If evolution is motivated by religious thought then what about skepticism of evolution, is it not also religiously motivated? Yes, there is religion behind evolution skepticism, but not in the way we are told. The constant drumbeat of evolutionists and their media groupies is that skepticism is all about creationism. I have lost track of how many times I have been called a creationist. In one debate I was asked if I accept the fossil record, as though it must conflict with my religion. Evolutionists never seem to tire of erroneously labeling their detractors as creationists.
It is not true that evolution skepticism is grounded in creationism any more than evolution is grounded in atheism. But skepticism does have a religious motivation, of a sort. Simply put, we do not accept that the religious mandates for evolution are necessarily true.
How did Charles Darwin know that God would not create the species as we find them? He argued over and over that the biological evidence disproved divine creation, and so evolution (somehow) must be true. Similar arguments were used by evolution co-founder Alfred Wallace. They were foundational and remain crucial today. How does Ken Miller know that God would not create the mosquito? How does Jerry Coyne know God would not design the sort of embryos we find?
The evolutionists may well be correct in their assertions, but we don't know they are correct. We believe the evolutionist's mandate that God would create the world according to their sentiment is an over reach. Our religious belief, on the other hand, is more of a minimalist approach. Yes, scripture tells us some things, but it does not tell us everything.
But you won't learn that from the nightly news or the evolution literature. You will be told that evolution skepticism has a religious ax to grind. A friend of mine was interviewed by NBC Nightly News. It was a lengthy interview but his scientific problems with evolution were not what the journalists were looking for. Not surprisingly he was not included in their lead story which informed viewers about "The Battle Between Science and the Bible."
The headlines won't tell you this but our religious motivation, as it were, is to keep a lid on religious beliefs that are unsupportable.
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Why do ID advocates reject to being called creationists despite the obvious fact that essentially of them (with very few exceptions such as Behe) clearly are creationists?
ReplyDeleteMr Hunter, you taught at Biola, therefore you were REQUIRED to accept their Statement of Faith;
"The existence and nature of the creation is due to the direct miraculous power of God. The origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of kinds of living things, and the origin of humans cannot be explained adequately apart from reference to that intelligent exercise of power. A proper understanding of science does not require that all phenomena in nature must be explained solely by reference to physical events, laws and chance.
Therefore, creation models which seek to harmonize science and the Bible should maintain at least the following: (a) God providentially directs His creation, (b) He specially intervened in at least the above-mentioned points in the creation process, and (c) God specially created Adam and Eve (Adam’s body from non-living material, and his spiritual nature immediately from God). Inadequate origin models hold that (a) God never directly intervened in creating nature and/or (b) humans share a common physical ancestry with earlier life forms."
How odd that this statement is in direct disagreement with the theory of evolution. But your 'skepticism' about evolution couldn't have anything to do with your relgious beliefs, could it?
Dr. Hunter,
ReplyDeleteThank you again for providing the link to the original matterial so we can judge for ourselves.
I agree Robert T. Pennock, a philosopher, was focused on the metaphysical arguments of ID when he wrote...
"That Intelligent Design Creationism rejects the methodological naturalism of modern science in favor of a premodern supernaturalist worldview is well documented and by now well known."
It is clear the ID Movement is mostly religious with the goal of...
"[Replacing] materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God "
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf
It was also significant the Dover Trial was over a Pro-ID textbook that included the words...
"Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact – fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc."
(Pandas 1993, 2nd edition, pp. 99-100)
I suggest it is reasonable for people to presume the motivation and philosophy of Intelligent Design is similar, if not identical, to creationism.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean the arguments of ID Science are flawed.
I think there is some validity to suggesting life is too complicated for the current evolutionary thinking.
This is why I and others are looking into Quantum Biophysics.
Why isn't the :... intelligent design community is at the forefront in raising and answering such questions"?
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2005.09.Expert_Report_Dembski.pdf
Or if it is, could you please direct me to Discovery Institute's repository of scientific hypotheses "raising and answering such questions"?
So what does it mean to be labled a c/Creationist?
