular statistic being measured for by the person doing the measuring. Every letter of the post I'm writing is chosen by me. However, if you were to take the numbers corresponding to these letters' position in the alphabet, and use them to play the lottery, you would surely find that, statistically, they are no better at producing winning numbers than any other method of choosing numbers. Hence, my writing would be statistically random with respect to the lottery, but is not random in the sense of being unplanned and for fulfilling my purpose of saying what I want to say. In the same way, God plans and guides all things for his mostly inscrutable purposes, but that doesn't mean they aren't statistically random with respect to most things we can measure. In the case of human origins, it is Christian doctrine that, at the very least, God made man deliberately, so here's a case where we know one of His purposes. Hence, if evolution was the method, this entails that evolution must have been guaranteed to result in the origin of man, and so the evolutionary events that resulted in man's existence must have been planned and guided toward that end. Those events may have been found to be statistically random with respect to lots of things (were there any humans around to observe them and make statistical measurements, which of course there weren't, which is why it's nearly meaningless to talk about the "statistical" randomness of past evolutionary events to begin with), but they weren't random for the ends that God used them.
Whatever your answer to those questions, apply the same answer to random mutations in evolution and you’ll start to see what BioLogos is getting at.
No, not really. They could have straightforwardly answered "yes" to the questions of whether God knew and made sure that evolution would result in humans, as an actually theistic evolutionist like Stephen Barr has no trouble doing, rather than insulting everyone's intelligence by answering with logic-torturing gobbledy-gook about God respecting nature's "freedom," conflations of that "freedom" with human free will, and bizarre and irrelevant appeals to "Wesleyanism" to defend it. I also can't help but notice that nobody is able to spell out Biologos' position in a clear manner. It repeatedly comes down to making some evasive statements and hand-waving analogies, and then challenging other people to divine whatever it is they think they're getting at.Deuce_{June 18, 2012
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Nick Why on earth should you think I should be "after" "Poof a miracle happened", still less that I should attribute such a view to Simon Conway Morris? He and I both became aware of evolution at around the same time, and probably from the same book, so less condescension might be in order. No, I was "after" the fact that Conway Morris obviously considers that classic Neodarwinism is inadequate of itself fully to explain convergence. I imagine he espouses some kind of self-organisation theory, though it's not clear to me which. So I wondered if that were general, or if he was out on a limb here - which would be interesting, since he is possibly the world authority on convergence and is not to be dismissed lightly. Your post gave the impression that convergence is an entirely unremarkable prediction of ND, which I have never been aware depended on self-organisation theory. The quotes were from an interview in the latest Cambridge Alumni magazine, which has been plugged here actually, but which comes to me anyway. Fortunately it's online here. I hope that gives you enough information to integrate his popular interview comments with all you've gleaned from his academic publications.Jon Garvey_{June 18, 2012
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Nick (49): I'm fully aware of the existence of the orders Tubulidentata and Pholidota. And also the Monotremata, if you want to count the echidna among your list of anteaters. (And by the way, I didn't have to look up those terms. I make no claim to be a biologist, but I'm more science-aware than you might imagine.) But note that when you add "given similar environments," you are altering the picture set forth in my original claim. A bacterium of 4 billion years ago couldn't be sure that *any* of its descendants would encounter the sort of environments that would make ant-eating skills an advantage in the struggle for survival. There might end up being *no* anteaters, or for that matter, no ants. That's what I mean by the unpredictable element in evolution. Now, on classical neo-Darwinism. The term is ambiguous. Originally it referred to a movement, about 40 years or so after Darwin's *Origin*, which placed an extreme emphasis on the role of selection. That is probably the movement that you are referring to in your comment. However, later the term came to be applied as a synonym of what was called "The Modern Synthesis" -- a revision of Darwinian evolutionary theory worked out by many biologists, but with Mayr, Dobzhansky, Gaylord Simpson, and Julian Huxley as the leading voices. This synthesis was accomplished roughly between 1937 and 1947 and Huxley published a book on it in about 1944. The synthesis struck a better balance between mutations (seen as random with respect to adaptive usefulness) and natural selection (seen as the nonrandom factor). The modern synthesis was later able to incorporate the discovery of the genetic code in the 1950s and early 1960s without undergoing serious modification, and it is the notion of evolution that most high school and undergrad biology students were taught until fairly recently, and the one which was promoted by all the popular science writers, including those with Ph.D.s in the life sciences, in the mid-to-late 20th century. It is also the notion of evolution that was criticized at the 1966 Wistar Conference, is currently criticized by the ID people, and is upheld by most of the TEs at BioLogos and elsewhere. The term "neo-Darwinism" is unfortunate, as it can be confused with the earlier theory of that name (which was why Mayr didn't like it, and preferred to speak of "the modern synthetic theory" or the like), but it is a term which has stuck, and is recognizable, and is used widely by ID people and by others, so that's why I use it. (I've seen Lynn Margulis use the term in my sense, and James Shapiro uses it in my sense on page 1 of his new book on evolution, and surely these are two people who are quite qualified to speak about evolutionary biology.) You are understating BioLogos's emphasis on chance and randomness. Yes, they are trying to show fundamentalists that "chance" need not be anti-God. But if they thought that chance was a virtually negligible part of the evolutionary process, or at most a minor feature of it, they would argue differently: they would argue much less often that chance is not opposed to God, and much more often that evolution is not primarily chance-driven. But that's not what they do. Their columns on the subject of chance and randomness are encomiums upon the creative powers of randomness in evolution. God for them creates *through* randomness. For BioLogos randomness can do, it seems, virtually anything. Columns mention examples of crystals and triangles and other things to "prove" that order can come out of "randomness." Applegate is impressed that a specially fabricated (i.e., designed, not randomly generated) set of magnetized pieces can fall into a spherical shape when juggled, and uses that as an argument for the power of randomness in evolution. Applegate even argues, from the fact that the immune system *makes use of* randomness, that it could have *arisen* via randomness. (Of course, that doesn't follow at all, but logic is not the strong suit of the BioLogos team.) Ard Louis has also spoken of the need to acknowledge a substantial amount of randomness in the evolutionary process. So these people's tendency is the opposite of what you are suggesting: not to speak against a popular misconception of Darwinian theory as based on randomness, but to insist on randomness as a major factor, and then celebrate and even baptize it for Christian use. But I haven't seen a single critical comment of yours against this emphasis (which must strike you as an overemphasis) on randomness. It is only when ID people speak of randomness that you jump down their throats. The double standard -- which is nothing new for you or your trainers at the NCSE -- is most instructive. More important than the fact of your partisan approach, however, is the fact that, if there is as much randomness in evolution as the Modern Synthesis theorists believed, and as the BioLogos folk mostly believe, then evolutionary results simply will not be predictable. And then the question arises how God can "use" NDE/Modern Synthesis evolution to accomplish his ends. The phenomenon of "convergence" which you mention of course raises the interesting question: can the Modern Synthesis/NDE really account for it? I know of Conway Morris's writing only indirectly, but all the quotations and summaries of his thought that I have seen indicate that he thinks that convergence is not fully explained merely because kindred sets of random mutations stumbled into similar environments. And when I've heard his thought described, I often wonder if he isn't groping toward a conclusion similar to that reached independently by Michael Denton, i.e., that evolution is not a random walk through genomic possibilities that sometimes lucks into favorable environments, but is actually a biased process which can find solutions faster than a Darwinian sort of process would be able to do, because it has been designed for such solution-finding. That is, the process of evolution itself is intelligently designed -- organisms were equipped from the start with the possibility of finding solutions faster than RM + NS alone could ever hope to achieve. I don't find this idea silly, and I think it can be seen as compatible with some of the things that Shapiro is saying, and I think it certainly is more compatible with orthodox traditional views of God's sovereignty, governance, etc. than the "statistical deism" (in Russell's brilliant phrase) that most American and British TEs these days are peddling. (It's not surprising that ID people are interested in some of the things that Conway Morris is saying.) No, no one is guiding the dice rolls at a casino, in my opinion. Or the striking of lightning. But of course -- and this is where BioLogos people go spectacularly wrong, having no gift whatsoever for finding appropriate parallels and analogies -- dice and lightning have almost nothing in common with living organisms, and any discussion of randomness in evolution would have to proceed much more carefully than discussions of randomness involving lifeless and mindless particles and forces. My view is that *if* evolution worked *only* by random mutations (and other stochastic events) filtered by natural selection, it would not be able to produce very much that was interesting. It would have to be guided either by some other internal tendency, or by some factor operating on evolution from the outside. Thus, if evolution can achieve complex integrated structures as frequently as is claimed, this would suggest either (a) that natural processes other than RM + NS -- as yet unknown but effectively teleological processes -- are operating or (b) that RM + NS are being supplemented by the non-natural direct steering of an intelligent being who has specific ends in mind. The problem I have with BioLogos is that it appears to reject (b) (and Bilbo agrees with me on that), yet appears to have very little interest in investigating (a). In its entire term of existence, not one column has been devoted to alternate evolutionary schemes, e.g., those of Margulis, or of some of the Altenberg group, or of Shapiro. They appear to be stuck theoretically in the 1970s, in a wholly gene-centered notion of evolution (incremental random genetic mutations producing new proteins and ultimately new organs and systems to be tested by natural selection). I thus don't take BioLogos seriously as a source for information on the latest in evolutionary theory. But if they aren't up on the latest evolutionary theory, then their great synthesis of evolution and Christianity is a synthesis of outdated concepts of evolution with Christianity. They therefore need some new blood there on the biology side, people who are not hidebound supporters of Dobzhansky, Ayala, etc., and people who actually go to secular scientific conferences on evolutionary theory and publish scientific research in peer-reviewed journals of evolutionary biology. If they could get Conway Morris writing for them, that would be a vast improvement. Five years of yesterday's evolutionary biology is long enough.Thomas Cudworth_{June 17, 2012
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Nick Matzke- We deserve a clear answer- in what way is evolution non-random?
The creationists are obsessed and paranoid about evolution in part because they think “chance” is somehow anti-God.
Nick didn't get the memo: As if it had to be said-
In other words, religion is compatible with modern evolutionary biology (and indeed all of modern science) if the religion is effectively indistinguishable from atheism.1
…
The frequently made assertion that modern biology and the assumptions of the Judaeo-Christian tradition are fully compatible is false.2
…
Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented. Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.3

As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.4
click here for a hint:
‘Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.’ 5
Thank you for your honesty Will Provine. 1- Academe January 1987 pp.51-52 † 2-Evolutionary Progress (1988) p. 65 † 3- “Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life” 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address 1 2 † 4- No Free Will (1999) p.123 5- Provine, W.B., Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994.Joe_{June 17, 2012
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You can’t say, given a bacterium 4 billion years ago, you will get an anteater in the Pliocene. You can’t even say, given a bacterium 4 billion years ago, you will get an anteater at any time. The process is too dependent on random mutations and shifting environmental conditions for such a precise form of predictability. Dawkins and Gould would both agree to this last statement.
Actually, anteater-type-things have evolved several times -- anteaters, aardvarks, and pangolins, and probably others I'm forgetting -- and both Conway Morris and Dawkins would say that it would happen again, given similar environments.
