Reflectorites
On Thu, 20 Jul 2000 23:59:02 -0400, Steven P Crawford wrote:
[...]
SC>Stephen, thank you very much for your reply and for taking the time to
>give another perspective on the issue. Your post was quite informative,
>and I found it to be helpful in rounding out my understanding on the
>differences between Johnson and Lamoureaux.
Will someone please tell Steven that he is not supposed to be *nice* to me
on this Reflector. I can't handle it! :-)
>SJ>Welcome to the Reflector to Steven. Maybe he can tell us more about
>>himself?
SC>It would be my pleasure. I grew up in a fundamentalist home, being
>exposed to the young-earth creationist position only. I attended Drexel
>University in Philadelphia where I received my undergrad degree in
>mathematics with a minor in physics. The Lord graciously drew me to
>Himself while at Drexel. At the beginning of my 4th year there, I
>finally became a Christian not just in creed but also in heart. It is
>interesting that, even though I was exposed to Protestant Christianity
>all my life, it wasn't until I was 21 that I trusted the Lord Jesus and
>took Him for my own Saviour.
Praise God!
SC>When I graduated from Drexel, I went to Bob Jones University (no, I'm not
>a racist) where I received a Master of Divinity degree. Looking back, I
>wish I took that time to get graduate degrees in math and physics since I
>am not now a minister, but a high school teacher. I teach the science
>and math courses at Tall Oaks Classical School in Hockessin, DE. This
>school is a ministry of Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA). Since my time
>at BJU I have evolved from being a fundamentalist to being an
>evangelical.
Thanks to Steven for this. I should now point out my position, which is
covered more fully on http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones/testimny.html. I
originally was an atheist from a non-Christian upbringing and at about 18 I
became a theist when I could deny no longer the overwhelming impression
of design in nature. A year or so later I became a Christian. That was 30+
years ago. My original position was Progressive Creationist (I never was a
YEC) but for about 20 years I lost interest in the issue and was a type of
Theistic Evolutionist, thinking that evolution was probably true and just
God's way of creating.
In 1994 I joined a Fidonet Creation/Evolution debate and my original
position was that both creation and evolution were true. However, as I got
further into the debate, I realised that: 1) the evolutionists were a nasty lot,
often resorting to ridicule and abuse; 2) the creationists, were on the
whole, polite; and 3) the creationists were bringing up some good scientific
evidential points which the evolutionists were not able to deal with.
In 1995 I joined this Calvin Reflector when its founder Phil Johnson was
just leaving. My position had again become Progressive Creationism and
early on, I accepted the evolutionists' evidence for common ancestry. One
might think that would please the TEs but it didn't for long. The problem
was that I still believed that God could have supernaturally guided or
intervened in natural history and that made me as bad as the YECs in their
eyes! Proof of this is their attitude to Mike Behe who also accepts common
descent:
"Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be
equivalent to espousing creationism. As commonly understood,
creationism involves belief in an earth formed only about ten
thousand years ago, an interpretation of the Bible that is still very
popular. For the record, I have no reason to doubt that the universe
is the billions of years old that physicists say it is. Further, I find the
idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common
ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt
it." (Behe M.J., "Darwin's Black Box," 1996, p.5).
The fact is that in my experience, the TEs on this List are as absolutely
opposed to God acting supernaturally in the natural world as is Richard
Dawkins. A leading TE has even described the TE approach as "methodological
atheism":
"In this scheme of things, God is irrelevant and science itself
becomes captive to atheism. Basil Willey states that "Science must
be provisionally atheistic, or cease to be itself." Seemingly even
most scientists who are Christians have, regrettably, accepted the
legitimacy of scientific naturalism. Raymond Grizzle writes, "God
cannot be a part of a scientific description...any description that
implies a creator will probably be looked at as improper...." ...
Nancey Murphy, evolutionist and philosopher at Fuller Theological
Seminary, makes the incredible statement that Christians and
atheists alike must pursue scientific questions in our era without
involving a Creator" and "For better or worse, we have inherited a
view of science as methodologically atheistic." (Murphy N., "Phillip
Johnson on Trial: A Critique of His Critique of Darwin,"
Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith, Vol. 45, no. 1,
1993, p33)" (Ankerberg J. & Weldon J., "Darwin's Leap of Faith,"
1998, p.11).
