Monday, September 5, 2011

The World Through Evolutionary Eyes: Theological Naturalism, Hypocrisy and Response to Comments on the CSC Case

The theoretical core of evolutionary thought is naturalism. Evolutionists dogmatically insist that the world must have arisen strictly via 100% naturalistic processes. This extreme position is in the minority, but it dominates academia today and is now taken as a given by elites and opinion makers. Not surprisingly this extreme position on naturalism has fueled atheism. If creation arises on its own, then what need is there for a creator? But ironically naturalism arose not from atheism, but from the exact opposite: theism. In fact it is the underlying religious ideas that give evolutionists their strong convictions. This is why evolutionary thought and the Enlightenment arose from the highly religious culture of 17th century western Europe, and it is why religious people do most of the evolutionary apologetics, even today. From the Roman Catholic Ken Miller to the protestant Francis Collins, religious people are insistent that evolution must be a fact. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers help out on the fringes, but even their arguments are religious. They have been fooled by religion. When it comes to evolution, there is no difference between the theist and atheist. Hence when we speak of the naturalism that drives evolutionists, we are speaking of theological naturalism. Here is how I described theological naturalism in my book Science’s Blind Spot:

There were many religious influences within science in centuries past. In fact, theological concerns often guided and constrained scientific ideas and thought. A variety of such concerns were raised by different thinkers at different times. This makes them both easy to see but not necessarily easy to trace out. These ideas were prevalent but complex—there was no single religious tradition, no single theological concern, no leading thinker or even school of thought, at the interface between religion and science. What was the motivation for these religious ideas, how were they related, and importantly exactly what influence did these religious ideas have on science?

The answers to such questions are not simple but, on the other hand, they are not beyond our reach. There are strong connections between religion and science and recurring themes are obvious. Theological premises do not merely suggest possibilities or stimulate thinking—they are at times crucial in framing scientific thought. This book traces out these connections and their effects.

We begin in Chapter Two with a survey of several common religious influences in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Most of them fall into four distinct categories: greater God theology, religious rationalism and deism, the problem of evil, and theological opposition to miracles. These categories are overarching. None of them represent a single tradition or concern, but rather a family of similar concerns. And these categories do not capture the totality of religious thought impinging on science. Other concerns that we will see in later chapters include the warning against anthropomorphizing God, the God of the gaps warning, and the intellectual necessity.

This history and framework gives helpful structure to the religion-science interface. As we shall see, these different theological traditions would circumscribe scientific activity by defining what types of solutions were, and were not, acceptable. Indeed, these theological mandates are common in the scientific literature.

There are, as it were, theological ground rules imposed on science. And although these theological concerns are varied, they all funnel toward a similar consequence. Put simply, the theological ground rules are that scientific explanations must be purely naturalistic. The term "naturalism" can take on different meanings when used by historians and philosophers of science. Here it is used to refer to this restriction of science to naturalistic explanations for religious reasons. We use a new term, theological naturalism, to clarify this and avoid ambiguity.

This term theological naturalism reminds us that the assumption of naturalism in science is neither a result of atheistic influence nor an empirically-based scientific finding. It is a consequence of metaphysical reasoning, and the implications for science are profound. Theological naturalism provides science with well defined universal criteria to which it conforms. Instead of merely following the data where ever it may lead, science has a framework already in place. The answer, to a certain extent, is already in place. This is a move toward rationalism and away from empiricism. The result is that science has a powerful philosophy of science but, as we explore in Chapter Three, it does not come without cost. Theological naturalism brings with it a blind spot.

A fascinating aspect of theological naturalism is that, on the one hand, it is obvious, but it can also be very subtle. Here is an example of how obvious theological naturalism can be:

Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution—paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce. No one understood this better than Darwin. Ernst Mayr has shown how Darwin, in defending evolution, consistently turned to organic parts and geographic distributions that make the least sense.—Stephen Jay Gould

This is a powerful argument that resonates with many. So powerful, in fact, that it seems to be in no need of defending. Is it not obvious and undeniable that “odd arrangements and funny solutions” disprove design? Is it not obvious that identical mutations in sister species must have arisen in a common ancestor? Is it not obvious that death and destruction in the biological world would have be part of an all-good divine plan?

The metaphysics seems so compelling and obvious that it goes overlooked. Evolutionists are convinced they are doing “just science.” And so the obvious theological naturalism becomes subtle. Darwin’s book on evolution was one long religious argument. Over and over he made religious claims about how the creator would never have created this creation. Evolution was the only answer.

