Re: [asa] Denyse O'Leary on family values and Darwinism

Hi Bill,

Many biologists, myself including, would see Darwinism as a
particular form of biological evolution--it does not necessarily
include the metaphysical/theological assumptions as Darwin himself
seemed to and as Charles Hodge proposed. I think that both Darwin and
Hodge and now many in the current discussion have erred here and have
confused the discussion significantly. Asa Gray and, it seems, B.B.
Warfield, rejected the view that Darwinism has necessary theological
implications.

In the current scientific discussion, as I understand it, there are
Darwinian versions of biological evolution (natural selection
operating on variations) and non-Darwinian versions of biological
evolution (natural selection, catastrophic chance events, self-
organizational events, morphological constraints, macromutations,
gene duplications, chromosome rearrangements, genome acquisitions,
etc.).

It is possible, it seems to me, that God can direct the evolution in
a Darwinian sense exactly the way he directs coin flips, dice rolls,
and other events that are random from a human and creaturely point of
view.

TG

On Jan 1, 2007, at 6:52 AM, Bill Hamilton wrote:

> In my mind Darwinism means something more than biological
> evolution. With
> Charles Hodge I see Darwinism as belief in biological evolution
> combined with
> an insistence on no design. I can accept biological evolution, but not
> Darwinism on that basis. So I believe that Darwinism, properly
> defined, should
> remain in our discussions.
>
> --- George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
>> Bob et al -
>>
>> I agree that the term "Darwinism" is often unhelpful but it can't be
>> replaced simply with "biological evolution." "Biological
>> evolution through
>> natural selection," while still an oversimplification, is, I
>> think, the
>> minimum that's needed to convey what people _should_ mean by
>> "Darwinism."
>>
>> Shalom
>> George
>> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
>> To: "PvM" <pvm.pandas@gmail.com>; "Alexanian, Moorad"
>> <alexanian@uncw.edu>
>> Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
>> Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2006 7:46 PM
>> Subject: Re: [asa] Denyse O'Leary on family values and Darwinism
>>
>>
>>> If I were the dictator of language I would banish "Darwinism"
>>> from the
>>> vocabulary. It causes no end of confusion. It is virtually
>>> impossible to
>>> carry on a logical conversation about it when the term means
>>> different
>>> things to different people. If we would simply use the terms
>>> "biological
>>> evolution" and "cosmological evolution," we could stay in the
>>> realm of
>>> science and not muck us the discussion with philosophical meanings.
>>>
>>> Bob Schneider
>>
>>
>> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
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>>
>
>
> Bill Hamilton
> William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
> 248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
> "...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
>
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Received on Mon Jan 1 21:16:28 2007