My basic position is that I accept that God *could*, after the original
creation of the raw materials of the universe, have created 100% through
natural causes, but I do not assume apriori that he *did*. My position is
perhaps best summed up by Christian geneticist David Wilcox:
"I have no metaphysical necessity driving me to propose the
miraculous action of the evident finger of God as a scientific
hypothesis. In my world view, all natural forces and events are fully
contingent on the free choice of the sovereign God. Thus, neither
an adequate nor an inadequate "neo-Darwinism (as mechanism)
holds any terrors. But that is not what the data looks like. And I
feel no metaphysical necessity to exclude the evident finger of
God." (Wilcox D.L., "Tamed Tornadoes," in Buell J. & Hearn V.,
eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?" Foundation for Thought
and Ethics: Richardson TX, 1994, p.215.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/fte/darwinism/chapter13b.html)
SC>I thought I knew how to defend young-earth creationism from top to bottom
>-- until I started reading evolutionists' critiques of it. It seems that
>"scientific" creationism may not be so scientific after all. I signed up
>on this list and some others in order to learn more.
The question is not whether "scientific creationism" is "scientific" but
whether it is true or false. Philosophers of science these days are not
so much bothered trying to demarcate whether something is "science" or not
but whether it is *true*, i.e. "warranted by the evidence":
"And so it has gone generally with demarcation criteria. Many
theories that have been repudiated on evidential grounds express
the very epistemic and methodological virtues (testability,
falsifiability, observability, etc.) that have been alleged to
characterize true science. Many theories that are held in high
esteem lack some of the allegedly necessary and sufficient features
of proper science. As a result, with few exceptions most
contemporary philosophers of science regard the question "What
methods distinguish science from non-science?" as both intractable
and uninteresting. What, after all, is in a name? Certainly not
automatic epistemic warrant or authority. Thus philosophers of
science have increasingly realized that the real issue is not whether
a theory is scientific but whether it is true or warranted by the
evidence." (Meyer S.C., "The Methodological Equivalence of
Design & Descent," in Moreland J .P., ed., "The Creation
Hypothesis," 1994, p.75)
Personally I believe that "scientific creationism" is scientific according to
the falsifiability criterion because it makes scientific claims about the real
world that can be tested (e.g. age of the Earth, extent of Noah's Flood, no
death before humans, etc.) and found to be false. And in fact I believe
these YEC claims *have* been found to be false. Therefore, I believe that
"scientific creationism", is "scientific" but *false*.
I hasten to add that I am not one who makes a career out `bashing' YECs as
most TEs do, in order to bolster their own position. The real enemy is
scientific materialism and I welcome YECs as an ally in that struggle,
even though YECs do attack those holding Progressive Creationist
positions like mine.
[...]
>SC>P.S. I think that Lamoureaux won the debate.
>SJ>How one judges the outcome of such debates depends on one's prior
>>philosophical position (which one may not even be aware of).
SC>Actually, I had quite negative presuppositions regarding theistic
>evolution when I read the book. I didn't think it was a position worth
>any serious consideration. My judgment of who won was based solely on
>basic rules of debate. Johnson didn't give a serious response. I have
>never seen anyone leave so many points stand against him. This was the
>only measure of my appraisal.
As I said I haven't read the book yet. But I know from other sources
(which I am not at liberty to reveal) that Johnson was not really interested
in answering Lamoureux's TE points again (he has answered them many
times in the past) and regards TE as vacuous and scientifically
uninteresting. This is supported by the ID's 41 pages vs TEs 106 pages.
This might seem strange to Christians new to this debate but Johnson
regards TE as a position that is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the real
world. Steven might have noticed that in the Kansas controversy, the media
regards ID now as the official opposition to evolution, and is not interested
in hearing from spokesmen for the TE position, because it is scientifically
identical with the NE position.
Steven will himself notice this on this Reflector if he sticks around. The TEs
hardly ever argue for their own position. Mostly they either argue for
naturalistic evolution or attack creationist/ID positions. They almost never
attack naturalistic evolution.
SC>SC>BTW, allow me to add Niles Eldridge's comments to the quotations that you
>gave. This is taken from The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of
>Creationism (p. 136-7, emphasis his)
Steven might note the sub-title of Eldredge's book contradicts his thesis.
To claim that "creationism" is a "failure" is to make claims about the
supernatural. If there is a God who created, then "creationism" is not a
"failure", but is in fact correct on the main issue, even if *some*
creationists are wrong on lesser details, like its tempo and mode.
In fact Eldredge himself had written an earlier book attacking the Christian
view of creation in the guise of attacking creationism: Eldredge N., "The
Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at Creationism," 1982". So that is
*two* books by a scientists who claims that: "by its own rules, science
cannot say anything about the supernatural" and "Scientists are allowed to
formulate solely ideas that pertain to the material universe" (see below).
