Re: [asa] TE/EC Response - ideology according to Terry

Terry:

I don't object to your answering the in-between posts of Gregory Arago and
Schwarzwald, but I wish you would also address my three most recent posts
independently of what Gregory and Schwarzwald have built upon them, since I
make some points which are not theirs.

In particular, I would be interested in hearing whether you have finally
understood why your usage of the word "guidance" is confusing, and is likely
to be confusing to anyone who does not share your Calvinist theology, and if
you have any suggestions for a better term for divine action in relation to
the evolutionary process.

Also, you wrote:

> This is the part that you guys don't seem to get. Darwin's scientific
> claims make no NECESSARY metaphysical claims (even if he thought they
> did). Variation and natural selection (together all of our scientific
> descriptions of the natural world) are almost always compatible with
> either metaphysical perspective, the atheistic naturalist (who believes
> that the universe is autonomous needs nothing beside itself) or the
> theist (who believes that the universe is dependent on God for its being,
> continued existence, its properties, etc.).

I've already said many times that I don't believe that Darwin was an atheist
and that his theory does not require atheism. In that sense, I agree with
you: Darwin makes no metaphysical statements about the existence or
non-existence of God.

But you and David Campbell and others appear to me to be hiding your heads
in the sand about the fact that if variation plus natural selection can
accomplish all that Darwin said they can, then God-as-designer is
*theoretically redundant*. Darwin's view was that if one has a fully
acceptable scientific explanation for evolution, i.e., an explanation which
shows that variation plus natural selection can successfully mimic *all* the
characteristics that could be produced by intelligent design, it would be
foolish to maintain that somehow intelligent design was still a factor. For
Darwin, that would be the equivalent of saying that even though Newton's (or
Einstein's) view of gravity fully explains the motions of the planets, there
is an additional cause, i.e., that angels are pushing them at the behest of
God. The whole point of Darwinism, and in fact *the only thing that makes
Darwinism scientifically interesting*, is that it showed (or purported to
show) that the most economical explanation for *apparent* design is the
replacement of *actual* design by a combination of contingent events plus
natural laws. It is gratuitous and scientifically counter-productive to
continue to believe in the operation of a cause (intelligent design) that
has been shown to be (a) theoretically unnecessary and (b) against the data
(see Darwin's discussion of biogeography, for example). So anyone who
accepts Darwin's argument will junk intelligent design, as Darwin did.
Anyone who accepts his argument will believe and assert that no design was
actually involved in the production of species.

For a convinced, Darwinian, then, it is not a "metaphysical" statement to
assert that, in the history of living forms, no intelligent design was
involved. It is simply the best scientific hypothesis, no more metaphysical
than saying that angels are not involved in pushing the planets in their
orbits, and no more metaphysical than saying that no invisible, intangible
person runs beside my car and pushes it when I drive at 60 mph. If you have
the intellectual courage to say that there is no invisible, intangible
person running beside your car, and that there are no angels pushing the
planets, then you should have the intellectual courage to say that no
intelligent agent was operating in the evolutionary process.

Instead of this truly scientific conclusion, I hear from you the conclusion
of the theologian -- the human type chronically committed to wanting things
both ways. I hear you saying that "in science" it is absolutely and utterly
true that no intelligent agent was operating in the evolutionary process,
but "in metaphysics" it is absolutely false, because God was operating
intelligently behind all things. I refuse to accept this bifurcation of
reality. There are not two universes, one scientific, one metaphysical.
There is only one. Either the evolutionary process was intelligently
guided, or it wasn't. The question whether scientific methods can *detect*
the intelligent guidance is a separate one. The central question is whether
you believe, regarding *what actually happened*, that intelligence was
*required* to achieve the outcome that we see. If you believe that it was
*required*, then you believe that Darwin was wrong. If you do not believe
that God's intelligence was *required*, then your belief that God was
"somehow" or "mysteriously" involved (even though Darwin's account is
complete and correct) is a private, gratuitous assertion which has no public
standing, and is of no interest to anyone except fellow Christians of the
same theological orientation.

And here I think the final difference between us is theological. As I've
said before, I have no use for, and never will accept, any religion which
makes itself "immune from reality", which is never vulnerable to
falsification by any means. A bulletproof religion of private faith which
can be harmonized with any state of affairs in the natural or moral world is
one that I am constitutionally unable to adhere to. I cannot and will not
live in a world in which faith and reason are entirely sundered. It appears
that your form of Calvinism is bulletproof in this sense, since God can be
said to be meaningfully involved whether the data of nature point to chance,
necessity or design.