But Darwin never felt the need to explain, justify or defend any of his religious claims. They were bare assertions, presented as simple and undeniable truths. And, importantly, his readers felt the same way. Even sophisticated challengers, such as Princeton’s Charles Hodge, weren’t quite able to pinpoint the message.

So evolutionists make their metaphysical claims casually, with no hesitation or concern. In the next breath they insist they are all about science. Here is an example from a leading textbook:

However, there are some homologies that do look positively disadvantageous. One of the cranial nerves goes from the brain to the larynx via a tube near the heart. In fish this is a direct route. But the same nerve in all species follows the same route, and in the giraffe it results in an absurd detour down and up the neck, so that the giraffe has to grow maybe 3-5 meters more nerve than it would with a direct connection. The “recurrent laryngeal nerve,” as it is called, is surely inefficient. It is easy to explain such an efficiency if giraffes have evolved in small stages from a fish-like ancestor; but why giraffes should have such a nerve if they originated independently … well, we can leave that to others to try to explain. …

In the scientific version of the theory which we are concerned with here, supernatural events do not take place … [Mark Ridley, Evolution, Blackwell, p. 50, 57, 1993]

Notice how easily the textbook slips into metaphysics. A scientific text, discussing scientific evidence, suddenly is doing metaphysics without warning or justification, as though it all is obviously true.

This is typical. Evolutionists insist evolution is a fact, and they arrive at this lofty conclusion via metaphysical proofs. As Alfred North Whitehead once advised, do not question someone on what he feels he needs to defend, but rather on what he takes for granted. The popular version goes like this: It isn’t what a man doesn’t know that scares me, but what he knows for sure.

The corollary to evolution’s theological naturalism is that those who do not adhere to their religious claims are, in fact, the religious ones. After all, such skeptics are allowing that god might have designed this obviously undesigned world. Isn’t that an obvious religious belief? So while evolutionists assert religious claims, those who are make no such claims are, according to evolutionists, religious. For the evolutionists, such fundamentalism is obviously not scientific and must be censored. This is the Alice-in-Wonderland world of evolution.

The CSC case

And so it is not surprising that evolutionists brand any skepticism, such as in the Darwin’s Dilemma film, as “religious.” The specter of its showing at the California Science Center’s IMAX theater prompted USC professor Hilary Schor to be “less troubled by the freedom of speech issues than why my tax dollars which support the California ‘Science’ Center are being spent on hosting religious propaganda.”

So where exactly is the “religious propaganda” in the Darwin’s Dilemma film? Of course there is none. Here is how one commenter here described the film:

I watched the documentary online and found it very scholarly and well presented. The narrator was very professional and I actually found the lack of creationism refreshing, because if in fact it was there, it would have been tough to mask. Most creationism films spend more time attacking Evolutionists than dealing with the science and of course most Evolutionist propaganda films do likewise.

I think the fact that it WAS well written and presented from the standpoint of asking logical skeptical scientific methodical questions instead of religiously accepting religious story telling is what actually infuriates the Darwin crowd. It's not a matter of allowing intelligent people to honestly ask for real world factual proofs [minus the massive amounts of story invention] as it is a matter of being skeptical and actually asking questions in the first place and not accepting through blind faith that the self-promoting geniuses have it right. As history has shown through the ages around the Earth, religious Ecclesiastical Hierarchies hate being questioned.

In fact there are no religious claims in the movie, those are in evolutionary thought. There are no metaphysical mandates or theological dictates. Again, those are in evolutionary thought. Evolutionists openly and consistently make religious claims and then blame it on the skeptics who are looking at the evidence. It is the height of hypocrisy.

But meanwhile an evolutionist accused me of misrepresenting the CSC case:

Let's look at what the press release actually said

"The debate over Darwin will come to California on October 25th, when the Smithsonian Institution's west coast affiliate premieres Darwin's Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record, a new intelligent design film which challenges Darwinian evolution."

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/intelligent-design-documentary-to-premiere-at-smithsonian-affiliated-california-science-center-63527687.html

By 'Smithsonian Institution's west coast affiliate' the AFA obviously meant the CSC. But the CSC wasn't premiering the film, the AFA was. The CSC and Smithsonian had nothing to do with the film save renting building space.

That's the sort of blatant dishonesty we've come to expect from the IDiots and the professional liars at the DI. You want to defend the wording of the press release CH?

As is typical, the evolutionist manipulates the evidence. He quotes from the first paragraph of the press release and cries foul. But only two sentences later the press release explicitly states who is sponsoring and hosting the event:

The screening is sponsored and hosted by the American Freedom Alliance.

