Re: More fusillades in the ID wars

From: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu Feb 03 2005 - 23:03:56 EST
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

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