RE: [asa] Origins: Francis Collins and ID

" What do you see as a problem for evolution here?"

The problem is seeing how a mindless nature can create something so
complex as an eye. The eye is just one example. As I said, I work at
Intel in CPU design, and I see how much work it takes to make an
advanced CPU. There is no way it could be done without pushing every
brain cell that we have. However, life itself is so much more complex
(the eye, DNA, etc.). So on one hand I see the evidence of evolution in
the genome, on the other hand I can't comprehend how nature can do this
without an intelligent guiding hand. Is there something unscientific in
thinking that God guided evolution? Is the most reasonable conclusion
that God guided evolution? Did God directly manipulate DNA as a
programmer writes a software program?

If I make the claim "God directly manipulated DNA as a programmer writes
a software program"; does that violate the rules of science?

I will try to look at your references below... maybe I just need to
learn more scientific evidence for eye evolution...? Francis Collins
also recommends this book on the topic:
Darrel Falk's "Coming to Peace with Science" (Intervarsity).

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: PvM [mailto:pvm.pandas@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 11:07 AM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Origins: Francis Collins and ID

Good questions. While the end product of evolution over 3 billion

years or so may seem quite complex to us, much of this can be

attributed to our ignorance although much of the evolutionary history

is slowly being uncovered.

For instance, there appear to be eyes in many of the intermediate

stages envisioned by evolutionary theory, the question now becomes how

to tie all these stages together.

There are some very good sites on eye evolution with details about

commonalities and differences amongst the various phyla.

PBS has a good overview

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/change/grand/

as does Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

and Carl Zimmer http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/003603.html

Eyes seem to have a common ground in the Pax-6 gene however there have

been various parallel developments of the eye details since the early

ancestry of the eye's genetic bauplan.

A good but old review paper is "Pax 6: mastering eye morphogenesis and

eye evolution."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=10461206&cmd=show
detailview

Details about lens formation etc are slowly progressing.

What do you see as a problem for evolution here?

On Dec 3, 2007 10:24 AM, Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com> wrote:

>

>

>

>

> Hi all, a question I have; maybe you can help me.

>

>

>

> Given that evolution actually happened because of evidence in
biology

> (genome evidence), how can evolution explain the complexity of things
like

> the eye?

>

>

>

> Francis Collins says the answer is to appreciate the vast amounts of
time.

>

>

>

> This still bothers me.

>

>

>

> I'm perplexed because I see both sides. The genome shows proof that

> evolution happened. Yet, using reason, it seems impossible that an

> undirected evolution can create something as complex as the human eye
(no

> matter how much time is involved). (I work at Intel in CPU design,
and even

> though out CPU's are super complex, it is nothing near as complex as
our

> body, DNA, etc.).

>

>

>

> I wonder if the solution is to see evolution as God-directed. DNA
is like

> a programming code, God is the programmer, directly manipulating the
code.

> It is like intelligently solving the rubic's cube (toy) by one turn at
a

> time. Randomly, you could solve a rubic's cube given enough time, but

> intelligence would do it rather quickly. Is this solution contrary to

> science? Is this the point where naturalistic science and God meet?
Or am

> I just putting God in there because I can't appreciate the time
element of

> evolution? (Some think that nature alone can evolve, and that by God's

> design upfront with the anthropic principle... designing everything
upfront

> so it would unravel correctly from a big bang.)

>

>

>

> I would like to know what the other theistic evolutionists have to
say on

> this topic.

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Received on Mon Dec 3 14:35:43 2007