ReplyDeleteBy one definition of the term, I am a creationist, for I believe that the complexity observed in living things cannot be explained by anything other than the actions of a creative intelligent agent.
I am not a Creationist, because I don't take the creation account in the Bible literally.
As I read the literature, I always assume that when someone is labeled a creationist they are really being labeled as a big "C" Creationist, and therefore they and their aguments can be dismissed out of hand.
However, I do believe that we can and should listen to the Creationists. They can ask legitimate and pointed questions.
Thought Provoker says:
I suggest it is reasonable for people to presume the motivation and philosophy of Intelligent Design is similar, if not identical, to creationism.
My motivation is to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and come up with the best explanation for that evidence. I do not rule out in advance that that evidence can rule out intelligent agency. I don't see that as having the same motive as a Creationist.
A Creationist is one who accepts the literal truth of Genesis and seeks to find evidence to confirm that truth.
I am at least one exception to the idea that ID people and creationists have similar motivations.
We also have to explain the motivation of atheists and agnostics who see the reasonableness of design arguments.
I would suggest that they are not seeking to confirm the literal truth of Genesis.
"I believe that the complexity observed in living things cannot be explained by anything other than the actions of a creative intelligent agent."
ReplyDeleteWhat does this even mean? I have never understood this argument at all. It seems to be saying that there are vague and arbitrary limits to what natural processes can produce and beyond that divine intervention is required.
If we don't know the precise natural mechanisms by which something happened, the only position should be "we don't know." It is not reasonable to resort to magic as an explanation.
To me it is no different from saying "the events involved in the French Revolution/World War 2/(pick any event you want) are just too unlikely/complex to have occurred through a unguided chain of events, divine intervention must have been involved."
Peter:
ReplyDelete[The argument for intelligent design] seems to be saying that there are vague and arbitrary limits to what natural processes can produce and beyond that divine intervention is required.
Micheal Behe, in The Edge of Evolution, has proposed that there is limit to what evoluton can do. He was not willing to propose a precise boundary, because more evidence was needed to do that.
If you accept for the moment that there is a limit to what evolution can do, and that science has determined what the limit is, what would be the possible alternatvies?
If nature can't do the job, is intelligent design the only alternative?
Peter:
If we don't know the precise natural mechanisms by which something happened, the only position should be "we don't know."
Yes, the only position should be "we don't know." Evolutionary scientists have said the same thing. It's a truism that hardly needs mentioning, except in the case of evolutionary science.
Since scientists do not know the precise mechanisms by which evolution occurred, why do they continue to insist, as Michael Ruse writes, that "evolution is a fact, Fact, FACT!"?
Peter:
It is not reasonable to resort to magic as an explanation.
I guess one person's magic is another person's reasonable inference. Random processes creating complex things is magic to me.
Peter:
To me it is no different from saying "the events involved in the French Revolution/World War 2/(pick any event you want) are just too unlikely/complex to have occurred through a unguided chain of events, divine intervention must have been involved."
Your observation contradicts itself. History is a series of events guided by decisions of intelligent agents, if you will. It is true, that history is full of contingencies, and the outcome of each decision that a peson makes in response to each contigency cannot be predicted for certain. History is the study of decisions made and the results therby obtained.
But to call historical events complex is to seriously misconsture the definiton of complexity used by ID theorists. Sociological and psycological complexity that affects human behavior is vastly different from the concept of complex specified information proposed by ID theorists.
harpy666:
ReplyDelete"Why do ID advocates reject to being called creationists despite the obvious fact that essentially of them (with very few exceptions such as Behe) clearly are creationists?"
False.
"Mr Hunter, you taught at Biola, therefore you were REQUIRED to accept their Statement of Faith; ..."
You don't know what my comments were to what I signed. So you don't actually know what you are talking about. As for that statement, let's have a look:
====
The origin of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of kinds of living things, and the origin of humans cannot be explained adequately apart from reference to that intelligent exercise of power.
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That is *uncontroversially* true. Even evolutionists agree their theory has substantial problems.