If you are talking Conway Morris, that is something different. But Conway Morris is already starting to move away, to some extent, from the conceptual framework of neo-Darwinism. I’m talking about classic neo-Darwinism here, and the reason I’m talking about it is (a) that’s what Behe and ID are attacking; (b) that’s what Venema, Falk, etc. are defending.
I don't think you have much of an idea of what "classic neo-Darwinism" actually means within actual science. The chance-emphasizing ideas in evolutionary theory, e.g. neutral drift, punctuated equilibrium and species sorting, contingency, etc., were produced by critics of "classic neo-Darwinism".
And by the way, BioLogos in particular emphasizes mutations and randomness much more than selection: note that Venema’s columns place much more emphasis on genomic alterations than on selection, and note that in the past month alone, BioLogos has run about six columns by four different authors in defense of “randomness.” So if you want to smack “creationists” for emphasizing randomness too much, then you had better spread the blame to cover your “evolutionist” friends at BioLogos as well. But that wouldn’t fit in with your political strategy, would it, Nick? To criticize BioLogos when it makes the same “mistake” as UD? You wouldn’t want to upset your TE allies by telling them “what you are saying about the science is just bunk,” would you? Not while you can still cynically use them against ID, anyway.
There is a much simpler explanation. The creationists are obsessed and paranoid about evolution in part because they think "chance" is somehow anti-God. BioLogos is attempting to convince creationists otherwise. Thus BioLogos gives some emphasis to the chance issue.
Your point about “nonrandom selection” is irrelevant to what we are discussing here. First, I did not claim that natural selection was random. Second, we are discussing whether or not evolution is steered, guided, directed, nudged, etc. The most ardent selectionist imaginable — someone like Dawkins — certainly does not believe that anyone is guiding, steering, or directing evolution. On that point, he and Gould, whatever their differences, are in perfect agreement. And Ayala says the same. The question is whether Falk and Venema agree, and if so, why they are not as forthright as the others in saying so.
Is anyone guiding the dice rolls at a casino? In lightning strikes? In earthquakes? Or are they statistically random? Yes or no, Thomas Cudworth, we deserve a clear answer. Whatever your answer to those questions, apply the same answer to random mutations in evolution and you'll start to see what BioLogos is getting at.NickMatzke_UD_{June 17, 2012
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Nick Conway Morris recently said, regarding convergent evolution, that “the manner in which life constructs itself must be dealing with some other principle which we’ve failed to identify.” He also said, “there are a lot of people who are more than happy with a Darwinian explanation but regard it as incomplete – just as Newtonian mechanics work extremely well, but you still need Einstein.” Do you think that all those people with a high opinion of NS, who think that convergence dominates, and indeed Dawkins, agree with Conway-Morris on that unidentified principle, and if so, what do you think it might be? If not, why does Conway Morris differ from them?
I can't evaluate this unless you provide the source. Is convergence the unidentified principle he is talking about, which he later says in his talk or article that he has identified? By talking about life "constructing itself" is he talking about the origin of the very first life? (Since the origin of the first life is a rather different question than the later evolutionary change of life forms once life exists.) Etc. Conway Morris is a working evolutionary biologist, they usually talk pretty specifically about what they think is understood and what is not, so vague snippets of quotes out of context don't mean anything by themselves. I'm pretty sure he's not talking about inserting "poof a miracle happened" into scientific explanations, if that's what you're after.NickMatzke_UD_{June 17, 2012
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Gregory: Your explanation for truncating my sentence is unacceptable. It is not a question of what language I wish to use, or what language BioLogos wishes to use, or what language you wish to use; it is a question of accurate reporting of what everyone said. Without the reference to "that phrase" [i.e., "guided evolution"], the reader might miss the contrast I was making with the BioLogos passage, which does not contain any reference to "guidance." But let this pass, since you now admit that BioLogos does not use the term. Nonetheless, you still aren't grasping the issue. You try to dismiss any concern over the word "guided", as if that is an ID imposition of a particular word on BioLogos. But you ignore the remarks I've made several times now, both in the original articles and to you, that it is not just "guided" but a whole range of terms suggesting intention, purpose, teleology, etc., that are rejected by BioLogos. It is not any single word that I'm concerned about here. The point is that the writers at BioLogos are rejecting an idea -- teleology in the evolutionary process -- which is essential if the evolutionary process is to be reconciled with traditional Christian theology. You are cavilling over word choice, and missing the major theoretical issue entirely. Organic evolution is either teleological or it's not. The folks at BioLogos have no right to ambiguity on this point -- not when they are claiming to reconcile Darwinian thinking with Christian theology. As for: “evolution is . . . a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes”: I have no theological objection to it. But you fail to make the crucial distinction between "evolution" simply and "neo-Darwinian evolution." Without bearing this distinction in mind, you will never grasp the theological problem. BioLogos has from the beginning been committed to neo-Darwinian evolution, as its constant emphasis on random mutations and the rules of population genetics and its reverence for Ayala and Dobzhansky and many other things make clear; and it's neo-Darwinian mechanisms that pose the theological difficulties. The conversation with Crude was extended over a three-day period. Venema had "two days off" in which to formulate a coherent answer, to amend for the grossly evasive tactics he had employed at the beginning of the discussion. He also had a chance to look at the extensive intervening discussion, on exactly the same topic, between Falk and Crude, which would have clarified for him (if he really had any doubt) what Crude was driving at. But when he returned, he still danced around the terms of Crude's question, and the continued evasion was deliberate; I demonstrated that beyond a reasonable doubt. Venema hid from Crude much that was in his mind, and he refused to confirm or deny the appropriateness of any of the many terms which Crude had suggested. Venema was not interested in communicating with Crude. Someone who is trying to communicate does not simply dismiss the vocabulary of the other person. Someone who is trying to communicate engages the vocabulary of the other person -- correcting it if necessary, suggesting better choices, etc., but all the while showing respect for the fact that his conversation partner finds these terms important and meaningful. Simply remaining silent about key terms, when direct questions have been posed about them -- that is not collegial dialogue. That is obtuseness. And obtuseness has been characteristic of BioLogos from the beginning. I have the impression that you have read neither my columns nor my comments very carefully. Time and again you ask questions I have already answered, or raise objections I have already dealt with, without showing any sign that I have done so. You do it again here, when you quote Falk as saying that "God began creation with humans in mind" -- apparently