I would be interested in hearing if this Calvinism would be similarly
bulletproof if the bones of Jesus were discovered, and what you would say if
the consensus of the world's greatest archaeologists were that those bones
had indisputably been found. What would you do with the findings of science
in that case? Accept that Christianity had been falsified? Or would you
drag out the methodological versus metaphysical argument and maintain that
"as far as science is concerned" the bones of Jesus had been found, but that
the archaeologists were going beyond science and into "metaphysics" when
they say that this proved that Jesus did not rise from the dead? And would
you say therefore that "as a scientist" you completely and unreservedly
accepted that Jesus never rose from the dead, but "as a Christian" you
believed that he certainly did, and that the two beliefs were not in any way
contradictory?

Cameron.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry M. Gray" <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu>
To: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 2:00 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] TE/EC Response - ideology according to Terry

> Gregory,
>
> I'm afraid it's you with the stopped up ears. Almost everyone here knows
> and understands what I'm saying with respect to Darwin and Darwinism
> except, it appears, you and Cameron. You've been beating this horse for a
> long time and you draw all sorts of bizarre conclusions about us.
>
> 1. Darwinian mechanisms are only part of the story--almost all
> evolutionists admit that today. If that makes Darwinian evolution bad
> science, then okay. But I don't think it does. The fundamental insights
> are still sound. They should be in the textbook as a key part of our
> current understanding. New insights: drift, evo-devo, genome acquisition,
> chromosome rearrangements, etc., all non-Darwinian, are important parts
> of the picture.
>
> 2. How many times must I say it? I don't really care what Darwin said.
> What Darwin said does not equal Darwinian science! If Darwin mistakenly
> extrapolated his scientific insights into some bit of unfortunate
> theology, I don't have to go with him there. Most of the biological
> community calls the scientific insights (WITHOUT THE THEOLOGICAL
> CLAIMS!!!!) Darwinian. Anybody who does extrapolate into claims about how
> God acts has gone beyond science. And this is exactly what Dawkins and
> company do. Interestingly, the same thing can be said of atomic theory or
> of planetary motion and was said of it in the 17th and 18th centuries.
> God must not be involved if we understand how something works in terms of
> natural causes. Science just can't answer that question--the ultimate
> reason things are the way they are is simply not a question that is
> addressed by science.
>
> 3. You're very mistaken in accusing me of not being a whole/integrated
> person with respect to my science and faith in this matter. I can accept
> the legitimate insights of Darwin (which I do) and call it Darwinian as
> most biologist do. We are not required to accept his version of
> integration as being the only way to bring the scientific insights into a
> coherent perspective, thus Darwin's forgotten defenders.
>
> 4. How do I distinguish Darwinism as ideology from Darwinism as science?
> It's actually very easy. Darwinism is an ideology when it makes
> metaphysical claims about God's role or lack thereof. When it doesn't
> make those metaphysical claims, it is not an ideology--it's merely a
> scientific theory whose merits should be judged by how well it performs
> when compared to the real world. This is the part that you guys don't
> seem to get. Darwin's scientific claims make no NECESSARY metaphysical
> claims (even if he thought they did). Variation and natural selection
> (together all of our scientific descriptions of the natural world) are
> almost always compatible with either metaphysical perspective, the
> atheistic naturalist (who believes that the universe is autonomous needs
> nothing beside itself) or the theist (who believes that the universe is
> dependent on God for its being, continued existence, its properties,
> etc.).
>
> It's really not hard to see the difference and this is where the debate
> should be. I don't really care where the science goes. I will follow it
> if that's the world that God made. But if you claim that your
> science--your claims about the natural world--tells me about God's
> involvement in the process (or not), you've overstated your case. Science
> just can't tell us that. Back to the original Asa Gray response to
> Darwin--just because you can explain something scientifically doesn't
> mean that God's not involved.
>
> This isn't rocket science after all.
>
> TG
>
>
> On Jul 9, 2009, at 7:32 PM, Gregory Arago wrote:
>
>> Hi again Terry,
>>
>> You’ve become a pivotal figure for the moment in the defence of
>> ‘theistic evolution,’ while continuing your opposition to ID. As such, I
