The Theological Dilemma of Evolution, Part 2

Now you’re jumping out of context, Glen: ‘technological evolution’ is a misnomer. Technological changes involve conscious human decision makers. These changes are not parallel with biological change.

Of course I’m not jumping out of context.  I don’t know about Mike specifically, but the DI and works like Darwin’s Dilemma specifically analogize between technological “evolution” and various forms of “design evolution” in biology (actually, DD doesn’t acknowledge evolution, but still make the analogy with auto evolution).  You know that’s true of the DI. 

I know that you don’t like how “evolution” is used in the English language.  My point was that Mike’s “evolution” is not obviously any more biological evolution than is auto “evolution.”  Throw out the latter as “legitimate evolution,” and fine, we’ll throw out Mike’s “evolution” as well.  I don’t see any basis for the latter anyhow.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

“...One may call artificially selected organisms “designed” in one sense, but not in all senses, indeed, not in the most usual senses of that word.”

If we define design as something that is constructed or arranged so as to accomplish some function, artificial selection can reasonably be viewed as one example of designed evolution.

But nothing on domesticated dogs and cats is “constructed or arranged so as to accomplish some function” in the most normal senses of those words.  Traits are selected, but nothing is radically altered in “construction” or “arrangment.”  As I implied, it’s a rather ambiguous designation in such a case.

“...the purposes and rationality behind artificial selection,... is quite in evidence, and potentially able to differentiate between “normal evolution” and that cause by ourselves.”

Sure – it happened very recently and is sustained by constant intervention by the designers. Neither of these facts is necessarily entailed by design.

No, but you’re moving yet again to the comfort and safety of unfalsifiability there.  Few deny that design might have occurred without detection.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Hi Gregory,

What you are advocating with ‘front-loading’ seems to be a kind of ‘first cause,’ which denotes an ‘origin’ and *not* a ‘process’ of change.

Look at it this way.  The genetic code has been around as long as the last common universal ancestor.  During the subsequent billions of years of evolution, don’t you think evolution has been, in some part, shaped by the code itself? 

Perhaps you’ve addressed this in your book, which I’ve not yet read?

Yes.  But this doesn’t strike me as the place or thread to hash that out, now does it?

Anyway, up above I noted that Darwin argues against special creation more so than teleological evolution.  FYI, on my blog, I have an entry that contains several excerpts from philosopher Chris Cosans article, Was Darwin a Creationist? (Perspect Biol Med. 48(3):362-71).  Here’s a tiny sampling:

“Throughout the Origin, he usually contrasts his account not with that of other evolutionists such as Lamarck or Chambers, but with that of someone we would now call a “special creationist.””

Nobody here is talking about the DI except for you, Glen.

It is not that I “don’t like how ‘evolution’ is used in the English language,” but rather that people continue to use it improperly. You are demonstrating this in recent comments wrt ‘revolution’.

Automobiles are ‘designed’ or ‘made,’ they are not ‘evolved’ artefacts of ‘random’ manufacture, a result merely of fitness pressures and pressure from the environment. This is simply a fact.

Again, for the third time, what is *your* position, Glen, what name do you call it? You’ve rejected TE, EC, and BioLogos and opted for the lower-case ‘g’ in #5956. What are we to make of this?

And is there a theological dilemma with evolution, or not?

“What’s clear is that we lack such evidence.”

First, what is, or is not, clear is a subjective call.

Not in science (not in the vernacular meaning of “subjective”).

It’s clear to me (in all sincerity) that you conflate design with special creation and it’s clear to me I have supported this point with your own words.

It’s clear that you cannot back up your baseless accusation.  If it’s so clear to you, I would expect you to make an intelligent case for it, rather than to repeat it endlessly.

The only thing that is clear is that we see the world differently.

That you have blinders on with respect to biology I do not doubt.

Second, you claim “we” lack such evidence.  But you cannot speak for me and all of humanity; you can only speak for yourself.

No, I speak for the endless times when we’ve asked for evidence for yours and others “design,” and you all have failed to supply any that is legit.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

“... ‘evidence’ is something the individual mind sees and thus has a distinct subjective element to it.”