oblivious of my discussion of the ambiguity of that passage in Falk. I'm not going to repeat that discussion. You'll have to go back and look it up. Your remarks to the effect that I am somehow imposing theological requirements on BioLogos's discussion of scientific matters are ridiculous. BioLogos's whole raison d'etre is to reconcile Christian theology -- in particular the doctrine of creation -- with Darwinian evolution. I did not impose any theological task on BioLogos; BioLogos undertook that task voluntarily. It's not my fault if BioLogos is executing its task very poorly, by utterly failing to show the compatibility of a non-teleological form of evolution with the Biblical and Christian understanding of creation as the realization of antecedently conceived ends. Regarding another query: I do not claim to speak for all ID proponents. However, I know that I speak for a great number of them when I indicate apparent inconsistencies between the tradition Christian understandings of creation, omnipotence, providence, governance, etc. and an inherently non-teleological form of evolution. If you are a regular reader of UD, you must know that my criticism is widely shared by ID people. So why you are asking the question is beyond me. Sometimes you give the impression of asking questions merely to provoke a reaction, rather than because you do not know the answer to the question. I find such a conversational tactic to be discreditable to those who employ it. As for your final question, it is basic "netiquette" not even to ask it. I would therefore normally not answer, as you are not entitled to an answer. But in case anyone finds my efforts here faulty or inadequate, I would not want Crude -- whose real name I do not know, but whose honesty and politeness put the slipperiness of Falk and Venema to shame -- to be dragged down with me, so I will say, no, I am not.Thomas Cudworth_{June 17, 2012
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--Gregory: "Because you don’t seem to realise that people are free not to use the same chosen language that you use. Pourquoi vous ne comprenez pas? ?????? ?? ?? ??????????" When recounting what ThomasC has said, you are permitted to use a different language form only if you faithfully capture the essence of what he wrote. You are not permitted to re-arrange his words in order to convert his arguments into strawmen so that you can slink away from the former and boldly attack the latter.StephenB_{June 17, 2012
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Human free will is a radically different concept than freedom of nature. Nature does not have to be "free" in order for God to act on it or in it--or for man to be free. Even in a Newtonian universe where the current state of affairs dictates future physical events, both miracles and human free will are possible. The issue is not free will vs. predestination. The issue is teleology vs non-teleology. The purpose for obsessing over the first point is to avoid confronting the second point.StephenB_{June 17, 2012
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Just a quick note to say that the many ???'s near the beginning of post #43 were actually meant as a question framed in a language with a different script, which seems not to be accepted on UD site, not as an expression of frustration or emotion. Thanks, GregoryGregory_{June 17, 2012
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"Why did you do this?" - Thomas Because you don't seem to realise that people are free not to use the same chosen language that you use. Pourquoi vous ne comprenez pas? ?????? ?? ?? ?????????? "“Guiding” suggests a special divine action, above and beyond the normal working of natural laws" - Thomas That’s fine for theology. But are you saying you are expecting a biological theory of "special divine action, above and beyond the normal working of natural laws" from BioLogos as they seek a balance between science and faith? If so, wouldn't that pass beyond the proper sphere of biological sciences? It is ironic how the shoe is on the other foot now, with BioLogos defending natural scientific sovereignty (though, see sadness point below) and Thomas at UD pushing them to give theological answers on biological (and anthropological) topics! The proposition about making 'non-theological disputes' into 'theological disputes' and the 'theology-science inversion' I suggested you are displaying in asking for 'pre-human theology' are still on the table, Thomas. "The statement you quoted from BioLogos does not say that God providentially achieves his purposes by “guiding” evolution." - Thomas You're right, BioLogos website afaik does not use the term 'guided' with 'evolution'. Surely you'll accept that's their prerogative and perhaps not beat a plowshare into a sword by requiring them to speak of ‘guidance’ simply because you and many in the IDM prefer to do so. Instead, their website says: “evolution is...a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes.” Again, Thomas, do you agree or disagree with their statement (or is this just a joint semantic refusal)? “I think God is omnipotent and omniscient. That should pretty much answer all questions on that front.” – Crude That does say a lot, as well as the admission that, "in an ultimate sense," Crude believes there is nothing that is 'unguided.' "Venema never mentioned this before, not even in his extended conversation with Crude" - Thomas You're making some progress then, bravo! Actually, I thought the conversation between Venema and Crude was rather compact, not extended. Venema made 4 posts (including 2 requesting clarifications) in the thread to Crude, totalling 1166 characters (with spaces). To put that in contrast, Thomas, you just wrote 3493 characters (with spaces) in message #37 to me here. Thus, please excuse if I don’t consider Venema to have had an “extended conversation with Crude,” even if you really do believe that, Thomas. We must have a substantially different understanding of what ‘extended’ means in this case, just as you have a particular view of ‘guiding,’ ‘rigging,’ ‘intervening’ ‘setting up’ or ‘constraining’ evolution that as a theologian you would like BioLogos biologists to adapt as their own chosen language. There are features of what Crude said that could also be scrutinised more carefully than has yet been done at UD. For example, Crude does mention human beings, which contradicts the provocative and imho interesting statement by Thomas: “The theological dispute between Christian ID proponents and BioLogos and ASA-TEs is over the activity of God between the origin of the world and the origin of man, not over the activity of God once man comes on the scene.” However, it should be noted that Falk did say in that thread: “I think God began creation with humans in mind.” Thus, it seems to me that humanity cannot be avoided in whatever ‘theological dispute’ Thomas or others at UD wish to have with BioLogos. A short request for clarity; since there is no single ‘theological authority’ in the IDM, it might be worth admitting, Thomas, that it is ‘your theological dispute’ with BioLogos and not necessarily ‘THE theological dispute,’ as surely there are others held by individual IDers also. Sad to say for Venema, no questions were asked to him and no discussion took place on the genetics topic of his thread. Perhaps this goes to show that people are vastly more interested in the theology and philosophy than in the specialist natural science involved. One final question, just a shot looking for light, no disrespect meant, accusation or trickery implied – just curiosity for the sake of clarity: Thomas Cudworth, are you the same person who posted under the name ‘Crude’ at BioLogos in the highlighted thread?Gregory_{June 17, 2012
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Nick Matzke:
The alternative view, advanced by Gould, was that evolution is a very “chancy” process, but Gould was a *critic* of classic neo-Darwinism — classic neo-Darwinism is committed to the position that nonrandom selection dominates random chance in evolution.
