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

Cameron,
  Your eloquence and prolific writings are a great addition to this list,
even if the storage space climbs as a result!! I really do appreciate your
sticking with us.
Three comments, if I can do so quickly before getting back to preparing for
the meeting next week.

First of all, as I've stated before, a scientific theory is not judged
strong or weak on the basis of its mathematical precision or the level of
detail of the mechanisms. These are helpful in assessing the elegance or
completeness of a theory but not its validity. Scientists use a different
but very consistent set of criteria for all theories. How, compared to any
other theory, does it explain observed data? To what extent does it
successfully predict new observations (i.e. useful for future research)? Has
it been falsified in any way? On this set of criteria, the theory of
evolution is overwhelmingly successful and no other theory shows up on the
radar screen.

Secondly, your request for detail does address an important issue, namely
whether the theory of evolution is complete or not. The question is valid
but the burden of proof is on you to show that something is missing, rather
than on everyone else to show that it isn't. The strength of the theory as
judged by the criteria above doesn't depend on knowing all the details.
Those details would be great to have, but alas DNA doesn't fossilize very
well so we're not likely to find pre-Cambrian DNA. Much of the detail is
lost forever.

Thirdly, let's do the gedanken experiment and see what would happen if David
were to respond with a detailed list of genomic sequences and mutations from
a pre-Cambrian ancestor through all extant species. Of course you'd have to
buy a larger hard disc drive to hold all the data. But a detailed sequence
of events, each of which is shown to be a natural or even probable event,
would still not answer your very important question of "guided" vs
"unguided." The ID argument is not that there are processes which aren't
"natural" but that the particular sequence of "natural" events must have
been guided. The oft-used example of coin-tossing is still a useful analogy.
Toss the coin ten billion times and the probability of heads is still 0.5
and each toss is purely natural and purely random. But getting all heads is
unusual. Similarly, each mutation step may be natural and even probable but
it is the fact that so many happened in the way they did that is unusual.
Knowing each detailed step will not resolve the problem that you pose. I
suspect that such a sequence could, in principle, be told but the puzzle
would still be before us.

I think Terry did a great job in articulating a useful path, even though I'm
from an Arminian background. We'll worship together as brothers in Christ
next weekend (I hope I can sit close to him in the worship service so I can
hear him sing--he has a great voice!) as I will with the ID leaders and
advocates and TE/EC leaders and advocates. None of us has a complete
picture. All of us have some aspect of insight. And we all share a common
belief in the doctrine of Creation. We all believe our existence is
designed, from a theological perspective. Praise be to God.

Randy

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Received on Thu Jul 23 08:50:06 2009