Everything has a subjective element to it, and I’m of the philosophical school(s) that deny that “objective” is fundamentally different from “subjective.”  Which changes nothing of the fact that we can come to “intersubjective” agreement about many things, if only people will treat empirical data consistently.  I do not find you doing so.

“...more accurate for you to note that it is clear to you personally that there is no evidence.

More accurate, but far less informative.  Were I to speak only of my own perceptions, what good would that be?  I speak rather in the tradition of science, its standards, and its methods.

“...given that you believe this evidence for design must come in the form of something that cannot possibly be explained by evolution.

I demand evidence for intervention, aside from that for predictions from non-teleological evolutionary theory?  What science-minded person would not?

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Now you’re saying, Glen, that Mike is not a ‘scientist’ and that he doesn’t ‘do what science does’?! This is going too far.

I never wrote that Mike is not a scientist.  That he fails to follow scientific methods in these discussions is more than a little bit obvious.

Again, what do you call your position, if you reject TE, EC and BioLogos? Do you have a name for it or not?

Science.  Why must you turn the question to religion when I do not?

Also, how does what you’re saying relate to the topic of this thread: “The Theological Dilemma of Evolution”?

Read the article, and you should see that matters of evidence were prominent within it.

It seems to me that theology is not related at all to evolution, according to what you’ve thus far said.

I have not bothered to discuss any purported relationship between the two.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

“I demand evidence for intervention, aside from that for predictions from non-teleological evolutionary theory?” - Glen Davidson

Do you demand evidence for miracles too, Glen?

This reminds me of something that Arthur Peacocke said when asked about miracles; he said he wanted more evidence for them!

“What science-minded person would not?” - Glen

The kind that accepts science’s limitations & seeks knowledge cooperation with religion & theology. TEs & ECs are two examples of people who do *not* demand evidence of ‘intervention,’ though in most or all cases they believe in it, i.e. they accept miracles.

Since you do not accept TE or EC & merely claim to represent ‘Science’ (which I read as a position called ‘scientism’), Glen, should it be presumed that you don’t think science & religion can or should be in dialogue with each other?

“Why must you turn the question to religion when I do not?” - Glen

Because that’s what BioLogos is all about - the interaction of science & faith/religion!

“Throughout the Origin, he usually contrasts his account not with that of other evolutionists such as Lamarck or Chambers, but with that of someone we would now call a “special creationist.””

You mean Paley, the godfather claimed by IDists?

Darwin:

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection had been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws. (Darwin 1887, 279)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/

Are you all special creationists in the end?

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

Nobody here is talking about the DI except for you, Glen.

We’re all talking about design and evolution, and the DI clearly is important in determining how these discussions proceed. 

It is not that I “don’t like how ‘evolution’ is used in the English language,” but rather that people continue to use it improperly.

Except that language is not decided by you, but by usage.

And, as I noted, I have nothing to gain by referring to “technological evolution,” rather I’d be quite willing to refuse to consider Mike’s “evolution” as anything but special creation.  I do not think that I can call on language to deny that Mike’s “evolution” is such, though.

Automobiles are ‘designed’ or ‘made,’ they are not ‘evolved’ artefacts of ‘random’ manufacture, a result merely of fitness pressures and pressure from the environment. This is simply a fact.

I respond to creationists, I do not demand that they use terms differently from how other people use them.  Indeed, I’m more likely to insist that they either use terms as they are meant, or that they be considered to be equivocating.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p

“theologians pouring over ancient” that should be “poring”

Kamu melihat secara jasmani saja, dan tidak melihat beberapa hal yang di luar kemampuan ilmuan jasmani itu.  Oleh karena itu, kamu keliru.

Did you catch that?  Do you understand my argument?  Are you convinced?  Of course not - I didn’t speak your language.  This website has a goal “to bring leading scientists together with leading pastors and biblical scholars”.  The problem is one of language.  No one will be convinced as long as we each insist on speaking our own language.

How many of you are acquainted with a pastor or theologian who could follow the line of argumentation in the main blog post, along with the chain of comments that follows?  And why should they?  How many years have you spent studying your respective areas of science in order to be able to engage in this dialogue?