But writing books against creationism is inevitably saying *something*
about the supernatural.
Here is another example of Eldredge making a statement about the
supernatural:
"Adaptation is the very heart and soul of evolution. It is the
scientific account of why the living world comes in so many shapes
and sizes: how the giraffe got its long neck, why porpoises look so
much like sharks and the extinct ichthyosaurs, how birds fly, and
literally millions of similar questions. The only other account of this
spectacular display of diversity is the creationist tale: that a
supernatural Creator fashioned the world, including its organic
contents, the way we find it. But that form of explanation, by its
very nature, lies outside the bounds of the scientific enterprise."
(Eldredge N., "Reinventing Darwin," 1996, p.33).
To say that *every* creationist explanation where "a supernatural Creator
fashioned the world, including its organic contents" is "by its very
nature...outside the bounds of the scientific enterprise" is to make a
statement about the supernatural, namely either: 1) there is no God; or 2) if
there is a God, how He must have created (i.e. in a way that is
indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution).
And it is not as though Eldredge is only talking about young-Earth
creationism. He lumps all creationists together, including Johnson:
"So much takes us rather far away from the High Table. Yet I must
mention one cultural phenomenon that has had a most salutary
unifying effect-the one issue on which all at the High Table can
agree. Just as neo-Darwinians united against the (rather slender)
forces of saltationism, so we disputants around the High Table in
the 1980s have been united in common opposition to a movement
outside the confines of biology: creationism. Indeed, the cannier
creationists (and others of unmistakable creationist bent who
profess simple disagreement with evolution) such as the lawyer
Philip Johnson) have long accused evolutionary biologists of hiding
our very real disagreements under a cloak of unanimity-so united
are we against the pseudoscience of creationism." (Eldredge N.,
"Reinventing Darwin," 1996, p.103).
So Eldredge is saying that *no* form of creationism would ever be
acceptable as science, and *all* forms of creationism are "pseudoscience".
Again this is making a statement about the supernatural.
SC>"Here, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with Johnson's argument: his
>dichotomy between philosophical naturalism and theological realism. It
>is the answer I conceived when I accepted the offer to debate Johnson,
>and it is the same answer everyone else has reached. Unlike Johnson, I
>do not see these issues as overly difficult for anyone to grasp.
>
>"Everyone -- even Phillip Johnson -- agrees that there is a physical,
>material world. Everyone also agrees that there is something called
>human knowledge, and that human knowledge has grown over historical time.
> SCIENCE IS A WAY OF KNOWING ABOUT THE NATURE -- COMPOSITION AND
>BEHAVIOUR -- OF THE NATURAL, MATERIAL WORLD.
Notice the conflation of the "physical, material world" with "natural
material world". This is a metaphysical, philosophical statement. To say
that the "natural...world" *is* the "physical, material world" is to make
statements about such entities which are in the natural world like mind and
information (let alone Christian entities like spirit), that they are ultimately
"physical".
But this cannot even be maintained in biology. The central unit in biology is
the gene, but no one has ever observed a gene, and it was originally a
problem for the positivistic materialistic concept of science (that Eldredge
is naively using here) to accept that a gene was scientific:
"Consider an example. After the rediscovery of Mendel's laws in
1900, a debate broke out between the Mendelians and the earlier
school of biometricians, headed by Karl Pearson. Pearson refused
to accept the new theory, at least in part because it was
incompatible with his previously held philosophical view that the
business of science is merely to describe the world and not to
imagine hypothetical entities such as genes....Pearson understood
that Mendelian inheritance could account for the phenomena of
continuous variability, which he had been studying, but still rejected
it on philosophical grounds-an interesting illustration of how
philosophical preconceptions can be a poor guide to scientific
practice. Yet, despite all this, no one today would doubt the utility
either of Pearson's statistical methods or of Mendelian genetics."
