Insofar as evolution is understood as a scientific explanation of how living things attained their present form, and abstains from making metaphysical claims about ultimate causes or purposes, there is no contradiction between evolution and Christian faith. Indeed, if evolution is sustained by the evidence as providing a true description of the material universe, Christians are obliged to accept it as a manifestation of God's dominion over his creation, just as we accept a helio-centric solar system, the atomic theory of matter, or the Newtonian laws of physics.
We get into trouble when scientists write philosophical and metaphysical checks they cannot cover, or when theologians stubbornly hold to a purely Biblical interpretation of the material universe against the overwhelming weight of the evidence.
Stuart, you and I have discussed this issue elsewhere if I remember correctly. One could be both a philosopher and a scientist at the same time. Stephen Hawking is such an individual. Your comments are correct as far as they go. You are right to say that theologians should stay out of the discussion. The events surrounding Galileo make that crystal clear.
Hawking gets into serious difficulties when he strays into the realm of theology, in which he is, at best, semi-literate. A number of his fellow physicists of a theistic bent have noted the puerile nature of his arguments against the existence of God, to which I can only add that they are no worse than those offered by other neo-atheists such as Richard Dawkins.
Stuart, can I assume you would say the same thing about the theological work of Sir Isaac Newton?
jjp, I shall remind you about the comments of Xenophanes the Greek lyric poet who argued that if cows and horses could draw or paint, they would draw the gods as either cows or horses.
Hawking is within his right to draw any conclusion he wants and has earned the right to do so whether one agrees with him or not; I assume you meant to say, "in my opinion, it's sad, really," rather than, "It's sad, really'?
On Xenophanes, I would counter with either Cicero: "To the philosopher, all religions are equally false, to the peasant equally true, and to the politician equally useful" or Mark Twain: "Man created God in his own image, and God, being a gentleman, returned the compliment".
I have not read that much on the subject of "Intelligent Design" theory, but it is my understanding that:
It does not reject evolution theories per se, rather, it seeks to highlight cases in which data not supporting evolution is routinely ignored by the mainstream
Nor does it endorse Creationism per se, only coinciding with it when questioning the prevailing evolutionary dogma
(Of course, the 6-day Creationists were happy to jump on the ID bandwagon, with the result that the mainstream was easily able to dismiss the two as one.)
Mr. Dudley's article does introduce some interesting points:
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[Intelligent Design] has failed to explain why birds still carry genes to make teeth, whales to make legs, and humans to make tails.
It has failed to explain the broken genes that litter the DNA of humans and apes but are functional in lower vertebrates.
I have to admit I have never heard this before, and it certainly supports an evolutionary model over one predicated on individual, independent origin.
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It has failed to explain how the genetic diversity we observe among humans could have arisen in a few thousand years from two biological ancestors.
This is the first time I have heard this proposed as a problem. Have they established solid ground for saying it should not be possible?
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It has failed to explain why, if carnivorous dinosaurs lived at the same time as modern animals, we don't find the fossils of modern animals in the stomachs of fossilized dinosaurs.
Here I think we're really confusing ID with creationism: the simultaneous existence of dinosaurs with modern animals would, pending any new evidence, clearly be scientifically unprovable and therefore outside the scope of ID.
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It has failed to explain why the fossil record demonstrates a precise order, with simple organisms in the deepest rocks and more complex ones toward the surface.
It has failed to explain why the fossil record proposed by modern scientists can be used to make precise and accurate predictions about the location of transition fossils.
Hmm ... I know the ID crowd insists that the fossil record is not nearly as clean or univocal in its contents as the mainstream would have us believe, which sounds credible to me. Dudley's claim of being able to make "precise and accurate predictions" about the location of transition fossils (not their existence, mind you, but their location!) certainly sounds a bit excessive.
jjp, I shall remind you about the comments of Xenophanes the Greek lyric poet who argued that if cows and horses could draw or paint, they would draw the gods as either cows or horses.
Perhaps, but humans are created in the image of God.
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Hawking is within his right to draw any conclusion he wants and has earned the right to do so whether one agrees with him or not; I assume you meant to say, "in my opinion, it's sad, really," rather than, "It's sad, really'?
My neighbor Steve is also within his right to speculate on the origins of Creation. What is served by pointing this out? Do you believe I desire to suppress Stephen Hawking's right to free speech??
Since "sad" is an emotion, it's subjective nature is presupposed.
Except in the case of those who espouse ID, most credible scientists (as well as law courts) see no difference between ID and creationism. The case in PA several years ago turned on this point and indicated this fact.
Stuart, Twain went farther than this; he indicated that he once put six or seven animals in a cage; when he checked on them the next morning, they were all still there and getting along. He went on to say that he then put an Irish Catholic, a Arkansan Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Buddhist, a Moslem, and several other faiths in the same cage (I have forgotten all the various groups so I may have gotten few wrong); when he checked the next morning, there was no one left and had appealed the matter to a higher court; he goes on to find fault with religious triumphalism.
Hal Holbrook does a wonderful job with this story in Mark Twain Tonight. I include the link to youtube to a segment of the show that includes the joke. One should watch the whole segment.
I don't think there is any conflict between religion and science. They answer different questions: religion answers questions starting "why" and science answers questions starting "how."
Since there really aren't any other evolutionary models competing against Darwinism, it wins by default
Even though NO ONE LIKES TO ADMIT IT, the Darwinian model posits that there is no higher law than that of Natural Selection,
which leads to the OBVIOUS CONCLUSION that any human device that tries to get in the way of Natural Selection (i.e. by such counterproductive behavior as helping the poor and the weak) must be abhorred as a threat to man's very existence
The only reason we can comfortably say that this might *not* be true is the evidence, such as the whole phenomenon of the 3rd Reich, that suggests "social" Darwinism might not be beneficial to the human species--but why? How exactly does a law that governed the existence of all living things and enabled them to develop into the highly complex beings we are today suddenly turn and become detrimental?
Can anyone answer this? Has anyone even tried (ever)?
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