====
A proper understanding of science does not require that all phenomena in nature must be explained solely by reference to physical events, laws and chance.
====
Again, even a nominal understanding of the history and philosophy of science is sufficient to see how uncontroversial and unheroic is this statement. Only evolutionists, AFAIK, are so naive so as to reject this. Given these uncontroversial premises, we then have the uncontroversial conclusion:
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Therefore, creation models which seek to harmonize science and the Bible should maintain at least the following: (a) God providentially directs His creation, (b) He specially intervened in at least the above-mentioned points in the creation process, and (c) God specially created Adam and Eve (Adam’s body from non-living material, and his spiritual nature immediately from God). Inadequate origin models hold that (a) God never directly intervened in creating nature and/or (b) humans share a common physical ancestry with earlier life forms.
====
This is a statement based on uncontroversial observations. Anyone who cares about and respects scientific evidence (not evolutionists) would understand that.
"How odd that this statement is in direct disagreement with the theory of evolution."
Why is that odd? Evolution is not well supported by science, and the statement says so. Why do you find that to be odd?
"But your 'skepticism' about evolution couldn't have anything to do with your relgious beliefs, could it?"
It is astonishing that evolutionists, while mandating an asanine theory as fact because of their religious beliefs which they constantly proclaim, then turn around and find religion as the secret, ulterior motive when the scientific problems are exposed.
Evolution is all about imputed motives. Because your theory is scientifically absurd, you cannot stand the light of scientific scrutiny. All skepticism must be cast as religiously motivated. You claim evolution is a fact--that would be like saying it is a fact that the Emperor has clothes.
What evolutionists do not seem to understand, or perhaps will not allow themselves to understand, is that skepticism is based on the *fact* that their theory is scientifically weak (being kind). Now granted, there is a tradition of fideism (such as in creationism), but it would be silly to take fideism as a strawman for all skepticism.
l
ReplyDeleteThe theory is scientifically absurd and yet has hundreds of thousands of scientific articles documenting evidence for it, none of which indicate that it is wrong. All you are able to offer in response is a online blog where you quote-mine the work done by real scientists. You see Cornelius nobody takes you seriously. You have no credibility when you say stuff like this. Even young-earth creationists who actually understand the science have more intellecual integrity than you.
ReplyDelete"Evolution is not a theory in crisis. It is not teetering on the verge of collapse. It has not failed as a scientific explanation. There is evidence for evolution, gobs and gobs of it. It is not just speculation or a faith choice or an assumption or a religion. It is a productive framework for lots of biological research, and it has amazing explanatory power. There is no conspiracy to hide the truth about the failure of evolution. There has really been no failure of evolution as a scientific theory. It works, and it works well.
I say these things not because I'm crazy or because I've "converted" to evolution. I say these things because they are true. I'm motivated this morning by reading yet another clueless, well-meaning person pompously declaring that evolution is a failure. People who say that are either unacquainted with the inner workings of science or unacquainted with the evidence for evolution. (Technically, they could also be deluded or lying, but that seems rather uncharitable to say. Oops.)"
It seems you could learn a few things from Todd Wood. If you have a better explanation for the genomic data then let's here it. If all you are going to offer are inane 'common design' arguments, Todd Wood has already refuted that too.
You are boring everyone with your endless moaning on your pointless blog. Here's a start from Wood's paper;
"it is difficult to explain why pseudogenes with the exact same substitutions or deletions would be shared between species that did not share a common ancestor."
Do you agree or disagree? Then we can move onto transposable elements. Wood's treatment of this is first class compared to the usual ID "junk DNA has function" garbage.
To be fair. Here is the rest of Todd Wood's Post...
ReplyDelete"Creationist students, listen to me very carefully: There is evidence for evolution, and evolution is an extremely successful scientific theory. That doesn't make it ultimately true, and it doesn't mean that there could not possibly be viable alternatives. It is my own faith choice to reject evolution, because I believe the Bible reveals true information about the history of the earth that is fundamentally incompatible with evolution. I am motivated to understand God's creation from what I believe to be a biblical, creationist perspective. Evolution itself is not flawed or without evidence. Please don't be duped into thinking that somehow evolution itself is a failure. Please don't idolize your own ability to reason. Faith is enough. If God said it, that should settle it. Maybe that's not enough for your scoffing professor or your non-Christian friends, but it should be enough for you.
