Re: [asa] Re: Cosmological vs. Biological Design

Reproduction after their kind (with allowance for minor mutations) is not
necessarily the position of all evolutionists in every situation. The idea
of a "hopeful monster" is an example of postulating a rare event with
significant divergence between parent and offspring. Of course, it matters
a good deal how you define a significant divergence-a small genetic
difference could effect sizable changes in the final apperance of an
organism.

The mentioned example of hybridism is also a fairly common exception to
strict reproduction after their kind. If the hybrid is able to reproduce
itself, but cannot reproduce with the parent (a common situation in plants
but also known in most animal phyla, including some fish and reptiles), then
you have instant creation of a new species.

However, in general it is expected to take many generations for a change to
develop, and only after a new form becomes established do we recognize it as
a novel category rather than merely an odd mutant of a known form. Thus
reproduction after the kind is the norm, at any rate, even if one allows for
exceptions. There are plenty of examples of speciation in progress that can
be observed today, and these do include new information being generated, but
it is largely an accumulation of relatively subtle differences.

>Isn't there an even stronger aspect to the anti-evolutionism? ...That is
that the processes of mutation and natural selection, at least when viewed
microscopically, appear to be inherently random, without guidance or
purpose.<

I think this is just another example of the "god of the gaps" category.
Gravity shows no sign of guidance or purpose either, but people don't claim
it implies atheism.

> In contrast, every interpretation of the Bible I know of supports the view
of God's guidance and purpose in creation... But the truth is that the raw
data, as observed by Darwin and a host of nature observers since then, gives
no indication of any guidance.<

>This is where the ID paradigm has such appeal. They claim to find, at the
microscopic level, some indication of guidance. No, contrary to the anti-ID
rhetoric, they don't say that God is only involved in those indications of
guidance, but they do say that without such indication the data point
overwhelmingly to the absence of any intelligent guidance.<

Both the supposed finding of guidance and lack of guidance presuppose
assumptions about what form this guidance ought to take. The claim that God
has to act in ways that are visible in raw scientific data owes more to an
unduly high regard for the authority of science than to Biblical
principles.

A more useful comparison than gravity is history. The Bible certainly
teaches that the course of history is determined by God, and that it is
working towards His goal. Average people in the pews seem not to have much
difficulty in accepting that premise, even though there are plenty of
aspects of history where we seriously wonder why God would allow things to
hapen as they do (cf. Habakkuk or discussions of theodicy). Although it's
reasonably straightforward to suggest in hindsight how various aspects of
history seem to be fitting into God's plans, we don't expect someone
studying academic history to spot God's acting and suddenly be converted.
(Consideration of historic events might convert someone, but it is not so
much the historic data as philosophical consideration that is crtical. Most
importantly, the events of the New Testament, but I have heard, eg., of a
Muslim encountering the Reformation in studying Western history and deciding
that justification by faith rang truer than Islam. However, he did not
reach this conclusion by comparing the social, cultural, economic, or other
raw historical data about the events of the Reformation with other
historical events.). Another complication is God's encouragement of
humility through elevating the humble and confounding the wisdom of the
wise. As a result, inability to find obvious patterns fits with what might
be expected.

An additional complication is that randomness in evolution is often
overstated. There are strong constraints that provide direction (natural
selection, physical limits, etc.) Clear patterns do exist, but biology
itself cannot say that the presence of a given pattern versus another has
significance outside of biology. One can recognize significance in
hindsight, given theological assumptions (e.g., knowing that the Incarnation
was part of God's purpose, we can expect that intelligent beings would
eventually appear).

Conversely, the simple fact that evolution has a particular starting point
leads to apparent direction even in randomness, because things get farther
and farther from the starting point. If the starting point was distinctly
closer to one physical limit than another, there will be a net
directionality even to random variation. (For example, an apparent
evolutionary trend to increased size could result simply from the ancestor
being small, followed by things randomly getting bigger or smaller or
staying the same, because there's more room to get bigger.)

> Following this logic, the claim that ID is a "god of the gaps" fallacy
> largely applies to a popular misperception of ID. But it's not quite the
> whole story. It's not about the either-or story of evolution-or God. Well,
> in a way it is, but not in the "god of the gaps" type of either-or. Rather,
> it's that evolution inherently teaches unguided progress. TE's jump up and
> down and say, no, that's philosophy or metaphysics and science doesn't teach
> that. ok, let's back off the philosophy. It still teaches that there is no
> scientific evidence of any kind of direction from any source. If there is a
> non-natural guidance, it is so well hidden that it is essentially
> ineffective.
>

Ineffective for what? It's not much use as an apologetic for an unspecified
designer who might merely be aliens, but if God is directing and sustaining
all things, then His work not merely affects but effects all things.

 Let me give an example from tossing a coin. We often say that the Bible
> indicates several (someone said seven, I'm not sure) instances of casting
> lots being guided by God. If we then consider a very large number of coin
> tosses, if there were any type of influence, natural or supernatural, on the
> outcome of the tosses, wouldn't there be at least some indication of a
> deviation from the anticipated distribution of heads and tails? If not, then
> does it really matter whether there is a supernatural influence.
>

There would be a deviation from the anticipated distribution only if the
influence were in that direction. An influence that does not cause
deviation from the anticipated pattern does not matter for the purpose of
calculating the anticipated pattern. It matters a good deal for the purpose
of theological interpretation of the pattern. Other purposes will be more
or less affected.

>That's in essence, I think, why ID folks often say that if there's no
evidence of any kind of supernatural influence (not to "fix" things but just
to ensure that the random mutations and selections go in the right direction
to produce a species that will argue about these things), then any type of
God's influence that the TE's might postulate is quite irrelevant. And you
might as well be a deist.<

Either God does things in ways that do not follow scientific rules or He
doesn't do anything significant is not very different from god of the gaps.

The Bible portrays God as intimately involved in all that happens, including
things that occur by the laws of science. There's no reason to expect to
find gaps of the sort Johnson et al. demand.

If there is no evidence of any kind for supernatural influence on anything,
then one might as well be a deist. However, if there is no scientific
evidence of supernatural influence on the course of evolution, there could
be excellent reasons for rejecting deism from other lines of evidence.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.