Re: [asa] Biologic Institute

> But let's be fair David C. -- public advocates of evolutionary biology who
> are not Christians tend to disparage any notion of teleology at all,
> including your category (c).

True; IMO this is a misuse of evolution, though in many cases it
reflects theological cluelessness rather than deliberate
anti-teleological inclinations.

> I'm also not so sure why your categories (a) and (c) are entirely separate.

Under a) I was thinking of the fact that biology can say that a
particular feature is useful for a particular purpose. Biological
functions of fish fins include to stabilize and propel the fish while
swimming, to display to other organisms, or to provide a spot for
anodontine glochidia to attach. Stabilization is probably the
original evolutionary function; propulsion/steering and display are
exaptations; the glochidia take advantage of a fish feature for their
parasitic life stage. But this is not teleological. I agree that one
can properly refer to these as parts of God's design for fish
(category c) but do not think that one can infer c from a.

> One view of the "days" of Gen. 1 is that
> they represent a literary depiction of the divine assignment of function to
> the material universe (John Walton develops this view in his work). It is
> not only a polemic against rival gods; it also reflects God's careful
> ordering of the functions of the material creation (the sun and moon give
> light and mark the seasons; the plants, fish and animals fill the empty
> ground and provide food; human beings rule over the earth). While science
> can't specifically demonstrate this empirically, some scientific
> observations can be seen as consistent with it -- such as the anthropic
> coincidences and maybe convergent evolution.

I would agree-science is consistent with some teleological views, but
does not empirically show them and is consistent with some ateleogical
views.

Gene duplication does provide some additional information, since the
presence of multiple copies within a single individual produces a new
situation. However, functional information content is far from a
regular function of genome size.

DNA does contain information. However, the information in DNA is
biologically useful only if it functions in a given environment. The
organism is not creating functionality out of nothing; it is
conforming to its surroundings. Of course, this depends on the good
but imperfect DNA copying, etc. to generate the corresponding genetic
sequence. It's a bit like a computer program that randomly creates a
maze and then generates programs to try to solve the maze. The
successful maze-solving program may have some complex features, but
they are generated by conforming to the existing maze. "Emergent
property" is reasonably close to what I want to say, though it doesn't
quite sound right-I don't intend to say that the DNA sequence
automatically pops out of a given environment. Rather, the
information to which the DNA must conform is an emergent property of
the environment.

Returning to Dembski's target metaphor, the target is the environment.
 DNA hits the target sometimes, but sometimes misses, and it's a big
target (or perhaps a huge number of smaller targets). If the DNA is
totally off target, the organism dies. Examining only the on-target
shots gives a misleading impression of success. Also, new DNA is
copied with some modification from previously successful DNA, so
there's self-correction. On the other hand, the target often moves.

"Yet many Christians don't accept the 'process philosophy' contra
'origins' that is endemic in TE/EC."

It's true that many Christians do not accept a gradual process of
creation, generally because they have been told that a particular
variant of ID or YEC is the only possible Christian approach and that
evolution automatically entails atheism. However, TE/EC in no way
entails process theology. As far as I know, those in favor of process
theology generally accept biological evolution, but plenty of people
who accept biological evolution reject process theology as unbiblical
or otherwise unappealing. Don't assume a universal processism.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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