I think that's all I want to say today. Rant over.
UPDATE: I'm getting a lot of traffic just to this one post, so I want to let all you one-hit wonders know about the follow-up posts that further explain my points here. If you want to figure out what kind of creationist would write such heresy, please have a look at the rest of the story:
Reflecting on the truth about evolution looks at some of the initial reaction to this post.
The nature of science explains how science works from a scientist's perspective.
I'M A CREATIONIST! reaffirms my doctrinal commitments so I can't be written off as an evolutionist in disguise or some other nonsense like that.
The nature of evidence gets to the point: How can I say there's evidence for a theory that I reject?
I'm not alone gives a bit of the feedback I've gotten from sympathetic Christians and creationists.
The nature of explanation further expands on evidence and theories that are wrong.
Explanation clarification responds to questions from a reader.
The nature of faith opens my discussion of belief and evidence.
The nature of idolatry asks the question, Have we exchanged our faith in Christ for idolatry of arguments about Christ?"
Hi Doublee,
ReplyDeleteExcuse this frank comment, but I have attempted to be extremely honest, open and consistant with you. You, on the other hand, have been all over the board. Here are some of the things you commented to me...
"...one of my first questions from a long time ago was that if God does interact with nature, how does he does he do it?"
"Until science can develop a plausible explanation for the evolution of the visual system in the Eulglena, I will remain a skeptic."
"If the putative mechanism of evolution is not plausible, then an alternatve explanation must be sought."
"The purpose of my posts is not to provide alternate explanations.
The purpose of my posts is to ask if the theory of evolution can be considered complete..."
"If the theory of evolution is not complete, then in one sense it is premature to seek alternative explanations.
In another sense, seeking an alternative explanation may yield new questions and new insights that may aid in refining the original theory, if not replace it."
"What do all these facts of evolution tell us about the mechanism of evolution?"
"I am not interested in an alternate hypothesis..."
"I look at the same evidence and I don't see that the evidence they cite entails the conclusion that they reach. I am asking that someone connect the dots."
"If you thought I was asking for specifics, then you misunderstood what I was asking for."
"Are my questions not clear? In many cases, such as my exchanges with you, I have rephrased the questions and tried to explain in different words what I am after. I have even pointed out those analyses that are lacking from a rigorous exposition of the theory of evolution. (And these are not just my personal opinions.) All to no avail. None of my specific points have been rebutted..."
"My motivation is to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and come up with the best explanation for that evidence."
------------------------------------------
So what is your "best explanation"?
Since you like Behe so much. From his Amazon Blog...
"Common descent and natural selection are very well-supported. Random mutation isn’t. Random mutation is severely constrained. So the process which produced the elegant structures of life could not have been random."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3DQAQDPU73HPH
Since I don't think randomness exists I agree with Behe on this. Do you?
harpy:
ReplyDelete====
Here's a start from Wood's paper;
"it is difficult to explain why pseudogenes with the exact same substitutions or deletions would be shared between species that did not share a common ancestor."
Do you agree or disagree?
====
Creationists and evolutionists share some of the same metaphysics. But if we follow the actual data rather than data-mine for evolution confirmers, then we would know that pseudogenes don't work as evolutionists believe.
"it is difficult to explain why pseudogenes with the exact same substitutions or deletions would be shared between species that did not share a common ancestor."
Well sorry but that's the way it is. These pseudogene patterns sometimes defy common descent so we *must* explain them without resorting to the heroic common descent explanation. And no, this *isn't* difficult to explain. It is well known that mutations do not occur at random locations, in spite of what evolutionists promote.
http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/10/questions-for-sympathetic-witness.html
As Ernst Mayr said "there seems to be astonishing conflict between theory and observation." But we must never question our theory, after all, it is a fact.
