I thought some, esp. if they're new to the issues of Christianity and
evolution, might find this note I recently sent to a friend interesting. (I
was responding to an article whose URL he sent to me -- see the end.)
Apologies to those who end up with two copies.
John
=================================
I think that's a good article in many respects -- Gould's proposal of
"science=facts, religion=values" is not very promising -- but Christians
will be led astray philosophically and scientifically if they follow Johnson
(or his followers) too closely.
Take, e.g., an extremely popular, superficially compelling, and yet clearly
fallacious argument for "Intelligent Design" (by which they mean more
precisely -something- like "Intelligent Intervention", not design broadly
construed [e.g., they do NOT mean God's implementing designs -via-, rather
than -versus-, natural laws]): the argument from Irreducible Complexity.
The IC proof that Philip Johnson, Michael Behe (who's much better than
Johnson at the science, BTW), et al push goes like this:
Take some biochemical system consisting of components A, B, C, and D. If
any of the components were removed, the resulting system would not function.
Therefore, by defn the system ABCD is not merely complex, but -irreducibly-
complex. So far so good.
Then they add: IC systems clearly could not evolve. Evolution requires a
simple stepwise path the system functioning every step of the way, to get
from A to ABCD. But because ABCD is irreducibly complex, there IS no simple
stepwise path. ABC doesn't function; nor does ACD; etc. So getting to ABCD
requires Intelligent Design (i.e., extra-natural -intervention-), or an
amount of luck even evolutionists won't countenance.
But this is false. Suppose we accept that ABCD is IC, and let's further
stipulate that -every- subsytem of ABCD (ABC, etc.) would be 100%
dysfunctional in every way (i.e., not even functional in some non-ABCD-like
way). This is STILL NO PROOF THAT ABCD COULD NOT HAVE EVOLVED, because
while it shows that one cannot build UP to ABCD, it does NOT show that one
cannot build DOWN or LATERALLY to ABCD, which are well-known evolutionary
mechanisms. (So one might be able to build up gradually to EFGH, then to
AFGH -> AFCH -> AFCD -> ABCD.)
An old example: a rock arch. An arch is irreducibly complex. It cannot be
built in the simplest step-wise way, and if one removes any stone, the whole
thing collapses. But it'd be relatively easy to build a (crude) arch by
having a pile of more-or-less interlocking stones and then knocking out the
ones in the middle. But one has to build down to an arch, not up. (Please
note: my example is not meant to show this is easy, esp. not in one or two
tries, but simply that it's clearly possible; and I'd add that it seems very
likely given enough tries.)
So the ID folks may be completely right that God intervened to create life,
rather than designing life into the fabric of the universe itself. But
while they're convinced they've proven it, they haven't -at all-. And if
lay Christians become convinced they've proven it -- well, another reason
for smart folks to look down on Christianity, no? (Believe me: militant
atheists gravitate to outspokenly dumb Christians with understandable
delight.)
There are other problems with arguments for ID (not
recognizing/understanding a distinction between methodological and
metaphysical naturalism [and so sometimes bizarrely buying into a sort of
Christianized Scientism]; the idea that apparently random processes simply
cannot, no matter what -- even in a designed universe -- produce
information), but I've not time today for those critiques. Or this one, for
that matter. :^/
John
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2000 12:52 PM
> To: John E. Rylander
> Subject: Oh, yeah?
>
>
>
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=\Commentary\archive\COM200007
24e.html
>
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