It is interesting that the Church Times has just caught up with this.
The complete text of this Boyle Lecture, plus commentary by 3 other
people, plus response by Conway Morris, was published in Science and
Christian Belief, volume 18, part 1, April, 2006. I strongly recommend
this paper. (I should add the disclaimer that I am biased -- Conway
Morris and I are both members of St John's College, Cambridge.)
Don
Austerberry, Charles wrote:
>In Simon Conway Morris' words:
>
>"In my opinion, ID is a false and misleading attraction. There would be little point in reiterating the many objections raised against ID, especially those made by the scientific colleagues, but opponents, of Michael Behe and Bill Dembski, its two principal proponents.
>
>Rather, ID has a more interesting failing, a theological failing. Consider a possible analogy, that of Gnosticism. Who knows where this claptrap come from, but it could have been an attempt to reconcile orphic and mithraic mysteries with a new, and, to many in the Ancient World, a very dangerous Christianity.
>
>So, too, in our culture, those given over to being worshippers of the machine and the computer model, those admirers of organised efficiency - they would not expect the Creator (that is, the one identified as the engineer of the bacterial flagellar motor, or whatever your favourite case study of ID might be) to be encumbered with the customary cliché of bearing a large white beard, but to be the very model of scientific efficiency, and so don a very large white coat. ID is surely the deist's option, and one that turns its back not only on the richness and beauty of creation, but, as importantly, on its limitless possibilities. It is a theology for control freaks.
>
>To question ID might generate a ripple of applause from neo-Darwinians, until they recall that theology is not a fad, a pastime for eccentrics, but central to our enterprise. Such an approach may not only be consistent with evolution, but can also resonate with orthodox Christian theology - the fall, the incarnation and the end times."
>
>
>http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/churchtimes/website/pages.nsf/httppublicpages/63693299A537AEDD80256FB2003650C7
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 20:51:02 -0400
>From: "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [asa] YEC and ID arguments
>
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>*An argument for theism/design based on convergent evolution is simply a non
>sequiteur.*
>
>So you didn't like Simon Conway Morriss' recent book?
>
>
>
>
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Received on Tue Oct 24 22:54:50 2006
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