[asa] Signing off this thread - Intellectually fulfilled TE WAS Romans 1:20

Rich,

Thanks again. This has been very enlightening. I think the Dawkins quote and
your comment "I don't believe you can settle the debate between Dawkins and
us concerning distant ideal targets by limiting yourself to science" was
very helpful. I think I may now have reached intellectual equilibrium and be
an intellectually fulfilled TE which is really saying something considering
all the faith objections I had to overcome.

It is with some regret that I have to let the ID biological arguments go but
I agree with you they all hinge on our assumption that God had us in mind
which Dawkins would never concede, thus the impasse. It also takes away all
the improbability arguments as well. That really is an insidious strategy to
deny one of the most basic premises of our faith, that being God as the
creator of life, but that sounds just like the enemy that we face. This
realization definitely changes for me the complexion of the battle though
and the strategy on how we engage him.

Thanks to all the others who weighed in on this thread as well.

Proceeding by Grace,

John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Rich Blinne
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 12:46 PM
To: John Walley
Cc: asa
Subject: Re: [asa] Romans 1:20 (disregard my last post)

On 11/21/07, John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:

>BTW, no one including Richard Dawkins believes that evolution is fully
random.

Ok, now it is getting interesting. Another Eureka moment for me.

If Dawkins doesn't believe that evolution is fully random then does that
mean he concedes some kind of guiding process or law embedded in life?

Yes, but in a qualified way and not in the way we would. Note what Dawkins
says here about so-called distant ideal targets:

Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the
distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is
misleading in important ways. One of these is that, in each generation of
selective 'breeding', the mutant 'progeny' phrases were judged according to
the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target, the phrase METHINKS
IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Life isn't like that. Evolution has no long-term goal.
There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a
criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion
that our species is the final goal of evolution. In real life, the criterion
for selection is always short-term, either simple survival or, more
generally, reproductive success.

What I believe both Dawkins and his critics miss is confusing the forest for
the trees. What if the "design" of life is to be adaptive to its environment
rather than design of particular features. It is not necessary for the
individual features to be designed for the overall system to be designed.

Consider the following semiconductor algorithm from the 1990s, called
simulated annealing. The design goal is to place circuit elements to
optiimize a cost function such as total wire length, timing delay, etc. The
program considers swapping two elements and sees whether the cost function
is improved. This is known as a "greedy algorithm" and has problems with
local minima and does not optimize the design well. One way to fix this is
to change the "environment". We create what is known as a cooling curve. The
"design" starts up in a high temperature environment where there is a
certain probability of a "random" swap. As time progresses we slowly lower
the temperature where there are fewer and fewer random swaps. There is most
definitely a distant ideal target but you cannot tell from observation that
this is the case. As the name suggests simulated annealing mimics the
physical process of annealing so it matches Dembski's criteria of
regularlity and chance even though it's designed. In addition to this
so-called genetic algorithms which mimic evolution also are used for
engineering optimization of distant ideal targets. Evolution and design are
most definitely not in conflict.

This is the reason why I don't believe you can settle the debate between
Dawkins and us concerning distant ideal targets by limitiing yourself to
science. It does not settle the question and all likelihood cannot do so. If
people want to prove me wrong here and continue trying, I say be my guest
but please don't overplay your hand and make us all look bad.

A better design argument in my opinion is to look at the adaptive nature of
life. This has the advantage in that evolutionary science is working for you
and not against you. Life which is designed to be adaptive is superior to
the mere human designs I do. When the market conditions change I have to
create version 2.0 etc. This is something that Ken Miller gets but Michael
Behe misses. During the Dover trial, Miller wore a strange tie clip. It was
a mouse trap with some of the parts missing. For the purpose of a mouse
trap, its five parts are irreducibly complex. You remove one and you have a
busted mouse trap. But if your remove several you have a perfectly
functional tie clip. The same thing happens with the bacterial flagella. You
remove a number of parts and it no longer works as a flagella but it works
just fine delivering toxins to the bacteria's victims.

Looking at a piece by piece basis you don't have distant ideal goals or even
singular nearby goals. Rather, life is designed to adapt to its environment.
From a theological perspective this is not a problem because God is not only
sovereign over life but also the environment that life finds itself in. So,
you can have final distant goals that is not observable by us without
revelation. People from a Reformed perspective like myself often at this
point refer to concursus where God act co-operatively with Second Causes. We
do this because we see an analogy between this and the predestination of the
acts of free agents. When we look at our actions individually we don't
necessarily see a "plan". Yet, God has a final ideal target for humans that
the Bible calls a mystery. It's a mystery because the target is in the
hidden will of God.

In summary, Richard Dawkins looks for and does not find a final ideal target
using science. The IDM is looking for the same needle in the same haystack.
As we see above, the claim that the IDM is not basing their theory on the
Bible is a true one. The Bible never promises that this will work and gives
some pretty clear indications that the IDM will most likely fail:

"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing," -- Prov. 25:2

"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are
revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever," -- Deut. 29:29

"At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed
them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." --
Matthew 11:25-26

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Received on Thu, 22 Nov 2007 04:43:44 -0500