In what way is "selection" non-random? Please be specific or admit that you are just spewing propaganda. Natural selection is a result- a result that has random inputs. Random inputs = randomized output/ result.Joe_{June 17, 2012
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Jon:
But the other question is, if less emotionally-charged, equally important, and that is the question of whether BioLogos is offering an intellectually coherent account of theistic evolution.
Yep. *Any* academic or thinker, secular or otherwise, would deserve to be called to account for publicly engaging the level of sophistry and equivocation that they have engaged in, and for showing such reckless anti-intellectual disregard for truth and logic. That they show such disregard in the context of presenting themselves as Christian teachers of theology that other Christians should adopt just makes it that much worse.Deuce_{June 17, 2012
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Jon Garvey wrote: 'If all theistic evolution means is “We believe the current scientific account of evolution, and we’re Christians too” then what, really, is the point?' Amen!Thomas Cudworth_{June 17, 2012
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Excellent analysis, Deuce. Thanks a lot. I'd just add that the question of whether BioLogos is theologically orthodox is only one part of the equation. Those of us espousing theistic evolution, who are Christians, are duty bound to giving an account of it that is theologically robust, and if TE's most public Christian-based face fails to do that, it's doing the Christian community a disservice. But the other question is, if less emotionally-charged, equally important, and that is the question of whether BioLogos is offering an intellectually coherent account of theistic evolution. Once more, those of us who are TEs want to be able to point to a scheme that works. Ideally BioLogos should be the forum where TEs hammer out the strengths and weaknesses to form a persuasive and developing programme. I for one feel cheated that my attempts to raise issues like this have been repeatedly stonewalled by a defensive mentality. If all theistic evolution means is "We believe the current scientific account of evolution, and we're Christians too" then what, really, is the point?Jon Garvey_{June 17, 2012
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Deuce: Thanks for some well-thought-out criticisms of BioLogos. Some of them overlap with my own; others seem to complement what I'm saying. Your remarks on the difference between random events and free rational choices are particularly appreciated. I can't count how many times I've heard TEs make loose linkages between quantum randomness and the "freedom" of either human beings or of nature. But I can count the number of times that they -- when asked by me or within my hearing -- have *explained* those linkages: zero.Thomas Cudworth_{June 17, 2012
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Gregory (35): Your (deliberate?) suppression of key words in my remarks creates a misleading impression. What I wrote was: "you won’t find a single place on the BioLogos website where that phrase ["guided evolution"] is affirmed by any BioLogos personnel." You chopped off this quotation after the word "website," thus deleting the crucial part of my statement, which referred back to your own phrase, "guided evolution." Why did you do this? The statement you quoted from BioLogos does not say that God providentially achieves his purposes by "guiding" evolution. No regular BioLogos columnist, and no member of the BioLogos executive, has ever stated or implied that God "guides" evolution. "Guiding" suggests a special divine action, above and beyond the normal working of natural laws; or, at the very least, suggests a "setup" of the evolutionary process that "rigs" it in such a way that it produces certain outcomes. There has never been any statement on BioLogos, either officially or in the writing of any regular columnist, that God either guides or rigs anything. The question, which I have asked repeatedly, is how a contingent, stochastic process such as is described in neo-Darwinism, can be a vehicle for divine providence. By way of contrast, it is very easy to see how "intervention" can be a vehicle for divine providence. It is also moderately easy to see how rigging the evolutionary process in advance could be a vehicle for divine providence, though only if the rigging resulted in very tight rather than very loose constraints on evolutionary outcomes. But if both these routes -- intervention, and very tight constraints -- are explicitly or implicitly denied or rejected (as seems to be the case on BioLogos), it is very hard to see what "tools" God has for carrying out his intentions through the evolutionary process. Now Bilbo, who agrees with me that the BioLogos columnists reject guidance in the sense of intervention, was up until yesterday unable to show any evidence that any BioLogos columnist ever spoke of "rigging" or "setting up" evolution to get certain results. But now he has rushed over to BioLogos and, with some leading questions, has coaxed some very hurried and undeveloped notions out of Dennis Venema's mouth, notions which *could* be taken to imply some sort of "rigging" -- some sort of setting of restrictions which would channel evolution in certain general directions (though not to any specific results). But Venema never mentioned this before, not even in his extended conversation with Crude, where it would have been just the right sort of answer, and he certainly hasn't developed the idea well enough yet for us to see whether the restrictions on evolution would be enough that God could guarantee, for example, the emergence of man, or even the emergence of primates, or of mammals. Further, so far this is only Venema's opinion. Bilbo has no evidence that Falk, Louis, Applegate, Isaac, Giberson, or other past or present regulars would endorse it. So Bilbo has essentially thrown a desperate Hail Mary pass, in the hope of convincing us that BioLogos all along meant that God controls evolution through something like "rigging" or "constraining," and he thinks that the pass has been caught in the end zone, wholly on the basis of Venema's off-the-cuff suggestion. But in fact, Venema has not yet reached the end zone, no other eligible receivers are in sight, and the pass is still floating, with the firmness of the receiver's hands very much in doubt.Thomas Cudworth_{June 17, 2012
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And on the question of God’s love of “freedom” he could state whether by that he means only that God leaves the human will free (to accept or reject God), or whether he means that subhuman nature is also “free”; and in the latter case, in what sense a rock or a solar flare or a protein molecule is “free.”