The evolutionist uses a selective reading of the press release and then jumps to the usual ridicule and false accusations.

This is how evolutionists treat those who are not theological naturalists. This is how they treat those who do not, as they do, insist on religious truths that all must follow. This is how they treat those who are interested in the evidence, rather than dogma.

Religion drives science, and it matters.

21 comments:

  1. Wow CH, five post in a row on the same topic! The DI must really be paying to well to shill this swill. How does it make you feel to prostitute your scientific integrity so badly?

    BTW, I notice you didn't try to defend the AFA's deliberately misleading claim that the Smithsonian (and by association the CSC) were premiering the film. I guess some lies are too onerous for even you to repeat.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was just about to say that he needed one more post to finally purge that Ann Coulter loaf from the front page, but it looks like he beat me to it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that in the calculus of creationism, five posts in a row automatically makes whatever he said true, right?

    ReplyDelete
  3. CH: When it comes to evolution, there is no difference between the theist and atheist.

    Cornelus,

    Why don't you remind us of how you discern between (1) criticizing how *someone else* supposedly identifies God's actions, or lack there of, in the world appears contradictory, and (2) actually holding that view as a personal belief? And, while your at it, remind us how you've determined this is this unique to evolution, rather than science as a whole?

    Oh that's right. You haven't, despite being asked repeatedly.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The evolutionist uses a selective reading of the press release and then jumps to the usual ridicule and false accusations.

    Dr Hunter uses a selective reading of intellectual history to fallaciously equate methodological naturalism and religious theodicy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Further on the OP:

    The theoretical core of evolutionary thought is naturalism.

    Not the "core," but an essential ground-rule for any kind of science.

    Evolutionists dogmatically insist that the world must have arisen strictly via 100% naturalistic processes.

    Science is not capable of evaluating non-naturalistic processes. Only religious cranks with a political agenda object to that stipulation.

    This extreme position is in the minority, but it dominates academia today and is now taken as a given by elites and opinion makers.

    In the minority among whom? Not among scientists. They couldn't function honestly otherwise.

    Not surprisingly this extreme position on naturalism has fueled atheism.

    What's wrong with atheism? Science is blind to theistic concerns. Atheism is only a problem for some intolerant religious sects that can't abide dissent.

    If creation arises on its own, then what need is there for a creator?

    How's that for an incoherent statement?

    ReplyDelete
  6. CH ,
    Can't give it up yet?
    CH :
    Next the evolutionists lied about the press release, claiming it implied the CSC was a sponsor of the event. But the press release said no such thing. In fact it explicitly stated that “The screening is sponsored and hosted by the American Freedom Alliance.”
    Again you cannot call someone a liar for holding the opinion that the press release implied the Smithsonian was supportive of the movie, they might be mistaken but unless you can see into someone's heart you are accusing falsely. There is no way around it. And really, if the IMAX was owned by anyone else do you really honestly believe that the headline would be the" Flapdoodle Corp premieres Darwin's Dilemma" ? Why bury the sponsorship of AFA in the middle of the story,how many times was AFA mentioned versus the Smithsonian? Why not the more accurate " CSC premieres the movie "

    ReplyDelete
  7. "The result is that science has a powerful philosophy of science but, as we explore in Chapter Three, it does not come without cost. Theological naturalism brings with it a blind spot."

    Love the way you put it here, nicely said, always find reading your posts stimulating! Must get this book, Johan

    ReplyDelete
  8. CH: The evolutionist uses a selective reading of the press release and then jumps to the usual ridicule and false accusations.

    Is a reading from someone who actually worked the AFA selective?

    "Whomever at [sic] wrote the copy on the Discovery Institute press releases should have his head examined….. I thought the problem was buried in the text of the documents…. NOT THE HEADLINES. Talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull. It seems like we're deliberately trying to screw this up!!!"

    Again, the headline is clearly deceptive. Furthermore, emails revealed that both the AFA and the DI knew their actions could impact their contractual agreement.

    And, as I mentioned earlier, the relationship between the Smithsonian and an affiliate is limited and very specific. I know this first hand having worked on a multimedia project with a Smithsonian affiliate on the east coast in 2002. We received specific instructions as to how the resulting design of the project had to take into account the limited relationship between the museum and Smithsonian.

    In other words, regardless which movie was being shown, the headline of the PR clearly violates this relationship. This could have been prevented had the AFA run the PR by the CSC as they were contractually obligated to do. However, they did not.

