Re: My views on evolution
- From: "chris.linthompson@xxxxxxxxx" <chris.linthompson@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 7 Aug 2005 06:54:05 -0700
Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
snip
> Darwinianism
I don't think there is such a word. Do you mean "common descent"?
"Descent with modification" perhaps? Or "natural selection"?
> There is little doubt in my mind that many of the claims of evolution
> are scientific fact. This would include how bacteria become resistant
> to drugs, why maleria is recurrent in its victims, even mild examples
Malaria is cyclic even when untreated. This example is a little
confusing.
> of speciation (sticklebacks in glacier pools is the example I know
> about). But it also has some major gaps, questions like: how did
> humans evolve from a common ancestor with monkeys/apes; how did this
Nitpick: humans are apes. If you want to speak of a common ancestor,
you might say "most recent common ancestor with some other ape". But as
to the meat of the problem: what makes us different from sticklebacks
in this regard? We're bigger, we have lungs, we're smarter?
Is there some reason that this whole thing could not have happened, and
somewhere, lying undetectable beneath the process but guiding it, is
the hand of God?
> elaborate machinary of DNA and proteins come into being in the first
Before you read those genetics books, you might want to read some
chemistry books. Things don't just happen. Electrons follow certain
rules also, and while I won't say that those rules lead inexorably to
DNA, RNA and our set of 20 amino acids, I would say that those
encompass a pretty large probability space (to use your phrase- a nice
one, by the way).
> place? Now just because we don't have answers now doesn't mean that we
> won't find answers in the future. But I have to say that the certainty
> amongst the Darwinianists that they will naturalistic answers to these
> questions is, in my opinion, bordering on the kind of faith that
> Christians express in their God.
This is where you get into trouble. This just isn't so. Would you say
the same thing about a particularly knotty issue in mathematics?
Biologists are confident that naturalistic answers will be found not
because of any wispy, unfounded faith in the future. We're confident
about finding naturalistic answers *because we always have before*. I
think my car will start later when I have to go shopping not because
god wants it to, but because it started yesterday, and I keep up with
the maintenance.
> As a Christian, I have to confess that I cannot disprove scientifically
> that humans come from monkey like creatures. But my faith rests in the
> word of God, and it is hard for me to reconcile the two views. If the
That's a problem. But why not ask yourself if god's handiwork has to be
detectable by humans in every instance? That seems like hubris to me.
> evidence that humans did come from monkeys was as strong as, say, the
> assertion that the sun produces energy by nuclear fusion, then I would
> have to seriously reconsider my position. But right now, I just don't
> think that the evidence is that strong.
You don't think a 95%-plus genetic similarity is enough? A vrtually
perfect anatomical homology isn't enough? The fact that if you separate
out the genetic material around the old, non-functional telomeres in
human chromosone 2, it comes out in a chunk very similar to a chimp
chromosome (leading to the inescapable conclusion that there was a
chromosomal fusion).
Your standard of evidence in this regard requires some careful
reexamination. I think you are setting the goalposts for common descent
way past the end zone.
> One thing that bothers me with Darwinianists is that they say that the
> job of science is by definition to look for naturalistic explanations.
> My sense is that scientists are stuck in a kind of Popperian view which
> insists that the only proper scientific theories are those that are
> falsifiable. How many scientists know anything about Michael Polanyi
> or Thomas Kuhn I don't know, but even if they do know about their
> ideas, many express no interest in them. It is fine for a scientist to
> not be very interested in the philosophical foundations of his subject,
> and indeed it is possible to do very good science without having any
> ideas of the philosophical issues, but in that case scientists should
> refrain from making broad and far-reaching statements about what
> science "is".
>
> Indeed many of the more ancient scientists (Galileo, Newton, even
> Einstein and Hawkins) used the intelligent design paradigm in their
> work. In the end, we are seeking the "truth" whatever that is, and
> whatever works to help us find it, is something that we should pursue.
>
> The Beauty of Creation
>
> Indeed I would say that for me, the best apolegetics for intelligent
> design are not the writings of the I.D. or creationist movements, but
> the writings from the Darwinianists. Let me provide two examples from
> books I am currently reading.
