Happy Birthday, Mr. Darwin: Growing Majority of Americans Support Teaching Both Sides of Evolution Debate

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Leela said:
I wouldn’t say I experience doubt in my lack of belief. I spend as much time wondering if Christianity is true as you do that Islam is true. But there is certainly a possibility that God exists. I just find the probability to be remote.

I’m interested in the two views I described because one is intellectually superior than the other and I want to support it over the other. Yet, as I said, both views seem to collapse into the same thing when the Christian evolutionists claim that God tweaked the system to bring about humanity.

The view that a human like being was a probable or inevitable result from the beginning at least avoids design as an explanation for theorigin of the species, but I don’t buy the arguments I’ve heard for the inevitability of humanoids.

So I think the Creationists are at least being consistent in disregarding what science has to say, but of course they disregard science at a cost.

Best,
Leela
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Now, Leela, you and I have spent so much time discussing things, within these fora, to have had a book written about it - and, on many other subjects, besides this one. I spend zero amount of time on the “truth of Islam”. I know that Islam is an amalgamation of Judeaism and Catholicism, with Muhammed as its surrogate prophet. I know that Muhammed was inspired by the untimely deaths of all of his daughters (except Fatima).

So, truth? There are some truths in Islam. That there is a god is one of them. That we must wage a gihad against everyone else who does not convert (particularly to a brand of Islam), is not one of them. You know this.

But, you have (and do) spent lots of time on the difficulties you are having with accepting God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and, the Roman Catholic Church. You know, that’s OK. Many believers have been there, too. The gol-darndest thing though - He still Loves you. He promised that and cannot break His promise.

So, you have said that it might be impossible, if not impossible, perhaps very difficult to disprove the existence of God (or, gods, as you phrased it). If that is so, and, I think you are correct, do you think, with your keen intelligence, that you could prove the existence of Gods (or, gods) - if you were on the side of God? Or, even if you weren’t? Let’s say you were given this as an assignment: what would you do differently than most of us, as apologists-of-sorts, are trying to do within CAF?

For us, we are as exasperated as you are. We produce cogent arguments from mathematics, physics, biology, evolution, logic, epistemology, ontology, quantum physics, quantum mathematics and, yet, don’t seem to get many wins. (At least, we might not be aware of many.) You know that we are not fools. You know that we speak from our ratios (reason) AND our hearts. So, why are we unable to get more wins - if, in fact, it is true that we aren’t? What do you suggest that we do that would be different? I seriously want your opinion.

jd
 
Jennifer_J said:
And you don’t find the arrogance of this youth troubling? He thinks he knows it all after a few courses. I’m sorry, people study for YEARS to understand their field of expertise. Would he dare say the same thing to a cancer researcher-- “hey I took a course on cell development and I think you should treat this cancer this way, you are all wrong in your approach” ARROGANCE!!!

Discussion is great and fine, but wide sweeping claims based on a few college courses is insulting to people who are serious about their job, their research, their studies AND their faith. I guess I forgot to mention that not only is my dh an evolutionary biologist, but a devout and faithful Catholic…
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And what is the faithful Catholic response to arrogance? I’m pretty sure it’s not insult.

Ender
 
Please keep the discussion civil and on topic, everyone. Thank you.
 
reggieM said:
Ricmat asked that you point to ID references to support where you found these ideas (that creation was “so incomplete that God had to intervene”).
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Irreducible complexity, for example. The eye or the bacterial flagellum could not have evolved, because they are too complicated, too irreducibly complex; the “designer” had to intervene to put the parts into position.
 
StAnastasia said:
Leela, I fly to Italy for that conference in a couple of weeks. However, it seems flippant to dismiss ID as lying on the same cultural level as Paris Hilton.
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StAnastasia,

will you start a thread when you get back to share your views of the conference?
 
