Re: More fusillades in the ID wars

Dick Fischer wrote:

"...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...."

Much of what you say is reasonable, but why the need to bounce between extremes? We already know that, on average, the world's physical and chemical phenomena obey well-defined laws, so we already know the world is well-behaved enough to allow us to do science. Hence we already know that, if God intervenes in special ways, it's not common enough to disrupt our ability to do science.

But we don't know more than that. Scientists do measurements, then they stop and take averages and throw out "wild points" (where God intervened). They don't measure all the time everywhere, so they miss most of God's interventions. : )

Many people are convinced from looking at crucial details that random mutations guided by natural selection are not competent to get us from single cells to humans. Stephen Meyer's paper presented lots of details on why he believes accepted evolutionary processes were unlikely to have been adequate for explaining the Cambrian explosion, and his arguments made it past two qualified referees (according to Sternberg). There's no reason for Christians as Christians to think that God might not have intervened in that Cambrian explosion. Christians as scientists must hope they can somehow eventually explain such events, but right now their prospects IMO don't look that good.

I don't recall anyone here discussing prayer in any depth since I've been monitoring. Jesus in the gospels urges his followers to pray as though God will intervene, and he gives the unmistakable impression that God will intervene on behalf of petitioners at least some of the time. I wonder if anyone here takes Jesus at his word on this. The NT in any case portrays God as an intervener, and the results have not been at all comparable to what Alice found down the rabbit hole.

Actually, now that you mention it, I do truly believe that "reality is blended with the metaphysical" in many ways--provided you'll allow me to substitute "spiritual" for "metaphysical"!

Don

 
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Received on Fri Feb 4 02:26:43 2005