Conversely, would you not criticize a pastor or theologian who comes to you with an eschatological, soteriological or dispensational line of reasoning?  He would not be speaking your language.  If you want to engage in dialogue with the mainstream of Christianity, then you need to stop talking about Chromosome #2 as if they will understand what you’re talking about.  You are talking past them, and will likely have no impact.

Armor Bearer: Saya mengerti, dan saya tahu saya sering keliru.

I know where you’re coming from (speaking the same language), but I disagree.  I think the BioLogos staff does a pretty good job (especially now that Pete Enns is on staff) varying the content of the blog posts - some fairly science-oriented, some fairly theologically/biblically-oriented.  Different days will interest different personalities - not all of them are completely interesting to me, but many are.

I’m not a scientist, but when an evolutionary creationist writer explained about chromosome #2 in his book, I got it pretty quickly.

Even more so, BioLogos has on its website simple answers to basic questions, things that should be fairly easy for a layperson to “tangkap” (grasp). 

Now the rather arcane dialog between Glen and Mike, that’s another matter…

As a translator and editor, Armor Bearer, I’m sensitive to what you say. Indeed, the issue of communication is *huge*. Glad you raised it!

What sort of language(s) are you looking for in science and religion dialogue that BioLogos does not (yet) include? I’ve requested participants to contact more anthropologists, whose language(s) could be quite helpful here. What do you suggest to help create a favo(u)rable atmosphere for discussion, especially with ‘evangelicals’ (another tough word to pin down) about ‘science’?

What I take from Glen & Mike’s conversation is that people hold different meanings of terms ‘design,’ ‘teleology’ & ‘special creation,’ among others. ECs & TEs both (seem to) accept ‘teleology’ or ‘guidance’ in their view of ‘biological evolution’. But how can this be shown as reasonable or legitimate from a scientific perspective?

Glen doesn’t want to be called EC or TE. Does this mean he is not or cannot be a theist? Unsure.

What then does the term ‘BioLogos’ offer to the mix of views? I’d be curious to hear how you approach them too, Armor Bearer!

Armor Bearer,

I, too, understand your point.  Being neither a scientist nor a theologian, I have to take off my armor and dig through the internet, books, scripture and articles to try to fit the pieces together and understand the language.  I’ve found the book Relics of Eden by Daniel Fairbanks to be particularly helpful in explaining DNA.  Incidentally,  Chapter 1 focuses on the fusion of Chromosome #2.

Dear Gordon Glover - # 5884, 5926

You wrote:

“But the evidence for common ancestry is based on very specific patterns.  The reduncy of the standard genetic code and the abundence of non-encoding DNA facitlitate the accumulation of non-harmful genetic markers across various biological groups.  And the patterns of similarities and differences in these markers can only be one way if species have all descended from a common ancestor.”—- GJG

Long ago I also was a practicing Presbyterian. I am curious regards the theology concerning common ancestry. Is it the firmly held belief that since common ancestry is absolutely the only means by which identical genetic sequences, especially error-ridden sequences, can be duplicated acrosss various species—is it also the belief there that ideas such as symbiosis, lateral gene transfer, other common environmental factors over the eons, and common genomic predeterminism are all heresies?  Is that your belief?

Dan,

It’s possible that there is another natural mechanism capable of producing the same patterns that we currently attribute to common descent.  However, no such mechanism has been discovered.  And gene transfer does garble op the tree of life when it comes to bacteria and other single celled organisms.

Not sure what you mean by your last question though.

Dear Gordon,

Thank you for writing this brilliant piece of article which has stimulate a constructive discussion. I certainly benefited from that. I am a Biologos - scientist in training with strong evangelical background. I am still having difficulty even in convincing my parents who are YEC. Personally, I still have some questions (please forgive me if these have been addressed somewhere - but I would be grateful if you could help me point out where I could read the discussion).

1. In Genesis, post Gen 2-3, there are many others ‘actors’ which are crucial in Bible such Enoch and most of these people lived >100 years old. How TE can explain this?
2. Genealogy in the Gospels, clearly mentions from Adam to Jesus - really explicitly mention name by name..

Look forward to hearing from you.

God bless.

-Hosea