Dr. Hunter,
ReplyDeleteI have appreciated and very much enjoyed commenting on your blog. I hope you have found my comments at least entertaining if not informative.
I will see how you respond to this frank and honest comment. If I get the impression you would rather I don't comment here again, I will leave in peace.
Dr. Wells posted on the Discovery Institute web site the following...
According to biophysicist Cornelius G. Hunter, the essence of Darwin's “one long argument” was that “evolution is true because divine creation is false.”
http://www.discovery.org/a/8101
I couldn't find any confirmation that you actually said this, but I didn't look too hard since it pretty much sums up your position.
The logic statement; if divine creation is false, then evolution must be true - doesn't necessarily mean they both can't be true.
On 16 June 2006, Dr. Dembski posted on his blog simething similar to this...
The problem is not that evolution implies God does’t exist. The problem is that if God does not exist, then evolution is the only possibility.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ids-cultured-theological-despisers-3/
While he changed it a day later, the grownups in the room all know this is the basic point.
If evolution is discredited then people will naturally come to "...the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God." Thus accomplishing the stated goal in the Wedge Document.
Creationists have been trying to discredit evolution using this tactic for a long time. Therefore, it is understandable why people could get the "wrong" impression that Intelligent Design is a form of creationism.
The most direct way to counteract this impression would be to offer a realistic alternative.
In Darwin's Black Box, Behe had the right idea, providing bold positive explanations.
”Like many great ideas, Darwin's is elegantly simple. He observed that there is variation in all species: some members are bigger, some smaller, some faster, some lighter in color.... He reasoned that since limited food supplies could not support all organisms that are born, the ones whose chance variation gave them an advantage in the struggle for life would tend to survive and reproduce, outcompeting the less favored ones....
Almost a century and a half after Darwin proposed his theory, evolutionary biology has had much success in accounting for patterns of life we see around us. To many, its triumph seems complete. But the real work of life does not happen at the level of the whole animal or organ; the most important parts of living things are too small to be seen. Life is lived in the details, and it is molecules that handle life’s details. Darwin’s idea might explain horse hoofs, but can it explain life’s foundation?”
http://www.crossroad.to/Excerpts/books/science/darwin-behe.htm
I was honestly disappointed when Behe didn't probe deeper into the details but, instead, fell back to old creationism tactics in The Edge of Evolution
Behe said “Life is lived in the details” these details of life appear to be Quantum-based.
Thought:
ReplyDelete"I have appreciated and very much enjoyed commenting on your blog. ... I will see how you respond to this frank and honest comment. If I get the impression you would rather I don't comment here again, I will leave in peace."
Thanks for the comments. You wrote:
"The logic statement; if divine creation is false, then evolution must be true - doesn't necessarily mean they both can't be true."
Don't tell me, tell the evolutionists.
Thought Provoker:
ReplyDeleteExcuse this frank comment, but I have attempted to be extremely honest, open and consistant with you. You, on the other hand, have been all over the board. Here are some of the things you commented to me.
Aah, the problems of posting on a blog and having your conversations frozen in print, when in a real conversation misunderstandings could be cleared up immediately and directly.
As Dr. Hunter just wrote in his post:
As Ernst Mayr said "there seems to be astonishing conflict between theory and observation." But we must never question our theory, after all, it is a fact.
In spite of the admonition to not question the theory, that's exacly what I was attempting to do. My starting point was to take the claims of the evolutionary scientists at face value. I wanted to know the evidential justification for the theory, because I, as a skeptic, feel that they have yet to justify their theory. I agreed with Peter in this regard, that if you don't know the precise details of how something works, and I emphasized precise details, then the best answer is "I don't know". But evolutionary scientists claim that their theory is true in spite of the lack of the detailed knowledge of the mechanism. What is the scientific basis for this assertion?
Of course there are evolutionary scientists who are more forthcoming about the weaknesses of their theory. When those scientists get to occupy center stage, then we will be getting somewhere.
If your perception is that I was all over the board, I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. I can only respond by telling you what my perception is.