(Maynard Smith J., "Science and Mytth," in Eldredge N., ed., "The
Natural History Reader in Evolution," 1987, p.227)
This is because a "gene" is not a "physical, material" entity but a non-material
"package of information", as probably the leading Darwinist theoretician in
the world, George C. Williams has finally come to realise:
"Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with
two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information
and that of matter. I address this problem in my 1992 book, Natural
Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenges. These two domains
will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually
implied by the term "reductionism." You can speak of galaxies and
particles of dust in the same terms, because they both have mass
and charge and length and width. You can't do that with
information and matter. Information doesn't have mass or charge or
length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn't have bytes. You can't
measure so much gold in so many bytes. It doesn't have
redundancy, or fidelity, or any of the other descriptors we apply to
information. This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and
information two separate domains of existence, which have to be
discussed separately, in their own terms. The gene is a package of
information, not an object. The pattern of base pairs in a DNA
molecule specifies the gene. But the DNA molecule is the medium,
it's not the message. Maintaining this distinction between the
medium and the message is absolutely indispensable to clarity of
thought about evolution." (Williams G.C., "A Package of
Information," in Brockman J., ed., "The Third Culture: Beyond the
Scientific Revolution," Simon & Schuster, 1995, p.43.
http://www.edge.org/documents/ThirdCulture/h-Ch.1.html)
A gene has a detectable *effect* on the "physical, material world" but it is
not itself part of the "physical, material world". It is part of the
"natural...world", but that is not the same as the "physical, material world".
Moreover, the information in a gene could come from outside the natural
world altogether (e.g. directly from God), and it would then be part of the
natural world, as were the words on the tablets of stone known as "The
Ten Commandments":
"When the LORD finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he
gave him the two tablets of the Testimony, the tablets of stone
inscribed by the finger of God." (Ex 31:18).
The Darwinist philosopher Daniel Dennett has admitted that there is no
way to distinguish between the effects of natural, as opposed to
supernatural, origin of information in the genome:
"Indeed, all the biologists I have queried on this point have agreed
with me that there are no sure marks of natural, as opposed to
artificial, selection. In chapter 5, we traded in the concept of strict
biological possibility and impossibility for a graded notion of
biological probability, but even in its terms, it is not clear how one
could grade organisms as "probably" or "very probably" or
"extremely probably" the products of artificial selection. Should this
conclusion be viewed as a terrible embarrassment to the
evolutionists in their struggle against creationists? One can imagine
the headlines: "Scientists Concede: Darwinian Theory Cannot
Disprove Intelligent Design!" It would be foolhardy, however, for
any defender of neo-Darwinism to claim that contemporary
evolution theory gives one the power to read history so finely from
present data as to rule out the earlier historical presence of rational
designers-a wildly implausible fantasy, but a possibility after all."
(Dennett D.C., "Darwin 's Dangerous Idea," 1996, pp.317-318).
So all Dennett (and Eldredge) can do is rule out, on materialist-naturalist
philosophical grounds, as "a wildly implausible fantasy" that an Intelligent
Designer has *ever* written information supernaturally into the genome, in
the 3.9 billion year history of life. Now that very definitely *is* saying
something about the supernatural!
SC>That's not nothing, but
>that is all science is: a set of rules and an accumulated set of ideas,
>some more powerfully established than others, about the nature of the
>material world. BY ITS OWN RULES, SCIENCE CANNOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE
>SUPERNATURAL. Scientists are allowed to formulate solely ideas that
>pertain to the material universe, and they are constrained to formulate
>those ideas in ways that can be testable with empirical evidence
>detectable by our senses.
This would be nice if it were true, but it is not. Scientists are saying things
about the supernatural world all the time, including Eldredge, and his long-
time collaborator Stephen Jay Gould who wrote:
"Before Darwin, we thought that a benevolent God had created us."
(Gould S.J., "Ever Since Darwin," 1991, reprint, p.267).
The idea that there is some ideal Platonic realm called "science" which has
no human beings called scientists, with all their atheistic and other
metaphysical prejudices in it, is simply naive. In the *real* world of
everyday science, leading scientists like Eldredge, are making statements
about the supernatural all the time.
SC>"Johnson says that restricting analysis purely to material, naturalistic
>terms is automatically atheistic -- amounting to a de facto claim that
>God does not exist. But science does not -- because it cannot -- say
>that only the natural, material world exists. Rather, science is
>restricted by the limitations of human senses and was, in any case,
>invented solely to explore the nature of the material universe. It does
>not rule out the existence of the supernatural; it merely claims that it
>cannot, by its very rules of existence, study the supernatural -- if,
>indeed, the supernatural exists."
>
>I personally found it refreshing for a prominent evolutionist to say as
>much.
It might seem "refreshing" to Steven, but it is just the same old *boring*
materialist-naturalist line that the science establishment has been peddling
for years!
SC>It is probably true that the present evolutionary establishment
>accepts the theory as being plainly anti-God or anti-religious (though
>Eldridge's comments hopefully signifies a shift).