StAnastasia said:
Irreducible complexity, for example. The eye or the bacterial flagellum could not have evolved, because they are too complicated, too irreducibly complex; the “designer” had to intervene to put the parts into position.
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StAnastasia,

(I’d be a tad carefull on this line of discussion as I have read debunks - from reputable scientists - that there were, in fact, pre-cursors to the eye and the flagellum.) My background is that I was a hands-on biologist. Not an evolutionary biologist. Rather, I dealt with existing biological forms assuming evolution. So, those scientists might be wrong - but, they might be right.

jd
 
StAnastasia said:
Not at all, Reggie. I can’t imagine a more providential model than one in which God lovingly provides Creation with what it needs to develop on its own.

Imagine this analogy: the God of evolution is like parents who give birth to a child, which over the course of decades grows and develops to maturity. Your God – the God of Intelligent Design – is like a parent who has to intervene periodically, with injections and operations to give the baby a heart, brain, and kidneys, or to turn on hormones, or to cause testicles to descend or breasts to develop, etc. The God of ID is one who is not intelligent enough to have created a being with internal principles of development to begin with, but has to tinker with it, inserting parts and jump-starting processes along the way.

I and many Catholics worship the smarter God, not the amateur tinkerer God.

StAnastasia
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StA and Reggie,

have y’all thought about putting your views in a pamphlet or book, or posted online somewhere? It sure would be easier for those of us watching from the outside to get the whole picture of your viewpoints/positions than reading the various posts on multiple threads. I’d like to read more of your stuff, but would really appreciate a consolidated place to do so. I’m gettin carpal tunnel trying to keep up.
 
StAnastasia said:
Your God – the God of Intelligent Design – is like a parent who has to intervene periodically, with injections and operations to give the baby a heart, brain, and kidneys, or to turn on hormones, or to cause testicles to descend or breasts to develop, etc.
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ricmat said:
I’ve never heard an ID proponent make that claim. Where did you see it?
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StAnastasia said:
Irreducible complexity, for example. The eye or the bacterial flagellum could not have evolved, because they are too complicated, too irreducibly complex; the “designer” had to intervene to put the parts into position.
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Actually, if you refer to my original post above, I wasn’t asking about irreducible complexity. You still haven’t answered my original question.

Nor did you address my follow up. What if God intervenes out of love rather than necessity? It seems to me that those who are so impressed with their own knowledge (many PhD’s for example) can’t believe that God would do something so humiliating as to do something he doesn’t need to do - as you argue above. But Jesus was humble and told us to be also.
 
b_ulmen said:
StAnastasia, will you start a thread when you get back to share your views of the conference?
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b_lmen, if I can master the technological challenge of starting a new thread, I shall indeed start one on the Vatican conference. I may ask my thirteen-year-old to start the thread for me, as I lack the Lamarckianly acquired characteristic of dealing with this sort of thing.

StAnastasia
 
JDaniel said:
StAnastasia, (I’d be a tad carefull on this line of discussion as I have read debunks - from reputable scientists - that there were, in fact, pre-cursors to the eye and the flagellum.) My background is that I was a hands-on biologist. Not an evolutionary biologist. Rather, I dealt with existing biological forms assuming evolution. So, those scientists might be wrong - but, they might be right.jd
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JDaniel, I was paraphrasing Intelligent Design, not propounding it. I believe “irreducible complexity” has been shown to be a scientifically blind alley.
 
StAnastasia said:
Irreducible complexity, for example. The eye or the bacterial flagellum could not have evolved, because they are too complicated, too irreducibly complex; the “designer” had to intervene to put the parts into position.
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But that is the point of the EES. That there seems to be places of superfast changes that cannot be explained by Darwinism.
 
b_ulmen said:
StA and Reggie,

have y’all thought about putting your views in a pamphlet or book, or posted online somewhere? It sure would be easier for those of us watching from the outside to get the whole picture of your viewpoints/positions than reading the various posts on multiple threads. I’d like to read more of your stuff, but would really appreciate a consolidated place to do so. I’m gettin carpal tunnel trying to keep up.
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b_ulmen, you make a good point. There is a lot on CAF that would merit pulling together for wider use, but I wouldn’t know how to do that. The most balanced book I know of is Robert T. Pennock, ed., Intelligent design creationism and its critics : philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. There are used coipies as cheap as $8.00 on Amazon Z-shops.

