A Response to an Evolutionist
In our campus paper (The Utah Statesman) this week, a professor wrote a letter regarding evolution. Below is my response, which they published yesterday. What do you think?
As a former college biology instructor , I read Prof. McMahon's letter on evolution with great interest. I applaud his encouragement to students to base their opinions on "real evidence", not ignorance. Unfortunately, this basic statement is problematic at best, insulting at worst. The implication is that if you doubt evolution, you are ignorant. This flies in the face of the fact that many working scientists, from MIT to UC Berkely to even USU openly question evolution. In fact, a national survey of university faculty revealed that the most likely discipline to have faculty who espouse belief in God are physicists and chemists, what we often called the "hard sciences". For many, science supports or even leads them to believe in God and even reject evolution (I am one as well) Biochemists like Michael Behe and others are saying recent findings in their fields demonstrate that biological evolution and abiotic origin of life is simply impossible. Rather, the evidence points to a creator. Recently, Antony Flew, well known atheist and campus debater, became a theist, mostly due to recent ideas in intelligent design. These, and many other examples, seem to refute Prof. later statement..."the methods of science...doesn't address whether God exists." Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein would disagree as well.
To further complicate matters, how can we know what the "real evidence " is? In the 1980's I taught my students (as did all my colleagues) such things as the peppered moth study, Darwin's finches, Haekal's embryo's, homologous structures, Miller's experiments in origins of life, etc. All of these have now proven to be hoaxes, or discredited research. As one author put it in the journal Science, it is simply embarassing.
By all means, let us keep studying the issues. May I recommend starting with Icons of Evolution by Yale and UC Berkeley Phd. Jonathan Wells and Reasons.org, an excellent website run by credentialed scientists.
As a former college biology instructor , I read Prof. McMahon's letter on evolution with great interest. I applaud his encouragement to students to base their opinions on "real evidence", not ignorance. Unfortunately, this basic statement is problematic at best, insulting at worst. The implication is that if you doubt evolution, you are ignorant. This flies in the face of the fact that many working scientists, from MIT to UC Berkely to even USU openly question evolution. In fact, a national survey of university faculty revealed that the most likely discipline to have faculty who espouse belief in God are physicists and chemists, what we often called the "hard sciences". For many, science supports or even leads them to believe in God and even reject evolution (I am one as well) Biochemists like Michael Behe and others are saying recent findings in their fields demonstrate that biological evolution and abiotic origin of life is simply impossible. Rather, the evidence points to a creator. Recently, Antony Flew, well known atheist and campus debater, became a theist, mostly due to recent ideas in intelligent design. These, and many other examples, seem to refute Prof. later statement..."the methods of science...doesn't address whether God exists." Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein would disagree as well.
To further complicate matters, how can we know what the "real evidence " is? In the 1980's I taught my students (as did all my colleagues) such things as the peppered moth study, Darwin's finches, Haekal's embryo's, homologous structures, Miller's experiments in origins of life, etc. All of these have now proven to be hoaxes, or discredited research. As one author put it in the journal Science, it is simply embarassing.
By all means, let us keep studying the issues. May I recommend starting with Icons of Evolution by Yale and UC Berkeley Phd. Jonathan Wells and Reasons.org, an excellent website run by credentialed scientists.
posted by Rob | 10:04 AM
3 Comments:
Come now, Rob. Since when are Darwin's finches a hoax? Darwin's work on the Galapagos finches has been verified by modern biologists.
The Bible says insects have four legs (Lev. 11: 21-23) and it seems to suggest that bats are birds (Deut. 14: 11-18).
Maybe we should render Caesar to Caesar, science to science, and theology to theology.
Rob,
I have looked honestly at Intelligent Design arguments for a couple of years now. It seems to be a sophisticated restating of God-of-the-gaps arguments. That is, "we cannot explain the complexity of what we see with current physical theories (physics, evolution, etc). There must be an external source of information ... therefore ... God!"
The above is 'intelligent design theory'. Unbeknownst to some, it is not the same thing as young-earth creation science. It does allow for old-earth creation science and theistic evolution as viable points of view. However, it does posit an intelligent being beyond nature that is feeding information or action into nature that is beyond scientific description.
Professor Holmes Ralston III, 2003 Templeton Prize winner, presents arguments for information-feed evolution. This position is in harmony with science but suggests that there are questions of complexity that are beyond current theories (again, God-of-the-gaps). However, I do not see a method to prove that questions are beyond future explanation by current or future scientific theories. Careful thought might be able to designate a test to identify physical events or processes that are not 'cause-effect' describable (the domain of scientific theory). Intelligent design suggests that there is a supernatural cause for some natural effects, which is beyond the domain of natural science. As far as I can see, either we must rest upon the 'governance' proof of God made by Thomas of Aquinas ("How do the planets know how to move when they are dumb objects? ... God wills it.) or we must identify all capricious events as God's intervention because things that are not cause-effect in relationship are capricious. I don't see the intelligent design middle ground.
The unfortunate trend of the intelligent design discussion is the exclusion of theistic evolutionists from the intelligent design catagory. This exclusion is from proponents and opponents of intelligent design. Intelligent design is becoming a synonym for special creation, which is too bad.
Special creation and young earth proponents can and have put forward testable 'evidence' of their position. None have been very convincing to me as evidence (I'm a physicist). These 'science' positions do benefit from being the simpliest theological positions for the biblical literalist, but is literalism a virtuous method of interpretation when reading ancient hebrew prose. Perhaps some humility can be used in allowing breadth in interpretation of prose that is not obvious historical narrative. Genesis 1 may fall into the 'not obvious' catagory.
I remain a 'born-again' Christian, who allows science and theology to co-exist in humility. We don't see either perfectly.
Vince
I read your letter and I have to disagree with you. You mention that the examples you site “seem to refute” the idea that the methods of science don’t address whether God exists, but your examples aren’t that convincing.
Trying to find God with science isn’t the best idea. Michele Behe’s idea of ‘irreducible complexity’ may sound right now like a great scientific theory that may show God’s hand in creation, but when some scientist eventually reduces that ‘irreducible complexity’ into a nice pile of explainable complexity where does the evidence for God go? It’s not a good idea to try to find an ‘intelligent designer’ in something we don’t understand, something we don’t understand yet, because when we do understand it the ‘intelligent designer’ idea is ‘proved’ wrong and is discredited. Just more ‘evidence’ for God into the dustbin.
Now I know that many atheists use evolution to back their argument that there is no God, and they often say that God and evolution cannot coexist, but they’re wrong. Many Christians say the same thing as the atheists, that God and evolution cannot coexist, but they’re wrong as well. I think evolution can be used just as easily by Christians to show many things about the nature and beauty of God. I mean why not? All the theory of evolution is really is a natural explanation for observable natural phenomenon, and I think God stands well above and outside nature itself since he ultimately created it, formed it and can do as he pleases with it. If we create a scientific theory that includes God, or some ‘intelligent designer’, when it comes to putting the theory to the test we have to find a way to put that ‘intelligent designer’ into the proverbial test-tube. I wonder how that ‘intelligent designer’ will take that idea. I wonder if He will cooperate. But of course we can’t do that.
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