I was attempting to keep a tight boundary around our discussion, but your responses were in a number of cases outside of that boundary. I tried to answer each of your questions as honestly as I could within the context of each question, but in so doing I apparently did not present a phlosophically consistent view to you. My thought processes did not involve making sure that I was not wandering all over the board.
Thought Provoker:
Since I don't think randomness exists I agree with Behe on this. Do you?
If I undestand your view of randomness, then I don't understand your agreement with Behe's view of randomness. According to Behe's quote randomness is very constrained, so he agrees that there is randomness. (I thought you did not.) What he is saying to me in that quote is that the process of random variation can explain evolutionary processes only up to a point, which he calls the edge of evolution.
Behe then says that randomness cannot explain the elegant structures of life, that is those structures beyond the edge of evolution.
Yes, I do agree with Behe's view of randomness as I have just explained it.
Hi Doublee,
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with Behe on everthing. I would agree with you that Behe doesn't go to the same extreme on randomness that I do. Therefore, allow me to be more precise. I agree with Behe on this...
"Common descent and natural selection are very well-supported. Random mutation isn’t."
Do you?
Or is the subject of common descent and natural selection a detail you would rather not talk about?
Thought Provoker asks if I agree that common descent and natural selection are well supported.
ReplyDeleteThat's a simple question, and my simple answer is no, but with some qualifications.
It seems that many scientists are questioning the validity of universal common descent. Depending on which genes are compared, different trees of life can be constructed. So rather than one giant tree of life as is shown in The Origin of Species we have a forest of smaller trees. (Some have even used the analogy of a lawn with its many blades of grass.) Even the fossil record, which records the abrupt appearance of many animals without any apparent ancestors (bats and turtles, for example), does not lend strong support to universal common descent. I would accept limited common descent.
That the fossil record may be incomplete cannot give license to science to fill in the missing links. With respect to the Cambrian explosion, many have come to the conclusion that it is a true record of the history of life for that period, and thus the Cambrian explosion presents a legitimate challenge to the theory of evolution.
(Many years ago [1997] I read the book Independent Birth of Organisms by Periannan Senapathy, PhD. His thesis was that organisms arose independenly as a result of the many recombinations of the primordial genetic material. This was his attempt to propose a hypothesis more in accord with the fossil record.)
The phrase "natural selection" presents a semantic problem for me. (As I recall, even Darwin wasn't crazy about the term.) "Selection" is an act of selecting, and an act of selection requires intelligence. Even more maddening is the term "selection pressure".
This suggests that there is some tangible environmental variable that directly causes the change in the phenotype that is observed. This is beginning to sound like Lamarckism. And, I have read that in many cases organisms do respond directly to evironmental variables. They are designed to adapt, if not evolve.
I would prefer the term "differential survival". So, yes, I agree that some animals are equipped from birth to have a better chance of surviving than others.
In the past, I have asked about probabilities. There are so many evironmental factors that affect whether an animal survives to the age of reproduction that it seems that science would have a hard time isolating the effects of a genetic change. Since most genetic changes are harmful, how many are left that are potentially the first step in evolution? Then there's St. George Mivart's concern that each change would be too small to have any effect on survivability.
The question becomes how big does a change have to be before it affects survivability without being so big that it constitutes a miracle?
I have just started reading the book What Darwin Got Wrong by Fordor and Piatelli-Palmarini. They raise interesting questions about natural selection. Frankly, their book is not an easy read for me, so I am not prepared to summarize their arguments yet.
Learning is the ability to put all of the puzzle pieces together. With every new piece....the puzzle changes shape!
ReplyDeleteFrequency is where it's all at! Master the frequencies, and you are "God"!
Your entire article is a straw man argument Evolution says nothing about the origin of life or about divine creation. Darwin's position on the creation of life was that it seemed possible that life could originate through natural processes, but science probably did not currently have the capability of studying that. No scientist who knows anything about evolution would tie evolution to the origin of life. This makes evolution as non-religion-based as just about anything can be.
ReplyDeleteYou need to start over with facts.