I doubt it. Eldredge is himself a *part* of "the present evolutionary
establishment". His friend Gould is even the current President of the
AAAS. Eldredge makes some statements that sound revolutionary but in
the end he describes himself as just another "`knee-jerk' neo-Darwinian",
when it comes to the issue of "adaptation and natural selection" (which is
what the creation/evolution debate is mostly about):
"In lecturing to new audiences, I like to present myself as a "knee-
jerk" neo-Darwinian, at least when it comes to the matter of
adaptation and natural selection. It's true enough, and comes as
something of a surprise to some who suppose that I will promulgate
some wild new theory to supplant traditional canon. People tend to
equate punctuated equilibria with some alternate notion of how
evolutionary change adaptive evolutionary change-occurs."
(Eldredge N., "Reinventing Darwin," 1996, p55).
SC>But should we grant
>this foothold for them to stand on, instead of challenging it?
Steven seems to think that by accepting Eldredge's line "that by its own
rules, science cannot say anything about the supernatural" that we would
be "challenging...the present evolutionary establishment". But that *is*
their official position!
It is a *great* position for the scientfic materialists. They can stop
creationist/ID from having any official say in science, by declaring that
creationist/ID is not science, and yet at the same time write book after
book under the auspices of science attacking creationism/ID.
The crazy thing is that some Christians think that this is a fair and
reasonable position!
SC>Johnson
>seems to accept Dawkins' famous claim that evolution allows people to be
>"intellectually fulfilled atheists."
Dawkins claim was that "*Darwin* made it possible to be an intellectually
fulfilled atheist." (Dawkins R. "The Blind Watchmaker," 1991, p.6). One of
Johnson's major points is to drive a wedge between Darwinism and the
vague term "evolution".
And what does Steven mean that "Johnson seems to accept Dawkins'
famous claim"? Johnson accepts that Dawkins *claims* that and maybe
even *thinks* that. But Johnson does not believe that Darwinism is true,
and therefore Dawkins is deluding himself.
BTW, the subtitle of "The Blind Watchmaker" in which Dawkins made his
claim is: "Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without
Design". That's what scientific materialists *in practice* mean by
"science...merely claims that it cannot, by its very rules of existence, study
the supernatural"!
But if Steven accepts the line of "the present evolutionary establishment"
that it is possible to have a *completely* intellectually fulfilling science of
Biology by assuming "that by its own rules, science cannot say anything
about the supernatural", then Steven has, in effect, accepted Dawkins'
claim as being *true*.
SC>But shouldn't we point out that,
>even if evolution were correct, the theory would still require a
>philosophical pre-commitment in order to deny God?
That is *exactly* what Johnson is doing! The "philosophical pre-
commitment" is materialism (i.e. "matter is all there is") and naturalism
("nature is all there is"), that is, there is nothing `outside' of nature that can
influence it. The TE position is a "theistic naturalism" which assumes that
while there is a God `outside' of nature who could influence it, in fact He
did not (or would not, or even could not), so influence it.
In conclusion I would point out to Steven that he might think that Theistic
Evolution is a neutral position between the extremes of the creationists on
one hand and the atheistic evolutionists on the other. And in a previous era
it might be.
But the leading TEs today like Lamoureux and Van Till are really *Deistic*
Evolutionists (not Deists) in that they deny apriori any supernatural
intervention in the history of the universe since the Big Bang:
"Deistic Evolution. Deism does not believe in any supernatural acts
or miracles after the initial act of creating the material universe out
of nothing. As far as the evolutionary process and the production of
life forms, including human beings, there is no real difference
between deistic evolution and naturalistic evolution, which includes
atheism and agnosticism." (Geisler N.L., "Baker Encyclopedia of
Christian Apologetics," 1999, p.233)
Indeed Johnson, Behe and myself, in a previous era would probably be
described as TEs. Behe and I accept common ancestry (and Johnson does
not rule it out), but we maintain that God *could* have intervened in
natural history and present evidence supporting that.
Because of that reasonable position for a Christian theist to take (in fact
most Christian theists do take it), Johnson, Behe and I have been personally
attacked vigorously by the leading TEs like Van Till and Lamoureux.
In the end, I can't convince Steven of this. All I can ask is that he tries to
have an open mind on it. It is very seductive for peace-loving Christians to
think (especially if they are trying to distance themselves from a YEC
upbringing), that the problem can be solved by simply appeasing the
atheistic evolutionists and attacking the creationist/IDers. The problem
goes *much* deeper than that.
[...]
I thank Steven for his comments.
Steve
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Stephen E. (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ Email: sejones@iinet.net.au
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Web: http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Warwick 6024 -> *_,--\_/ Phone: +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, Western Australia v "Test everything." (1 Thess. 5:21)
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