StAnastasia
 
ricmat said:
Nor did you address my follow up. What if God intervenes out of love rather than necessity? It seems to me that those who are so impressed with their own knowledge (many PhD’s for example) can’t believe that God would do something so humiliating as to do something he doesn’t need to do - as you argue above. But Jesus was humble and told us to be also.
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Of course God could intervene out of love; I would never assume Divine intervention out of necessity. My beef with ID is not with intervention per se, but with the claim that such intervention should be undetectable by science. If God did “nudge” the Chicxulub bollide to collide with Earth at the K-T Boundary 65 million years ago to provide niches for mammalian evolution, I believe there would be no scientifically detectable way to find the fingerprints of God on that bollide. As for things that appear irreducibly complex, I assume we haven’t yet looked closely enough.

StAnastasia
 
StAnastasia said:
b_ulmen, you make a good point. There is a lot on CAF that would merit pulling together for wider use, but I wouldn’t know how to do that. The most balanced book I know of is Robert T. Pennock, ed., Intelligent design creationism and its critics : philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001. There are used copies as cheap as $8.00 on Amazon Z-shops. StAnastasia
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A friend pointed me int he direction of* Intelligent design : William A. Dembski & Michael Ruse in dialogue*, ed. Robert B. Stewart, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007.

This was not reviewed well:

"Philosopher of science Michael Ruse may have thought it intellectually productive to collaborate with Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) proponent William Dembski to edit a book in which both proponents and critics of IDC could have a constructive dialogue. He was mistaken, as anyone who knows the IDC movement could have predicted. There is no dialogue here, and nothing constructive in the exchanges of points of view. It is apparent that the people with opposing arguments who most needed to read each other’s contributions to the volume did not. This is a black mark on the ledger of the editors and particularly on Cambridge University Press, which should have insisted on it.

The result is a rehash of IDC’s apologetics, which have already been fully dismantled by scientific critics in many books, articles, and websites (notably pandasthumb.org)), and in a few articles in the present work. There is little new here, and a lot of wasted posturing. Many of the contributions were based on a 2000 symposium, and do not seem to have been updated recently.

The result has the imprint of a scholarly press, but only the sham of scholarship. It has already been used by IDC proponents to boast that they are being taken seriously by the scientific and philosophical “establishment”; this is as ridiculous as the arguments they make in favor of IDC as a scientific, nonreligious proposition."
 
StAnastasia said:
Of course God could intervene out of love; I would never assume Divine intervention out of necessity. My beef with ID is not with intervention per se, but with the claim that such intervention should be undetectable by science. If God did “nudge” the Chicxulub bollide to collide with Earth at the K-T Boundary 65 million years ago to provide niches for mammalian evolution, I believe there would be no scientifically detectable way to find the fingerprints of God on that bollide. As for things that appear irreducibly complex, I assume we haven’t yet looked closely enough.

StAnastasia
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Thanks for responding.

I’m puzzled by your statement, however, that ID says that intervention should be undetectable by science. That seems to me to be the anti-ID position (as you mention later in your post above), not the ID position.

But making a faith statement that “there would be no scientifically detectable way…” is actually not grounded in science 😦 Detecting God - that’s one thing. But detecting his impact on creation is another.

The idea that ID proponents promote a lesser God because he wouldn’t stoop to tinker is something that Fr. Coyne (and his acolytes) may regret as they look back over their lives in the future. If you continue to brush elbows with him (in Rome?) then perhaps you could pass along my comment.
 
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