They're not going to clarify that, because their position depends on equivocating between free will and purposeless blind mechanism for whatever persuasive force it has. Were they to be honest and clear about what they mean, it would be the end of their project. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- First, some background: - When we say that humans have free will, we don't mean that their behaviors are random. We mean that humans act according to their goals, for their own reasons, based on logical relationships they perceive between premises and conclusions - that they are rational creatures in other words - and that this ability to reason is a basic reality and therefore not reducible to or an epiphenomenon of something else like blind mechanism and random chance. - The Wesleyan/Armenian vs Calvinist divide is about whether people need to be regenerated by a special act of God's grace before they are able to love Him and be saved. It is *not* about whether God predicts and plans human action. Both agree that he does, as do all the other branches of Christianity. *Both* parties agree that, for instance, Judas Iscariot acted with free will, but that his actions were nevertheless not only known by God beforehand, but were, in fact, part of His plan of salvation. This isn't the "Calvinist" position. It's the Calvinist/Wesleyan/Armenian/Catholic/Orthodox position. - The Free Will theodicy is *not* meant to defend the idea that God does not know or plan human actions. Again, all branches of Christianity agree that He does. The Free Will defense is meant to give an account of why God might allow sin to exist. The argument goes that creating humans in His Image that have free will, and thus are capable of truly choosing the good and loving God, logically entails that they will also commit sin. Thus, if God makes creatures with free will (an objective good in and of itself), His plan for the world will have to include human sins (as with the case of Judas Iscariot). Again, it does *not* mean that those sins are outside God's plan, or that they are not known to Him beforehand. - Even Open Theists, heretics that they are, only claim that *human* choices are not foreknown by God, because they wrongly believe that free will and God's foreknowledge are incompatible. It's not part of that position that God doesn't even know the actions of unconscious matter, or that He didn't foreknow and plan the existence of humans. If the Biologos folks are trying to suggest that (and it certainly seems that they are), then they're even bigger heretics than the Open Theists. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are two ways of interpreting Biologos claims that the universe is "free". On the one hand, they could mean that the universe actually possesses free will like humans do. This would be a rather odd notion, but it would still be compatible with the idea that God foreknows and plans everything that happens, just as with human free will. On the other hand, they could mean that the universe is "free" as in free of God's planning and foreknowledge - that it's genuinely random (in the sense of unguided by God, not necessarily in the sense of being non-deterministic) and unplanned. This, obviously, is incompatible with God foreknowing and planning what happens, since it's a direct contradiction in terms. The Biologos guys are equivocating between those two definitions, because if they unequivocally choose either one, their whole position falls apart. They can't say that the universe itself is an agent with free will, because A) that's a silly position that would get them laughed at by nearly everyone, and B) it would commit them to an Intelligent Design position in evolution (recall that the direction of evolution is part of the universe's "freedom" according to them) with the universe literally, consciously planning and choosing what creatures to make. On the other hand, they can't state outright that the universe and evolution are blind, random, and unplanned by God because A) it would be too risibly obvious that they were advocating atheistic heresy, and B) it would destroy their "God loves freedom" claim, which depends on conflating chance with free will ("God loves mindless purposelessness" wouldn't be very persuasive, would it?). For my part, I'm pretty sure they believe in the second definition. Notice that they offered the "God loves freedom" claim in response to nullasallus asking if God knew the direction of evolution beforehand, which makes no sense if that's not what they mean. The reason they use the terminology of free will and bring red herrings like "Wesleyianism" and "Calvinism" (which, again, have NOTHING to do with God's foreknowledge, which ALL faithful Christians believe in) into the equation is that if they were to simply say outright that man is a cosmic accident in a unguided material universe, everyone would see it as obviously tantamount to materialist reductionist atheism. Even if they did mean to say that the universe has actual free will (which they clearly don't), it would make no sense as a response to nullasallus' question, since Christianity teaches that man's free will actions are foreknown by God and part of his plan. In their defense, I suspect they're trying to fool themselves as well here as much as us. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some final thoughts: - I get the impression that some people think it's mean or intolerant to judge what Biologos is saying as heretical. However, as Christians, we are commanded judge those who present themselves as Christian teachers. Preserving the faith we have been entrusted with and protecting the faithful from false teachers is infinitely more important than not hurting Venema's and Falk's feelings. - We're often told that Darwinism is only about methodological naturalism, not philosophical naturalism. However, Falk and Venema have given away the game here. It's pretty clear that *they* believe that adhering to Darwinian theory requires them to believe that God didn't deliberately and knowingly bring man into existence, otherwise they wouldn't have to tie themselves in philosophical knots and resort to such sophistry as conflating free will with blind unplanned mechanism to make their position seem compatible with Christianity. - The most worrying possibility is that they're conflating free will with blind mechanism in the other direction. That is to say, that they're suggesting that the human mind really reduces to blind material mechanism.Deuce_{June 17, 2012