>> side with Cameron in challenging your views, which I also find to be
>> fuzzy in terms of ‘science and religion’ accommodation. But in this
>> thread it is now ‘Darwinism’ that you are defending, rather than TE, the
>> former being a much easier target for both Cameron and myself, whereas
>> you seem not to perceive a significant difference between them. Indeed,
>> you seem to want to call yourself a Christian Darwinist, which both
>> Cameron and I find to be absurd.
>>
>> Terry wrote: “I am delighted to hear you say that Darwinian evolution
>> and Darwinian mechanisms are scientific (contra Darwinism). I'm not sure
>> that Cameron would agree.”
>>
>> Yeah, but Darwinian mechanisms and Darwinian evolution could be ‘bad
>> science,’ Terry. Wouldn’t you agree to this possibility? It seems to me
>> that Cameron is arguing on the question of ‘how scientific are they?’
>> and he is concluding that they are ‘not all that scientifically rigorous
>> or accurate’ of the reality that we are all wishing to better
>> understand.
>>
>> You hear Cameron saying: “anytime you invoke Darwinian [evolution] or
>> Darwinism that you are invoking something that removes God from the
>> picture.”
>>
>> But have you listened to Darwin himself, Terry or are you invoking
>> hearsay? You admit that Cameron has read more of Darwin’s works than you
>> have and you applaud him for it. But you seem to continually doubt
>> Cameron’s ability to analyse what Darwin wrote, instead attributing to
>> Darwin a position that he did not hold. Darwinian evolution (which you
>> equate with Darwinism) does not allow for ‘guidance’! In other words,
>> you are doing exactly what Cameron is saying by twisting Darwin into a
>> friend of faith, a supporter of TE, rather than speaking about him as he
>> was as a dissenter from religious truth and as a threat to theology. You
>> are siding with Darwin’s science, by accepting Darwinism, rather than
>> rejecting Darwin’s metaphysics and theology, and thus rejecting
>> Darwinism.
>>
>> Darwin excluded God in his science and in his person. Scientists don’t
>> agree on the science *in spite of* their religious differences, but
>> because their science shares common ground, in addition to their
>> religious views. There is a tendency at ASA to focus on the ‘warfare
>> model’ far too much. TE is a philosophical assumption that tries to
>> accommodate science with theology. But it does so from an astonishingly
>> weak philosophical framework that simply divides ‘metaphysical’ from
>> ‘methodological.’ I don’t expect you to hear what I’m saying, Terry, if
>> your ears are blocked from listening. And it probably won’t make much
>> sense to you that I think your supposedly ‘newly coined’ term
>> ‘metaphysical Darwinism’ is an unhelpful one. It is like those who speak
>> regularly of Jesus and of God, but forget to speak of the Holy Spirit,
>> which is the Counsellor for all human beings, including natural
>> scientists.
>>
>> Terry wrote: “This distinction [metaphysical vs. scientific] is and has
>> been my fundamental point all along, i.e. it is possible to agree as a
>> Christian with Darwin's theory inasmuch as it does not specify God's
>> involvement or lack thereof.”
>>
>> I’m glad we’ve established your fundamental point: one can agree with
>> Darwin’s science, but reject his metaphysics (read: philosophy). So,
>> then according to this view a scientist is *not* a whole person when
>> they ‘do science’ but rather a shadow of a whole person, who is merely a
>> rationalist or an empiricist or a positivist, i.e. who blocks out their
>> philosophical self in the process? (For those interested in pedantry,
>> the divide between positive science and reflexive science is
>> contemporary here.)
>>
>> What is wrong with sharply dividing ‘science’ from ‘metaphysics’ have
>> been demonstrated so amply and repeatedly over the years that it seems
>> useless to repeat them unless one is ideologically so inclined to hear.
>> I thought you were a more integralistic thinker, Terry, with links to
>> Dooyeweerd and other broad-minded persons who would not reduce biology
>> to ‘Darwinism’ or to ‘neo-Darwinism’ on the basis of a so-called
>> ‘standard definition’ of neo-Darwinism given by none other than E.O.
>> Wilson. Doesn’t this merely demonstrate the fact that TEs are more than
>> happy to run into the arms of E.O. Wilson and D.S. Wilson, Trivers,
>> Pinker, Dawkins, Dennett and other anti-religious persons if and when it
>> suits their personal defence of ‘science’ as a superior or even just
>> legitimate-autonomous type of knowledge?
>>
>> Terry continues: “among professional biologists, the term Darwinism is
>> in fact synonymous with Darwinian evolution.”
>>
>> And do you trust the language of professional biologists on the topic of
>> ‘ideology vs. science’ too, Terry? *Their* language is esoteric on the
>> one hand and simply ridiculous on the other hand. Fine, call a pig a hen
>> if your bounded academic community decides to do it. But please don’t