>
> 1. "Molecular Biology of the Gene 5th Ed." by Watson, Baker, Bell,
> Gann, Levine, Losick. (This is the Watson as in the codiscoverer with
> Crick of the structure of DNA.) This college textbook is an absolutely
> fascinating introduction to the chemistry of genetics. It is very
> technical, so it is not for everybody. Its first page of narrative has
> strong defense of Darwinianism, stating that these days only a minority
> of fundamentalists do not accept it. Yet this page could be removed
> from the book, and it would not effect the rest of the book one bit.
> Instead, as a Christian, when I read this book, I am just totally
> overcome by how wonderful are the mechanisms, and it brings to my mind
> the verse in Psalm 139 that says I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
>
> 2. "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" by Sean Carroll. This book starts
> with detailing the disovery of homeotic "controlling" genes, that say
> "put an eye here" or "put a leg here." One of the fascinating things
> is that this gene toolset is almost universal across all life forms.
> So if you take a mouse gene for an eye, and splice it into the DNA of a
> fly, you get an extra eye - but it is a fly eye, not a mouse eye. Yet
> the mouse and fly eye are so different structurally that one would
> simply have assumed that they did not have any common ancestor, and
> hence they shouldn't have a common gene.
Everything has a common ancestor if you go back far enough. In fact,
you have it completely backwards. They are so different structurally,
there's no reason for them to have common genes EXCEPT if they had a
common ancestor.
> This commoness of genetic
> structures throughout all life on earth was a big surprize to
> scientists, and indeed in the 1960's it was simply assumed that there
> would be no point in searching for them. Thus page 70-72 of this book
> can be paraphrased like so - "the recent discoveries in genetics were a
> big shock to our Darwinian naturalistic paradigm, but we tried hard to
> make these new discoveries fit, and by golly we were successful." For
> me these homeotic genes are not definitive proof of intelligent design,
> but they certainly are very suggestive. At the very least, it shows
> that evoltionary Darwinianism is a developing science, in many ways in
> its infancy, and definitely not "scientific fact" in the same way as
> is, for example, Dalton's theory of atoms.
>
> Pro/Anti Religion
>
> There is no doubt in my mind that both sides have either a pro or anti
> religious agenda. Indeed, having been both an atheist and Christian in
> my life, I know that it is extremely hard to not be unconsciously
> greatly influenced by ones world view. And indeed a Christian should
> not be surprized at the deep, unconscious, visceral hostility between
> the two sides, e.g. 2 Cor 2:16. For example, on this newsgroup I have
> seen some extremely satirical postings about religion. While they are
> very funny, and in some cases even have some truth, they are certainly
> not going to win the hearts and minds of voters in Kansas.
>
> It is true that within Christianity that there has grown a divide
> between the liberal and fundamentalist theologians. In many ways I see
> both sides as mirroring the divide that took place between the
> Sadduccees and Pharisees at the time of Jesus. In fact Jesus expressed
> great displeasure with both points of view. Liberalism waters down the
> gospel of life and truth, but fundamentalism is often hard and cold,
> and can really miss the whole point.
>
> Personally I have been greatly influenced by the book "Proper
> Confidence" by Lesslie Newbigin. I have found that the only real way
> to get any kind of understanding of what the Bible is about is to pray
> hard and seek guidence from the Holy Spirit. Any other approach will
> end up in great error, because these spiritual truths are so deep and
> hard that only divine intervention can bring it to a person. Indeed
> high intelligence has potential to be very unhelpful in this pursuit
> (see for example 1 Cor Chapters 1 & 2) because ones assumption is that
> one can simply think ones way through any difficulties. (Of course
> some highly intelligent people do make it, e.g. Augustine, Luther,
> Calvin, just to name a few.)
>
> Conclusion
>
> Anyway, these are my views on this subject. Most certainly they are
> not set in stone, and I would enjoy debate on these issues, and I may
> well change my mind on much of it. I know that I have presented many
> different points, so if you like you can form new threads if you wish
> to discuss a particular point.
>
> Best, Stephen
Very nice post. Hope you are able to reconcile your differences.
Chris
.
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