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"The theological dispute between Christian ID proponents and BioLogos and ASA-TEs is over the activity of God between the origin of the world and the origin of man, not over the activity of God once man comes on the scene." - Thomas Cudworth Thank you for finally speaking to this key point related to anthropology! This is where you are performing and promoting a theology-science inversion, Thomas. Granted, it has become a rampant problem in ID-TE-EC discourse. Frankly, I don't think you have any 'evidence' that they do not have on 'pre-human theology.' You are a theologian, are you not, Thomas? Thus, with due respect, it would make sense if sometimes you artificially turned things into 'theological disputes' which actually are not. Jon's desire for BioLogos to come up with a kind of 'theological biology' ('divine action in natural evolution') is also noteworthy. But that's quite different from 'theological medicine,' the latter which involves personal contact between doctor and patient in which 'theology' could be added to/intertwined with medicine. Purely objective medicine is of course mythological, rather than realistic. Can the same thing be said about theological biology? Thomas wrote: "you won’t find a single place on the BioLogos website..." As above, from the BioLogos website: "evolution is not in opposition to God, but a means by which God providentially achieves his purposes.” What part of that do you not accept or allow in your (science and religion) worldview, Thomas?Gregory_{June 17, 2012
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I see from Dennis's BioLogos answers that he would prefer Thomas Cudworth to use his real name - as he complained to Bilbo! Maybe his replies clarify the fact that I was right many months ago in saying that "freedom" in nature is being meant as "indeterminacy" and then equated with "freedom" meaning "libertarian free will". And then (as by Gregory) somehow that is used to make evolution a theological issue to do with predestination and absolute physical determinism (is there a sectarian proverb in there somewhere - "To the Wesleyan evolutionist, everything is a matter of Calvinism")? But that's old news - nobody in this discussion (though we have to keep restating it, it seems)doubts that human free will is both a reality and a great good from God. Those of us who have studied theology have some idea why free will is good, too. It would still be good to hear from biologists how indeterminacy blesses non-sentient creatures, though, as I didn't get much sense of that from my studies, indeterminacy being a radically different concept. Dennis likens evolution to playing chess with a grand master, who counters our moves within the constraints of chess with much better moves, so that he wins. It sounds a good analogy to me. All we need to know now is what analogy is being drawn between the grand master's successive moves and God, and we will have the first outline of a BioLogos view of divine action in evolution.Jon Garvey_{June 17, 2012
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Gregory (25): I can only deal with a few of your many questions and comments, so I'll select the ones which seem to me to keep the discussion focused on the main issue I've raised in these columns. First, you ask me: "... what are you actually asking for? A simple theological nod of the head -- 'yes, evolution is guided'?" Gregory, are you sure you actually read the column above? I gave a large number of examples of the sort of answer that I would count as clear and non-evasive. Maybe you only skimmed what I wrote. Have another look. Second, regarding free will, I've already explained at great length to Bilbo why it is irrelevant to what we are discussing. I'm not going to rewrite that argument again. If you want the full statement, you will have to read our exchange under the previous columns. But if you want it in a nutshell, there is a huge difference between human and subhuman beings. (A proposition that I think you will find quite amenable to your emphasis on social matters.) To say that God overrules the will of a human being poses certain philosophical and theological difficulties; to say that God compels a rock or a molecule or a gene to do something poses none. God could be an absolute tyrant over stones and snails and ferns and ichthyosaurs and mastodons and dodo birds, and over every stage of evolution up to and including the final stage that produces the first human being, while refusing to override the free will of Adam and Eve (or of Venema's "population of 10,000") or their descendants. The theological dispute between Christian ID proponents and BioLogos and ASA-TEs is over the activity of God between the origin of the world and the origin of man, not over the activity of God once man comes on the scene. (There are ID people who are every bit as "Arminian" on the question of human free will as Venema is. The difference is that they don't extend the freedom of man to some imaginary "freedom of nature.") Third, you wrote: "EC (and TE) means 'guided evolution,' don't worry yourself over this, Thomas." But Gregory, you won't find a single place on the BioLogos website where that phrase is affirmed by any BioLogos personnel. Nor will you find any affirmation that evolution was "steered" or "directed" or "purposive" or "teleological." I have also heard a number of TEs either deny that they believe in guidance or ridicule any notion of guidance as "tinkering" unworthy of God. And I have established, in front of your very eyes -- though for some reason you refuse to acknowledge the evidence that is in front of your eyes -- that both Falk and Venema artfully avoided answering Crude's question whether or not evolution was guided. And they avoided not only the word "guided" but a whole range of approximately equivalent expressions offered by Crude. You have not yet asked yourself why they should do this, if it is such a slam-dunk that EC/TE means "guided evolution." On your account, they should have answered: "Well, we're Christians, so sure, we believe that evolution was guided." They not only didn't answer like that, they didn't answer in any clear way, and after many tries, Crude simply had to give up. A person with only a moderately suspicious temperament would wonder what all the foot-dragging and stonewalling was about.Thomas Cudworth_{June 16, 2012
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Bilbo: Triangles aren't biological entities. The mathematics of randomness requires context-sensitive handling. That some kinds of order can arise out of randomness in some contexts, no one denies. That new body plans can arise out of the particular form of randomness asserted in neo-Darwinism, no one on the planet has proved, or come even close to proving. I saw Venema's remarks. He came closer to stating his true views than ever before. However, his remarks are still very sketchy, and were shaped in part by your line of questioning, and I will not debate with him through your interpretive glosses. I might, in a few weeks, gather up his own statements, and comment on them directly. But I will wait for a bit, because he or Falk may take up UD's generous offer to give them a column here for rebuttal (a courtesy BioLogos has never offered Behe after any of its numerous and often low attacks upon him). At this point I will say only that Venema's excuse -- that he sounds evasive only because he is so busy that he can't give satisfactory answers -- is pathetic. He could have spent *less* time in answering Crude by cutting out the evasions (delaying counter-questions and rambling speculations about freedom and mystery), and saying right up front what he really thought, which, based his remarks today, seems to be: "I don't think