Don wrote:
Dick Fischer wrote:
"...What ID proponents seek to do is invoke divine intervention in
the natural realm. And then do it without owning up to the
consequences when life's experiments fail, or when the deleterious
effects of gene mutations are passed from generation to generation
without divine impediment...."
Dick, what you say on this subject assumes something that we don't know
for sure is true, namely, that it was possible for life to go from single
cells to humans without divine intervention. It's an assumption
that practicing scientists make, because science concerns itself
exclusively with natural causes and implicitly assumes everything has a
natural cause. But it's important to keep in mind that this
possibility of going from single cell to human without intervention is an
assumption.
We do know that random genetic mutations occur and I have pointed out a
few times that it appears environmental impact can cause organisms to
adapt and possibly pass on adaptive mutations to their posterity.
There is some data suggestive of that. So there are two ways change
can occur naturally. Divine intervention has been suggested as an
agent for change, but no one knows how, when, or why it works. If
we have to assume something we need to side with the known versus the
unknown.
Further, if you permit divine intervention in life processes then you
open the door for divine intervention in physical processes and chemical
processes as well. Now try to do science in that environment.
I think the notion of divine intervention opens the door to an Alice in
Wonderland world where reality is blended with the metaphysical.
You can't predict the circumstances under which the laws of physics and
chemistry prevail or when they may be set aside at the whims of the
Creator because He needs a speciation event to take place or He needs a
better organ for some group of critters. What are the
rules?
In short, we should assume natural causation unless some striking bit of
evidence surfaces that deems otherwise. To date there has been
nothing.
What if it is impossible for life
to form spontaneously from some chemical soup or
whatever?
I'm not talking about living replicators arising out of a chemical mix. I
presume the Creator had to have a hand in the causation of life, but even
there it is possible that secondary causes alone were
sufficient.
What if it is impossible for life
to go from single cells to the multicellular organisms of the Cambrian
explosion without special intervention? Scientists can't and
shouldn't assume such events are impossible, but that doesn't mean such
events are therefore possible. In other words, it is at least
within the realm of possibility that life as we know it would not exist
had there not been special divine intervention at crucial points.
With God all things are possible. But in science we deal with
plausibility and likelihood consistent with available data and
evidence. When credible data surfaces suggesting divine
intervention is at work in life processes, then we should consider
it. Until then
As I said several months ago, your
views assume God has certain motives which he may not have, namely, that
if he intervened anywhere, he would intervene everywhere to make the
world into one you'd say would be worthy of him as
intervener.
You can't open Pandora's box and then slam the lid hoping nothing got
out. We know that natural causation works some of the time.
We don't know that divine intervention occurs in life processes any of
the time. So cautious scientists should err on the side of the
proven not the unproven.
Dick Fischer -
Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Thu Feb 3 23:10:39 2005