Re: [asa] Random and natural vs intelligence

 Epigenetics has already indicated the beginning of the end of "random" as the
prevailing descriptor of how our genes are selected.? If the the way we live, such
as diet, can cause our epigenetic system to suppress or allow a given section
of the genome and the resulting variations preferentially select a genome that
otherwise might have been deselected then causality is spanned all the way from
the human will to the genes selected for survival.? Once there is the barest causality
established then we can be seen as self-evolving to some extent in a way that could
integrate over time eventually supplanting random mutation by the potentially greater
efficiency of intent. (not to mention our ongoing intentional tinkering with our genome,
epigenetic or otherwise.)

But even more interesting is the fact that almost all of science is the investigation
and characterization of stuff that at one time or another was thought to be random
(or, often as not, the will of God).? The truth is, if we use the word random for anything
other than distributions, we are probably using it to hide from our own ignorance of
entire schools of future thought (like epigenetics).

-Mike (Friend of ASA)

-----Original Message-----
From: Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 8:26 pm
Subject: [asa] Random and natural vs intelligence

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

?

________________________________________________________________________
Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Nov 5 22:33:13 2007