    This is why the CSC filed a countersuit against the AFA, which Cornelius conveniently and completely omitted from his OP, and was also dismissed as part the settlement.

    ReplyDelete
  9. CH: In fact there are no religious claims in the movie, those are in evolutionary thought.

    see... Darwin's Dilemma: I watched it so you don't have to (Which I did anyway as a follow up, and found his review accurate.)

    and ... A paleobiologist’s response to Darwin's dilemma

    ReplyDelete
  10. Scott, regarding your link, Brasier looks like he either watched the wrong movie or is intentionally misleading like the CSC.

    Darwin's Dilemma presents a history of the Burgess Shale fossil digs and then moves on to the older fossils in China. The "misplaced fixation" on the Burgess Shale is only in Brasiers biased imagination, not in the movie.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Pedant:

    "Dr Hunter uses a selective reading of intellectual history to fallaciously equate methodological naturalism and religious theodicy."
    ===

    Yet you come here and prove his point to be correct with every one of your religious ramblings. Thanks for proving his point.
    ----

    Pedant:

    "What's wrong with atheism?"
    ===

    The list is long and dirty, but that would take to point on off topic which is the ultimate goal here.
    ---

    Pedant:

    "Science is blind to theistic concerns. Atheism is only a problem for some intolerant religious sects that can't abide dissent."
    ====

    WRONG. Evolutionism was created because of religion. Atheism simply finds it a convenient ride to hitchhike on.
    ----

    Cornelius Hunter:

    "If creation arises on its own, then what need is there for a creator?"

    Pedant:

    "How's that for an incoherent statement?"
    ===

    Not exactly. In fact you are proving his point yet again.

    Romans 1:25

    New Living Translation (NLT)

    (25) "They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, . "

    Are you refuting that you worship your animist nature god and are searching elsewhere ???

    ReplyDelete
  12. Neal Tedford:

    "Scott, regarding your link, Brasier looks like he either watched the wrong movie or is intentionally misleading like the CSC."
    ===

    I'd go with your second guess. Though he may have watched the movie, his mistake no doubt was while looking for perceived imaginary flaws to pounce on, the Ideologue lost site of what the film's content was all about. Namely, asking logical intelligent, though skeptical questions of someone else's religious assumptions and biased assertions promoted as facts. As he admits, evolutionists allow themselves massive amounts of time to play with. No problem with time lines, but it's just that when it comes to "Dice Theory", even eternity is your enemy. Why ??? Because we never get a straight answer as to just how blind purposeless undirected forces accomplish anything even remotely brilliant. To actually do so would glaringly expose what fools they actually are. At least we can give them credit for being clever.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Cornelius Hunter:

    "In fact there are no religious claims in the movie, those are in evolutionary thought. There are no metaphysical mandates or theological dictates."
    ====

    And on that point, this is how Attorney William J. Becker Jr describes the Intelligent Design Theory itself:

    " . . It is based on research that does not discuss who the intelligent designer is, whereas creationism is based solely on the belief that the Bible’s Book of Genesis is accurate."

    That is exactly what the film did. It did not lable any designer by name but only asked if it is possible for us to consider in the light of the facts and evidence for which Darwinian Dogma slams against.

    The censorship is clearly seen in this case and the funny thing is that had they kept their mouths shut and allowed the showing, it probably wouldn't have received as much publicity as it has otherwise. Now all sorts of curious onlookers have no doubt been added to the film watchers list who may have had this documentary pass them otherwise.

    Here's a great quote of an online definition of the motive behind the censorship.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship:

    "CORPORATE CENSORSHIP is the process by which editors in corporate media outlets intervene to disrupt the publishing of information that portrays their business or business partners in a negative light,[3][4] or intervene to prevent alternate offers from reaching public exposure.[5]"

    But my favourite is the entry under RELIGIOUS CENSORSHIP, especially since the religiosity of Evolutionists have been exposed over and over since many of the imagined evolutionary processes require and in fact demand FAITH to believe in it.

    "RELIGIOUS CENSORSHIP is the means by which any material considered objectionable by a certain faith is removed. This often involves a dominant religion forcing limitations on less prevalent ones. Alternatively, one religion may shun the works of another when they believe the content is not appropriate for their faith."

    Clearly in the science community, Evolutionism is the dominant faith and resents any and all sorts of what it considers heresy or blasphemy against it's articles of faith established by it's own offical Church. Clearly, unwritten blasphemy laws do exist within the Scientifism community.