the evolutionary process was guided in detail, but I think God set some general boundaries on what it could produce." It took me one minute to think up and construct that sentence. It isn't time that's the problem; it's intellectual and dialogical uncooperativeness. As for the theological question, Venema's sketchy remarks don't provide enough of a basis for assessing orthodoxy, so I'll refrain from comment. In any case, I don't want to burn anyone at any stake. If Venema said tomorrow: "Based on my intellectual conviction that the radically contingent system of neo-Darwinism contains the true description of biological evolution, and that this rules out the determination of specific evolutionary outcomes by even an omnipotent being, I have decided to depart from traditional Christian creation doctrine and adopt Open Theism," I'd say "Fine, go your way in peace." But if he tried to pass off Open Theism as compatible with the Bible or with the main stream of tradition, I'd throw a library of primary and secondary sources at him in full public view, so that other Christians would not be misled by a false description of historical Christian teaching.Thomas Cudworth_{June 16, 2012
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Now go ahead and explain why he’s a heretic and should be burned at the stake, which is what you really want to do to hin. People are asking for clarification from prominent members of an organization that should be a leader and standard-bearer among TEs, and who instead trade heavily on vagueness and equivocation. You're sitting here trying your best to reconstruct some outline-sketch of a position that Venema and can possibly have and are not getting the point: the problem here isn't an inability to make up theories about what Falk and Venema "really mean" - we could do that all day. The problem is asking them to state what they believe for themselves, and do so clearly. What's more, it's being asked of them pretty politely. Yes, there's a good chance if they really mean that nature is entirely unguided and God predicted or orchestrated nothing in evolution, they're going to lose favor among the people they're hoping to represent and convince. As well they should, if those people disagree with them. And for a guy who thinks what you do about 9/11, you should really be the last one to get pissed off about a reasonable demand for clarity and a straight answer from someone.nullasalus_{June 16, 2012
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As to threads at BioLogos that talk about random yet probable outcomes, I think that was the point of the threads on the Sierpinski Triangle. Given a limited amount of randomness one still gets very similar outcomes. Dennis Venema indicated that this is what he thinks is going on with Nature. Quantum mechanics suggests that Nature has a limited amount of freedom or randomness. Sub-atomic particles have some degree of freedom or randomess, but they can'd do anything at all. So there can be predictable outcomes. One could believe the same thing is going on in evolution. And that seems to be what Dennis believes. Now go ahead and explain why he's a heretic and should be burned at the stake, which is what you really want to do to hin.Bilbo I_{June 16, 2012
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Gregory I won't respond to the "not Reformed enough" stuff, which is unhelpful as well as plain wrong. I don't need to avoid theology because I am not committed to ID. I discuss the issues here rather than on the specifically theological BioLogos site because when I've tried to discuss them there I've been blanked. Why else do you think these threads are populated by people who have migrated, or been banned, from BioLogos?Jon Garvey_{June 16, 2012
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Nick: Classic neo-Darwinism said that both random mutations and natural selection were essential components of evolution. Different theorists placed different relative weights on these two factors, but all agreed that the role of random mutations meant that there was an inevitable contingent aspect of evolution. Its results, unlike the movements of the heavenly bodies, are not predictable. You can't say, given a bacterium 4 billion years ago, you will get an anteater in the Pliocene. You can't even say, given a bacterium 4 billion years ago, you will get an anteater at any time. The process is too dependent on random mutations and shifting environmental conditions for such a precise form of predictability. Dawkins and Gould would both agree to this last statement. If you are talking Conway Morris, that is something different. But Conway Morris is already starting to move away, to some extent, from the conceptual framework of neo-Darwinism. I'm talking about classic neo-Darwinism here, and the reason I'm talking about it is (a) that's what Behe and ID are attacking; (b) that's what Venema, Falk, etc. are defending. (And by the way, BioLogos in particular emphasizes mutations and randomness much more than selection: note that Venema's columns place much more emphasis on genomic alterations than on selection, and note that in the past month alone, BioLogos has run about six columns by four different authors in defense of "randomness." So if you want to smack "creationists" for emphasizing randomness too much, then you had better spread the blame to cover your "evolutionist" friends at BioLogos as well. But that wouldn't fit in with your political strategy, would it, Nick? To criticize BioLogos when it makes the same "mistake" as UD? You wouldn't want to upset your TE allies by telling them "what you are saying about the science is just bunk," would you? Not while you can still cynically use them against ID, anyway.) Your point about "nonrandom selection" is irrelevant to what we are discussing here. First, I did not claim that natural selection was random. Second, we are discussing whether or not evolution is steered, guided, directed, nudged, etc. The most ardent selectionist imaginable -- someone like Dawkins -- certainly does not believe that anyone is guiding, steering, or directing evolution. On that point, he and Gould, whatever their differences, are in perfect agreement. And Ayala says the same. The question is whether Falk and Venema agree, and if so, why they are not as forthright as the others in saying so.Thomas Cudworth_{June 16, 2012
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Nick Conway Morris recently said, regarding convergent evolution, that "the manner in which life constructs itself must be dealing with some other principle which we've failed to identify." He also said, "there are a lot of people who are more than happy with a Darwinian explanation but regard it as incomplete - just as Newtonian mechanics work extremely well, but you still need Einstein." Do you think that all those people with a high opinion of NS, who think that convergence dominates, and indeed Dawkins, agree with Conway-Morris on that unidentified principle, and if so, what do you think it might be? If not, why does Conway Morris differ from them?Jon Garvey_{June 16, 2012
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