Re: Scientific theory

 Rich, when you say, "Dogs have been bred (artificially selected) long enough to have displayed the tremendous variety that evolution is capable of," I don't think you really mean that. Archaeopterix vs marmot exhibits less variety than Bloodhound vs Toy poodle? Dog breeding has generated relatively big changes in a short time, but such changes just show the flexibility of the genetic code. If I did not already accept evolution, I'd not consider this illustration from human-controlled breeding to shed any light on the big changes seen in the fossil record. Everybody's already aware of substantial variations even among humans, but those who don't accept evolution aren't going to interpret these variations as an indication that humans are going to turn into some other kind of animal. And that kind of change is the sort of thing that these people have been told about and are interested in: "man from ape." Can you make dog variations seem relevant to someone who doesn't accept evolution?

Don:
It's useful in discussing this topic in a religious context to distinguish evolution as fact from evolution as mechanism.

rich:
A mechanism is not a fact?

DW: Not to me. The proposed mechanisms have never been shown to do what is claimed for them. Their principal support comes from plausibility arguments.

Don:
First of all, since we're talking science, any proposed mechanism must exclude God as a direct cause, because science as we practice it deals only with physical causes.

rich:
The physical world is not a manifestation of God? How could God ever be excluded?

DW: We're talking about how we practice science here. Name me one article in a respectable scientific journal that invokes God as a direct cause. Formal scientific intercourse in our world excludes God as a cause--except metaphorically, as in "God doesn't throw dice." That's how God could ever be (and is) excluded.

Rich: You see, my problem is that I accept that all of the physical world is a manifestation of God,
so I don't have any trouble seeing God at work, remarks like "the created world is not competent enough" don't strike me as useful. I do have a problem with God being outside the universe looking down and dropping a hand in and managing the marionettes once in awhile, that may be a nice metaphor, but I think it is completely unreligious and unscientific at the same time. Is there a Christian view of God the Father that is more specific than He is "ineffable?"

DW: I agree that the physical world witnesses of God--but it's not without its shortcomings. There's an old saying that the gods mess up anything that's close to perfection so that it can't compete with them for glory. The physical world, I think, is a few degrees less competent than God himself. It's a thing, and God is a person. As for the marionettes--while I dislike that metaphor, it's a major theme of the Bible from one end to the other: God from time to time injects himself into human affairs in special ways to change things. While the Bible may be unscientific, I can't accept that it's "completely unreligious." And what's science got to do with it?

Matter of fact, now that I think about it, while "ineffable" might sound like a good word for God, it's not a word to my knowledge that has much currency in old-time Christianity. The NT doesn't use it. It means, "too overwhelming to be expressed or described in words" (Webster). Christianity has used lots of words to describe God's actions on behalf of his people. "Loving" is common. Wouldn't that be more appropriate? God is interested in establishing relationships.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: RFaussette@aol.com<mailto:RFaussette@aol.com>
  To: "Don Winterstein"<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com> ; "asa"<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Cc: "Moorad Alexanian"<mailto:alexanian@uncw.edu>
  Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 2:55 PM
  Subject: Re: Scientific theory

  In a message dated 12/8/2004 12:24:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Don Winterstein" <dfwinterstein@msn.com<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com>> writes:

>Rich Faussette wrote:
>
  "Evolution is a a painfully slow process, not an intrinsic state of matter like you can test in physics. Dogs have been bred (artificially selected) long enough to have displayed the tremendous variety that evolution is capable of...."

  Don replied:
  Variations in dogs are variations in phenotype. I understand that all dogs can interbreed (at least if you use artificial insemination), so they are not of different species. If you let all dogs go wild, I'm guessing they'd eventually revert to something close to what they were before humans got involved in breeding them. In other words, variation in dogs, suggestive as it is, doesn't really illustrate evolution.

  Rich:
  They're also variations in the genotype and as for illustrating evolution, OF COURSE IT DOES - what you are asserting is that variation in dogs does not really illustrate SPECIATION, a result of natural selection, something that takes an immense amount of time and distance to achieve. In fact, I made my remarks based on a recent documentary in which it was revealed that intense selection in dogs has increased their genetic variation. The more you select for specific traits, the more variety you get in the offspring and over long periods of time the more likely you will have such great variation as to preclude interbreeding among now disparate types but then we can't demonstrate that unless we can collapse millions of years of evolution into a lab. Do you realize that most of the genetic variation you see today in dogs is less than 500 years old? And you admit that without selective breeding dogs would revert back to ancestral traits, of course, and what (or who) would be sel!
  ecting for those traits, the environment of course, and what is the environment but a manifestation of God.

  Don:
  It's useful in discussing this topic in a religious context to distinguish evolution as fact from evolution as mechanism.

  rich:
  A mechanism is not a fact?

  Don:
  Evolution as fact is well established largely by the voluminous body of paleontological evidence demonstrating that life forms of one geologic period are often different from those of adjacent periods. Over all geologic time the differences are commonly dramatic. Extreme. Furthermore, paleontology strongly suggests by way of apparent "transitional fossils" that later life forms descended from earlier ones. Although it is logically acceptable for a creationist to assert that God brought each of the millions of different kinds of life forms into existence as a special creation, this assertion at the very least forces one to question God's motives or competence if not also his sanity. That is, for example, why would he create life forms only to see them go extinct ten million years or so down the road?

  rich:
  You're speculating about God's motives. I don't know how to do that.

  Don:
  First of all, since we're talking science, any proposed mechanism must exclude God as a direct cause, because science as we practice it deals only with physical causes.

  rich:
  The physical world is not a manifestation of God? How could God ever be excluded?

  Don:
  For a religious person, this stipulation may be too restrictive. ID scientists, for example, imply we should not honor it. The reality, however, is that we know of physical mechanisms related to DNA, mutation, natural selection, etc., that can produce observed life-form changes in principle.

  No one can prove that any observed change in life form in nature owes exclusively to such material mechanisms. At the same time there is no widely accepted scientific alternative.

  Rich:
  You are separating God from the world ("...owes exclusively to such material mechanisms")in order to make your point. I can't do that.

  But yes, I agree to your final point, there is no alternative at all.

  Don:
  Hence evolution is a very respectable scientific theory: It accounts elegantly by means of known physical mechanisms for a huge body of facts, and it suggests many avenues for further investigation. As with all scientific theories, it may not constitute the final word on the subject, nor can it be said to have been "proven."

  For religious persons such as I who believe that the created world was not competent enough to go from beginning to end without outside help, the theory of evolution does not preclude my postulating divine interventions from time to time, provided I don't claim that such postulations are scientific.
  Don

  Rich:You see, my problem is that I accept that all of the physical world is a manifestation of God,
  so I don't have any trouble seeing God at work, remarks like "the created world is not competent enough" don't strike me as useful. I do have a problem with God being outside the universe looking down and dropping a hand in and managing the marionettes once in awhile, that may be a nice metaphor, but I think it is completely unreligious and unscientific at the same time. Is there a Christian view of God the Father that is more specific than He is "ineffable?"

  rich
Received on Thu Dec 9 06:36:30 2004