    ReplyDelete
  14. eocene, you sure do like to twist and mangle things, don't you?

    ReplyDelete
  15. 4
    RalphDavidWestfall
    September 6, 2011 at 1:48 am

    The Discovery Institute press release said (a web search on the following quoted sentence finds multiple pages with it): “The debate over Darwin will come to California on October 25th, when the Smithsonian Institution’s west coast affiliate premieres Darwin’s Dilemma.” It appears that whoever wrote that statement was deliberately trying to give the very misleading impression that the Smithsonian was endorsing the event. I can see why they were upset. I’m an ID supporter, but I am very opposed to this kind of tactics.

    From here:

    http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-csc-case-and-evolution-more-than-just-bad-science/comment-page-1/#comment-398524

    ReplyDelete
  16. THT:

    "eocene, you sure do like to twist and mangle things, don't you?"
    ====

    Pot - Kettle - Black.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The whole truth said...

    eocene, you sure do like to twist and mangle things, don't you?


    Don't expect 10,000 candlepower from a 5 watt bulb.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The whole truth said...

    4
    RalphDavidWestfall
    September 6, 2011 at 1:48 am

    The Discovery Institute press release said (a web search on the following quoted sentence finds multiple pages with it): “The debate over Darwin will come to California on October 25th, when the Smithsonian Institution’s west coast affiliate premieres Darwin’s Dilemma.” It appears that whoever wrote that statement was deliberately trying to give the very misleading impression that the Smithsonian was endorsing the event. I can see why they were upset. I’m an ID supporter, but I am very opposed to this kind of tactics.


    It's nice to see at least one ID supporter with some ethics. You'd never know such people existed from watching the nonstop stream of Liars-For-Jesus Idiots who post on CH's blog.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Given the number of posts on this subject, it would seem that ID supporters think their right to personally hold a specific theological belief somehow also entitles them to a corresponding "scientific" theory that is obviously and carefully designed to accommodate these specific theological beliefs, but does so at the expense of ignoring significant evidence and claiming that specific aspects of the biosphere are completely beyond human reasoning and problem solving.

    In other words, having seen the film, it's clear where the door is being held open for their theological beliefs at the deliberate expense of our ability to correct errors. However, a failure to correct errors is not sustainable. And, similar to Socrates, I think any culture, system or religion opposed to correcting errors is, well, evil. Socrates saw this contrast between the Athens and Spartans.

    Of course, Cornelius claims that Evolution represents Theological naturalism. As such, it's opposed to correcting errors as well.

    However, Cornelius has not firmly established this. Even if it wasn't sufficient to stand on it's own scientifically, (which it is) it's not clear evolution would be based on Theological naturalism rather than say Natural Theology.

    In fact, Cornelius has conspicuously failed to contrast Natural Theology with Theological naturalism, which, by the way, starts out with significantly fewer assumptions about God, but makes significant assumptions none the less.

    Again, Darwin was impressed with Natural Theologist, William Paley's argument on design, which helped frame the differences between the rock, which was not well adapted, and the watch, which was well adapted. But this can stand on it's own, separate from theology. What Darwin did was describe how such adaptation was possible using a natural process. Whether God created that process is irrelevant to the explanation itself.

    Would any theists here suggest that God couldn't have created a natural process such as evolution?

    Again, most objections to evolutionary theory are based on statistics. However these particular statistics are extrapolated by interpreting observations in a framework that assumes design and intent. In fact, It's impossible to extrapolate conclusions from observations without first putting them into an explanatory framework, which apparently Cornelius either denies or refuses to admit and disclose.

    In other words, by attempting to present himself as "neutral" without explaining how this is even possible in the first place, it would seem that Cornelius is opposed to correcting this error.

    The claim that "evolution is scientifically unlikely" is one such extrapolation, which he presents as being "neutral" or "empirical", when it is clearly not.

    Of course, I invite him to enlighten us as to how he does just this, which would be quite an accomplishment as this is a known problem.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I was going to say that Cornelius' past behavior indicates no response will be forthcoming. However, that would be induction. Rather, I'd explain Cornelius' historical lack of response in that he has no cohesive and comprehensive criteria for his objections to present in the first place. Rather, his objections merely represent a more elaborate form of "slinging mud" at a theory he personally objects to and hopping something "sticks."

    What other conclusion do you expect us to reach in the absence of such a criteria?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Expelled? Censorship?

    Should Crenshaw sue?

    http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/09/william_crenshaw_and_erskine_c.php

    ReplyDelete