Re: [asa] Origins: Francis Collins and ID

 AT'S whatdahmtawginnaboud!   Nice chops Terry.

-Mike (Friend of ASA -- www.thegodofreason.com)

-----Original Message-----

From: Terry M. Gray <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu>

To: AmericanScientificAffiliation <asa@calvin.edu>

Sent: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 12:57 pm

Subject: Re: [asa] Origins: Francis Collins and ID

Bernie, 

As for me, who claims the moniker theistic evolutionist and
evolutionary creationist, God is always involved. There is nothing that
happens that doesn't involve his providence, governance, sustenance,
concurrence, etc. Scientific descriptions, including evolution, are
"merely" our recognition of God's governing and sustaining patterns
(that's not necessarily to say that created things don't actually have
properties and behaviors--but they don't have them autonomously and
independent of God's governing and sustaining power). There is no such
thing as evolution without God's guiding hand. Just as there's no such
thing as chemistry without God's guiding hand. Or human thought. Or
economics. Or social intercourse. Or politics. (pace Arago!) 

A couple of consequences of this is that 1) everything is designed and
2) God's role in it all may not be detectable or describable science
(doesn't mean it's not there however!) Because of our creatureliness
and limitations, I don't think we have any idea what God's involvement
looks like. We know what our "tweaking" might look like, but because
we're not omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and lack divine
attributes such as aseity, we can't just assume that God's "tweaking"
(I hate to even call it that) looks anything like ours. It's a form of
idolatry (there's that nasty word again!) to fashion God's operation in
the universe after our own. I guess a third consequence is that I know
that God is involved in "nature" for other reasons than because I see
it (e.g. revelation, internal testimony of the Holy Spirit,
self-evidence, etc.) In other words, the way things are (whether it's
physics, biology, psychology, sociology, etc.) are what they are
because God orders (originates, governs, sustains, concurs, etc) them
to be that way. In science we study the way things are, and so, we ARE
studying God's involvement. However (again, pace Arago), our study is a
fully human (and thus limited) enterprise and so a proper view of
natural science and human/social science always recognizes this human
element especially in the philosophical underpinnings, the history, the
social/political/economic aspects of our discipline. Personally, I
think that this is where a significant part of the religion dimension
of thinking about science belongs. I'm not so sure we see God in nature
as much as we see how faith informs scientists and communities who
study nature. 

Back to some biology--biological evolution is not random! Variation may
be random (although not necessarily...and there are now examples where
the organism "directs" variation). However, variation is merely the
fodder for evolution. Natural selection (and perhaps other
non-Darwinian processes--e.g. Kaufman-like self-organization
principles) give the "fine-tuned" products. 

For the eye, if you have a nerve cell, you already have most of what
you need for a light sensitive spot. If you have a light sensitive
spot, you have most of what you need for various kinds of eyes; if you
have a pin-hole eye, you have most of what you need for a lens based
eye... you "see" the point. Time is required, but just to give time as
the answer is a bit of a cop-out answer to me. There was a Nature paper
in the mid-90's that simulated intermediates in the eye
evolution--Dawkins commented with an opinion piece entitled "The Eye in
a Twinkling" (cute, eh?) Not everyone liked the original piece (Behe
responded in an unsurprising negative way, for example), but I thought
it presented a plausible path--I guess the difference between "just-so"
stories and plausible scenarios is a matter of opinion. 

Selection always takes what came before and then with variations makes
it better (more fit) in the immediate environmental context. 

TG (ASA Fellow) 

On Dec 3, 2007, at 11:24 AM, Dehler, Bernie 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. 

________________ 

Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. 

Computer Support Scientist 

Chemistry Department 

Colorado State University 

Fort Collins, CO 80523 

(o) 970-491-7003 (f) 970-491-1801 

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Received on Wed Dec 5 09:52:42 2007