The quote (or similar variations) has been repeated again and again by arch-evolutionists. It is not an accurate statement.
Those scientists who believe in God would, in any case say “God did it.” But then follow on with “I wonder how God did it?” The door to scientific inquiry is not closed, but is left open as it has been to all those wonderful Catholic scientists to whom we owe such a great debt.
But it is interesting that whenever evolution is questioned as the particular method by which God did it, the arch-evolutionists seem to always leap to that straw-man quote as a defense. For them, it seems, evolution can not be questioned, ever. There are no flaws. There are no missing pieces. There can not be, ever, any discussion of evolution except to praise it and glorify it (excuse the religious analogy here). “If you can’t come up with something better yourself, then you MUST believe that random mutations and natural selection caused complex life.” Any criticism or questioning of the TOE is net with derision and scorn. “Unless you have a PhD in biology, you have no right to criticize. And oh, those who do have PhD’s and criticize are idiots.” etc.
The defense of evolutionary theory is perfectly dogmatic, but only insofar as it must defend the scientific method itself. Science ahcieves what it does because it applies methodological naturalism – natural explanations for natural phenomena. To the extent it wavers even a little bit and admits of supernatural answers, it’s entire epistemology is invalidated. So, when you wonder “how did God do that?”, unless you are pointing to a physically observed, empirically demonstrated God, you are undermining the method by which says has anything to say at all – naturalism. It’s no problem if you
do have a God who we can observe and watch do Godly things, and make the sun blink on and off on demand, or move the stars around to spell our names in the sky like a parlor trick. That’s a
natural explanation for
natural phenomena, even as amazing as those feats would be.
So the objection is not “you don’t know the data”, although that is certainly a manifest problem for many critics of evolution. It is rather, “you don’t know the method”, or if you do, “you’re advocating the corruption of the method”.
As it happens there are always a number of ongoing disputes about evolutionary theory. Punk Eeq was a hotly contested controversy for a while, and still is in some circles. Evo-Devo portends a structural remodel of the modern synthesis, and that, if you are following the biology community, has lots of criticism flying in both directions. What may mask some of that for you, though, is that it’s
academic criticism, earnest disputes over eveidences and their interpretations and implications. It can get heated, but the dispute is a generative, healthy one, so at the end of the day, a means of resolving the dispute is sought through testing and trial, and everyone shakes hands and moves on when/if the results come in that adjudicate it one way or another.
Think Hawking vs. Susskind on black holes (black hole war), or George Gamow’s ideas versus supporters of the Steady State theory. That kind of thing, happening in biology, on many different fronts. In terms of a
natural theory that is a competitor against evolution – something that supplants common descent, descent with variation, natural selection, etc. with something else… there just are no other players. It’s wide open to anyone who can synthesize a theory that would overturn eveolutionary theory, and outperform it in explanatory power, evidence-fitting, predictive success and falsifiability.
Those scientists who believe in God and continue to ask “How did God do it?” are in fact more open to reason and the proper use of science than those who declare evolution as a closed case. In fact, it is their minds that are closed.
Science is never a closed case, by definition. It’s only dogmatic about its method – natural explanations for natural phenomena. No supernaturalism allowed, ever, by necessity.
Leela, I’m ranting on here - not particularly against you. But you pushed one of my hot buttons with the quote above.
Kenneth Miller, for example, believes some of the mutations which science calls “random” were in fact God-guided, manipulated “behind the quantum curtain”. That’s a belief that is impossible to verify or falsify. He’s welcome to it. But while that is his
personal conviction, as a matter of science, Miller (a practicing Catholic) would be the first to say that as far as
science goes – science used properly! – the mutations we say are “without cause” or telic goal, so far as we can see. I’m not holding up Miller as some arch-authority on this, but rather using him as an example of one who is mindful of the discipline of science, and what that requires, and who is yet completely free to embrace metaphysical and religious beliefs that fit with Catholicism as an “extra-scientific” overlay. It’s only when theists overreach and suppose that methodological naturalism should for some reason capitulate to religious dogma, and adopt supernaturalism as part of its method that Miller, and the rest of the science community get up in arms.
And well they should. Once supernaturalism has a foot in the door, it is invincible, and science cannot help but be reduced to theology. Natural explanations do not stand a chance against supernatural answers. Even a “correct” natural answer cannot compete with an “incorrect” supernatural answer.
-TS
It is no small detail