Re: [asa] Random and natural vs intelligence

Well, certainly many engineers today "use /random/ mutations and natural
selection to create" Google genetic algorithms!

--Tim (ASA Member)

Randy Isaac wrote:
> The November 2007 issue of Christianity Today includes a book review
> titled "Deconstructing Dawkins" in which author Logan Paul Gage
> critiques McGrath's book "The Dawkins Delusion." I don't think it's
> available online yet so let me just type in two paragraphs of the
> article which I think deserve discussion. My point is not to agree or
> disagree but to say that this is an articulation of a critical point
> of difference within our communities that needs to be clearly addressed.
>
> "While theists can have a variety of legitimate views on life's
> evolution, surely they must maintain that the process involves
> intelligence. So the question is: Can an intelligent being use
> /random/ mutations and natural selection to create? No. This is not a
> theological problem; it is a logical one. The words /random/ and
> /natural /are meant to exclude intelligence. If God guides which
> mutations happen, the mutations are not /random/; if God chooses which
> organisms survive so as to guide life's evolution, the selection is
> /intelligent/ rather than /natural/.
>
> "Theistic Darwinists maintain that God was "intimately involved" in
> creation, to use Francis Collins's words. But they also think life
> developed via genuinely random mutations and genuinely natural
> selection. Yet they never explain what God is doing in this process.
> Perhaps there is still room for him to start the whole thing off, but
> this abandons theism for deism."
>
>
> This is essentially the same argument that Lee Strobel used on the
> radio a few weeks ago when he firmly but respectfully rebuked Francis
> Collins. Evolution is inherently random and without guidance and is
> therefore mutually exclusive with divine guidance, he said.
>
> Randy
>

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Received on Mon Nov 5 22:27:13 2007