>> expect everyone else to bow to your terms as if you have some claim to
>> linguistic priority! Let’s not forget Terry that biology borrowed even
>> the term ‘evolution’ from somewhere ‘outside.’
>>
>> Why don’t you instead manage a better grasp of language by calling a
>> spade a spade: Darwinism *is* an ideology, while ‘Darwinian evolution’
>> is a ‘scientific theory’? At first you indicated your delight in hearing
>> me distinguish the two different things in the way that I did. But then
>> you reverted to using the same old language that is simply unsuitable in
>> the common tongue. Your language regarding (neo-)Darwinism, along with
>> that of the evolutionary biologists, is in the minority. Do you accept
>> this?
>>
>> Again, I ask you openly: Would you not feel comfortable in changing your
>> language to more common, i.e. majority usage?
>>
>> Further, Terry writes: “Darwinism as an ideology in these textbooks
>> usually has a modifier "social" as in "social Darwinism" and nearly
>> every textbook distinguishes between Darwinism and social Darwinism. To
>> coin a new term along the same lines I might add "metaphysical
>> Darwinism" which includes claims about God's role or lack thereof. / So
>> when I define Darwinism to be Darwinian evolution, there should be no
>> confusion in your mind. You may not like my choice of words or the range
>> of semantic meaning that I give the term "Darwinism", but there is no
>> reason for you to be confused.”
>>
>> That ‘Darwinism’ and ‘Darwinian evolution’ mean the same thing in your
>> view is astonishing (though not entirely unusual). Blaming it on the
>> social scientists is unbecoming of inclusive dialogue (should we assume
>> you’ve read more H. Spencer than Darwin, as is the case with most
>> people?). Darwinism, according to your position, thus *is* an ideology
>> that TE does or should support. Is this correct? But I shouldn’t wait
>> for people at ASA to reject Darwinism or neo- Darwinism since ASA doesn’t
>> take a position on them, only individual persons do. Of course, you don’t
>> accept that Darwinism *is* an ideology, which is precisely the main
>> problem. But then again you say that Darwinism is sometimes an ideology,
>> which is again confusing. Cameron seems more willing to be flexible on
>> this issue than I am because he is focussing on the mechanisms of
>> change, which TEs likewise do not always clarify sufficiently.
>>
>> Cameron wrote:
>>
>> “Terry, the terminology of "guidance" that you and David Campbell are
>> using is *just not clear*… The way that you and David Campbell are using
>> "guidance" confuses more than it helps. ”
>>
>> With him, I agree. What could you do to make your position clearer?
>>
>> Terry, your admission in answer to Cameron is rather telling, isn’t it?
>> You write: “I guess that means I'll turn into Dawkins and Coyne.” That
>> is a BIG admission!
>>
>> You continue: “But I reject your inference that that means I don't
>> believe that God is guiding the process.”
>>
>> I know that you do think this, but it is not consistent with Darwin’s
>> views. That is entirely the point, Terry! Dawkins and Coyne do not think
>> that ‘God is guiding the process.’ Darwin, however, *did not* think that
>> ‘God is guiding the process.’ Can you please simply submit to this
>> truth? It is consistent with many studies of Darwin’s work that have
>> been done and is surely not a controversial claim. You seem to submit to
>> it, but then you return to the status quo of defending Darwinism, under
>> the guise of Darwinian evolution, which is what makes your position
>> confusing. Why the messy logic here?
>>
>> Cameron and I both defend a limited meaning of ‘evolution’ too!
>>
>> Terry wrote: “In general Darwin's theology is atrocious and unorthodox”
>>
>> With this we are certainly in agreement. What I don’t understand is how
>> you can so conveniently fragment Darwin into pieces, when a holistic
>> view that co-operates science with philosophy and theology is already
>> possible. Perhaps the main issue is really ideology after all?
>>
>> The real issue here, in this branch from Randy’s OP, is the topic of
>> ideology. You seem to avoid this topic like the plague, Terry. Why is
>> that? You claim Darwinism is not an ‘ideology’. Again, let me ask you,
>> why is that? Or, if you accept that Darwinism is ‘sometimes an ideology’
>> can you please clarify when it is and when it isn’t? This is the main
>> issue that I would like you to focus on if you make a reply to this
>> message. I have made clear what I believe and accept: Darwinian
>> evolution is a scientific theory, but Darwinism is an ideology. Would
>> you be willing to adjust your grammar to say the same thing, and if not,
>> then why not?
>>
>>
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Gregory
>>
>>
>> Get the name you've always wanted ! @ymail.com or @rocketmail.com.
>
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Received on Fri Jul 10 15:41:59 2009