RE: [asa] ID question? - TE does or doesn't 'limit evolution'?

Ted said:
"I'll close with this pithy little sentence from Polkinghorne, "Belief in God in an Age of Science," p. 18: "Did Oskar Schindler take great risks to rescue more than a thousand Jews from extermination because of some implicit calculation of genetic advantage?""

I don't see how that proves anything. The other day on the animal channel they showed a group of dolphins that violently swam around a group of human swimmers (strangers) for about an hour, to stop a great white from attacking. The humans didn't know what was happening- they actually thought it was a dolphin attack on them for most of the time.

So how does this dolphin datapoint compare with Polkinghorne's example?

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Ted Davis
Sent: Thursday, October 29, 2009 7:02 AM
To: asa; Gregory Arago
Subject: Re: [asa] ID question? - TE does or doesn't 'limit evolution'?

>>> Gregory Arago <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca> 10/29/2009 5:56 AM >>> writes:

Again, let me follow up on this in order to be crystal clear.

Ted wrote:
"So, Gregory, what exactly do you mean? Or, have I answered your vacuous claim satisfactorily at this point?"

What is at stake here is whether or not 'evolution' has *any* limits, according to 'TE.' I did not ask simply 'what are TE's doing?' but rather 'what are TE's doing...to limit evolution?'

If you can't 'limit evolution,' then 'evolution' is effectively 'unlimited,' i.e. a totalizing ideology.

This is not a vacuous claim (i.e. that TEs are doing nothing or very, very little to limit evolution) and it is not a vacuous question to ask, though it is certainly one that asks people to check their grammar carefully and to consider changing the way they communicate about something if there is a better alternative.

***

Ted replies briefly. Gregory, when someone like Francisco Ayala or Arthur Peacocke or John Polkinghorne says that evolution cannot explain morality, mathematics, religion, or culture -- or evolutionary biology itself, for that matter -- then IMO that counts as doing plenty to limit evolution. The reason (perhaps) why you fail to see this, Gregory, is that TEs such as these folks don't challenge the *biology* of evolution. Rather, they challenge what it means to "explain" something. I'll close with this pithy little sentence from Polkinghorne, "Belief in God in an Age of Science," p. 18: "Did Oskar Schindler take great risks to rescue more than a thousand Jews from extermination because of some implicit calculation of genetic advantage?"

I see no indication here, Gregory, that evolution is effectively unlimited in Polkinghorne's understanding of it. None.

Ted

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Oct 29 11:48:22 2009