[asa] Between the BlindSpots... WAS Polkinghorne quote on time required for the evolutionary process

Dick,

I understand and appreciate your Great Gippetto in the sky argument and even
your natural cause qualifier on science. What am I struggling with is what I
voiced in an earlier thread and that was the language to describe whether
there is a Great Gippetto or not. Both sides look at this issue of
naturalism and take away very different conclusions. For now I will just use
the term non-theist to imply no involvement of God.

Further, I do not think it is idolizing the Bible to challenge the just so
naturalistic non-theist explanation of life on earth just as Polkinghorne
did and I don't why you would infer this. In fact compared to you I think I
have very liberal views on the Bible and its literalness. I do hold to a
belief that we can have concordance between our rational understanding of
the world and the basic truths about the creation of the universe that are
revealed in the Bible though.

I will concede that my earlier use of the term random was not the best
choice of words. I was merely trying to point out that Polkinghorne's
observation of the prevailing non-theist view of the development of life as
being overly simplistic and faith based was valid. And I think we agree that
it wasn't self-contained as well. The problem is that mainstream science
posits that the creation and development of life was or could have been (or
at least we can't disprove it wasn't) self-contained and this is serving up
metaphysical support to atheists on a sliver platter which I disagree with
and I don't think is the true message of science.

In both researching this problem and searching for how to exactly articulate
this divide this morning, I revisited some reviews and commentaries of
Cornelius Hunter latest book which I have found to be somewhat useful and I
have concluded that he is half-right in his thesis. I agree that Hunter
correctly diagnoses the above problem of mainstream science choosing to be
in denial about the obvious rational deductions from the complexity and
order of the natural world we live in and instead saying we can't infer a
creator from that, and furthermore that doing so due to religious i.e.
atheist assumptions, is science's blind spot.

One reviewer says "Evolution has a metaphysical presupposition embedded in
its theory, but modern evolutionists deny this." and quotes Hunter:

"Indeed, new ideas [evolution] are predicated on the rejection of older
ideas [creationism] they are replacing - in this sense the rejection of the
older idea is a part of the new idea." (p.10) and ".the evidence makes
evolution compelling only when a specific metaphysical interpretation is
attached." (p. 11)

I agree with this and agree it begins to strike at the core of the
philosophical (and religious) underpinnings of the non-theist view of
science. Another reviewer offers the following observation that I also agree
with:

"Anyone examining the debates surrounding evolution and various
alternatives, including "intelligent design," cannot help but be struck by
the vehemence with which advocates of the former attack the latter. Whether
on Amazon reviews and discussion boards, or in the broader scientific and
popular literature, Darwinists attack those who disagree with them in an
manner that far exceeds what one would expect from one scientist simply
disagreeing with another's interpretation of the data. This is because the
question literally involves the personal religion of those who support the
current neo Darwinian synthesis. Despite the claims that supporters of
evolution routinely make, namely that they are opposing "religious"
fundamentalism, the fact remains that their basic suppositions are
religious."

I think we observe this extreme even "religious" objection to ID on this
list as well. It is commonly argued that ID has ulterior and religious
motives to their arguments but it is overlooked that the critics of ID may
possibly have the same religious motivations as well. This obfuscates the
real issue and is why I think we need to hold this non-theistic
interpretation of the data to account.

This quote is also profound if we qualify the use of the term "evolution"
below with "non-theistic evolution":

"The fact that evolution's acceptance hinges on a theological position
would, for many, be enough to expel it from science. But evolution's
reliance on metaphysics is not its worst failing. Evolution's real problem
is not its metaphysics but its denial of its metaphysics." (p. 159)

Also here is another quote that is a good example of the flaws in this
dishonest scientific approach that is similar to the concern raised by
Polkinghorne:

"The problem with science is not that the naturalistic approach might
occasionally be inadequate. The problem is that science would never know any
better. This is science's blind spot. When problems are encountered,
theological naturalism assumes that the correct naturalistic solution has
not been found. Non-natural phenomena will be interpreted as natural,
regardless of how implausible the story becomes.... Theological naturalism
has no way to distinguish a paradigm problem from a research problem. It
cannot consider the possibility that there is no naturalistic explanation
for the DNA code. If a theory of natural history has problems -- and many
have their share -- the problems are always viewed as research problems and
never as paradigm problems." (Cornelius G. Hunter, Science's Blind Spot:
Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism, Brazos Press, 2007, pg. 44-45)

However, although I agree with Hunter correctly diagnosing part of the
problem of science's adoption of non-theist naturalism as ironically having
a religious motivation, I think he is wrong in his prescription of ID as a
solution to the problem. Further I think he is wrong to lay the blame of
this "Theological Naturalism" as he calls it at the feet of theists who
envision a too impersonal of a God for his tastes. I believe in a personal
God that is active in His creation but I think that from a theodicy point of
view we have to believe in a more hands off God to account for some of the
cruelties we observe in nature.

So I conclude that while Hunter is right in pointing out this blind spot in
non-theist science and that helps explain part of the problem, I think he
has a blind spot of his own in automatically concluding from this
observation that ID is the explanation for everything. I give him the
validity of the generic design inference but the strong ID argument is over
reaching. Therefore I suggest the truth and the possible truce between
Christian faith and non-theist science lies somewhere in between these two
blind spots and that is what I trying to aspire to in what I consider as the
mission of honest Christians in science and faith apologetics.

Thanks

John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Dick Fischer
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2007 9:34 AM
To: ASA
Subject: RE: [asa] Polkinghorne quote on time required for the evolutionary
process

Hi John:

It doesn't have to be totally random and self contained. The great Gipetto
in the sky could be pulling all the strings and hiding all evidence. How
would we know? Causes have to be natural to qualify as science, that's all.
Total randomness is not a requirement. Random genetic drift, plus
environmental factors (something Darwin overlooked), coupled with natural
selection, however, seems to prove sufficient. Is idolizing a scientific
theory worse than idolizing the Bible? Any idol takes attention away from
the living God. You can't say one idol is good but another one is bad.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/> www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of John Walley
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 6:07 PM
To: 'Steve Martin'; 'AmericanScientificAffiliation'
Subject: RE: [asa] Polkinghorne quote on time required for the evolutionary
process

Good for him. This is an excellent example of critical thinking that as
Christian's we should be supplying to the debate. Why does it have to be
totally random and self contained? Because it is intellectually fulfilling
to atheists by being non-threatening, that's why. And that's just as much an
idol as natural revelation.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Steve Martin
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 4:32 PM
To: AmericanScientificAffiliation
Subject: [asa] Polkinghorne quote on time required for the evolutionary
process

I remember seeing a quote by Polkinghorne to the effect that it mystified
him how evolutionary biologists were so confident in their account of the
development of life on earth. How could they be so sure that 3.5 billion
years was enough for the evolutionary process to explain the development of
single celled organisms all the way up to the current state of terrestrial
diversity? As a physicist and a bottom up thinker, he felt that more
detailed calculations should be provided before conclusions were so
confidently proposed. (I'm pretty sure he closed the paragraph saying he
trusted the evolutionary biologists anyways).

My question: Does anyone know where this quote is from? I'm skimmed through
a couple of Polkinghorne books now and can't seem to find it.

-- 
Steve Martin (CSCA)
http://evanevodialogue.blogspot.com 
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.